Advocates for Children would like to thank all of our supporters who joined us at our 5th Annual Summer Benefit honoring Sharon Katz of Davis Polk & Wardwell, LLP and MARQUEE. The event raised more than $104,000 and over 400 people joined in the festivities.
AFC Today
Department of Education Fails to Meet First Benchmark in Class Action Settlement. June 2009
Advocates for Children of New York (AFC) announced the release of a report by the Independent Auditor appointed by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York to monitor the New York City Department of Education’s implementation of hearing orders requiring services for students with disabilities. The report, which was required under a settlement of a class action lawsuit, showed that the DOE failed to meet the first set of targets set by the settlement. Click here to see the full press release and download the report.
Empty Promises: A Case Study of Restructuring and the Exclusion of English Language Learners in Two Brooklyn High Schools.June 2009
Since 2002, the New York City Department of Education (DOE) has attempted to reverse the city’s severe drop-out crisis through a large scale restructuring of high schools, focused mainly on closing large, comprehensive high schools and replacing them with small high schools that offer a more personalized learning environment. Unfortunately, this reform effort initially included a policy that allowed new small schools to exclude English Language Learners (ELLs), and many small schools still do not provide the programs that ELLs need. To understand how the small schools movement has affected ELL students in New York City, we studied the restructuring of two large Brooklyn high schools – Lafayette High School in Bensonhurst and Tilden High School in East Flatbush. The report illustrates how as a result of this movement, ELLs—who experience some of the lowest graduation rates in the city—are left with fewer and fewer options or are simply left behind. Click here to see the full press release and download the report.
EDUCATE! INCLUDE! RESPECT! A Call for School System Reform to Improve the Educational Experiences of Students with Disabilities in New York City
EDUCATE! INCLUDE! RESPECT! A Call for School System Reform to Improve the Educational Experiences of Students with Disabilities in New York City
The past seven years of education reform have not significantly improved outcomes, experiences or services for New York City’s160,000 public school students with disabilities, according to Include! Educate! Respect!, a report issued April 23, 2009 by the ARISE Coalition, a group founded and coordinated by AFC. The report is a review of the reform initiatives and performance data as well as the experiences of parents under the leadership of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein. It describes how Mayor Bloomberg’s Children First reforms have left students with disabilities out and calls for the Department of Education (DOE) to focus on specific reform priorities. Click here to see the full press release and download the report.
Horne v. Flores March
2009
AFC, along with the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, filed a “friend of the court” brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in Horne v. Flores urging that the requirements in the Equal Education Opportunity Act (EEOA) continue to protect students who do not speak English and are not diminished by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). In Horne v. Flores, English language learners in Nogales, Arizona claimed that the inadequate funding for educational programming for English language learners in the state violated the EEOA. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit agreed. The Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, the President of the Arizona Senate, and the Superintendent of Public Instruction of the State of Arizona appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court arguing, among other things, that districts cannot violate the EEOA if they meet the benchmarks for school achievement under NCLB. AFC’s brief sets forth the arguments why NCLB does not replace the EEOA’s requirements, detailing a number of examples in New York City and other communities where the schools are not providing for the needs of English language learners, but the schools are meeting NCLB benchmarks. New York law firm, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, assisted Advocates for Children in drafting the brief.
Our Children Our Schools: A Blueprint for Creating Partnerships Between Immigrant Families and New York City Public Schools March 2009
Over 60% of children in New York City public schools are immigrants or the children of immigrants, but a report by Advocates for Children shows that immigrant families face significant obstacles to participating in their children’s education. The report, written in collaboration with immigrant advocates and community groups throughout the city, shows that many immigrant parents remain shut out of school activities and leadership opportunities despite the Department of Education’s (DOE’s) recent efforts to increase parent involvement in schools. The report offers a number of concrete solutions for building stronger and more meaningful partnerships between schools, immigrant parents and community leaders. Click here to read the full press release and here to download the report.
New Coalition Comes Together To Promote Special Education Reform In New York City Schools: New website launched to collect and share information - August
2008
Advocates for Children has brought together a new coalition with support from the New York Community Trust. The ARISE Coalition (Action for Reform in Special Education Coalition) announced a new website, www.arisecoalition.org, as a part of a coordinated effort to promote systemic reform to improve special education, promote greater transparency and accountability of the education system, and assure more positive outcomes and options for all students. The diverse coalition of organizations and individuals includes parent organizations, educators, advocates, academics, service providers community-based organizations, specialized schools, and concerned, active individuals and parents and aims to provide a collective and powerful voice on behalf of the 181,000 students with special needs in New York City who have been repeatedly left behind in the development of broad -based school reforms. The website provides informational links and resources for parents and creates a place to collect and share information about the day-to-day experiences of students with special needs and their families in dealing with the school system at every level.
