In a lecture on Oct. 19, a leading scholar of education and law warned that allowing parents to choose to send their students to charter schools that operate without sufficient oversight will actually threaten the student’s civil rights.

“I’ve heard people make arguments about the real need for school choice,” said Preston Green III, Ed.D. He acknowledged that charter schools—a key element of school choice—can provide needed opportunities for families, but said that local governments must regulate them.

“Certainly, communities of color have said that many of them do support school choice programs, because they feel that it meets a need. If there is that need, then we can meet it, but we cannot then step aside and then say that they cannot be regulated. There have to be protections in place for communities, for students, and for school districts.”

Green, the John and Maria Neag Professor of Urban Education at the University of Connecticut, delivered his remarks as part of the Graduate Schools of Education’s annual Barbara L. Jackson, Ed.D., lecture.

An Expanding Role in Education

He began by acknowledging that charter schools, which are not subject to all the rules and regulations of local education departments, but are funded by taxpayer funds, are not only a fundamental part of the landscape, but are expanding. 

In the United States, there are 7,500 charter schools in 45 states and the District of Columbia, serving 3.4 million students. Although the rules governing the schools vary widely across the country, there are three general areas where many of them fall short, he said. 

They are the loss of civil rights, increased stress to fiscally strapped districts, and predatory contracts.

When it comes to civil rights, Green said, marginalized groups should remember one thing: “They can’t keep you out, and they can’t drum you out,” he said.

Families should know, he said, that they are protected by federal statutes that all schools, be they public, charter, or private, must follow. They include Title VI, which prohibits discrimination against a person based on their race, ethnicity, of national origin; Title IX, which protects against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity; the Equal Educational Opportunities Act, which protects English Language Learners; and the Individuals with Disabilities Act and Section 504, with both protect students with disabilities.

A Key Protection That Needs Attention

To those, Green added the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. 14th Amendment, and the Due Process Clause, which provides a student who may be suspended or expelled the right to be alerted to the charges and given an opportunity to plead their case. Although charter schools fulfill the first five, Green said it’s an open question whether they fulfill these last two, as public schools do.

As an example, he cited Peltier v. Charter Day School, an ongoing case in North Carolina that has received split rulings in federal court and may be resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court. The school has a strict dress code that says girls must wear skirts and boys must wear pants, a provision that Green said would be a clear violation of the equal protection clause because it discriminates on the basis of sex. The school argued that it is not legally a “state actor,” though, and should be exempted from the clause in the same way that private schools are.

This has major implications for Black students, he said, because some schools have policies forbidding Afrocentric hair. The good news is, he said, is that there are 27 states that prohibit charter schools from violating students’ equal protection rights. 

“I would argue that all states need to adopt this type of language to ensure that the civil rights of students are provided for,” he said.

Addressing the Financial Impact of Charters

When it comes to increased stress to fiscally strapped districts, Green made the case that both urban and rural school districts often suffer financially when charter schools are established. In the Chester Upland School District, just outside of Philadelphia, he noted that the district faced a $22 million deficit at the same time that charter schools in the district were being given $40,000 a year for every special education student they admitted.

In Oklahoma, state lawmakers just this past March defeated a bill that would have dedicated $128.5 million to expanding school choice, because they was feared it would have an adverse effect on rural schools. Green applauded this, and suggested taking a page from environmental law, and mandate that districts conduct an “educational impact analysis” report before allowing charters to open. 

California, Kentucky and Missouri have provisions like this in place for urban school districts, and Louisiana has one for rural areas, he noted.

“For districts with fewer than 5,000 students, the Louisiana State Department of Education actually engages in an assessment with the school district to determine whether or not a charter school should open in that rural community,” he said.

Finally he cited predatory contracts, which can often surface when charter schools are not properly regulated. In New Jersey, he said, a 2019 investigation found that some operators treated their buildings like investment vehicles instead education spaces, and non-profit educational entities often worked in tandem with for-profit partners. 

Idaho, Kentucky, Ohio, Rhode Island in Texas already have laws that stipulate that real estate purchased with charter school funds belong to the state; Green suggested that in addition to that, a model statute for contracts and purchases should also include a rule that leases and related party transactions must be conducted at fair market value.

“We’re having a debate right now where we’re asking, ‘Should we go forward with charter schools or should we go forward with private school choice programs?’ I’m going to say that right now, I think that train has left the station,” he said. 

“But if we’re going to go forward with this, we need to provide protections. This is my attempt really to begin to put the meat on the bones as to how we can actually do that.”

