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.”

This spring, UNHP got some help from Fordham students enrolled in Spanish for Heritage Speakers, an undergraduate course taught by professor Miguel García, Ph.D. García’s course helps heritage speakers—people who grew up speaking at least some Spanish at home—develop their grammar, writing, and reading comprehension skills. But it’s about more than mechanics; students also explore issues important to the Latinx community, including immigration, identity, and race relations.

Enter the partnership with UNHP, which was founded in 1983 with help from the University and has a long history of working with Fordham. Aware that the nonprofit was interested in recruiting more volunteers to help during tax season, Julie Gafney, Ph.D., executive director of Fordham’s Center for Community Engaged Learning, played matchmaker.

“I knew that Miguel was looking for opportunities for his [students]to spend some time in the Bronx, getting to know the Bronx community, and … it just seemed like a good fit,” Gafney said.

And it was. During the semester, students used their newly honed language skills to volunteer weekly with the organization’s virtual tax program. They spoke with Bronx residents who called UNHP’s tax hotline and helped them begin the process of filing virtually. Students were hands-on throughout the process, from asking filers preliminary income and technology questions to ensure they had the necessary forms, to using Google Meet to verify a filer’s identity and review their documents.

For many students, working with Spanish-speaking Bronx residents in this way hit close to home. Rising sophomore Thairich Escotto acts as an occasional translator for her mother, helping her complete forms and understand official documents. She’s also a full-time paraprofessional for the New York City Department of Education, where one of her duties is to serve as a Spanish translator.

“I wanted to improve upon [my Spanish]because although I do feel like I speak it and write it well, there are a lot of conventions that I have trouble with, so I think that this class really has helped me improve upon that, and, grammatically speaking, I’m speaking so much better in Spanish,” she said.

And although she wishes she could have worked with people “under different circumstances, maybe in person,” she said the course “really helped me feel like I was contributing to my community.”

For Anna Margarita Canero, GSAS ’21, UNHP’s volunteer coordinator, the collaboration was a success.

“Having Spanish-speaking students on the phones was a tremendous help, especially since taxes can be a sensitive topic. We are so grateful for our student volunteers who took the time to learn the virtual tax process this year,” she said. “Having enthusiastic, patient, and hard-working volunteers made all the difference.”

On a hot May afternoon, about 160 candidates walked in person, with their families and loved ones cheering from Edwards Parade. Following the graduates’ procession, Jane Bolgatz, Ph.D., associate dean for academic affairs and associate professor of curriculum and teaching at GSE, introduced Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, for an invocation, and GSE Interim Dean Akane Zusho, Ph.D., who addressed the graduates. Present in the crowd were Virginia Roach, Ed.D., former dean of GSE, and José Luis Alvarado, Ph.D., who will lead the school as dean beginning July 1.

“How we emerge from challenges helps to define who we are as human beings,” Zusho told the crowd, citing not only the COVID-19 pandemic but ongoing conversations around racial justice and education reform. “We need teachers, leaders, counselors, and psychologists who share in the fundamental belief that we can all learn and grow, and who can help their students, teachers, and clients live up to their fullest potential.

“Every student deserves to learn in an environment that encourages them to take risks, ask big questions, and make mistakes. Every student also deserves to know they are in a safe space where there is always a path to redemption through education, free of judgement. And that path begins with you.”

Students graduating across GSE’s degree and certificate programs echoed Zusho’s call for the need to change the world through education.

Brandon LaBella, who received a master’s degree in childhood education and is currently teaching fourth grade at Hillcrest Elementary School in Peekskill, New York, said that the M.S.T. program “made me feel so much more confident as a teacher. It’s incredible to be here surrounded by so many brilliant people, and I think everyone here is going to help make the world a better place.”

Speaking about what it’s been like to teach throughout the pandemic, LaBella added, “It’s been incredible to see the resilience of the students and all the teachers. It just gives me hope for the future that if we can take care of this, we can do anything.”

Darlyn Smith received her master’s in childhood special education through GSE’s online program and is currently teaching first grade at the Pingry School in Short Hills, New Jersey.

“I’ve always wanted to be a teacher, since I was very young,” said Smith. “It’s a great feeling to be here and get to see all the friends that I had online and get to interact and celebrate this wonderful occasion.”

Others reflected on the personal journeys of their years in graduate school. Teddy Reeves received his administration and supervision Ph.D. in GSE’s church and non-public school leadership program, and he said that the research process, while challenging at times, was an essential complement to his work as the curator and co-lead of religion at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.

“It has been an amazing, difficult season of writing and researching and finding self,” Reeves reflected. “It’s labor intensive, but it’s a labor of love. It’s been great to mirror the work that I do professionally with the work I got to do at Fordham.”

Magalie Exavier-Alexis, who completed her Ed.D. in educational leadership, administration, and policy while working as a school principal in Brooklyn’s District 13, also noted the challenges of balancing classwork and research with full-time work and a family, but she had no doubt that it was worth the effort.