Stuck in the Middle: The Problem of Overage Middle School Students in New York City - July 2008
Today, the Out of School Youth Coalition, a coalition composed of social service providers, advocates and researchers, released a new report documenting the problem of overage middle school students in New York City. The report was written by Advocates For Children of New York (AFC).
In recent years, community-based providers and school officials that serve students in the public school system have been noticing a disturbing number of sixteen-year-old seventh graders or seventeen-year-old eighth graders who are appearing (or staying) in middle schools across the city. The NYC DOE does not make data on overage middle schoolers publicly available, but educators and advocates working in this field have evidence that the population is substantial. In nine middle schools in the Bronx that serve a combined student population of over 6,000 students, 26% of the students are overage.
The report profiles a diverse cross-section of overage middle school students, identifies promising practices for addressing the problem, and provides detailed recommendations to the DOE. Click here to read the full press release and here to download the report.
DEAD ENDS: THE NEED FOR MORE PATHWAYS TO GRADUATION FOR OVERAGE, UNDER-CREDITED STUDENTS IN NEW YORK CITY - December 2007 An estimated 138,000 of the 1.1 million New York City students are overage and under-credited (OA/UC) and are out of school or at-risk for dropping out of school. In response to this problem, the New York City Department of Education has begun creating new programming specifically for these students. The city has two divisions, the Office of Multiple Pathways to Graduation (OMPG) and District 79, that offer alternative educational options to meet the needs of the OA/UC population. However, according to a briefing paper paper released by Advocates for Children of New York, Inc. pathways to graduation have not been created for all students and some students are left with dead ends under the current system. The briefing paper specifically examines the ability of the OMPG schools to meet the instructional needs of English Language Learners (ELLs), students with special education needs, students who are older with few or no credits, and students who are pregnant and parenting.
Advocates for Children's Public Service Announcement
This past spring seven students came together to create a public service announcement (PSA) about a student's right to remain in school until age 21. Many of the students were current and/or former AFC clients who had direct experience with being illegally pushed out of school. Working with Manhattan Neighborhood Network's Youth Channel and AFC staff, the youth used their experiences to create the PSA which has been airing on MNN throughout the summer months. If you would like more information about this PSA, please contact Christie Love at clove@advocatesforchildren.org
The Campaign for Educational Equity at Teachers College and Columbia Law School is holding their Third Annual Equity Symposium
Equal Educational Opportunity: What Now? Reassessing the Role of the Courts, the Law and School Policies after Seattle and CFE.
AFC’s Executive Director, Kim Sweet will be on the panel on November 12th.
For more information about the Symposium, click here.
TRANSITIONING TO NOWHERE:AN ANALYSIS OF THE PLANNING AND PROVISION OF TRANSITION SERVICES TO STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES IN NEW YORK CITY- September 2007 New York City. Approximately 13,000 students with disabilities exit the New York
City public school system each year. The New York City Department of Education is
responsible for preparing these individuals for independent living, vocational training,
employment, higher education, and the other post-secondary opportunities awaiting
them. Despite this obligation, the Department does not have sufficient systems or
programs in place to prepare students with disabilities for their transition to life after
high school, according to a report released by Advocates for Children of New
York, Inc.
Kim Sweet, Executive Director of Advocates for Children, said, "For students with
disabilities, transitioning to adulthood is likely to require more thought and planning
than it does for others. The Department of Education is stranding thousands of the
most vulnerable students without the support they need to prepare for their futures.
We call on the Department to commit the resources necessary to address this serious
problem."
Please click here for the press release and here to download the report.
AFC, the New York Immigration Coalition, and the EMPIRE Collaborative Release a Report on Language Barriers Faced By Immigrant Parents - June 27, 2007 Almost a year and a half after Mayor Bloomberg announced a new policy to eliminate communication barriers between schools and immigrant parents, hundreds of thousands of parents are still estranged from the city's public schools because the city has not fulfilled its promise for translation services, according to the report released today.
The report documented that two out of three parents are not receiving the most critical school document, their child's report card, in a language that they can understand. Similarly, over one third (37%) of the parents surveyed did not receive translated notices to attend parent-teacher conferences. Sixty percent of parents surveyed were not aware of the translation and interpretation services available to them.
The report's findings are based on almost 900 parent surveys, 14 focus groups with over a hundred parents, and over 100 school, registration centers, and borough high school fair site visits.
Please click here for the press release and here to download the report.
The Riverside Theatre honors Advocates for Children - June 10, 2007 The Riverside Theatre will honor Advocates for Children as part of its "Salute to the Family" - 9th Annual Family Arts
Please click here to view the invitation for more details about this event.
To view earlier AFC News stories, please visit our News Archives.
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