This morning, I will stand in Foley Square with more than 12,000 New York City parents, students and teachers to call for our city and state leaders to acknowledge the massive failing-schools crisis that is harming our children.
This is not a crisis that Chancellor Carmen Fariña has noticed. On Wednesday, she delivered her first major speech, 10 months into the job, announcing her “vision for New York City’s 1.1 million schoolchildren.”
Sadly, that vision took a big step backward when it comes to helping children stuck in failing schools.
This is not a crisis that the mayor seems to have noticed, either. Too many of our lowest-achieving schools have no guidance or details from the city on how to turn themselves around.
“What’s the plan for Boys and Girls High School, and what’s the overall plan for the city?” that school’s principal, Bernard Gassaway, asked last week. That’s what parents, too, are wondering.
There are nearly 143,000 kids trapped in failing schools, where 90 percent of students can’t read or do math at grade level. Ninety-six percent of those students are children of color, and 93 percent come from families near or below the poverty line.
To make sure our leaders notice, 12,000 of us will be standing tall and proud this morning in Foley Square, demanding action to address this crisis. We are parents, educators, students, families and advocates. We are New Yorkers. We will not be ignored.
We will be carrying with ourselves our own personal stories of struggle. My son, Davonte, attends PS 306, a school where more than nine out of 10 students failed their state exams last year.
His have labeled him “emotionally disturbed” because he has a learning disability. His teachers tell him that he won’t be successful, that he’ll be held back.
But I know my son better than the Education Department bureaucracy ever will, and I can tell you he is a hardworking, intelligent, beautiful 9-year-old who dreams every day of the promise and possibility of the future.
Rather than stealing possibility from my child, why not put in place the bold changes our schools need? My child isn’t failing. Our school system is.
Armed with stories like mine, and 12,000 strong, we will demand an ambitious, bold vision to fix our failing-schools crisis. We will not settle for incremental change.
Our children deserve so much more.
Ebony Burrowes is the mother of a student at PS 306 in Brooklyn
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