“I’ve always known that my goal is to cross this finish line,” she said of receiving her doctorate. “I am elated! There are no words to describe my elation and my jubilation.” ­

Many graduates opted to attend GSE’s virtual ceremony, held on Monday, May 24. View the ceremony below and on YouTube.

Cunningham, who graduated from Fordham College at Rose Hill in 2013 with a B.A. in English, has been with the North Carolina-based Hunt Institute—a nonprofit dedicated to improving education policy—since 2018, after she earned a Master of Education degree from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education. But it’s not the career she always envisioned for herself.

Finding Her Right Place

Cunningham grew up in Cazenovia, a small town outside of Syracuse, New York, and played competitive ice hockey. She hoped her dedication to the sport would eventually earn her an athletic scholarship to attend college. One weekend, after meeting with a coach in Manhattan and not feeling the “the right vibe,” Cunningham and her father visited Fordham. Cunningham had heard of the school, and she wanted the long drive to have not been a total loss. It wasn’t. “We drove on campus and immediately both of us were like, ‘Oh, this is it. This is the place,’” Cunningham said. “And it immediately became my first choice.”

Once at Fordham, Cunningham planned to follow her dream of going into children’s book publishing. “That’s really what I wanted to do,” she said. But junior year, while tutoring third graders with a Fordham roommate at an afterschool program in Harlem, Cunningham remembered how much she loved being around kids. “I hadn’t done that in a really long time and I forgot how much I liked it,” she said. From there she sought out more service opportunities, including an internship with the nonprofit Change for Kids.

During her senior year, Cunningham applied to Teach for America (TFA), a nonprofit organization dedicated to training and placing teachers in public schools serving low-income students. “Being from a rural place in New York, I kind of wanted to go back to a rural place for teaching,” she said. She ended up teaching children at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, home of the Oglala Lakota Nation. She credits TFA with helping her figure out that “yes, education was something that I wanted to spend my life in.”

Uniting Policy and Education to Strengthen the Community

She spent four years in South Dakota working for TFA, teaching middle school writing. At Pine Ridge, Cunningham came to see that “Native challenges really need a lot more attention throughout the country than they get.” While immersed in a small town, she witnessed “how rural community development is so impacted by the health of the school and vice versa,” prompting her to study education policy at Harvard. She worked to give rural education a seat at the table, hoping to make it, if not a priority, then at least “just part of the discussion.”

Cunningham’s time as a middle school teacher, combined with her graduate studies in policy, really drove home the reality that education and community well-being are so intertwined in small towns. “Often the school is the center of the community and the health of the community,” she said, emphasizing that “the physical health of the people in the community is so dependent on the strength of the school and the services that the school is able to offer.”

That’s why she’s currently pursuing a master’s degree in public health at the University of North Carolina. “I really want to find a position, or maybe even create a position for myself, where I’m really working with rural leaders to figure out what assets their community already brings to the table—because they all do—and figuring out how to leverage those assets to make a really strong, whole community system to strengthen themselves and then help make that applicable in other places, too,” she said.

Forever Connected to the Fordham Ramily

Cunningham stays connected to Fordham by participating in the Fordham Mentoring Program and unofficially mentoring members of the Hot Notes a cappella group, which she helped found as a student. While COVID-19 has made it difficult to connect with friends, family, and colleagues in person, for some people, Cunningham included, digital and Zoom gatherings have leveled the playing field. She said she occasionally felt a bit of FOMO (or fear of missing out) whenever her friends in or near the New York area would meet on campus for reunions or other events, but now it’s a bit easier for her to stay connected.

“I feel like I have been able to get involved with some mentoring a little bit more than I might have otherwise, because they might have had people who would be able to meet with mentees in person,” she said, adding that she’s “reconnected pretty closely with a lot of Fordham friends” and no longer feels left out.

More than just exposing her to opportunities that would guide her choice of career or blessing her with a network of support, Cunningham said Fordham broadened her worldview and opened her eyes to a lot of societal injustices.

“I think that’s a lot of the reason that I’ve decided to work in this equity, education, health care, community development, and advocacy sphere for my whole career,” she said. “I didn’t expect to end up here.”

Fordham Five (Plus One)

What are you most passionate about?
Rural community development. I think that rural communities across the country have so much to teach us about how to serve the whole person, and I think that we focus too much on the deficits of rural communities as opposed to their assets. If we partner with rural communities and think about the diverse perspectives that they bring to the table, I believe that not only can we create innovative, scalable solutions that are relevant and applicable, but we can also discover new methods of community development in suburban and urban communities as well.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
I have had to tattoo this one on my heart, and I’m still working on getting better at it: “You can’t help others until your own cup is full.” As someone once phrased it to me, if your own cup is full, if you are happy and fulfilled and at peace with yourself, you can use your overflow to give to others. But if your cup is dry or low, not only can you not give what you need to those you love, but you are so starved and thirsty that you will take whatever respite comes your way, whether it is healthy or not. You need to prioritize yourself and your own well-being so that you can truly be there for those who need you the most, and so that you aren’t tempted to give your attention to those who will use it wrongly.

