A Human Rights Approach to Parent and Community Participation in New York City Schools
A report by the Center for Economic and Social Rights
Click here for the pdf version
June 2003
By Elizabeth Sullivan
Editors:
Catherine Albisa,
Norm Fruchter
and Kavitha Mediratta
Center for Economic and Social Rights
New York University Institute for Education and Social Policy
The Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR)
The Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR) was established in 1993 to promote social justice through human rights. In a world where systemic poverty and inequality deprive so many people of their fundamental right to live in dignity, CESR promotes the human right to housing, education, health, food, work, and social security. CESR connects local advocacy to the international human rights framework and promotes solutions to economic and social injustice based on international human rights standards. Our Right to Education Project works to integrate a human rights perspective into public education advocacy in New York City. For more information, visit our website at www.cesr.org
The Institute for Education and Social Policy (IESP)
The New York University Institute for Education and Social Policy (IESP) was formed in 1995 to improve public education so that all students, particularly in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color, obtain a high quality education that prepares them to participate effectively in a democratic society. Our research, policy studies, evaluations and strategic assistance support policy makers, educators, parents, youth, and community groups in their efforts to improve public schooling. For more information, visit our website at www.nyu.edu
Civil Society and School Accountability was produced by CESR in collaboration with the IESP’s Community Involvement Program (CIP).CIP was initiated in 1996 to support community organizing for school reform. CIP provides strategic support and assistance to community groups organizing parents and young people to improve their schools, as well as to groups collaborating to shape more effective and equitable education policies in New York City.
Acknowledgements
This paper is informed by the thoughtful comments of many individuals and organizations in New York City that met with the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, Katarina Tomasevski, in October 2001 and participated in subsequent interviews. In particular, we are deeply indebted to Maggie Moroff at Advocates for Children; Samira Ahmed and Michael Rebell at the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE); Amy Prince at the City University of New York (CUNY); Cynthia Cummings, Megan Nolan, and Angelica Otero at New Settlement Apartments Parent Action Committee; Marc Lewis and Tara Niraula at the New York Immigration Coalition; Sandra del Valle and Alan Levine at the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF); Yvette Grissom at Queensbridge Community in Action (QCIA); James Mumm, Angelus Rowe and Czarina Thelen at Mothers on the Move; as well as Diane Lowman, Barbara Jones and Jimmy DeMoss.
A special thank you to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, Katarina Tomasevski, for her visit to New York City and for serving as a catalyst for this paper, to the Rockefeller Foundation for hosting the meeting with the UN Special Rapporteur, and to New York State Regent Adelaide Sanford for her support and guidance. Thank you also to John Berman for his assistance in writing this paper. Finally, a special thank you to Sarah Sills for generously lending her tremendous talent for the design of this paper.
It gives me a great deal of pleasure to support this civil-society initiative towards a rights-based governance structure for the schools in New York City. My hope is that New York City will join the precedent-setting moves around the globe in setting up an accessible, welcoming and representative public institution on behalf and at the behest of school children and their parents. As always and everywhere, it is civil society that leads in exposing and opposing human rights violations. The spotlight on education is well timed. This publication simply and clearly diagnoses the many wrongs in education, ranging from the well-known racial profile of the denial of the right to education, to the absence of any help for immigrant parents in understanding how the system works, to the widespread incomprehension of the jargon used by education bureaucracy, or to the simple fact that most teachers do not have telephones. It recalls and highlights the lack of responsiveness to the much cited evidence of the many wrongs. To its great credit, it does not stop there but identifies barriers to change and suggests effective ways for overcoming them.
Righting wrongs is the essence of human rights activism. The suggestion that an Ombudsperson for the Right to Education be explored as a step forward is excellent. More than any other category, school children need a public institution to defend and promote their rights. More than any other area, education needs a public institution to bring undetected human rights violations to light, and to remedy them rapidly and inexpensively. We can all easily join the authors and editors to affirm that “all of society has a stake in the education of its future citizens.” My hope is that many, many will join them in making an Ombudsperson for the Right to Education come true. I shall certainly be among them.
Katarina Tomasevski
UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education
The right to a quality education is just as much a God-given and American right as the right to vote or be treated equally. This movement to fix our public school system is another link on the civil rights railroad to equality.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg
But the importance of education is not just practical: a well-educated and enlightened and active mind, able to wander freely and widely, is one of the joys and rewards of human existence.
UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
When he announced his reforms to the New York City school system, Mayor Michael
Bloomberg declared that every child has the "right to a quality education."1 Education, he said, is "as much a God-given and American right as the right to vote ...." In fact, the right to education transcends national borders, and is recognized internationally as a universal human right.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) reflects a collective global commitment to provide all children with an education "directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms."2 Other international instruments specifically obligate governments to provide an education that "shall enable all persons to participate effectively in a free society,"3 and require that the aims of education be inextricably linked "to the realization of the child's human dignity."4 These standards are the foundation for defining both the human right to education and the corresponding human rights obligations shared by all governments.
Eleanor Roosevelt, as the U.S. representative and President of the Commission on Human Rights, was one of the primary architects of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Fulfilling the right to an education is the duty of states and localities in our federal system, and almost every State Constitution in the US, including the New York State Constitution,5 recognizes the right to an education. Yet, as our research and existing data reveal, hundreds of thousands of New York City children are routinely denied their right to an education by the poor quality of schooling they receive.
Our paper argues that one of the primary culprits for this educational failure is a system-wide lack of government accountability. We further argue that the absence of effective structures for civil society actors6 to participate in the school system, allows for this lack of accountability to continue.
Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein have launched a new round of school reforms -- the Children First initiative. This initiative attempts to improve the quality of education in New York City schools7 by addressing systemic problems in school governance. Specifically, the reforms aim to:
While the reforms are, in part, geared towards addressing the question of "parental involvement," they fail to approach the question from a human rights perspective and do not ensure effective civil society participation or government accountability. In particular, parents are not given adequate power or guaranteed a welcoming environment with the necessary resources and technical support to make participation meaningful and hold school officials accountable. Furthermore, the reforms fail to ensure broad participation from all sectors of civil society, which includes community groups and other activists.
In this paper, we use the lens of human rights, and the lessons learned from their international human rights movement, to provide a conceptual framework for strengthening parent and community participation in the school system. Rather than provide an in depth analysis of the Children First reforms, this paper offers a broad framework for how human rights standards for participation can be applied to Children First or other reform processes. Based on interviews with parents, community organizers, and advocates,8 we identify and critique the obstacles to participation that exist in the current school system, and make recommendations based on human rights standards for how to better ensure effective civil society participation.
In addressing the role of civil society, we rely on international standards found in widely ratified human rights treaties, such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,9 the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.10 We also rely on human rights declarations (particularly the World Declaration on Education for All11 issued by UN bodies that reflect an international consensus on basic human rights standards. Finally, we use the Dakar Framework for Action,12 a document developed by over 160 countries, including the United States, at the World Education Forum in April 2000.The Dakar Framework was created by consensus and represents "a collective commitment to action " by participating nation-states.
1 This is the text of first footnote.
2 This is the text of second footnote.
"Education is the primary vehicle by which economically and socially marginalized adults and children can lift themselves out of poverty and obtain the means to participate fully in their communities."
UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment 13
International human rights law, as codified in the covenants and declarations described above, recognizes the right to a fundamental education. These human rights instruments collectively define a fundamental education as “the satisfaction of …‘basic learning needs.’”13 The World Declaration on Education for All asserts that:
“these needs comprise both essential learning tools (such as literacy, oral expression, numeracy, and problem solving) and the basic learning content (such as knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes) required by human beings to be able to survive, to develop their full capacities, to live and work in dignity, to participate fully in development, to improve the quality of their lives, to make informed decisions and continue learning.”14
These basic learning needs are an inherent component of the right to education. The specific content of this right, however, “varies with individual countries and cultures, and inevitably, changes with the passage of time.”15 New York City public school students need to acquire the skills to function in an information-driven society within a complex economy. This requires high-level skills in order to participate in the workforce, engage in political processes and meet ordinary needs such as effectively using the internet or purchasing a home. In this context the majority of New York City public schools do not provide a fundamental education, and in many cases fail to provide even a minimum level of literacy.
