Lawsuit filed to block the re-location of West Side High School and the co-location of Brownsville Academy -

This lawsuit filed today is based on many of the same arguments as a previous lawsuit filed in March to block the co-locations of two charter schools in Brooklyn and Queens.  These proposals do not take into account the need to lower class size to the levels required by the new class size law; moreover the Educational Impact Statements do not  actually analyze the likely impact on the education of these students, many of them over-aged and under-credited if this re-location and co-location occur, especially those students with special needs.  The votes of the PEP to approve these changes also violated Open Meetings Law in several ways.  The press release and links to all the legal filings are below.

 

For immediate release: Thursday, June 22, 2023

 More information: Laura Barbieri, lbarbieri@advocatesny.com, 914-819-3387

Sarah Frank, sarfrank@gmail.com, 617-838-2032

 

Lawsuit filed to block the re-location of West Side High School

and the co-location of Brownsville Academy -

both transfer schools with vulnerable overage and undercredited students

 

Today, Thursday, June 22, 2023, a lawsuit was filed in the New York State Supreme Court on behalf of parents, students, and teachers to prevent the NYC Department of Education from forcing the Edward A. Reynolds West Side High School from moving across town to a smaller building and to block Brownsville Academy from having to share its building with another school,  Aspirations Diploma Plus High School.  

Both of these schools are transfer schools, designed to ensure that vulnerable, over-aged and under-credited students have the support they need to remain in school through graduation. Many of these students have already dropped out of school once or are at increased risk of dropping out in the future, so any negative change in their learning environment jeopardizes their life chances.

The lawsuit, filed by the pro bono law firm Advocates for Justice, focuses on the inadequacy of the Educational Impact Statements [EIS’s] that the NYC Department of Education is required to prepare in advance of the votes by the Panel for Education Policy to approve these changes in school utilization that occurred on April 19, 2023, and May 1, 2023.

Instead, both EIS’s for these proposed changes in school utilization explicitly assumed that current class sizes at both schools would continue indefinitely, even though half of the classes at Brownsville Academy and more than half of the classes at Edwards A. Reynolds West Side High School are larger than the cap of 25 students per class required by the new state class size law, to be phased in over five years.

In addition, students with disabilities in both schools will likely lose their dedicated rooms for mandated services in these new, far more limited spaces. Both schools have very high percentages of such students: 43% at Edward A. Reynolds West Side High school and 26% of the students at Brownsville Academy have disabilities.

The failure of the EIS’s to analyze the profound educational impacts of these changes is a clear violation of state education law, and in an innovative legal strategy, the lawsuit also argues that the deprivation of critical space from students  with disabilities would cause  a disparate impact on these vulnerable students, in violation of the New York City Human Rights Law. 

Most egregiously, perhaps, is how the students at Edward A. Reynolds West Side High School will be deprived of their on-site GED program, their full-size gym, the Ryan health care center, and the LYFE day-care center, designed to take care of the young children of these overaged students while they are attending school.  Yet the DOE fails to assess the likely negative educational impacts of these profound losses, or even acknowledge them in the EIS.

Also highly questionable is the way in which the DOE and certain members of the Panel for Educational Policy  ignored their obligations under the Open Meetings Law (OML). Specifically, the law requires that all voting by members of public bodies must be publicly performed. However, many of the Mayor-appointed PEP members failed to turn on their cameras during the meetings that approved these changes in school utilization, which should nullify their votes. In addition, the DOE failed to record the first several hours of the PEP meeting on May 1, which is  also an OML violation.   Together, these violations call into question whether these PEP proceedings or their votes were legally valid.

State Assemblywoman Latrice Walker said: ““I have long been concerned about the plan to re-site Aspirations Diploma Plus and co-locate it with Brownsville Academy High School. Though well-intentioned, the proposal would harm two communities. Aspirations is the only transfer school in Crown Heights, and I fear they will lose scholars who are not willing to travel to Brownsville. I also share the concerns of the staff at Brownsville Academy, who are worried about the potentially drastic reduction in the number of rooms. The co-location process would deprive the Brownsville Academy of the space currently being used for counseling, an internship program, and their very successful mentoring services. Brownsville Academy has served the community and its students well, consistently ranking in the top 10 in graduation rates, attendance, and career readiness for transfer schools in the city. The potential impact on the student-to-teacher ratio and the reduction of services would have an adverse impact on some of Brooklyn’s most vulnerable students.”

“I strongly support West Side High School staying where it is and appreciate the effort by Advocates for Justice to halt the move,” said Council Member Gale A. Brewer. “It is inequitable to take away from the student population the LYFE Center, the wellness and health center, the large gym and field, and the kitchen. If the TYWLS building is not adequate to meet the needs of its current student population, then it cannot be adequate for the students now at West Side High School.”