“This is a time to think and act differently, and to dismantle the many unfounded and deep-seated preconceptions about the potential and value of large segments of our state’s population,” said Lester W. Young Jr., Ed.D., GSE ’78, chancellor of the New York State Board of Regents, the 17-member group that sets educational policy for the state and oversees its education department. “There exists a moral and economic imperative to remove the inequities that stand in the way of success for whole segments of New York’s student population.”

Young spoke those words during the 2021 Barbara L. Jackson, Ed.D., Lecture, a webinar hosted by Fordham’s Graduate School of Education (GSE) on October 25. GSE Dean José Luis Alvarado, Ph.D., introduced Young and moderated a Q&A session after the lecture, which drew more than 150 attendees.

Throughout the presentation, titled “Leadership for Change During Our Moral Moment,” Young pointed to specific ways the Board of Regents is pushing to build systems and structures for all students to be successful.

In May, he said, the board passed a policy statement on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) that is broken down into six focus elements: governance, teaching and learning, family and community engagement, workforce diversity, diverse schools and learning opportunities, and providing student supports.

Among the specific initiatives the board has introduced are a Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education Framework for all stakeholders—teachers, school and district leaders, students, and families—and a performance-based assessment consortium pilot program, in which participating schools will work together to implement changes to better prepare students for college and the workplace.

Behind these and other initiatives, Young said, are two core pillars supporting the board’s strategies: a commitment to fostering DEI and to shifting the Education Department’s primary concern from monitoring and compliance to service, a goal that he says can be aided by the fact that New York state’s education budget is larger than it ever has been.

Navigating the Politics of DEI In Education

Acknowledging the pushback in some New York districts to DEI-focused education, Young said, “If you believe that every member of humanity has a contribution to make to the whole, and our uniqueness, our cultures, our languages, and lived experiences are actually strengths … then you believe in diversity. And if you also believe that everyone should have access to the process and opportunities and resources they need to be successful … then you believe in equity. And if you believe that schools should foster a culture of open-mindedness, compassion, and inclusiveness among individuals and groups, then you believe in inclusion.”

For districts that have seen diversity efforts met with particularly fierce opposition from families or school board members, he also acknowledged that there is a political component that cannot be ignored.

“Not every problem that schools face is an educational problem,” Young said. “Some are political problems. If a problem is a political one, that requires a political solution. … There’s no substitute for involvement. We all need to be more involved.”

‘A Vision-Building Opportunity’

At the same time, Young said, there is much that can be done within higher education to prepare teachers to help a diverse population of students excel, and he emphasized the importance of initiatives to bring people of color into school leadership positions and to encourage aspiring teachers of color.

When he was elected chancellor in January, Young became the first Black person to lead the Board of Regents. A former New York City educator and administrator, he said that the board wants to put communities, not institutions, at the core of its decision-making.

“How do we ensure that all neighborhood schools are schools we would want our children to attend?” he asked. “We’ve been presented with a vision-building opportunity. … We can make a new norm better than the old.”

Barbara L. Jackson, Ed.D., was a professor in the Division of Educational Leadership, Administration, and Policy at the Graduate School of Education from 1987 to 2008 and served as chair of the division from 1997 to 2003. GSE established a lecture series in her name to honor her distinguished scholarship and contributions to the field of educational leadership. Among the attendees of this year’s lecture was Jackson’s daughter, Carolyn Jackson Smith.

Young, who earned a doctorate at Fordham’s Graduate School of Education in 1978, told the audience that he knew Jackson personally and considered her a “visionary scholar, role model, mentor, and friend.”

“What’s the stuff in our shopping cart that we carry from our lived experiences, growing up and that we continue to maintain, that come into the areas of our schooling that we do with our children?” said Fergus, an associate professor of urban education and policy at Temple University who has worked with more than 75 school districts on educational equity and school reform. 

As the nation faces a pandemic of racism, Fergus explained how an educator’s lifelong mindset can harm low-income and minority students. He laid out five strategies to combat bias-based beliefs and develop better school practices. 

The Insidious Nature of Ingrained Beliefs

There are disproportionate numbers of students from low-income and minority backgrounds who experience behavioral referrals, suspensions, and tracking, he said. The root of these patterns originated centuries ago, when white colonists enslaved and brutalized Black and Native American peoples. Over time, a person’s “whiteness” determined their status in American society and became the ideal social identity, whether consciously or subconsciously. 

“We are mired in continuous ways in which we do [things], whether it’s schooling, policing, or healthcare systems,” said Fergus. “I think we’ve come to recognize over the last eight months that in all of those areas there’s still a manifestation of oppressive habits and where those habits come from.” 