For example, in 2001,70%of New York City public school eighth graders tested below grade level,16 and 20%of high school students dropped out of school before graduation.17 Over 300 schools have been identified as “failing,”18 while many more are categorized as not adequately performing. The scale of this human rights violation is further exacerbated by inequitable funding between urban and suburban schools in New York State,19 the discriminatory use of special education designations and disciplinary procedures,20 and the inequitable distribution of experienced teachers.21
Moreover, the extraordinary achievement gap between high performing and low performing city schools demonstrates that the violations of the right to a fundamental education are directly tied to the class and race of the student population. For example, in the 1997 to 1998 school year, students in the lowest performing schools scored on average 40% lower on reading tests than students in the highest performing schools.22 In that same school year, the average student populations in the lowest performing schools were 97% Black and Latino and 94% eligible for the free lunch program – indicating that students are likely to come from low-income homes.23
In the highest performing schools, however, the average student populations were only 30% Black and Latino, but 51% White, and only 40% of students were eligible for the free lunch program.24 These blatant class and race disparities represent a flagrant violation of the most central human rights principle –the right to non-discrimination.
“_An active commitment must be made to removing educational disparities …[T ]he poor …ethnic, racial, and linguistic minorities … should not suffer any discrimination in access to learning opportunities.”_
World Declaration on Education for All, Article 3
The State and City of New York have developed and adopted a wide range of policies and goals to address the failure to provide a fundamental education in all New York City public schools. However, our interviews with parents and advocates demonstrate that the most pervasive threat to the right to education is not any specific policy or lack thereof, but rather a widespread and systemic breakdown in accountability in districts serving low-income neighborhoods and communities of color. Policies and strategic plans to improve low performing schools are routinely disregarded, with little oversight or consequence. These failures in accountability affect all schooling issues –from fully funded reading programs that are never implemented to school improvement targets that are never met. Without creating real accountability, the right to education cannot be fulfilled.
“_Oh, please. I don’t want to see policies or any more programs that my son’s school is SUPPOSED to have. You look at them all, and they look great. But that’s not what really happens. For example, my son’s school is supposed to have Project Read everyday, it doesn’t. So I ask my son, did you have Project Read today? Most days he says no, there was no program. Usually he doesn’t have the program more than a couple times a month.”_
Parent, New Settlement Parent Action Committee
“_When the Board of Regents mandated new graduation requirements, they knew that immigrant students still in the process of learning English would not be able to meet the standards without support. They committed to a 12 step plan in order to provide the necessary support. Yet, the twelve step action plan was not fully implemented by the schools. By not providing what was promised, they set these kids up to fail.”_
Advocate, New York Immigration Coalition
This breakdown in accountability is closely linked to the school system’s failure to ensure effective and meaningful participation by civil society in the management or oversight of the educational system. Parents and advocates report that schools systematically exclude low-income parents and communities from participating in the school system and through this exclusion severely limit the ability of these actors to hold schools accountable for educational failure. The participation of civil society is essential to guarantee independent and effective monitoring of the school system and to ensure accountability.
"Civil society must be granted new and expanded political and social scope, at all levels of society, in order to engage governments in dialogue, decision-making and innovation around the goals of basic education."
Dakar Framework for Action
Because civil society participation is important for strengthening government accountability, civil society actors play a central role within the human rights framework in ensuring human rights, including the right to education. The concept of civil society has a long history; its roots go back to ancient Greek and Roman culture, which perceived civil society as a body of active citizens organized to support political institutions.25 In the 17th and 18th centuries, this notion changed and the concept of civil society as something separate from government emerged.26 In the context of the French revolution, civil society came to mean a community of free and equal citizens able to represent public opinion or a "collective will" separate from the government.27
Civil society grew in importance as a social and political force in the 1970's. During this period, dissidents in both Latin America (facing fascism) and Eastern Europe (facing totalitarian communism) reconceptualized civil society as popular associations capable of resisting the State. When dictatorships in those regions fell, civil society continued to develop as a means for rebuilding and reframing democratic societies. Today, a strong civil society is universally seen as critical to revitalizing democracy and building "social capital" -- that is, a web of strong relationships within society built on trust and tolerance and capable of addressing social problems.28
The international human rights framework recognizes that civil society occupies the space between the government and private individuals. Civil society "is usually considered to embrace the various groups -- professional, economic, political, cultural, associative -- ...that make up all human society, with different interests that converge at times and conflict at others."29 "[ C]ivil society has many ...components: workers,...farmers, professionals, intellectuals and their respective organizations, political parties, grassroots movements in general and so on."30 Individuals may act as civil society participants without formally belonging to an organization or group, so long as they are not acting to further purely private interests, but rather as part of some overall movement toward a collective goal. When individuals and organizations come together as civil society participants, to mobilize collective assets and engage in "public and collective mediation among disparate interests,"31 they are more likely to act "in the interests of the entire community, in a spirit of solidarity that prevails over private interests."32
The international community has consistently affirmed the right of civil society to participate in government structures and processes essential to fulfilling human rights obligations, including the right to education.33 Indeed, civic participation of this kind is a fundamental component of any democratic system infused with human rights values. The right to participate extends to all civil society actors -- including parents, students, community organizations, and academic institutions. These stakeholders have a right to participate in the creation, decision-making and administration of structures designed to ensure the right to a fundamental education. Through these structures, civil society actors are able to shape the public institutions that serve them and to hold these institutions accountable.