“The relocation of West Side High School and the co-location of Brownsville Academy presents a number of challenges to the families, students, and teachers in both schools.” Said New York City Council Deputy Speaker Diana Ayala. “Students within these schools have either dropped out once before or require special accommodations to ensure they receive a quality education. The Department’s relocation plan does not take those factors into consideration and their decision further jeopardizes the educational prospects of the students within these schools. I urge the Department to reconsider this decision and to work with both schools to find a compromise that focuses on the students rather than the ideal location.”

Added Ashley Norman, a plaintiff, a parent of a current student at West Side High School and herself a graduate of the school: “West Side has paved the way for so many students in its time. Myself and everyone I know felt as if dropping out would be the best option, until we went to this school. They do their best to meet you where you are and push you for greatness. This school is so important for young parents. You can receive your education, have your child cared for, and receive not only mental health care but your physical healthcare as well in the Ryan Center -things that being a young parent are hard to juggle. I decided to participate in this lawsuit because I also worry about the potential for gang violence on the East side that our kids might be exposed to. I believe this school NEEDS to stay here for the benefit and more importantly the safety of our community.”

Lucie Gaba, a plaintiff and parent at Brownsville Academy commented: “Before attending Brownsville, my son attended another high school where he struggled with attendance issues and with being on time. Since switching schools, his attendance has improved and the wonderful staff have inspired him to become an active member of the school community.  Brownsville Academy has helped my son improve his academics greatly. I am worried that the co-location will make it harder for him and his friends to get the dedicated help they have come to count on. English is his second language and he receives extra services for this reason. I am very concerned that if the co-location happens, the increased crowding will cause him to lose these services.”

Grisslet Rodriguez, plaintiff and parent of a current West Side High School student, said: “I’m participating in this lawsuit because it is the right thing to do for all of the students in West Side High School. I want to be a voice for my son and all the West Side students since their voices are not being heard. My concern is that if our students are moved to another location, the outcome is going to be devastating. It will have a negative impact on a minority group that already struggles. Students might drop out, have emotional damage, and more mental health challenges. My top concern is the lack of safety in the neighborhood that is on the East side and is dangerous. The new location across town will require many students, including my son, to take a bus and a train, which is a longer commute. Health-wise, there is no gym and no clinic, which is so important for the health, well-being, and growth of the students. The daycare center is crucial to keep the young mothers in school. I hope students can remain in West Side High School, where they feel safe. These students have been through a lot, and we are so proud of them and happy that they found a place where they feel they belong.”

Sarah Frank, teacher at West Side High School and a plaintiff, said: “We have been pushing back on this relocation from the moment it was announced because as a transfer school, we know our vulnerable students need access to smaller classes and additional services and support.  Our current building was specifically designed for West Side High School in the 1990s to have an on-site daycare and health clinic. Our Public School Athletic League teams play in our beautiful gym and the field adjacent to the school. The building we are being relocated to on the East Side has none of these resources, and traveling to other locations for daycare, healthcare, and athletics is a huge barrier for our students. While we have had enrollment struggles, our enrollment has grown tremendously in the last few months. The new space will not allow us to meaningfully lower class size and will not afford the space for small groups and other social-emotional supports we have always offered our students, particularly the nearly 50% of our special needs population with IEPs. Our students do not gain anything from this move, they only lose.”

Marissa Moore, a plaintiff, and parent at Brownsville Academy HS pointed out: “Brownsville Academy has provided my son with a rigorous academic experience along with rich social emotional support which is so needed coming out of the pandemic. Under the co-location proposal, I am concerned that BAHS will become overcrowded and offer fewer services just like the larger schools which failed to serve him previously.”

Concluded Hon. Carmen Quinones, President of the Frederick Douglass Houses Association where many of the students who attend West Side High School live, “This is not what Justice looks like: putting a target on our children's back and making them choose to drop out of school or die trying!”

Here are the Memo of Law ; Verified Petition, and affidavits from Lucie Idiamey-Gaba, Sarah Frank, Anneris Fernandez , Chance Santiago, Marissa-Moore, Grisslet Rodriguez, Ashley Norman, and Leonie Haimson.

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You're invited to our annual "Skinny" dinner, honoring Rep. Jamaal Bowman on Wednesday, June 28!

