Sharing Our NYC Schools Stories

I write a lot

Sharing Our NYC Schools Stories

My third child graduated from NYC Public Schools in June. I wrote about how, even though I was no longer an NYC public school parent, I hoped I would continue to advocate just as vociferously for all NYC kids, for one of my regular education outlets, The 74 Million. They thought the piece was too personal, and asked me to rewrite it more generally. The result was “Lessons Learned from 20+ Years of Public School Parent Advocacy.”

That experience made me think: We all have deeply personal stories about navigating the NYC school system (public, private, charter, and gifted). Those stories may be too specific for a general media outlet, but they are perfect for the kind of work we do here at NYC School Secrets, where the motto is: Parents Helping Parents.

That is why I am sharing my personal story below. And, moving forward, I am going to use this platform to amplify other families’ stories. I have heard so many over the years that, by being told, can help others. I am asking you to share your stories officially with me now. I can use your name and personal details, or I can publish them anonymous with details changed. But those stories deserve to be heard, and I want to make that happen.

The below is my personal story. What’s yours?

My Daughter is Graduating – Why I’ll Continue Advocating For All Kids

My third child graduates from her public high school on Friday, June 20, bringing to an end my over two decades of participation in the New York City educational system.

Because of my children, I’ve advocated for advanced academic opportunities for all students, but especially those in commonly underserved communities. Because of my children’s experiences, I realized that school cannot be one-size-fits all, and that there is more than one way to get the education you crave – even if it means abandoning the traditional system. And, because of my children’s example, I learned that you can, in fact, fight City Hall (i.e. the Department of Education) – and win.

Thanks especially to my daughter, I became caught up in battles to transfer and receive credits from school to school, to challenge and remove ineffectual teachers, and, most recently, to stand up to an abusive administration.

Whenever I was asked whether I was afraid of retaliation towards myself or my children due to my advocacy, I’d answer with a pithy, “No! That would give me material for another story!” In reality, I was petrified. But I felt compelled to keep going. Prior to writing articles about specific miscarriages of justice at her school, my daughter and I discussed how we weren’t just doing this for her. We were doing it for the kids who didn’t have someone to advocate for them, and for the students who’d come after her and take advantage of the precedents we’d fought for.

But, I’ll be honest: Everything I did, I did, first and foremost, for my own kids.

I’ll be even more honest: Now that my youngest is about to graduate, I’m terrified that my passion for school advocacy will disappear along with my MySchools account.

I can only hope that won’t be the case. I’m drawing comfort from the fact that I’m still getting riled up on the daily about the stupidity coming out of the DOE, from the watering down of Gifted & Talented programs, to cutting sports opportunities, to a smaller class size mandate which requires recruiting over 3000 “high-quality, experienced” teachers out of thin air, even though none of those factors will directly affect my own children.

I hope I’ll remain just as incensed about all of it, and more, moving forward. Because here’s something else I’ve learned over these past twenty years: Parents can’t fight the school system on their own.

Not merely due to fears of retaliation – which does happen; I once had to tell my son, “I can’t be expected to remember the names of everyone who has threatened to stab me!” But because there aren’t enough parents.

Enrollment in the NYC public school system is dropping precipitously, down to around 900,000 in 2024, from a high of 1.1 million pre-pandemic (and those earlier number did not include universal 3K and 4K; in reality, NYC is down to around 800,000 students in Kindergarten through 12th grade). Even when the kid-count stood at over a million, that still wasn’t enough to make a meaningful dent with NYC politicians.

There are over 13 million registered voters across the five boroughs. Nationally, during the past presidential election cycle, “Fewer than one in five voters choose education as one of their top three issues.”

If we presume the same trend applies citywide, then that’s not a lot of voters to hold our elected officials accountable. Which is why parents can’t be the only ones in this fight. They need help from those who think they have no skin in the game. We all have skin in the game.

Everyone should care about education, because everyone has no choice but to live in a society of people who have been educated – for better or for worse. The goal is to make it better.

While the low number of voters who care about educational issues is the bad news, there’s also good news in how few voters turn out for non-presidential year elections, like the one scheduled for 2025.

In 2023, only 7.2 percent of New Yorkers voted in the primary election, and a meager 12.8 percent turned out for the general election.

This is bad civic engagement. But it’s good odds because it makes every vote count that much more. Which means those that have an interest in education can make an outsized impact on policy.

But the parents still can’t do it alone. They need allies. They need people who care about what’s best for all NYC kids. We can and will and do differ on what precisely that is. My default stance, as a result, is to offer as many choices as possible to as many families as possible, a controversial position, in and of itself.

My youngest child is graduating from public school. And I am going to try as hard as I can to stay true to the course I set for myself over 20 years ago, fighting for the rights of all NYC – and, by extension, America’s – kids. I want to be the sort of person who works for what I believe in, even when there’s no longer anything in it for me. I will keep on trying to convince others to do the same. Because the current and future parents need us. Because we were once them.