These ideologies infiltrate the way we interpret images, too, Fergus said. He pointed to a Texas geography textbook published by McGraw-Hill in 2015 that characterized slaves as “workers.” An article about a victim from Hurricane Katrina in 2005 describes a dark-skinned man as “looting” a grocery store, whereas another article describes two white-skinned people as “finding” food. These are among the many subtle acts that uphold the social identity of whiteness and subordinate others, said Fergus. And sometimes, we do it to ourselves. 

“We maintain it through our own personal networks. Who do we hang out with? Where do we live? Who do we have lunch with?” Fergus said. “All of those things sustain the manner in which we keep things within our shopping carts, and we don’t complicate them enough.”

Interrupting the Status Quo: Five Strategies

The solution is grounded in social psychology research, or a “developmental journey” that everyone—especially educators—can use, said Fergus. He described five strategies to challenge our implicit bias-based beliefs: counter-stereotypic imaging, individuating, perspective taking, intergroup contact, and improved decision-making. 

Counter-stereotypic imaging means countering negative biases by saturating your environment with diverse pictures, images, and symbols and being intentional about the books and posters your students view in your classroom, even on a virtual Zoom lesson, said Fergus, who elaborates on these ideas in his book, Solving Disproportionality and Achieving Equity, (Corwin, 2016). 

Individuating is having regular one-on-one conversations with people from different backgrounds to see them for their individual qualities instead of part of a stereotypic group, Fergus said. 

Perspective taking means walking in the shoes of “the perceived other.” If a student skips class or punches another student, said Fergus, ask them, “What’s happened to you? What made you behave this way?” instead of “What’s wrong with you?”

Inter-group contact is using the power of positive, sustained dialogue with individuals across different groups to expand your perspective, said Fergus, showing photos of comedian Ellen DeGeneres and former president George W. Bush sitting together at an NFL game and rapper Snoop Dogg and media mogul Martha Stewart cooking side by side. 

Lastly, improved decision-making is slowing down your initial reaction to someone and asking yourself what assumptions you’ve made about that person’s cultural identity, gender, and background. “There’s an onslaught of information that you read because of the stereotypes that live within your shopping carts, and you make behavioral decisions,” Fergus said. “How do we slow down those habits so that we are interrupting the stereotype that we carry?”

Applying Fergus’ Strategy to Bronx Schools

At the end of Fergus’ presentation, four leaders in the Bronx spoke about how they are using his work to improve equity in their schools: Meisha Ross Porter, GSE ’21, executive superintendent for the Bronx; Denise Williams, instructional lead for equity and access for the Bronx Central Office and a first-year student in Fordham’s Ed.D. program; Lori Baker, principal of the Walt Disney Magnet STEAM School; and Harry Sherman, principal of Castle Hill Middle School. The panel was moderated by Elisabeth Stosich, Ed.D., assistant professor at Fordham’s Graduate School of Education. 

Fergus’ research prompted the Walt Disney Magnet STEAM School to take a look at their own student statistics. Baker said her school realized that the percentage of girls being referred for interventions was higher than boys, but boys were more frequently pushed into self-contained classes. As a result, the school changed its referral system and helped educators better understand the response to intervention process. 

Sherman said that white educational leaders like himself need to surround themselves with multiple perspectives to help them effectively serve their students. 

“Awareness of my own learning and my own blind spots and the power of having a close accountability partner who I can be real with, who can help me see those blind spots so that I can do the work better, is essential,” said Sherman, who praised his assistant principal. “I don’t need to go out there and be perfect, but I need to be able to be transparent about my own learning and growth and not be asking people to do things that I’m not doing.” 

The panel agreed that one of their biggest obstacles in achieving racial reform right now is the COVID-19 pandemic. Porter said that educators cannot allow the “persistent problem” to be overtaken by the virus. Williams recalled some advice that a GSE professor, Margaret Terry Orr, once gave her: “Time is a value choice. You choose what you spend time on.” 

“There are so many things being asked of us right now, but you have to be able to see past this moment,” Williams said. “It’s about organizing our efforts to see beyond the pandemic, to deal with this problem of systemic racism that’s been a pandemic for hundreds of years.”

The Barbara L. Jackson lecture series is named in honor of the late Barbara L. Jackson, who served as a professor in the Division of Educational Leadership, Administration, and Policy at the Graduate School of Education for more than two decades and as chair of the division from 1997 to 2003. 

Watch the full lecture in the video below: 

Lewis is now the superintendent of schools in the Plainview-Old Bethpage Central School District, and she credits her aunt’s decision with setting her on a path of high achievement and educational leadership.

“The point is that children can be ready by any age,” she said. “Nobody told me that I shouldn’t go, so I was ready.”

