Jose Luis Vilson is a teacher, scholar, and writer in New York City. In this new piece, he considers the implications of the “public” in public schools.
A few days ago, the New York State Education Department rebuked the Trump administration’s efforts to pull federal funding. Namely, the federal administration has ratcheted up efforts to scrub policies related to diversity, equity, and inclusion on multiple fronts. The strongly-worded rebuke was swift and refreshing for several reasons. It’s important to note that NYC has the most billionaires per capita in the world. New York State has the second-most billionaires in the country. In other words, New York can afford to fully fund our public schools. Secondly, New York citizens have had a decades-long battle about school funding. Despite whatever political alignments people think New York City has, the political will has never been right nor just.
But for a moment, can we imagine that some level of government believes in listening to the people it serves?
Contrary to the way history usually gets taught to us, governments rarely if ever simply came to their senses when it comes to our educational rights. In education history, locally or otherwise, marginalized people have always had to engage in a battle for educational rights. These identity-centered struggles have perpetually had implications for everyone, not just the group that fought for the hard-fought win. Social movements made it possible for co-ed K-12 classrooms, culturally responsive and inclusive curriculum, math and higher order content across schools, and (dis)ability services.
None of these happened just because time passed. If anything, people forced times to change incrementally. Plus, many of the people didn’t get to see the change they influenced.
How do we imagine the word “public” in public schools in New York City and elsewhere? For that matter, to borrow from bell hooks, how do we bring the margins to center? Over the last quarter century, we’ve seen the bipartisan effort to tighten control of schools via multiple accountability measures. In the 20 years I’ve been in education, I’ve seen teaching go from “testing is just one component of teaching” to “testing is teaching.” Efforts to narrow curriculum and pedagogy have had mixed results. Our schools has also come under conflict with the same president twice for serving undocumented children.
To his credit, Mayor de Blasio fought against that pressure. To his folly, Mayor Adams would rather fight against those willing to fight for public schools.
We’re seeing how New Yorkers don’t collectively share an authentic notion of “public.” For every parent who just wants a school that cares about their child’s academic and socio-emotional well-being, there are a small but powerful few who rather render the majority of voices invalid. For every educator who wants to teach children well in the contexts that they’re in, there are others who voted for the fascism we’re seeing now. While a good number of principals and superintendents want to support their schools well, another set prefer to preserve power and only seem to care about undocumented children when it comes to attendance and putting on a façade of equity.
At the heart of the “public” question is whether or not those in power want everyone else to get educated.