Organizing for Equitable Funding for All New York's Children

• In Event: Moscone Center West Roundtable Session 4
  In Roundtable Session: Multistakeholder Collaborations for Culturally Sustaining Community Schools

Abstract

This presentation examines how funding and political will impacted the implementation of the largest community schools initiative in the country. I demonstrate how the lack of will from decision-makers at the state and district level has stymied the initiative’s ability to fully implement the community schools strategy. I also discuss the ways that district leadership has navigated constraints such as funding challenges and political pushback to drive an equity agenda that is explicitly anti-racist.
From the perspective of a community organizer who works at the district and state level to demand the money owed to low income families in NYC by New York State, this presentation brings the important perspective of a community organizer and a parent with different layers of understanding of the issues facing young Black and Brown people in NYC schools.
Using a Black Feminist approach (Collins, 1986), I draw on my experiences as a Black woman organizer who has worked for educational justice from various vantage points for decades. As a parent, grandparent, and community organizer, I have participated in multiple ways in efforts to improve our schools. Drawing on these experiences, I explain the changes I’ve witnessed and how I and my organization have navigated these changing contexts to improve educational conditions for young people of color.
The lack of political will has been an ongoing challenge for creating educational equity in NYC Public Schools in the community schools initiative and beyond. Particularly harmful is the refusal of the state, led by governor Cuomo, to return the $4.1 Billion to ensure that all children have access to a sound and basic education as their constitutional right. My organization has fought extensively for this money to be returned to our students, while campaigning locally for community schools, recognizing that while that struggle continues, creating equitable access to enriching educational opportunities cannot be put on hold. Funding constraints and other barriers have been challenges to implementation, as has the pushback from naysayers in a district who prefer the profit-driven reforms of previous mayors that tended to harm our young people and communities. Nevertheless, with a chancellor who has publicly committed to racial equity and strong organizing and advocacy efforts, we are seeing important changes happening.
This work informs our understanding of the need for multiple forms of advocacy and organizing at different levels of the system. While we continue to work for equitable funding at the state, we work at the city level to ensure that the community school and other equity-oriented efforts are positioned to succeed.

Author

• Zakiyah Shaakir-Ansari, Alliance for Quality Education