ORGANIZING FOR EDUCATIONAL EQUITY AND ACCESS IN PUBLIC EDUCATION
What is the Parent Leadership Project?
The Parent Leadership Project (PLP) is a member-based organization in District 3 that works to build leadership, organizing, and power among low-income families of color. PLP grew out of over a decade of collaboration between the Center for Immigrant Families (CIF) and the Bloomingdale Family Program (a Head Start center in District 3). CIF was a social justice organization rooted in popular education and participatory action-research. CIF’s focus on educational justice grew out of members’ stories of exclusion from and discrimination our local public schools and out of their hopes for their children’s education and futures. PLP combines services, education, organizing, and advocacy as we continue to build a powerful community committed to educational justice in District 3 and beyond.
What is the Parent Leadership Project (PLP) Project for Fairness and Equity?
The PLP Project for Fairness and Equity is a project rooted in New York City’s Community School District (CSD) 3. CSD 3 is one of the most racially and economically diverse districts, but also one of the most segregated in New York City. The Project for Fairness and Equity brings together a diverse array of community members to work for schools that reflect, respect, and serve all families in the district. PLP’s Project for Fairness and Equity partners closely with the Participatory Action Research Center for Education Organizing (PARCEO), a PAR based education, research and training center, in our work for educational justice.
Learn more about the history and project
Learn more about the Parent Leadership Project
What is the District 3 Equity in Education Task Force
In 2012, PLP joined forces with educational leaders in CSD 3 to spearhead a district-wide task force to examine the inequality in CSD 3 schools. The task force includes educators, community leaders, parents, and education activists with the common goal of furthering equitable access for all students to all schools in our district.
After two years of engaging in monthly meetings, the Task Force has come to a consensus on a framework for creating a fair and equitable admissions policy in CSD 3. The framework is rooted in a community Controlled Choice admissions plan that will ensure that all our public schools reflect, respect, and serve the entire district’s families.
What is the District 3 Equity in Education Task Force
In 2012, PLP joined forces with educational leaders in CSD 3 to spearhead a district-wide task force to examine the inequality in CSD 3 schools. The task force includes educators, community leaders, parents, and education activists with the common goal of furthering equitable access for all students to all schools in our district.
After two years of engaging in monthly meetings, the Task Force has come to a consensus on a framework for creating a fair and equitable admissions policy in CSD 3. The framework is rooted in a community Controlled Choice admissions plan that will ensure that all our public schools reflect, respect, and serve the entire district’s families.
PLP has also been working with parents from District 1 in Manhattan who face similar exclusions in their public schools and who are also interested in an alternative and more equitable admissions policy.
District 3’s Equity in Education Task Force along with District’s 1 and 13 were invited to share their work at the City Council hearing on school diversity on December 11, 2014. Below are links to their individual testimonies.
About Community School District 3
Community School District 3 runs along the West Side of Manhattan from 59th Street and 122nd Street. With a total public elementary and middle school student population of 13,200 and 32 schools, District 3 has been noted to be one of the most diverse districts in the City, as well as one of the most segregated.
In a district in which approximately 66% of public school students are students of color, many schools are segregated and have student populations that do not reflect the demographics of the district as a whole. Some schools are majority white students, while a number of other schools are overwhelmingly students of color. Schools with disproportionately high percentages of white students have strikingly low percentages of students who qualify for free and/or reduced lunch and schools with high percentages of students of color also have high percentages of free and/or reduced lunch students.
Not coincidentally, disparities in student SES levels are also matched by disparities in school budgets. Resources garnered largely by parent fundraising efforts have compensated for citywide budget cuts that impact, for example, arts and enrichment activities in schools as well as classroom resources. These programs, activities, and resources provide enormous advantages to students’ educational outcomes, as demonstrated by achievement levels on 4th grade English Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics assessments.
An Alternative Policy Measure for Furthering Equity in CSD3 Schools: Controlled Choice
Other reforms in D3 have not worked, and there’s more of a need now than ever for a policy measure rooted in equity, access and transparency.
Controlled choice is an acclaimed and successful assignment methodology that was developed in the 1980s by Michael Alves and others in Cambridge, MA, as a way to voluntarily desegregate schools and avoid the imposition of court-ordered student assignment policies.
It is a system that combines choice-based admissions processes with controls to promote equity of access, as well as community support structures. Controlled Choice is a proven tool that ensures that all schools more closely reflect the SES diversity of the overall district, and that all students enjoy the documented advantages of such diversity. In so doing, Controlled Choice can also create more high-quality school options within the district.
It is a race-neutral, constitutionally permissible framework that actively promotes the integration of students from diverse socioeconomic, racial, ethnic and linguistic backgrounds with varying educational needs and achievement levels.
- Transparency and Equity
- District-wide choice of schools
- Community-set Criteria
- Neutral/Independent Implementation
- Family Resource Center
Controlled choice has been implemented in over 30 school districts across the United States to respond to systemic segregation. Based on our research, we have found that controlled choice is an educationally sound, transparent, and equity-driven method of assigning students to public schools.
With proper support and resources, Controlled Choice can be an effective policy framework for District 3 schools to serve and reflect its diverse population, and achieve advantages that the current system denies to both high-SES and low-SES students.
Moreover, within five years of implementing a comprehensive, transparent, and equity driven controlled choice student assignment plan, all schools within a given district: 1) provide high-quality educational opportunities that encourage every student to thrive; 2) meet benchmarked goals for diversity; and 3) ensure that all schools are well-utilized and resourced.