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Changing Course on School Reform: Strategic Organizing Around the New York City Mayoral Election

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Changing Course on School Reform: Strategic Organizing Around the New York City Mayoral Election Changing Course on School Reform: Strategic Organizing around the New York City Mayoral Election Billy Easton Community organizers and advocates in New York City developed a two-pronged strategy for change in the 2013 mayoral campaign and election after twelve years of market-driven reforms. ew York City’s new mayor, the country. De Blasio represents an Bill de Blasio, represents a opening to begin a 180-degree shift in Ndramatic shift from his education reform in the United States. predecessor Michael Bloomberg in the This did not happen by chance. It was area of education. Bloomberg was a the combination of a candidate who national trendsetter on market reforms captured the moment and a conscious focused on privatization, testing, and community-based advocacy campaign competition. De Blasio was elected on designed to capitalize on the mayoral an agenda of classroom investments, election to redirect the education student supports, parent and commu- debate. nity engagement, and a focus on teaching and learning and is already getting national press for changing BLOOMBERG: PROMINENT course on education. AMONG MARKET REFORMERS This contrast captures the heart and The debates over education reform in soul of education debates raging across America have become highly polarized. Billy Easton is executive director of the Alliance for Quality Education in New York City. 6 Annenberg Institute for School Reform Rather than dividing along traditional carried out that strategy more partisan lines, these battles have united effectively than any other mayor. many Democratic Party leaders and The signature policies of the Bloomberg conservatives to apply market principles era closely followed the market reform to education. President Obama’s model. Bloomberg wanted a skilled secretary of education, Arne Duncan, manager to run the schools like a and big-city mayors like Bloomberg and corporation, not a professional educator Chicago’s Rahm Emmanuel have led the – hence three non-educators as chancel- rush towards market reforms. They have lors. As the New York Times described the backing of wealthy donors including it, “Mr. Bloomberg believes that those major hedge fund managers, venture raised in the corporate culture will do a capitalists, and foundations like Broad better job managing the schools than and Walton. For political and legislative those trained in schools of education” advocacy they have a number of (Hartocollis 2002). Central management well-financed organizations including staff included many non-educators with Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst, Demo- backgrounds as investment bankers, crats for Education Reform (DFER), management consultants, and corporate Stand for Children, and 50CAN. lawyers. Management authority was Bloomberg used the bully pulpit of his devolved to building principals with a office, his virtually unchecked authority sink-or-swim philosophy similar to that over schools through perhaps the of corporate restructurings. nation’s most absolute form of mayoral The entire system was aligned to drive control,1 and his own personal wealth up the test score bottom line. Passing to aggressively promote his education state exams became a prerequisite for agenda. In an analysis of the November student promotion. Test scores became 2013 election results, Pedro Noguera, the key factor in grading and closing a professor of education at New York schools. Principals and teachers were University, told the Washington Post offered bonuses of up to $25,000 and (Layton & Chandler 2013):2 students were offered free cell phones Bloomberg really epitomized an based on test scores (Medina 2008). approach to reform that has been Bloomberg successfully lobbied the state sweeping the country and urban areas, to make test scores a major component endorsed by the U.S. Department of in teacher evaluations and tenure. As Education. Market-based reforms one principal described it, “The profit – charters, choice, school closures. margin in this business is test scores. Heavy emphasis on high-stakes That’s all they measure you by now” testing as a means of holding schools (Winerip 2006). accountable. Bloomberg probably Competition was considered a core driver of reform. Charter schools proliferated, 1 New York City’s version of mayoral control with 183 charters opening during the is stronger than in other cities like Boston Bloomberg years. School closings became or Chicago. The Panel for Education Policy pandemic, with 160 schools closed due to (defined by state law as the school board) their test-score-based grades. Frequently, voted in favor of former mayor Bloomberg’s proposals 100 percent of the time over a the buildings of closing schools were twelve-year period. Early in Bloomberg’s turned over to charter operators. School tenure, when it appeared the board would buildings were also subdivided to vote against him, he replaced the dissenters on shoehorn a charter school into the same the board the night before the vote (New York Sun 2004). This set a tone of compliance that building as a public school, in a practice was never again challenged by the board. known as co-location. 