"The indispensable role of the state in education must be supplemented and supported by bold and comprehensive educational partnerships at all levels of society. Education for All implies the involvement and commitment of all to education."
"Civil society has much experience and a crucial role to play in identifying barriers to [Education for All] goals, and developing policies and strategies to remove them."
Dakar Framework For Action
While all of society has a stake in the education of its future citizens, parent and youth groups play a particularly central role as civil society actors. These groupings are the stakeholders with the greatest investment in the educational system. Therefore, the human rights framework recognizes the need for them to have even greater access to accountability structures. Community groups are also key actors, because they have both organizational capacity and community experience, and thus are able to articulate the needs of parents and youth.
"Every citizen shall have the right and the opportunity ...To take part in the conduct of public affairs..." ****"[Including] all aspects of public administration, and the formulation and implementation of policy at international, national, regional and local levels."
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 25 and UN Human Rights Committee, General Comment 25
The right to participation by civil society actors is also grounded in the contributions these actors make to the educational system. Not only can civil society actors more independently monitor and demand accountability on behalf of students, they can also help educators and officials meet the diverse and changing needs of students; understand the context of the communities in which students live; identify the barriers to their education; and develop policies and strategies for addressing them. Recent research by urban political theorists supports this view of civil society's contribution to improving public schools. Clarence Stone, for example, has linked effective urban school reform to the capacity of civil society to mobilize the resources and political will necessary to address critical schooling issues.34 Civil society participation is thus an essential component for revitalizing urban public schools.
"At all levels of decision-making, governments must put in place regular mechanisms for dialogue enabling citizens and civil society organizations to contribute to the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of basic education. This is essential in order to foster the development of accountable, comprehensive and flexible educational management frameworks."
Dakar Framework for Action
The public education system in New York City has traditionally been impermeable to the participation of most civil society actors. Apart from unions, the broad range of actors with a stake in the education system –advocacy groups, policy institutions, think tanks, academia, and other civic elites –have played a minimal and sporadic role in school reform efforts over the years. Although the human rights framework supports broad involvement by the full range of civil society actors, this paper focuses on parents and community groups –the core constituency of the education system –both because of the systematic exclusion these civil society actors race, and the importance of their involvement as primary stakeholders in education.
Parents and advocates report a systematic failure by the New York City government to ensure effective participation by parents and communities in the management and oversight of schools. Indeed, low-income parents in particular regularly face obstacles to participating in their child's education. Existing school structures often fail to take into account the reality of parents' lives –such as long work hours, limited English, single parenthood, or inadequate public transportation. School officials also fail to make information accessible to parents or to make processes for decision-making transparent. Moreover, parent involvement structures usually focus on parenting workshops and organizing bake sales, rather than on creating opportunities for extended dialogue between educators and parents about improving student performance.
These structural obstacles stem from a profound failure to respect and value the contributions parents want to make, collectively and individually, to their children's education. Schools and administrators rarely seem to consider involving parents and the broader community in governance as a central obligation of their work, and often take an adversarial stance toward parents. Consequently, as our interviews indicate, low-income parents are routinely dismissed, mistreated, and excluded. As new reforms are proposed in New York City, human rights standards can serve as a guide and provide criteria for how to increase civil society participation and government accountability.
