Suffolk NYCLU > News/Press > December 18, 2003, Committee on Education > Testimony

Testimony of Jared Feuer to the Assembly Standing Committee on Education
Friday, December 18, 2003 – Suffolk County Legislature Auditorium, Hauppauge, NY

My name is Jared Feuer. I am the Executive Director of the New York Civil Liberties Union’s Suffolk Chapter, which covers the 1,450,000 individuals living in Suffolk County. The NYCLU has long been committed to enabling all students, regardless of background, to have access to an education that not only prepares them for the diverse opportunities of our great American economy, but just as importantly, enriches them with the wealth of knowledge that can and must be provided in our schools. To deny this education is counter to our State Constitution, and as access is apportioned along racial, regional and economic lines, it is discrimination in practice.

It is the position of the NYCLU that the need of our districts could not be met by a simple increase of funding, or by providing solutions designed to address the New York City District, or by a one-size-fits-all solution. I wish for my testimony to build on the groundwork of this premise.

The essence of the NYCLU’s assertion, as set forth in its lawsuit in the Appellate Division, Third Dept (NYCLU v. State of New York) is two-fold. Number one: New York City is not the only locale where schools are failing our students. And number two: the solution is to meet the particular needs of our diverse schools. In my testimony, I will provide an overview of this framework through a discussion of three schools. But I will also speak of what an education should be and can be by telling of my own education in a successful New York state public school, and I will offer why such an education is often denied due to base discrimination.

When the NYCLU looked beyond the New York City district, it found that school failure is not an inherent problem of urbanism and that general reputations conceal fundamental inconsistencies. Suffolk is a perfect example of these two findings. The reputation of our county is of a white bedroom community where city-workers raise children in excellent districts. In reality, Suffolk is a diverse county, with a population that is quickly becoming more diverse. 11% of our population is of Latino background and 7% African American. Some of our communities skew wealthy, others are quite poor. The density of our towns varies widely, but what is essential to understand, and what the State Assembly must come to truly accept, is that failing schools exist throughout our state, and in places not expected.

In the course of preparing our lawsuit, the NYCLU became familiar with the conditions and challenges facing teachers, administrators, students, and parents in 27 schools in 13 school districts outside of New York City. These 27 schools are emblems of hundreds of failing schools, and we believe that a study of these particular schools and their according remedies will reveal the need for a state-wide remedy where each school is to be provided with a solution tailored to its own needs.

Four of the 27 schools that the NYCLU examined in detail are in Long Island, and I am going to discuss three of them today -- two in Suffolk and one in Nassau County. The first is Milton L. Olive School, which enrolls fifth-through-eighth graders in Wyandanch, a city in the southwestern region of Suffolk. As a quick snapshot of its academic difficulties, we can look at the May 2000 grade eight English language arts examination in which 82% of test-takers failed to meet the standards. Of this 82%, 29% were identified as “having serious academic deficiencies,” while 53% were in need of “extra help to meet the standards.” But the resources to help Milton Olive students are severely limited, most notably, the faculty. In the 1999-2000 school year, over half of Milton Olive teachers were untenured, one out of five were new hires at the start of the year, and six were added subsequently. Absenteeism is also quite high, as, for example, during one day in December 2000, eleven absent teachers were replaced by a total of three substitutes. To cover the ground of the eight missing teachers, the principal and other administrators had to act as substitute teachers. We believe that when New York State takes a look at this school and the students in dire need of “extra help,” it will find that a significant remedy for this school is to provide the students what they need to learn: consistent access to a stable roster of teachers.

The high school for Wyandanch was placed on the Schools Under Registration Review (SURR) list in December 2000, when it was a grade eight through grade twelve school. Case in point: the June 1999 mathematics examination was failed by 99% of eighth graders. Just one student met the standards. When we looked at Wyandanch Memorial High School, its facilities stood out as in dire need of attention. It was originally built in 1932 and we found its furniture and fixtures to be particularly antiquated. Its science labs needed new sinks, storage facilities and equipment, its computers and software are not nearly adequate, and the school lacks a computer technician to maintain what it does have. We believe that when New York State takes a look at Wyandanch Memorial, it will find a significant need to provide modern tools of learning that can enable students to become familiar with the new technology and science that is the backbone of our economy.

Marguerite Golden Rhodes Elementary is a first-through fifth grade school in the village of Hempstead, which is located in Nassau. The physical plant of Marguerite Golden Rhodes is in particularly poor condition. Originally constructed in 1911, the school has long since outgrown its space. It now has ten long wooden trailers, and students must put on their coats and go outside to travel between the trailers and the main building. Many of the portables are heated unevenly, with one side stifling and the other extremely cold. The main school has exposed searing hot pipes and radiators, its bathrooms are dilapidated, with one urinal literally falling apart and the nearby sink rotting. Moreover, there is only one boys’ and one girls’ bathroom in the entire building. Space is severely limited in Marguerite Golden Rhodes, the band room can only fit six chairs and four music stands; there is no adequate art room and no music room. Both the last music teacher and the last instrumental teacher quit and moved to nearby districts where there are classes for music instruction. A number of classrooms have been split in half, which results in severe overcrowding, and finally, one room serves as gym, auditorium, and cafeteria. The elementary school has one small piece of playground equipment. When New York State takes a close look at Hempstead, we believe it will find the physical plant to be high on the list of necessary remedies.