2 See also Pedro Noguera’s interview in this issue of VUE. The claim of the market reform move- ment is that the education system is Billy Easton VUE 2014, no. 39 7 focused on the adults, not the students, new direction in education reform. and that the market reformers are the The organization I lead, the Alliance ones focusing on the students. Bloom- for Quality Education (AQE), is a berg used this exact talking point: statewide coalition of parent, commu- “The school system is not being run for nity, and teacher organizations fighting those that it employs; it’s being run for for educational equity and successful those that it was put together to serve, reforms.3 The dominance of market namely the students” (Medina 2003). I reformers over the politics of educa- give credit to the market reformers for tion nationally and Bloomberg’s message discipline, but is this really an impact in defining the terms of political accurate description of their focus? debate, not only in New York City but I would say not. also at the state capitol, have made it extremely difficult for us to win more The market reform agenda primarily than minor victories. It was as if there focuses on the adults in the system by were an impenetrable ceiling we could emphasizing who runs schools, who not break through. So AQE and our works in schools, and what the rules key allies – Make the Road New York, are for employment. Market reformers the New York City Coalition for like Bloomberg have failed to focus Educational Justice (CEJ), New York primarily on the students because they Communities for Change, and the place very little emphasis on what goes Urban Youth Collaborative (UYC)4 on in the classroom. Bloomberg – decided to push the envelope on the presided over some of the most robust education agenda in the 2013 mayoral debates on education policy in the election. Together, we put together a entire country, but they focused on sophisticated two-pronged approach to administrative and structural issues. defining the terms of debate in the Bloomberg took bold and controversial mayor’s race. positions on social promotions, school closings, teacher evaluations and Some of the groups favored a cam- tenure, and school governance. But on paign built around extensive issues which could be considered more community engagement with an student centered, such as the quality emphasis on policy development. of the curriculum, ensuring arts and Others advocated a hard-hitting music in every school, college pre- campaign that relied on communica- paredness and guidance counseling, the tions, candidate engagement, and most effective strategies for supporting grassroots mobilization. In order to teachers, programs for English lan- achieve both goals, two coalitions were guage learners, and whether to extend organized. The first, A+ NYC, united learning time, the Bloomberg adminis- fifty-one parent and community tration – and market reformers organizing groups, neighborhood generally – were silent. organizations, social service groups, a wide array of education advocacy groups, and citywide and statewide DEFINING THE TERMS OF THE coalitions. The second, New Yorkers DEBATE: A TWO-PRONGED for Great Public Schools (NY-GPS), APPROACH joined thirty-four community organiza- tions and labor unions, including the New York City’s largest community groups organizing on educational 3 For more on AQE, see www.aqeny.org.‎ justice began meeting in late 2011 to 4 For more on CEJ and UYC, see Maria plan a campaign to capitalize on the Fernandez and Ocynthia Williams’s article in mayoral election in order to push for a this issue of VUE. See also www.nyccej.org and www.urbanyouthcollaborative.org. 8 Annenberg Institute for School Reform Coalition for Asian American Children policy experts, and the Annenberg and Families, Harlem’s First Corinthi- Institute for School Reform at Brown ans Baptist Church, United Parents of University, which provided research Highbridge, the Communications and policy analysis and technical Workers of America, the Transporta- support to A+ NYC. The policy hub tion Workers Union, and the United provided one-stop shopping for Federation of Teachers. Many groups, candidates’ campaigns and community such as my organization, Alliance for members alike and helped ensure that Quality Education, joined both the community-based charrette was coalitions, while some opted for one guided by high-quality policy research. or the other. The charrette engaged more than 1,000 These two campaigns employed parents, students, and community dramatically different tactics, and both members in envisioning the school proved highly effective at shaping the system they wanted. The results were public debate on education. The shared compiled and refined by a design team goal was to see the next mayor, no of educators, academics, advocates, matter who won, implement policies parents, and students and taken on the that replaced the market-reform road in a blue school bus that served agenda with a student-centered as a publicity magnet, a mobile opportunity agenda.
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