Although the involvement of all sectors of civil society in our schools needs to be increased, we argue that expanding parent and community participation is a crucial step towards fulfilling the right to education. Specifically, the New York City school system needs to:
To effectively implement these recommendations, the school system should develop clear targets for each of these goals, based on human rights standards, and hold school and city staff accountable for meeting these targets.
A. Structures for Participation: Effectiveness, Power and Equitable Representation
Effective participation by civil society –especially parents and community groups –requires structures that engage these important stakeholders in the full range of educational decision-making, including the management and evaluation of the education system, the budgeting and financing of education, and the structure and substance of curricula and teaching methods.35 In districts serving low-income neighborhoods and communities of color, the majority of school governance and parent involvement structures provide, at best, superficial parental and community engagement with little real effect or impact.36
"There are mechanisms that exist on paper for parent involvement – we now need to see them implemented – parents need to understand the policies in order to use them."
Parent, Mothers on the Move
At the school level, the primary means of participation in governance are Parent Associations or Parent-Teacher Associations (PA/PTAs),37 and School Leadership Teams (SLTs).38 Until recently, Community School Boards were the primary means for participation in school governance at a district level,39 although parents also participate on largely advisory district-wide Presidents ' Councils comprised of PA representatives from each school. Our interviews suggest that in many schools and districts, particularly in poor communities, these structures do not function properly, have low levels of participation, or exist only on paper. Even in schools and districts with higher levels of participation, parents and communities lack real power to impact education, and participation structures often fail to reflect the range of socio-economic, racial and linguistic groups represented in the community. As a result, large portions of civil society, in particular parents, are denied their right to participate in the management of our city's schools.
"There are a lot of policies for participation on paper, but no one implements them. We need to get parents access and input into CEPs. We need to make the Superintendent and schools accountable for following through with CEPs and making SLTs work."
Parent, Queensbridge Community in Action
For example, parents report that when they are outnumbered by school staff on SLTs they feel overshadowed, marginalized and powerless to have an impact. They also indicate that too many SLTs are little more than approval mechanisms for principals' policies. Similarly, parents and advocates report that many PA/PTAs focus their activities exclusively on organizing candy sales and raffles and disseminate only the most basic information. Many are dominated by a handful of parents who work closely with the principal, but do not adequately represent the views of the parent community. Parents and advocates also report that most Community School Boards failed to welcome and incorporate the views of large segments of their district's population, and did not effectively encourage broad parent and community participation.
Changing the current dynamic whereby parents and communities are marginalized requires a shift in how educators conceptualize the role of parents and communities in their schools. If parents and community groups are defined as legitimate and critical participants in the process of schooling, they are more likely to be engaged in essential school discussions such as assessing school performance and planning for improvement.
In recent months, parent and community groups in New York City have proposed specific reforms to expand the role of civil society actors at the school and district levels. The Parent Organizing Consortium (POC), for example, has called for strengthening parent participation on SLTs40 by increasing the number of parents on the team, requiring SLT meetings to be well advertised and open to the public, and giving SLTs significant authority over the hiring and evaluation of school principals. The POC and others have also called for representative and participatory district-level structures that involve parents and community groups in developing district priorities and evaluating superintendent performance.41
"We need to focus on giving the community voice power – schools should not only welcome and encourage parents to participate, they need to be responsible for making sure that parents are involved and can have an impact."
Organizer, New Settlement Parent Action Committee
To be effective, the SLTs and new district (or regional) level participatory structures need power to impact decision-making and resources to carry out their functions, and should equitably represent the community they serve. New York City, in consultation with civil society groups, needs to:
But formal accountability structures are not sufficient to ensure parent and community participation in schooling. These structures are too easily isolated from the wider community and too easily manipulated by educators to prioritize schooling interests over community concerns. The creation of mechanisms to insure more effective SLTs or district committees does not eliminate the need for far broader input into school or district discussions, for example, through regular public fora that are widely accessible and allow citizens to obtain information and voice their concerns.
B. Creating Accessible and Welcoming Environments for Participation
For accountability structures to function effectively, school systems must create an environment that welcomes and respects participation and guarantees access across communities and sectors of the public. In the current school system, many school administrators, teachers, district staff and city officials do not believe in or act on the necessity for civil society participation, particularly by parents and community groups. Many parents feel unwelcome when they approach school officials or engage accountability structures (such as SLTs), and have little faith that principals or administrators will consider their concerns.