What’s your favorite place in New York City? In the world?
For New York, I have to say the sidewalk outside of 30 Rock, but let me explain why! My freshman year was the last year that Hughes Hall was a residence hall, and I lived on the fifth floor with three roommates who I’m still incredibly close with to this day—in fact, I sent them the picture used in this article ahead of time to make sure they approved. We made it an annual tradition to camp out outside 30 Rock one night a year to get tickets to Saturday Night Live. While of course it was a ton of fun to see SNL, I honestly barely remember all the specifics about the shows themselves. I more so remember sitting out in the freezing cold with my best friends, making friends with the people in line, using the nearby McDonald’s to go to the bathroom, and falling asleep for six hours when we got back to our dorm and then barely making it back to the city on time to get into the show.

As for the world, Crystal Beach, Ontario. My great-grandfather built a cottage there almost 80 years ago that we still use, and I’ve been there every summer of my life—with the pandemic summer being the only exception. It feels like home.  

Name a book that has had a lasting influence on you.
When I was first preparing to move to South Dakota, someone recommended to me the book Lakota Woman by Mary Crow Dog. It is a memoir of a woman growing up on the Rosebud Indian Reservation (about 50 miles from the Pine Ridge Reservation, where I lived), and I found it to be one of the most honest, realistic depictions of what Lakota women experience on a daily basis.

Who is the Fordham grad or professor you admire most?
I met Rob Minotti, director of campus ministry for liturgical music, on probably one of my first days on campus at Fordham, and I spent probably almost every day with him until I graduated four years later. I have met very few people in my life who are as dedicated to their craft as Rob, and I admire him endlessly for all that he does for Fordham’s students.

What are you optimistic about?
I have found it incredibly difficult to be optimistic over the last year, but in my work in education, one thing that I’ve seen a lot is that people do not want to go back to the norm. I think that the events of the last year have opened many people’s eyes to the systemic inequities and racism that exist in our country’s framework, and are doing what they can to rectify these egregious injustices. I am optimistic that the many, many crises of the last year will force us to come to terms with our past mistakes and ignorance and finally work to create systems that are actually attempting, at the very least, to be equitable for all.

As chancellor, Young now leads the 17-member board that oversees all educational activities in the state. He will be tasked with appointing members to working groups and committees, and building consensus on educational policy decisions.

His election, announced at the board’s January 11 meeting, comes as the state’s 700-plus school districts continue to grapple with financial and other challenges associated with teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“[The pandemic has] further exposed long-standing educational inequities, particularly impacting our most vulnerable,” Young said upon accepting his new role. “We must use our leadership opportunity in this moment to … rethink school and schooling in ways that will transform learning opportunities for all students, teachers, and school leaders alike.”

Young, who earned a doctorate at Fordham’s Graduate School of Education in 1978, is a former New York City educator and administrator who has served on the Board of Regents since 2008. As a board member, he has chaired a working group to improve outcomes for boys and young men of color and was instrumental in getting the My Brother’s Keeper initiative, a mentorship program for young men of color, signed into state law. He also co-chairs the board’s P–12 education committee and its working group for early childhood education.

Young was elected chancellor by a unanimous vote of the board, and his fellow members expressed high hopes for his tenure, which began on January 12 and is expected to go until March 31, 2022.

“Regent Young’s vast experience in education and unwavering commitment to improving the lives of disadvantaged students make him an exceptional choice to be chancellor of the Board of Regents,” Vice Chancellor T. Andrew Brown said.

Among others who celebrated Young’s election were New York City schools chancellor Richard Carranza, who said it marked a “wonderful day for the children” of New York, and Jolene DiBrango, executive vice president of New York State United Teachers. Speaking on behalf of the teachers union, she said, “We believe Chancellor Young is the right choice to lead the board as educators continue to navigate the challenges our schools face related not only to the pandemic but also to inequity in our public education system.”

Tackling inequities in education has been a priority for Young throughout his career. He began teaching in New York City’s public schools in 1969 and went on to serve in roles as a guidance counselor, principal, and supervisor of special education. In 1988, he took a position as an assistant commissioner at the state level, where he oversaw school improvement and bilingual education initiatives, before returning to the city’s education department in 1993 as the superintendent of Brooklyn’s District 13. He later served as senior superintendent for four Brooklyn districts. After retiring from the city in 2004, Young taught at Long Island University’s Graduate School of Education. Over his career, he has also served on the boards of nonprofits including the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, and the Brooklyn Community Foundation.

From 1995 to 2005, Young was an active participant in the Fordham University Superintendents’ Network, a professional support group for participating administrators.

As a doctoral student at the Graduate School of Education (GSE) during the 1970s, Young was “bright and thoughtful,” said Sheldon Marcus, Ed.D., the recently retired professor who at the time was chair of the school’s urban education department—a forerunner of GSE’s Educational Leadership, Administration, and Policy Division.

“Dr. Young is an individual Fordham can be proud to call an alum,” Marcus said. “His lifelong service to children has been exemplary.”

