It is a right that is currently being denied to hundreds of thousands of NYC children. All practices, policies, and the very nature of thesystem itself, musfor ALL children.
2. Institutional Racism is a Key Barrier to Human Rights
Institutional racism and class bias are integral parts ofAmerican society that prevent many schools fromensuring successful education for ALL children. InNew York City this problem is compounded because hundreds of schools have been allowed to fail a highpercentage of Black and Latino children for decades,despite years of supposed “reform,” making theirfailure “acceptable” and expected, and generating conscious and unconscious beliefs that only a fewBlack and Latino children have the intellectual abilityto excel in education. A successful education systemfor New York City must have at its very base the elimination of institutional racism and class bias, andmust implement school policies, relationships, and classroom methodsto achieve this goal.
3. “Minimal” education is not enough
Successful education must enable people “to develop their fullcapacities, to live and work in dignity, to improve the quality of their lives, to make informed decisions and continue learning”
4. An EDUCATIONAL system, rather than just a SCHOOL system
Successful education cannot be achieved by schools alone; it is a sharedresponsibility of home, school, and community, requiring collaborative relationships among school staffs, students, families, and cultural, civic,health, and other resources that do not prevail today
5. A New School System Is Needed
The present New York City public school system is not just inefficientor ineffective; it is obsolete and not able to play its crucial role as part of a successful broader educational system. The present school system wasdesigned decades ago as a “winners-and-losers” game toprepare a large percentage of children for lowerskilled employment, with basic principles and relationships that prevent higher achievementfor many children. It has to be fundamentallyredesigned both for its in-school missionand for more effective relationships with the broader educational system of families andother non-school institutions.
6. Partnership rather than Bureaucracy
While a certain amount of bureaucracy and top-down accountability isfunctional, the heart of quality schooling, namely teaching and learning, is severely impaired by this kind of organization. It stifles theprofessionalism, pride, and productivity of teachers, and obstructs thekinds of relationships among school staffs, and between schools andtheir students, families, and communities that are needed for productive teaching and learning. We must move away from thepresent stifling bureaucratic model toward more of a teamwork modelthat respects the professionalism of teachers, the central role of students and families, and the need for collaboration among all participants.
7. “Learning Communities” rather than Factories
Each individual school must be the central focus of quality performance—an effective "learning community" for both students and staff, and an effective partner with families and community resources, rather than just a branch of a distant bureaucracy. The only function of all structures "above" the school level is to support and ensure the success of such "learning communities."
8. Accountability for Results, rather than Test Mania
The degree of school-level autonomy needed to enable schools tobecome effective “learning communities” requires a different kind ofaccountability from the present system. It must have less top-down,command-and-control micro-management, but
9. Character Education, rather than Prisons
Safe and secure schools are essential for successful learning, but turningschools into prisons is NOT the way to get them. In recent decades, public school systems have defaulted in their crucial mission ofsupporting children’s character development. The present vision ofimpersonal, bureaucratic “delivery of instruction” weakens schoolstaffs’ focus on and responsibility for this essential element of education. A new kind of system would make it a high priority for shared responsibility of home, school, and community to help childrenbecome responsible students and citizens.
10. Adequate Buildings and Facilities.
The overcrowding and poor and unhealthy conditions of a largenumber of NYC public school buildings would be unthinkable in most American communities. That such a visible scandal has been allowedto persist over many years is a sure indication of our society’s grosseducational neglect of the city’s children. New York city’s children are entitled to facilities at least equal to those of most other school systems.
11. Choice within Public Education, rather than Privatization
Choice can be a powerful element for increasing the engagement and loyalty of students, parents, and teachers, and states and school systemshave been experimenting with various means for increasing learningoptions. A new kind of education system for New York City shouldcontinue with experiments such as alternative and charter schools, as well as more diverse learning activities within schools and after school,to help all students find a successful learning environment. Butproviding public funding for children to attend private schools, or forprivatizing public schools, is not an effective answer for New York City’s educational needs. Its new system must preserve the positivevalues of public education and the separation of church and state.
12. Collaborative Collective Bargaining, rather than Adversarial “Wars”
Adoption of the adversarial industrial collective bargaining model for public school systems was a natural outgrowth of organizing schools ona factory model, with teachers seen as the lowest level, disempowered“workers.” But a war between the school system and its teachersunion is not a productive way to deal with this problem. The new system needed requires a team-work approach, with teachers respectedas the key professionals for engaging students in learning, for assessingstudents’ learning needs, and for mobilizing and coordinating students’learning experiences so that they increasingly assume responsibility for their own learning. The relationships of teachers to the system have toreflect that crucial role of teachers, as well as the role and interests ofstudents and families, and the need for collaboration among all theparticipants in the educational process.
Taking Basic Principles Seriously
Many people will say they agree with one or more of the abovebasic principles, but often don’t realize that most urban public schoincluding New York City’s, not only routinely violate them, but are destined to continue to violate them because they are integral parts ofsystems that are imbued with very different principles.
This is why iCOPE is fighting to transform NYC’s educational system, ratherthan to continue to add piecemeal reforms to a basically dysfunctional system.The above basic principles are not a substitute for the manychanges in practice and policy needed to achieve this transformation.They provide the policy and value framework to guide the transformation. We hope other New Yorkers, both in and outside theschool system, will join in using and improving the above principles forhelping New York City’s children get the kind of education they needto ensure their own and the city’s future.
To suggest additions to, or changes in, the above principles, call: 718.499.3756