 Please attend our annual "Skinny" award dinner, this year honoring Rep. Jamaal Bowman, former Bronx principal and progressive trail blazer in Congress, representing New York's 16th District, which includes the Northern Bronx and parts of Westchester County, including Yonkers, New Rochelle, and Mount Vernon. Rep. Bowman is a huge friend to public schools, and the sponsor of the Green New Deal for Schools bill and the More Teaching, Less Testing bill.   Wine and a light dinner will be served.  

For more information and to purchase tickets, click here.

Our Parent Action Conference this Saturday, now remote!

Because of the poor air quality, we have decided to move our Annual Parent Conference online, scheduled for Saturday June 1. We're sorry that we can't meet you all in person for the first time since 2019, but it's not worth risking your health.

The new link to RSVP is here. The conference, co-sponsored with NYC Kids PAC, will now begin at 10 AM and because there is no lunch, it is free. If you signed up already, don't worry, we have your email address and will send you the zoom link and a refund. If you didn't yet sign up and want to attend, please do so now.

Again, the conference will feature workshops and breakout rooms on loads of important topics, which you can see at the link above, plus a lead-off session with CM Alexa Aviles talking about her concerns with the Mayor's education budget and what it's like to move from being a PTA president to City Council Member, and a concluding panel of state legislators on how to rein in charter school expansion and abuse.

Again, please sign up now to receive a zoom link tomorrow.

Please volunteer to provide comments at the upcoming hearings on DOE's nothing burger class size plan!

On Friday, DOE posted what is purported to be their draft five- year class size reduction plan, in accordance with the new state law.  As I was quoted in the Daily News, “It’s a big nothing burger.  There is no plan. They’re hoping just to coast on enrollment decline until it’s too late to do anything real.”

There is nothing in the plan about providing more space or staffing to lower class size, or capping enrollment at very overcrowded schools.  There is nothing about creating space by using more creative strategies, e.g. by possibly moving more PreK seats out of elementary schools to CBOs which have thousands of empty seats. There is nothing at all about how the benchmarks will be achieved in the out years, especially given how DOE intends to continue cutting school budgets and has proposed to slash the capital plan by $2.3 billion and 22,000 seats.  In fact, there is not a single mention in the proposed Feb. amendment to the capital plan, released six months after the Governor signed the class size bill into law, that even mentions the mandate to lower class size.

Class Size Matters is looking for volunteers to testify at the borough and Community Education Council hearings, scheduled for the month of June. The final adopted class size plan is supposed to be revised based on public input at these hearings, and then submitted to the state in compliance with the new state class size law. An FAQ on the law and what it requires is here. The DOE's draft "plan" is posted here.

We will provide talking points to volunteers along with district- and/or borough-specific data that they are free to draw upon for their comments.Hearings will be online via ZOOM at 6:00pm EST, with registration starting at 5 pm. The registration and Zoom links for these hearings will be posted on the DOE page here.

Please enter your information below.You can also subscribe to the Class Size Matters newsletter for updates here.  Thanks!

Success Academy files legal papers, asking to intervene in co-location lawsuit and complaining that DOE has not been sufficiently supportive of their expansion

On March 28, 2023, parents, teachers and the UFT filed a lawsuit against two planned co-locations of Success charter schools proposed for a middle school in Queens and a high school complex in Brooklyn.  The lawsuit pointed out that the Educational Impact Statements required by state education law were inadequate and erroneous, because they didn't take into account the need to lower class size according to the new state law. In fact, the EIS's explicitly relied upon an assumption that current class sizes at the existing schools would remain unchanged, forever.  More about the lawsuit including links to the papers, including my affidavit, is here.

Neither did the any of the Educational Impact Statements the DOE created in preparation for the public hearings and the PEP vote attempt to describe the actual educational impact on students of these co-locations, which in the case of the Queens middle school includes the loss of their science lab, and for both sets of schools, losing critical space for students with special needs to receive their mandated services.  The lawsuit was assigned to Judge Lyle Frank, who had earlier ruled for parents and against DOE in last summer's budget cuts lawsuit.  

On April 18, nearly three weeks later, Success Academy sued to intervene in the lawsuit.  Judge Frank ruled against them, and said they had nothing to offer in terms of information that was relevant to any of the arguments in the case, and their intervention would likely further delay the time-sensitive need to resolve the lawsuit.  

But then Success appealed his decision to the Appellate Court, which is now due to hear their argument in court.  Their  brief claims that DOE officials cannot be entrusted to represent their interests, as  they haven't sufficiently supported their efforts to continually expand charter schools, in their ever-growing empire.   Their full brief is here; an excerpt is below.  Here is the opposition Appellate brief to their intervention, filed by the plaintiffs' attorneys.