Young graduated from Fordham the same year as Anita Vazquez Batisti, Ph.D., GSE ’78, associate dean for educational partnerships at GSE and executive director of its Center for Educational Partnerships. The two have kept in touch since earning their doctorates, and Batisti notes that Young has been a guest speaker in her classes and has visited the center’s community school program at MS 331 in the Bronx.

“The students of New York state will benefit tremendously from his experience, dedication, and leadership,” Batisti said.

The three-part discussions that Waite hosts dive into “colorblindedness” and the way race affects students in the classroom. Part I of the series of discussions discusses the historical context of colorblindness.  Part II includes the voices of individuals exposed to and in the position of navigating colorblind ideology in schools on a daily basis. Part III will include responses from researchers and scholar-activists in the field of education.  Waite’s began the forum by posing the question, what are the best ways to respond to educators who say they “don’t see color” when they teach?  

Waite says in order to resolve the great issues in schools right now we need to have difficult discussions. “Deep reflection coupled with courageous conversations allows school communities to examine the dysconscious systems and biased structures they conceive and implement. Often these policies and practices are developed with the best of intentions, and school communities are only able to see that the unintended consequences of these policies actually hurt students and families by committing to becoming a critically conscious school community.”

Waite’s discussion prompted some responses from fellow educators, including Kris DeFillipes, middle school associate principal in Orange County, N.Y., who is pursuing his Ed.D. at Fordham’s Graduate School of Education. 

“As educators, it is required that we understand the reasons for the social construction of whiteness and how the educational system serves the values that maintain systemic oppression of repressed and marginalized students. As white educators, it is urgent and compulsory that we recognize and embrace our whiteness; ignoring its presence only exacerbates the issue. Defensiveness or fragility cannot embed itself in our thinking; instead, we must rage with passionate and poised urgency when we recognize these traits in others.”

Read Waite’s full introduction (including DeFillippes’ full response) here or listen to the podcast discussion with Larry Ferlazzo with Terri Watson, Chris Emdin and Shannon Waite where they talk through Waite’s question.

At the heart of the drama is a brutal irony: When rape is used as a weapon of genocide, a ramshackle brothel can be a haven.

The establishment in question is run by Mama Nadi, who profits from the women she protects—and from the war. She runs a business, she says, not a mission. She provides food and shelter, and in exchange, the women prostitute themselves to government and rebel soldiers alike, all of whom must check their ammunition at the bar.

“How many of you give her a pass?” Romagnoli asks his students, a group of 11 women. Opinions are split.

“I hated her at first, but by the end, I understood why she was the way she was, and why she did what she did,” one student says.

“Which of the philosophies we’ve discussed could you use to support defending her?” Romagnoli asks.

“Utilitarianism,” suggests one student. Romagnoli nods. “And what would Kant say? Is there a redeeming element in her behavior?”

“It’s wrong to use people the way she did,” one woman says emphatically; several others agree. “OK,” Romagnoli smiles, “we have some Kantians here too.”

A College Class Like Any Other

To an outside observer, the discussion could have been part of an undergraduate seminar on any college campus—with one exception: Each student wore a green uniform that marked her as an inmate of Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, the only maximum security women’s prison in New York state.

Romagnoli, a playwright, novelist, and short story writer, has been teaching at Bedford Hills since 2015. Like all guests at the prison, he enters the compound through a trailer-like structure that separates the visitors’ parking lot from the prison buildings, which are ringed by metal gates topped with razor-wire coils. He passes through a security checkpoint carrying only his car keys, driver’s license, and notes for class.

“It’s like going in and out of a concentration camp, with the walls and the wires,” he says. “But sitting in the room and watching them talk and laugh and banter, you could be anywhere.”

Romagnoli’s students range in age and experience. For one woman, the course—Social Issues in Literature—is her first taste of college; for another, it’s the next-to-last class on the path to earning a bachelor’s degree in sociology.

In addition to studying Ruined, they read and discuss a broad range of books, including Night, Elie Wiesel’s account of the Holocaust, and Zora Neale Hurston’s 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. They also screen several films, including Do the Right Thing, and Romagnoli introduces them to philosophers from Socrates to Simone de Beauvoir.

“Steve is always in demand,” says Aileen Baumgartner, FCRH ’88, GSAS ’90, the director of the Bedford Hills College Program, which is overseen by Marymount Manhattan College and offers courses leading to an associate’s degree in social sciences and a bachelor’s degree in sociology.

“Students really get a lot from his classes. I don’t know how he does it—I’ve said, ‘Really, Steve? You think they’re going to get through all this in a semester?’ Somehow or other they do.”

‘Students Have to Feel There Is Love’

For the past several years, Romagnoli has also been an adjunct professor at Fordham, where he teaches a similar course on ethics and literature, he says, albeit with a more sensational title: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness.

In both settings, students focus on “moral dilemmas and ethical questions that confront us throughout our lives,” he says.

“The Fordham students have great things to say, but they’re initially a bit shy. At the prison, sometimes you’ve got to pull them together, but they’re totally engaged, and they say what they’ve got to say.”

Romagnoli began his career as an educator at P.S. 26 in the South Bronx during the mid-1980s, not long after earning a bachelor’s degree in English at Fordham. He later earned an M.F.A. in creative writing at the City College of New York.