While this information comes from our complaint in 2001, we do not believe that the performance or conditions has changed since that time. And further, we know that the appalling conditions that we are describing have existed for many, many years, with the state fully aware. In fact, since 1969, thirty-five years ago, the state has known about the conditions in Wyandanch (and Roosevelt in Nassau County). At this point, we’re dealing with generations of neglect by the State.

Although many of the districts might differ in their pressing need, we found that all shared the same basic conditions – they are overcrowded, lack teacher and administrator stability, parental involvement, and have poor physical plants and a lack of modern supplies. The question is how to address these problems, and in what ways. Just a cursory glance at three failing schools shows that these problems present themselves in different degrees and in different ways. Fiscal resources are a significant need, as the failing schools that we examined were severely under-funded. A recent national study by Education Week ranked New York State #1 in the nation in the quality of its standards, but #48 in the equity of its school finance system. Clearly, there is a breakdown in commitment between those dictating the standards and those providing the funding. But we do not want New York to only provide increased fiscal resources for its troubled schools. Moreover, many communities can not tax themselves into adequate funding. Hempstead taxes itself at twice the rate of the more prosperous area of Great Neck, and yet due to its lower tax base, it yields half the revenue. New York must dedicate itself to examining how to devote custom-built resources for each school, and create regular programs for follow-up. We believe that New York State will need to develop teacher training programs, provide continuing education opportunities for faculty, create programs for increased parental involvement, and target where fiscal resources can best be used.

I’d like to take a moment to offer a reflection on my own education. I attended public school in the northern part of Westchester, and I never remember shivering or being too hot in class. The teachers that I had were the teachers that my siblings had years later. I remember my elementary library as particularly large, with three separate sections and a comfortable reading area. While Milton Olive still does not have computers with Internet Access or even CD-ROMs, I remember being introduced to school computers in 1983, provided with access to school CD-ROMs by 1989, and Internet access by 1990. In fact, now that I think back on it, I was raised during the launch of the personal computer, and my school always made sure that its students were right on the cusp of this new technology. When the opportunity to make economic use of computers came about, my classmates were poised to take advantage. We can not say the same about students in Wyandanch and Milton Olive. And one basic reason is that my students came from families that were prosperous and white.

For a final shared condition that we found in failing schools is that they are minority-majority districts, and poor. In Marguerite Rhodes in the 98-99 school year, 46.7% of students were African American and 51% were of Latino origin. .4% were white. Almost 100% of the families of Marguerite Rhodes students are on public assistance. At Milton L. Olive, 90% received a free or reduced-price lunch. 89.5% were African American and 9.5% were of Latino origin. Once again, white students were missing – only 1% were white. This pattern continues at Wyandanch Memorial, where 91.3% were African American, 7.9% of Latino origin and .8% were white. Almost 70% of the families of Wyandanch Memorial students receive public assistance. The reality is that when you look at neglected schools that lack even the basic necessities to educate their students, you find that they are populated by minorities and by the poor. New York State’s education system, from rural to suburban and urban, from Buffalo to Albany to Suffolk, discriminates based on the background to which our children are born. That is a fact that the Assembly must accept.

Why does the Assembly have such a responsibility? In part, because the decision in CFE v New York State in 1995 declared that the New York State Constitution requires a sound basic education, and in 2003, the Court of Appeals in CFE II ruled that such an education is “a meaningful high school education,” that provides students with the skill to function capably as civic participants, to be prepared for employment in the 21st century. But this is not just a Constitutional issue, an economic issue, or even a discrimination issue. We are discussing a moral issue today. Education is the basis for how we perceive the world, how we use existing knowledge to process new information, how we decipher problems and devise solutions. And this quest to develop an appropriate New York State educational system is such a challenge. The Suffolk NYCLU strongly encourages the Standing Committee to approach this problem methodically and with flexibility. And to recommend to the State Assembly a process for the State to provide state education officials who will meet with local school officials and parents and community representatives, as well as education experts, and to develop, collectively, a remedial plan tailored to each of these failing schools that the State will then be required to fund and to implement. When this problem is addressed across New York, we will have a public school system that meets the requirements of Article XI, Section 1 of our State Constitution, and one in which we can be proud.

It is my hope that I have proven that failure exists not just in New York City, but across our state in similar and divergent ways, and why the Assembly must act. The Suffolk NYCLU thanks you for your time, and we offer any assistance that the Committee might find helpful.