As this year’s speaker at the Barbara L. Jackson, Ed.D., Lecture, sponsored by the Graduate School of Education (GSE), Lewis stressed the importance of providing educational challenges for each and every child at all levels of ability. Equally important, she said, is creating the right environment for all students to thrive.

“My philosophy is that everyone can bloom if you provide the right conditions,” she said.

The title of Lewis’ talk, held at the Lincoln Center campus on Oct. 25, was “Conscious Leadership in Changing Times.” As Lewis explained, being a conscious leader means to continually think about why you are doing what you do.

For Lewis, who is also the president of the New York State Council of School Superintendents and the assistant secretary of ERASE Racism, the students in her care are her “why,” guiding her decisions in leading teachers in her district and beyond.

“What are the big, hairy, audacious goals that we want to accomplish? For us, the vision was about creating responsible and autonomous learners,” she said.

With a background in physics and mathematics, Lewis advocated using data as a powerful tool in fostering students who are college, career, and life ready.

Statistically tracking her students’ success even after they leave her schools has helped Lewis identify the preparation needed for higher education in today’s globalized, technology-driven world.

It’s not just a Regents exam test score that determines student readiness, she said, but a much fuller profile of adequate math, science, and advanced placement courses, as well as appropriate remediation classes if necessary.

She stressed, however, that leaders must address current inequities in education so that all students, in every district and at every socioeconomic level, have equal access to the preparations that are key factors in determining later success.

“We have to work to make sure that every child has an opportunity to be in the ball game,” she said.

Lewis’ points on equality struck a chord with audience member Jordan Simons, a Ph.D. candidate in educational leadership, administration, and policy at GSE and a special education coordinator in Bayside, Queens.

Though he works in a well-funded district, Simons agreed that all education leaders should work to ensure equitable conditions for students in every school.

“We have to embrace a better society,” he said. “We have to embrace what’s beyond our own district.”

For Vincent Vinod Fernandes, S.J., a Ph.D. candidate in administration and supervision at GSE, Lewis’ vision of helping students to be not just college ready, but life ready, aligns well with the Jesuit educational tradition of cura personalis, or care of the whole person.

“I think that’s all important—helping students to get into college but also to face the challenges in life in a changing world,” he said.

The Barbara L. Jackson, Ed.D., Lecture is an annual event held in memory of the esteemed Fordham professor, who taught in GSE’s Division of Educational Leadership, Administration, and Policy from 1987 to 2008, and who served as chair from 1997 to 2003.

—Nina Heidig

Howard Fuller, Ph.D., a distinguished professor of education at Marquette University, minced few words on Dec. 4 as he delivered the annual Barbara L. Jackson, Ed.D., Lecture at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus.

He offered a full-throated, rousing call for equity and equality in education in the United States. As founder and director of Marquette’s Institute for the Transformation of Learning, he also delivered a blunt warning in his talk, “Educational Options and Systems to Support Equity in Urban Education.”

“I don’t believe that we’ll ever achieve any type of equity or even equality for the children of the families of the disinherited of America,” he said.

“I don’t believe the American body politic writ large cares about these children.”

A measure of justice is possible though, he said, and to get it he advocated for radical changes to public education.

“We need to create new systems of learning opportunities based on a totally different governance and finance structure—one that puts all of this stuff in the interest of students first, allows dollars to follow students, and holds adults accountable for not having our students achieve,” he said.

“This system of learning opportunities must include charter schools, new configurations of the traditional system, schools within schools, public and private partnerships, creative use of technology to allow for multi-sites and, possibly, relationships with home schoolers. Teachers ought to be able to engage in private practice.”

Fuller, the former public school superintendent in Milwaukee, said he is not against public education per se.

“There’s a difference between public education and the systems that deliver it,” he said. “Public education is an idea, it’s the concept that we ought to educate the public. Then we develop these systems to realize that idea.”

And any system can be changed, he noted.

“We must love our children’s loves, hopes, and dreams more than we love the institutional heritage of any system. People say to me, ‘You like charter schools, huh?’ I say, ‘I like anything that works.’”

Fuller noted that emancipation from slavery liberated blacks in the United States, but it did not make them free. Education was the key to freedom, because it is the only escape from poverty available to black children. It has been a struggle to attain it in the face of hostile forces ever since, particularly in the South, where schools for blacks were always inferior.

“Black people in this country [are not]well served when they only have one option,” he said.

But if there will never be equity or equality for all children, why fight? Fuller said he takes inspiration from Derrick Bell’s Faces at the Bottom of a Well (Basic, 1993), in which a woman is asked a similar question during the Civil Rights era. She answers that not to fight is to co-sign on the injustice.

“Irrespective of whether or not I expect [people in power]to do anything, I can’t let them act like this is okay,” Fuller said.