For 15 years, he was an itinerant teacher for the New York City Department of Education, working with students in their late teens to early 20s at drug rehabilitation facilities, homeless shelters, and halfway houses, among other locations.

“I would go in and teach a lesson and go out,” he says. “Engage them, that was the whole thing. You’ve got to engage them.”

He says that no matter where he’s taught, his approach is essentially the same. “Students have to feel there is love there—not love love, but a deep respect. And if they come to the conclusion, consciously or unconsciously, that you have that deep respect, then it allows you to be as demanding as you want to be.”

It’s a lesson Romagnoli learned decades ago, particularly at Wadleigh High School in Harlem. He taught English there starting in 1993, later served as dean of students, and, although he had no prior coaching experience, was appointed head coach of the school’s fledgling boys’ basketball team. In 1998, he led the team to an undefeated season, capped by a victory in the Public Schools Athletic League B Division championship game at Madison Square Garden.

“He became a coach by chance, but turned players into students by design,” the Daily News reported at the time, adding that Romagnoli “took on the kids as he took on their problems: truancy, drugs, death, violence, poverty, fatherlessness, the entire roster of urban ills that puts teenagers ‘at risk.’”

He’s still in touch with his former players, who now joke about how strict he was at the time. “I felt that to succeed they needed a certain amount of rigor and discipline that they really didn’t have,” he says. “But they saw that I was in the gym with them after school and that I lived in the neighborhood. That definitely makes a difference.”

‘When They Get to Class, They’re Motivated’

At Bedford Hills, Romagnoli is helping to turn inmates into students, although he insists that the women in the college program don’t need much coaxing.

“They just live for this,” he says. “They know it’s not something that’s guaranteed. Some of them have had to get their GED” before they could even apply to the college program. “When they get to class, they’re motivated, they’re good to go.”

Baumgartner notes that all of the students at Bedford Hills are required to work during the day—as porters or clerks or sweeping floors, for example. And they complete their coursework in the evening and early morning hours without the benefit of internet access.

Like Romagnoli, Baumgartner is a Fordham graduate. She earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English at the University. In 2001, she was a professor at Mercy College when she started teaching at Bedford Hills.

“I had never given any thought to prison education programs at the time,” she says, recalling that on her first day of class, “all the students were looking at me, sizing me up, and they asked, ‘Why are you here?’ ‘I was asked to teach, and so here I am.’”

Baumgartner, who has been the director of the college program since late 2002, says that her straightforward answer satisfied the students, who, she realized, didn’t want to “hear someone come in and talk to them about high-minded ideals.”

Still, she is quick to extol the benefits of prison education programs, citing data about lower recidivism rates and better employment opportunities for former inmates who have a college education.

“Whether you’re a prisoner or not, you have many more options in life if you have a college education. And if you are a prisoner and you have a felony conviction on your record, when you return to the outside, it’s very nice to have a college degree on your record too. You have a better chance of earning a decent living.

“And, practically speaking, keeping people in jail is extremely expensive,” she adds. “The college program is not as expensive as keeping people imprisoned.”

Baumgartner also speaks of individual and communal benefits of prison education that are less tangible, noting that students in the college program learn that “the world is wider.”

“They gain a deeper understanding of the forces that shape communities, that shape themselves, that shape their children,” she says. “They learn that they have the power to act in positive ways in their communities that perhaps they didn’t feel they had before.

“And then there’s that ripple effect: They’re concerned with their children going to college. Now it matters to them.”

Approximately 150 women are currently enrolled in the college program, which Baumgartner says constitutes about 25% of the standing inmate population at Bedford Hills.

Every spring, the program hosts a graduation ceremony. “It’s a big one for us this year,” she says, noting that six women will be getting a bachelor’s degree and 14 will receive an associate’s degree in June.

‘A Fairer, More Effective Criminal Justice System’

Inmates at Bedford Hills have benefited from college education programs for decades. “Mercy College had a college program there until the tough-on-crime bill was passed,” Baumgartner says, referring to the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which eliminated Pell Grants for inmates.

“Across the country, a lot of colleges, including Mercy, closed their prison programs in the mid-1990s because they just couldn’t afford it” without federal funding, Baumgartner says, noting that the total number of prison college programs in the U.S. dropped from about 300 to just a handful at that time.

At Bedford Hills, a coalition of community members—including Elaine Lord, the superintendent at the time; Regina Peruggi, then president of Marymount Manhattan College; and Judith Clark, an inmate at Bedford Hills—formed a committee that designed the Bedford Hills College Program. It opened in spring 1997, and since then, more than 200 women have earned college degrees there.

Today, the college program is funded by private donors and grants. And since 2016, Bedford Hills has received some additional support through the Department of Education’s Second Chance Pell Pilot program, which aims to “create a fairer, more effective criminal justice system, reduce recidivism, and combat the impact of mass incarceration on communities.”