"If parents go to their children's schools to ask for help, most won't get past the front desk."
Advocate, New York Immigration Coalition
"Some schools find it necessary to be disrespectful to a parent in order to maintain their authority. I was devastated by the way they treated me."
Parent, Queensbridge Community in Action
This lack of respect and commitment stems from a systemic failure to recognize and value the role of civil society, as well as from individual and structural racial and socio-economic biases. Parents and advocates report that poor communities of color face greater barriers and are treated with less respect when trying to access the education system.42 Because of this lack of respect, parents and community representatives are marginalized and denied access to participation structures, officials, and their children 's schools.
The failure to value input from parents and communities also results in structural obstacles to meaningful levels of participation. Meetings presumably scheduled for parents, for example, are held infrequently or at times when parents with heavy workloads cannot easily attend.
Language barriers also make many structures for participation inaccessible. The lack of adequate interpretation services at many meetings of Community School Boards, SLTs and PA/PTAs excludes large numbers of non-English speaking parents from participating. Recent immigrants who are unfamiliar with the school system and do not speak English are unable to access information about the different structures for participation and how parents can become involved and seek assistance.
"There is no system in place right now for helping immigrant parents understand the system. There are language barriers and no understanding of the bureaucracy, so the parents don't engage the schools. Many schools make no effort to communicate and think that the parents aren't interested in their children's education."
Advocate, New York Immigration Coalition
Parents face similar barriers when trying to access individual teachers, principals or district officials. Interpretation is often not available, and telecommunications are at such a rudimentary level in schools that most teachers do not have phones, let alone voice mail or other systems for parents to leave messages. Parents are sometimes denied physical access to schools as well. One parent reported that she was repeatedly denied entry to school premises during the day and was refused access to the principal.
"I know the system and I 'm pushy, so I can get in to monitor my kid's classrooms, but most parents will leave and give up the first time they are turned away."
Parent, Mothers on the Move
International organizations offer useful strategies for ensuring access and creating welcoming structures. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)43 has developed guidelines for participation structures at all levels of the education system.44 School systems must develop a "consistent, system-wide commitment and support to collaboration, participation, and partnerships …[including by ]…'removing obstacles to [parent and community ]participation –ideological, structural and administrative.'45 UNESCO further directs schools to be "'welcoming ' to parents and the community,"...rather [than] 'disqualify[ing]' community experience and...[viewing schools] as places to which parents 'surrender' their children."46
UNESCO emphasizes the role of training and support to help principals and teachers function more openly and collaboratively. It specifies that staff and administrators need support in learning "to listen and give credit to the views and needs of others;…to share plans, procedures, and information openly …; [to be ]tolerant of conflict, dissent, and compromise …;[and ]to see knowledge as residing in both professionals and beneficiaries."47 They also need support in developing skills to encourage shared, participatory decision-making; define school policies, practices and expectations clearly to the community; and plan and conduct meetings in an open, transparent and collegial environment.48
"It 's not that it 's too hard to get the parents involved, there is just a lack of commitment and infrastructure for reaching out to them and getting them involved."
Organizer, New Settlement Parent Action Committee
The Children First initiative's focus on parent involvement and community engagement suggests that schools and school systems might function in more welcoming and accessible ways. School system leadership can operationalize this promise by creating new ways to manage schools, and encouraging staff and administrators to become more welcoming and accessible practitioners. New York City, in consultation with civil society groups, needs to:
Accessible and welcoming structures for effective participation in schooling also require that clear information and consistent support be made available to parents and community members. The new regional support centers proposed in the Children First reforms should create an orientation process to introduce new parents to the school system, be open at times that are convenient and accessible, be sufficiently staffed to respond to those seeking assistance, and be equipped with bilingual services. By incorporating these components into their reforms, the school system can develop models of effective parent and community engagement practice that meet human rights standards.
