05.30.2013 | SchoolBook | An influential group of criminal justice and youth experts is urging the next mayor of New York City to reform the way students are disciplined, and dramatically reduce the number of school suspensions and arrests. “Suspension and arrest significantly increase the likelihood of students repeating a grade, dropping out of school entirely and ultimately facing the court system,” said Judge Judith Kaye, former chief judge for New York. Last year in New York City, nearly 900 students were arrested at school and nearly 70,000 students were suspended. Kaye convened a 45-member task force in 2011 to examine the issue. On Thursday it released the report called Keeping Kids In School and Out of Court. Read article
Need Help?
Call AFC's Education Helpline
(866) 427-6033
Monday to Thursday
10 am to 4 pm
Micaela’s Story
Micaela is a dual-language learner who is on the autism spectrum and needed an appropriate school placement for kindergarten.
Donate Now
Help Advocates for Children support more New York City students!
Stay connected
Sign up for AFC's email updates and find other ways to take action.
News & Media
AFC in the News
05.30.2013 | NY1 | The Road to City Hall's Errol Louis sat down with the members of the New York City School-Justice Partnership Task Force, including the state's former Chief Judge Judith Kaye, who chaired the group; Kathleen DeCataldo, the Executive Director of the state's Permanent Judicial Commission on Justice for Children; and Kim Sweet, who is the Executive Director of Advocates for Children of New York, about their new report, which criticizes the city's policy on student suspensions. Watch video
05.01.2013 | New York Family | As the granddaughter, daughter, and sister of teachers, Kim Sweet broke the mold by studying law. But it seems that the education bug never left her blood. As the executive director of Advocates for Children of New York (AFC), Sweet has made a career out of helping city students get a quality education that meets their needs. Read article
05.01.2013 | Leanin.org | AFC's Ana Espada shares her personal triumph in an article featured oo LeanIn.org. Ana states, "As a child, I knew right away that I was different. I was born in the mid-1950s, the youngest of four overachieving sisters. I was rebellious, messy and temperamental, fighting with my parents when they tried to dress all of us in matching crinoline dresses. I was clearly not a girly-girl and I didn’t even know if I was a girl in my heart. I just knew that I wasn’t like my sisters, who were all feminine, cutesy and smart." Read the entire article here.
04.08.2013 | WABC-TV Eyewitness News | Art McFarland reports on the complaint filed by AFC against the NYC Department of Education for its failure to provide students with disabilities necessary behavioral supports as mandated by law. "The schools were not providing the appropriate behavioral supports," Rebecca Shore said. Shore is an attorney for Advocates for Children, which has filed the complaint. The group points out that as student suspensions for last school year totaled 69,643. Disabled students suspended made up more than 32 per cent of that number, even though disabled students are only 12 per cent of the citywide student population. Read article
04.08.2013 | SchoolBook | Kim Sweet, Executive Director of AFC said, “There is still a massive access gap between higher- and lower-income districts,” she said. “If the city is really serious about broadening access to G&T programs for low-income children, they clearly have to do more than changing the test every few years. They need to look closely at outreach, process, and preparation, plus go into the communities with low participation and find out why more students don’t apply.” Read article
04.05.2013 | SchoolBook | Rebecca Shore, the director of litigation at Advocates for Children, the group that filed the complaint, said New York State law required that schools address students’ behavioral issues through a behavioral assessment and then an individualized plan. “Many Department of Education schools are not following the regulations, either because they don’t know what they are or because they’re not being given the appropriate support and oversight,” she said. Read article
03.22.2013 | Gotham Schools | Maggie Moroff, the special education policy coordinator of Advocates for Children and the coordinator of the ARISE Coalition, said education officials needed to better translate the dual philosophical and pedagogical shifts for families. She and other members of the coalition met last week with education officials to discuss the Common Core, and did not leave satisfied that the D.O.E. had planned properly for special needs students. Read article
03.14.2013 | Gotham Schools | "From what I am seeing here it looks like there are positive trends — but I’m not seeing everything here that I want to," said Maggie Moroff, who heads the ARISE Coalition of advocates. In January, Moroff submitted a Freedom of Information Law request to the Department of Education, asking for 25 kinds of information about the effects of the special education reforms.
Moroff said ARISE and Advocates for Children, which hosts the coalition, hear regularly from parents who are dissatisfied with their children’s placement under the reforms. But she said those cases might very well be extreme. "It’s hard for us to analyze based on the families we talk to,” Moroff said. “We really want to see more complete data." Read article
03.04.2013 | Insideschools.org | In one recent week, Advocates for Children got four calls from families whose children had been suspended from the same charter elementary school (Hyde Leadership Charter). A parent from another charter school called to say that her son had been suspended three times for "yelling." Is suspension the usual appropriate response to yelling, the parent wondered, and if not, what recourse did she and her son have? Advocates for Children has produced a guide to Charter School Discipline to help answer questions like these. Read article