In announcing the three-year experimental program, which is testing the effectiveness of making Pell Grants available to incarcerated people again, the Department of Education cited a 2013 Department of Justice-funded study by the RAND Corporation; it found that “incarcerated individuals who participated in correctional education were 43 percent less likely to return to prison within three years than prisoners who didn’t participate in any correctional education programs.”

Baumgartner credits the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) for supporting higher education programs in prisons, including the program at Bedford Hills. “These programs sometimes tax their resources,” she says, “but DOCCS understands the importance of higher education in reducing recidivism and enriching the lives of inmates while incarcerated and upon their release.”

Romagnoli says he talks with his Fordham students about his work at Bedford Hills, and about mass incarceration and criminal justice reform. “It resonates strongly with them,” he says. “And it’s something that’s really come into the public consciousness [in recent years]; the ball’s rolling a little quicker.”

‘Knowledge Is Power’

Back in the classroom at Bedford Hills, after the heavy but lively discussion about Ruined, Romagnoli gives the students a brief break. Some of them take the opportunity to reflect together, for the benefit of a guest, on the course.

They say they’ve learned that “knowledge is power,” that “perception plays a big role in how people judge people,” that the readings have helped them “gain different perspectives,” and yet the class “brings a unity, even if we agree to disagree.”

“You learn more about yourself through the process, about your ethical system, and you question the things you do,” says one student. “I am one class away from a B.A. When I leave, I will always question the morality of a situation.”

The images in this story are taken from a 2017 video produced by Marymount Manhattan College professor Erin Greenwell in honor of the Bedford Hills College Program’s 20th anniversary.

If it does succeed, one of the reasons will be teachers’ abilities to simultaneously teach students of different levels of academic proficiency in the same classroom. Akane Zusho, Ph.D., a professor of educational psychology in Fordham’s Graduate School of Education, and author of Differentiated Instruction Made Practical (Routledge, 2018), says when students are properly motivated, it can be done.

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Full transcript below:

Akane Zusho: Everyone wants the best for their kids and when they’re concerned that that might not actually be the case, then people react in different ways, and I think that leads to some of the problems that we see in New York City public schools right now.

Patrick Verel: In education, few topics are more fraught with tension than school integration. Recent studies have confirmed that when students who are struggling academically are taught alongside those that are thriving, both groups do better in the long run. There is still fierce resistance though, and in New York City, a new plan being promoted in District 15 in Brooklyn that does away with admissions screenings processes for middle schools is being closely watched by experts and parents alike. If it does succeed, one of the reasons will be teachers abilities to simultaneously teach students of different levels of academic proficiency in the same classroom.

Akane Zusho, a professor of educational psychology in Fordham’s Graduate School of Education says that when students are properly motivated, it can be done. I’m Patrick Verel and this is Fordham News.

How do we know all students do better when their schools are socially and economically integrated?

Akane Zusho: From the social sciences and psychology in particular, there is evidence to suggest that when students are integrated, that they do learn from each other. Particularly when it comes to racial integrations, there is research that suggests that it does reduce prejudice. And not only that, it actually improves engagement among students. There is a particular theory called inner group contact theory. If we’re always friends with a particular type of person and then all of a sudden you get a different kind of friends and let’s say you had some preconceived notions about what that friend might represent ahead of time, the more you get to know this new friend, you’re more likely to appreciate them and value them and then that reduces prejudice.

Patrick Verel: If the research backs it up, why is there such strong resistance to it?

Akane Zusho: From a parents’ perspective, I think there is often a concern that the quality of education may go down if the schools are integrated. Whether or not that’s true is a different story. But everyone wants the best for their kids and when they’re concerned that that might not actually be the case, then people react in different ways. And I think that leads to some of the problems that we see in New York City public schools right now.

Patrick Verel: What is differentiated instruction?

Akane Zusho: Differentiated instruction is basically this idea that you would adjust your instruction to meet the needs of the students in the class. And in a class of 30 and especially in New York City public schools, oftentimes we hear teachers complain that the students that are excelling are very different than the students that are really struggling in the class. And so this idea of differentiated instruction is how do you attend to everybody’s needs and stretch them too.

Patrick Verel: Is there a maximum number of students in a classroom that this technique can work for?

Akane Zusho: So to be honest, I don’t think it’s the number of students that is as critical. I mean, obviously, some of the strategies that we teach teachers require group work and there are some physical challenges sometimes when it comes to the setup of New York City classrooms that sometimes make it difficult. A lot of times I think it really depends on the teacher and the teachers’ comfort with using some of the strategies that we teach them.

So, for example, there’s a lot of group learning work and teachers vary in their comfort level with facilitating that kind of instructional strategy. There’s also I think it varies too on teachers content knowledge. We found that teachers sometimes … Well, we know that teachers vary in how much expertise they have in the content that they’re teaching and that impacts whether or not they can sort of see the big picture ideas that they want to get across to the students because that’s what you really need to differentiate on. In a racially integrated classroom, I think it also depends on teachers own self-awareness and their cultural knowledge of their students.

