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Policy Resources

AFC works to change education policy so that the public school system serves all children effectively. We publish policy reports and data analyses, testify at the City and State levels, speak out in the press to bring attention to the challenges facing the students and families we serve, and join with other advocates, parents, youth, and educators to call for change.

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Improving the Educational Outcomes of Students in Foster Care: Recommendations Based on an Analysis of Data from New York City
Close-up of an open book. (Photo by Bilakis via Pexels)
  • Law Review Article
  • Improving the Educational Outcomes of Students in Foster Care: Recommendations Based on an Analysis of Data from New York City

    This article, published in Volume 57 of Family Law Quarterly, adapts AFC’s 2023 report Building on Potential for a national audience. It provides a broad overview of the state of education for students in the foster system in New York City as of the 2020–21 school year, makes recommendations for how municipalities can better support students in foster care, and highlights recent promising practices from New York City and elsewhere.

    Jun 7, 2024

    Safeguarding Success: The Need to Sustain Funding for Shelter-Based Community Coordinators
    Woman in the foreground holds a clipboard and listens as another woman shares her problems. (Photo by SDI Productions, iStock)
  • Issue Brief
  • Safeguarding Success: The Need to Sustain Funding for Shelter-Based Community Coordinators

    This brief highlights the impact of the 100 New York City Public Schools (NYCPS) shelter-based community coordinators (SBCCs) hired in 2022–23 and calls on Mayor Adams and the City Council to sustain funding for this critical initiative in the Fiscal Year 2025 budget. Funding for all 100 SBCC positions is set to run dry in June, and the City has not yet committed to continuing to fund their important work.

    Apr 4, 2024

    Hearing from Parents: Recognizing Families as Crucial Partners in Reading Instruction
    teacher meets with parent and young child in a classroom
  • Policy Report
  • Hearing from Parents: Recognizing Families as Crucial Partners in Reading Instruction

    This report, which is based on conversations with parents of New York City students about their experiences working with their children’s schools as their children were taught to read, makes recommendations for New York City Public Schools (NYCPS) on how to partner with families as the city enters the next stages of its efforts to improve reading instruction across the school system.

    Jan 25, 2024

    Access (Still) Denied: An Update on the Physical Inaccessibility of New York City Public Schools
    a public school where the entrance is at the top of a flight of stairs
  • Policy Report
  • Access (Still) Denied: An Update on the Physical Inaccessibility of New York City Public Schools

    This interactive report finds that only 31.1% of schools are fully accessible to students, parents, educators, and community members with physical disabilities as of the start of the 2023-24 school year. The report calls on the City to invest $1.25 billion—roughly 5-6% of its capital budget—in the forthcoming five-year Capital Plan to improve school accessibility.

    Aug 23, 2023

    Rising Enrollment, Shrinking Support: The Urgent Need to Protect Programs for Immigrant Students Amidst Funding Threats
    A girl sits with her backpack, looking at a textbook, outside a schoolyard. (Photo by Mary Taylor via Pexels)
  • Issue Brief
  • Rising Enrollment, Shrinking Support: The Urgent Need to Protect Programs for Immigrant Students Amidst Funding Threats

    The June 2023 brief shows the urgent need to reject proposed cuts and provide targeted investments to support immigrant students and families, including the more than 18,000 new students in temporary housing—most of whom are recently arrived immigrants—who have enrolled in New York City Public Schools (NYCPS) in the past year.

    Jun 20, 2023

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