C. Transparency and Adequate Access to Information
Given how poorly school participation structures function, it is hardly surprising that they fail to ensure transparency of information for parents and the broader public, which is critical to meeting human rights standards for participation. Although the city school system has made significant strides in providing a variety of school performance data on the web, parents and community members routinely face barriers when trying to access important data and documents. Despite repeated requests to her child's teacher and principal, for example, one parent we interviewed was unable to obtain any type of syllabus or work plan for her daughter's class, so that she could assist her daughter with homework.49 A community-based organization attempting to help a parent was unable to procure a copy of the school budget from school officials or members of the SLT.
"It matters how the school gets the information out – they need to try harder to get the important messages and notices into the homes."
Parent, Mothers on the Move
Even when parents and other members of civil society are able to access information, it is often not provided in a format that parents and communities can understand or translated into the primary languages spoken within the community. One community advocate we interviewed struggled for weeks to gain access to her school's Comprehensive Education Plan (CEP), and then was unable to receive help from school officials or the SLT in trying to interpret the document. Most schools do not translate CEPs and other schooling documents into workable English or other languages. New York City schools do implement Performance Assessment for Schools System-wide (PASS), an annual self-evaluation process conducted by SLTs, and the system is producing more detailed and comprehensive data about school, district and system performance. However, much of this information is neither readily accessible nor comprehensible to the average parent.
"Involving parents is hard, and schools say they don't have the time or resources to make it happen. But parents want to be involved. They want information, and they want a way to get the information they need that is consistent with their work schedule."
Parent, Queensbridge Community in Action
"I couldn't get my child 's syllabus …Parents want to be able to follow their kids ' education throughout the year – I don 't want just to see the standards or test scores they have to meet, but what they 're being taught in order to reach those standards."
Parent, Mothers on the Move
Civil society must be able to access and interpret information about finances and resources, management and decision-making, as well as about curriculum and program at the classroom level. Such information should be made easily available, and where possible widely distributed to parents, community organizations and other members of civil society.
Ensuring broad access to relevant information is essential in order for civil society to participate in school management, and monitor whether the school system is meeting its human rights obligations. To ensure greater transparency and access to information, New York City, in consultation with civil society groups, needs to:
D. Building the Capacity of Parents and Communities for Informed and Effective Participation
Under a human rights framework, governments are obligated to build the capacity of civil society, especially its primary stakeholders, to make meaningful contributions to the management and oversight of public institutions. The Committee on the Rights of the Child directs states to "take all effective measures to promote capacity-building among community-based organizations and to further facilitate their inclusion in the coordination, promotion and implementation of [the right to education]."50 Because parent groups and community organizations representing parents are the most invested stakeholders in the context of education, their capacity building needs are a priority.
Yet, parents in New York City report that they have not been trained adequately or given the necessary tools to build their capacity for meaningful participation. Parents report they often feel dominated by principals and teachers on SLTs because these education practitioners are more knowledgeable and confident about schooling issues and better able to exert their influence. Parents also report that they are unable to interpret documents like CEPs, budgeting procedures and other technical processes. Fulfilling this capacity-building obligation is certainly more difficult in a climate of fiscal crisis. But even in less distressed fiscal climates, the school system has not viewed this kind of support as a key responsibility.
"The city offers no good workshops for parents – the issues discussed are so basic they're useless – the parents aren't interested in workshops on where to find the library – they want to know how to interpret a Comprehensive Education Plan."
Parent, Mothers on the Move
Reform movements in other cities have recognized the critical nature of capacity building. For example, in the early stages of Chicago's far-reaching school reform of the late 1980's, foundations and corporations raised millions of dollars to support the training of members of Local School Councils, the elected governance bodies that oversaw Chicago's schools. To build the capacity of parent groups and other relevant civil society actors, New York City, in consultation with civil society groups, needs to:
“_Ombudsmen could translate the current emphasis on accountability in education into practice.”_
Katarina Tomasevski, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education
Current structures in the New York City education system that exist to address parent and community concerns are inadequate. For example, when parents and community-based organizations are unable to resolve an issue at the school level, they have no effective procedures to seek remedies51 or gain access to the necessary officials or offices. Most often they employ informal means –letter writing, requests for meetings, or even organized protests –to seek a solution. While these informal efforts sometimes prod the system to respond to specific complaints, they rarely, if ever, succeed in transforming the poor quality or insular nature of schools in poor communities. Parents face a consistent lack of responsiveness from too many administrators and a persistent failure to grant low-income parents a real voice in the system that educates their children.