Patrick Verel: If the new plan in Brooklyn succeeds, teachers who are used to teaching only the “academically gifted students” will have to quickly learn how to teach those that are also struggling academically and visa verse. And I wonder, do you think they can benefit from Differentiated Instruction Made Practical, which you and your colleague Ronda Bondi published earlier this year?

Akane Zusho: Of course, I’m biased, but I definitely think that they could they could learn something. Because, like I said before, to differentiate instruction effectively, I think it’s not an easy task. A lot of what we’re really trying to promote is this idea of teachers finding time in their lesson to look and listen for diversity because I feel like teachers, if you’re a teacher and you’re lecturing all the time, what we find in that is that usually, there’s some students are going to get it and then there’s obviously a handful students that won’t get it. And unless you make the students thinking visible to them and to you, you won’t be able to sort of know that some of the kids are not getting it.

And then we also have a lot of, like I said previously, group learning routines because we feel like that allows teachers to listen to kids because they’ll be talking with each other. And then it becomes clear to the students and to the teacher if they are getting it. What our book is really focusing on is getting teachers to engage the extremes because if you engage the extremes, then most likely you’re engaging everybody.

For differentiation of instruction to work, you have to have a supportive learning environment, an environment where students perceive that they belong and that they are valued members of the classroom because a lot of what we ask teachers to do does require students to feel comfortable voicing their opinions especially when they’re struggling and not being embarrassed by that. And then most importantly, confidence is key to motivation. And in fact, I think it’s probably the most important aspect of feeling motivated. If you don’t feel like you are competent, the quality of your behavior usually suffers.

I teach statistics here at Fordham and I also face this all the time where some students get it and other students don’t. I often break up the class into groups at one point so that students who need more personalized attention can have me for five or 10 minutes so that they feel confident enough to go back to their groups and engage in there. But for that to work, they need to actually feel like they’re not embarrassed and that they can come to me.

Patrick Verel: So what advice would you give to people who want to see this new plan being put into action in Brooklyn actually succeed?

Akane Zusho: You need to shift the culture of the schools to one that is embracing of all students. And so what that might require is changing policies so that there’s not so much a focus on awards, let’s say and certain groups excelling. Because usually, when you do that, when you heighten awareness about one group excelling, you’re implicitly giving a message that the other kids can’t, or they’re not at that level. They could get rid of screeners but if they’re still tracking students into different like classes, that’s problematic.

Two, I think professional development is probably going to be key where teachers are going to need to become better versed in differentiated instruction or personalized instruction. I think the teachers need to … and the kids too, they need to see that they can learn from each other. It’s not going to be easy. The problem is that I don’t think there’s one specific thing that will ensure that this will be a success, but the fact that they’re willing to do this I think is a positive move in the right direction.

And, on top of it all, a sense of alienation.

These are just a handful of reasons why it’s difficult for colleges and universities to retain students of color in the STEM fields, says Jennie Park-Taylor, an associate professor in the Graduate School of Education.

Last year, Park-Taylor and her research team began conducting a pilot project on urban minority youth and young adults and their engagement in STEM education. They’re trying to pinpoint why so many underrepresented minority students drop out of STEM majors and identify possible points of intervention.

Researchers have already addressed the issue from a quantitative lens: dropout data, student enrollment numbers, retention rates. Nationwide, 71 percent of Latino students intending to earn a STEM degree fail to complete their program within six years, according to a study out of UCLA. For black students, the non-completion rate is even higher—78.2 percent. Another study in the journal Plos One says that women of any race are 1.5 times more likely to leave the STEM pipeline after taking Calculus I in college, compared to men.

But few researchers have ventured past the numbers. Park-Taylor and her team are doing something different—searching for the answers through the students’ personal narratives. They’re in the midst of interviewing middle school students, high school students, and college undergraduates in the Bronx about their personal experiences with STEM education. Their questions focus on three areas: STEM preparation; persistence—what keeps them going, what happens when they fail or succeed, who supports them; and the ways they gain access to STEM careers and opportunities.

“How prepared do they feel in math and science to go on to the next level? What kind of access do they have to the advanced science and math classes in their schools?” said Park-Taylor. “And once they’re there, how do they succeed? What makes it harder for them?”

They speak on a one-on-one basis in-person, via Skype, or by phone. Some interviews take as little as 25 minutes; others last for more than an hour and a half. So far, Park-Taylor’s team has spoken to more than 30 students. There are three young women who stand out in her memory.

The first is a woman of color attending a prestigious, predominantly white college in the Boston area. She had excelled in math and science until middle school, when she struggled with science and lost her confidence. She is now a political science major who wants to be a lawyer. Several of her friends, students of color who were in STEM majors (many of them women), recalled math and science professors who would tell their students on the first day of class, “Half of you won’t pass. Half of you are going to change your major. If you’re not serious about this class, I would leave right now.” Even after going to office hours for extra help, they were further discouraged. Professors would suggest that they change their major to, for example, English or African Studies. All of them, the student said, changed their majors by the time they were seniors.

Another interviewee was a straight-A student in her high school math and science classes. As a first-year college student engineering major in college, she took advanced calculus and chemistry. She started getting Cs.

