Community demands answers to education crisis

The parents of students in Buffalo Public Schools have reached the end of their patience and confidence in the ability of the district school system to address the enormous educational crisis here.

The district’s graduation rate is about 25 percent for Black males and about 50 percent for all students. In this city of pervasive poverty, many young children lack basic skills, while students of all ages face situations where day-to-day survival comes before doing homework or even attending school.

Leaders of the District Parent Coordinating Council sent an ultimatum April 6 to the Buffalo schools superintendent, Board of Education, Board of Regents, Education Department, and state and local politicians to attend the DPCC’s May 3 open meeting. Invited participants were asked to present their specific plan for fixing the structural problems which keep many children in Buffalo from learning.

The auditorium was filled on May 3 with several hundred parents, teachers and community members. Audience members jumped up and cheered approval when City Council member the Rev. Darius Pridgen, in response to the question “Is there a structural cause to the education crises?” answered: “I say no. Structure is set up to achieve something. It’s achieving what it’s set up to achieve. Jail. Poverty. Everything some folks want it to achieve. Folks who are wealthy are not involved in this fight. There are people in this city who make more than we all make combined.” (Buffalo News, School Zone Blog, May 4)

Pressure is on the district to select one of four “turnaround plans” for low-performance schools that comply with the federal “Race to the Top” initiative in order to receive $58 million. The superintendent selected a plan that would move hundreds of teachers and principals out of the “persistently low achieving” schools. The Buffalo Teachers Federation said that plan would cause chaos in the schools, and the union would not approve it.

The New York State Senior Deputy Education Commissioner then warned that failure to submit successful plans to turn around the failing schools could result in the state revoking the schools’ registration and taking them over. The state has never done this before in any district.

The superintendent then changed his mind and chose another plan that will turn over administration of individual schools to “educational partnership organizations” which will manage the schools. These organizations, must be set up as non-profit organizations that can be led by private businesses, banks and other educational institutions. The DPCC did not have an opportunity to have input into this decision.

Many attendees later expressed great confusion at what they had heard at the meeting and said there was little agreement among the major players in the educational system.

At the close of the May 3 meeting the DPCC decided to move to mass organizing and called a one-day citywide student boycott of the schools on May 16. This decision came after listening to almost three hours of testimony. At that point DPCC leader Sam Radford asked the parents if they felt they had heard answers to the problems or if they believed the politicians and school administration would follow through on resolving them. Most parents responded with “no!”

Radford said children cannot wait any longer for solutions to low graduation rates and underperforming schools. “We cannot let another generation fail,” he said. The DPCC wants the boycott to send a sense of urgency to state and local officials. Radford vowed that mass action will include all forms of protest until there is change.