Structures based on human rights standards should be created outside the New York City government chain of command to independently support parent and community participation and increase government accountability. An ombudsperson is one classic example of a human rights structure52 that can facilitate and support effective participation in education governance and create greater transparency of and access to information.
An ombudsperson is an institution created for the people to protect them from the acts, omissions and violations of rights by the government.53 An ombudsperson must be independent and impartial, as well as universally accessible, and empowered to make and publicize recommendations. The office helps to balance power between government institutions and individuals, and to create official reinforcement and support for the efforts of advocacy communities and aggrieved individuals. The office can be created through federal, local, or municipal law, and can be appointed or elected.
For such an office to successfully serve as an independent resource for civil society, it should meet the following basic criteria:
Many countries have created ombudspersons to protect and promote fundamental rights. These ombudspersons either address a wide range of civil, political, economic, and social rights, or deal with a particular right, such as education, or subset of the population, such as children.54 Ombudspersons can have national, regional or local jurisdiction.
In Spain, for example, the city of Madrid has established an Ombudsman for Children who oversees a wide range of children’s rights issues, including the right to education. The Ombudsman is elected by members of the Madrid Assembly, is impartial and independent of the government, and has a staff of 18 people, including legal advisors, sociologists, psychologists, and counselors.55 The Ombudsman’s office focuses on the education needs of marginalized children and the integration of children with special needs. It has issued reports and recommendations leading to positive changes in the administration of Madrid’s school system.56
Duties of the Madrid Ombudsman include monitoring the impact of laws and policies on children by receiving and investigating complaints from children and parents, and collecting data on schools and other services affecting children. The Ombudsman formulates warnings, recommendations and suggestions for government, and influences policy development at local/community and regional levels. The Ombudsman also seeks to raise public awareness of human rights, provides information and counseling to children and parents, visits local schools, and trains professionals and other groups on children’s rights.
Many ombudspersons focus on educating parents and children about their rights. For example, the Ombudsperson for Children in Macedonia has developed a guide on children’s rights guaranteed in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Constitution of the Republic of Macedonia and the existing legislation and administrative regulations. The guide is disseminated in all primary and secondary schools, sometimes accompanied by training from the Ombudsperson’s office, “in order to familiarize children with their rights,...[and] to acquaint teachers and other educational workers with the rights of the children.”57
Although there has never been an ombudsperson to support parent and community participation and increase government accountability for improving poorly performing schools in New York City, ombudsperson functions have been played by various governmental offices. The Office of Special Investigations of the Department of Education has, historically, investigated cases of fiscal and other corruption. The Office of the Public Advocate has also played a monitoring role, releasing occasional reports on school facilities conditions, class size and other critical schooling issues. Limited resources and authority, however, have prevented either office from addressing the pervasive lack of school responsiveness and the poor quality of education in districts serving low-income neighborhoods and communities of color. Recently, a wide-ranging group of parents, advocates and community organizations called for the creation, by state law, of a “fully funded and independent office of public education advocate to support parents and students and their organizations, and serve as a monitor and legal advocate for them.”58
International examples help clarify the role that a human rights ombudsperson in the New York City school system might usefully play. At minimum, such an office should:
To amplify the voice of civil society and ensure input from a broad array of communities,59 the office should also work closely with parents and community organizations to organize dialogues about schooling effectiveness and bring undetected violations to light, and to facilitate the exchange of information among groups or institutions undertaking their own monitoring of the right to education. It could also gather input from civil society, for example, by creating an advisory board that represents a wide range of stakeholders, and evaluates the performance of the ombudsperson.
Lastly, the office of a human rights ombudsperson can serve as an important resource for information about human rights standards and government obligations, providing trainings to parents and community organizations, as well as to teachers, principals, parent coordinators, community engagement staff, and district and city officials.
New York City is currently going through the most extensive re-organization of its schools in the last 30 years. Although the rhetoric of reform emphasizes accountability, participation, transparency and access, there is little real evidence of this shift in the daily practice of schools. International human rights standards and practice offer a compelling framework to support and implement such a shift, and thus create mutually reinforcing structures of participation and accountability designed to safeguard the human right to education. Communities, advocates and policy-makers must work collectively towards creating these structures and human rights offers a strong conceptual basis to engage in this critical effort.