Her professor, said Park-Taylor, told the student, “I’m not sure I want someone who’s getting a C to build my bridge in the future.” Many of her male classmates made study groups, but turned their backs toward her and the girl sitting next to her. At the beginning of her chemistry class, she said, there were other girls in the class. By the time the midterm rolled around, she was the only one left.

“Teachers that create unfriendly environments have an enormous negative impact on students,” said Park-Taylor. “And not just students’ motivation, but their sense of self-efficacy, belongingness, and eventually interest in a field that they may have been really passionate about.”

And the grading system in math and science classes doesn’t help either, she added. Many courses have two major exams: the midterm and final. On the other hand, English and literature classes have multiple papers.

“There are opportunities to improve your grade, little by little, versus these high-stakes exams that happen in the middle and the end,” said Park-Taylor. “It’s a make-or-break situation for students.”

But not all the stories were negative. Park-Taylor recalled a sixth-grade girl who felt motivated in math. She scored a “high 2” on her state exam—just short of a 3, the benchmark for achieving grade level. On the first day of school, the principal praised the students who scored 3 or higher. And he also included that sixth grader—in fact, all the students who scored a high 2.

“She did not have a 3 on her exam,” said Park-Taylor. “But she knew she could because the principal told her.”

So far, Park-Taylor’s team has found two key takeaways: The power of peer support, parents, mentors, and community-based activities on academic success should not be underestimated, and engaging teachers make a positive difference in their students’ lives (and the converse is also true).

This pilot study is currently funded by a $10,000 proof-of-concept grant from the office of Virginia Roach, Ed.D., the dean of the Graduate School of Education, but Park-Taylor also plans on applying for bigger grants to conduct research on a larger scale. For now, she’s planning on submitting some of her research for publication by this December. She hopes her team’s results will find their way into intervention practices, college student advising, and other student programs. And, perhaps most importantly, she hopes they fuel change.

“What if  [professors]  said, ‘My job is to make sure everyone in this class succeeds. I’m gonna do everything I can in my power to make sure you understand this material. I have GAs or TAs to support you. I’m gonna have office hours,” Park-Taylor said. “I want you to know you belong here. You may not feel like it because you don’t see a lot of people that look like you, but you belong here. I wonder what that would be like.”

In Now More Than Ever: Doubling Down on Prevention in Schools, a lecture sponsored by the Graduate School of Education, George Sugai, Ph.D., delved into Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) as a way to head off problematic behaviors.

Sugai, the Carole J. Neag Chair in Special Education at the University of Connecticut, said that the PBIS approach, which is currently used by 26,000 schools worldwide, would help educators avoid a wait-and-see approach exemplified by arming teachers and “hardening” schools.

“We just can’t continue to react to the problems we’re experiencing out there, be they tragedies, or ongoing bullying or violence issues. We need to think about a prevention-based perspective,” he said.

“The practices and strategies aren’t that difficult, in fact, they’re quite simple, but what I’d like to suggest is that the systems behind those practices is where we need to invest.”

Proactive, not Reactive

The need to be proactive has never been more pressing, he said. A survey conducted last year found that 95 percent of students between 12 and 18 years old perceived their schools to be safer than their homes or their neighborhoods; another survey showed that bullying decreased between 2007 and 2015. But Sugai said that after 2016, those latter numbers are going up again.

“So post-2016 is a big area for research,” he said.

If a school has issues with violence, it’s tempting to think that stationing armed guards or arming teachers will solve the problem, he said. But that’s an example of a coercive cycle, similar to when a toddler learns they can get their parent to buy them ice cream by simply screaming long enough.

“There is a functional equivalent to that in our schools, in how we respond to kids who escalate. [It’s] not a good strategy. A better strategy is preventing that from happening in the first place.”

The PBIS system, he said, is a framework which organizes interventions based on outcome, data, systems and practices.

“If you’re building a bridge, if you’re having an operation, if you’re flying an airplane, we want all four of those things to be very clear,” he said.

“Many schools pick practices because you can get them on a handheld, not because they promise a certain kind of outcome. They pick it because of the bells and whistles, not [for]the best interventions.”

Three Tiers for Safe Schools

An ideal intervention should have a three-tiered continuum; 1) focus on doing something for everybody, 2) do a little extra for some; and 3) focus the most intense services on the kids who need extra help.

“If a kid can’t read, what do we do? We give him extra support to get it right, and then we might give him something more intensive. Same thing is true on the behavior side. You can’t just keep swatting over and over again and sending them home. You have . . . move onto something else.”

In a good system, ones where 95 percent of kids feel it’s a safe place, tier one is the choice, he said.

In addition, four elements are critical to establishing a positive school environment:: A name, a context, examples, and feedback. One PBIS school, for instance, chose for the name “Respect Elders, Respect Self, Respect Property.” It chose as places the hallways, cafeterias, assemblies, and busses. Students and staff then generated examples of respect in those places.

“If you do PBIS framework well, you have a good likelihood of reducing bullying, increasing academic achievement, and improving school climate. There’s some good data suggesting is a worthwhile investment.”