Respondents [the DOE]  have  authorized  the  co-location  of two Success Academy Schools in part because they have a legal obligation to do so.   See New York Education  Law  2853(e)(1).  However,  mere  compliance  with  the  law  by  providing Success Academy  with  a  co-location  does  not  necessarily  mean  that  Respondents  are  strongly incentivized  to  see  that  co-location  upheld.    To  the  contrary,  Respondents  have  been  quite ambivalent  about  charter  schools  in  general  and  co-locations  in  particular,  going  so  far  as  to criticize the Governor for proposing authorization for additional charter schools, and specifically pointing to the cost of co-locations on Respondents’ budget.

And then they link to this NY1 piece, which cites the OMB memo showing that adding 100 new NYC charter schools as Gov. Hochul proposed would cost the city about $1.3 billion, and that  Chancellor "Banks acknowledged the price tag, but otherwise tried to stay out of the fray."  

Of course, unmentioned here is how DOE has been avidly identifying parochial and public buildings for Success charters this year, including "finding an empty public school building in Queens for two, and a recently closed Catholic school in The Bronx for the other," according to the NY Post. 

Moreover, the DOE continues to lease entire buildings for Success at a projected cost of more than $9.5 million this year; having paid more than $60 million for these buildings since 2014.  If they'd only asked Success to lease the buildings themselves, DOE would have be able to receive 60% reimbursement from the state for these expenses.  (See DOE charter lease report here.)

In addition, rather than acquiring any of the buildings of other closing parochial schools or charter school buildings to make space for smaller classes for public school students, or to provide a new home for the Young Women's Leadership School so that the West Side HS students wouldn't be evicted from their own building, they told a PEP member that they needed to reserve those other empty spaces for new or expanding charter schools that may open in the future. 

But I guess this isn't enough for Success Academy and Eva Moskowitz, who expects the DOE to sacrifice the needs of their own students for the sake of the charter network's aggressively expansionist goals, now and forever.
 

Why is the Chancellor so unmoved by pleas to not force the students of Edward Reynolds HS out of their building?

A particularly destructive and unjustified proposal is on the PEP agenda for tomorrow night, Monday May 1: to evict the students at the transfer school  Edward A. Reynolds West Side High School from their home of many years to make way for the Young Women's Leadership School (TYWLS) of E. Harlem.  See the article about this heart-breaking proposal in the Daily News   

Instead, the students of West Side High school, many of them under-credited and overage and already at high risk of dropping out, will be displaced to be housed at the current building of TYWLS -- where they will lose their wrap-around services, their GED program, and LYFE center-- a day care center for their young children.  None of these programs or services are likely to be needed or utilized by the relatively-high achieving students at TYWLS .

What's especially striking is how the Educational Impact Statement required by state law fails to discuss any of the profound losses that will be suffered by West Side students if this move is approved by the PEP, in contravention to state law.  These glaring deficiencies are similar to those exhibited by the EIS's that purport to describe the effects of the co-locations of two Success charter schools, in Brooklyn and Queens, as pointed out by the lawsuit filed last month to block them.  In those cases, the EIS's omit any mention of how public school students in the existing schools will lose their science lab, their rooms for special education services, and space to lower class size to the levels set forth in the new state law, if these charter schools are allowed to move into their buildings.

Every elected official that represents the neighborhood in which the West Side transfer school is located from the Manhattan Borough President on down has urged the Chancellor not go forward with this proposal. Here is the letter written by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams to the Chancellor. An especially impassioned champion of the school has been Council Member Gale Brewer, who pleaded to Chancellor Banks that the building "needs to be filled with students who need the resources it offers.” And yet none of their entreaties  seem to have moved the determination of the Chancellor or the Mayor to go forward with this proposal.  One wonders why.

Some clues may be found in the fact that TYWLS is a chain of single-sex girl schools for grades 6-12, founded by Ann Tisch, a member of one of the wealthiest and most powerful families in NYC.   Ann's sister-in-law, Merryl Tisch is the former Board of Regents chancellor and now the SUNY board chair; her niece is Jessica Tisch, the current Sanitation Commissioner.  Andrew Tisch, her husband, is a billionaire and the co-chair of Loews Corporation.  Together with his brother, James S. Tisch, and cousin, Jonathan Tisch, he  runs a holding company involved in hotels, oil, and insurance companies. From 1990 to 1995, he was CEO of Lorillard Tobacco Company, and in that capacity testified before Congress that "nicotine is not addictive," and that he didn't believe that smoking causes cancer.  He currently heads the board of the secretive and controversial Police Foundation, which has been called the "Piggybank of the NYPD."

Ann Tisch and her wealthy friends have given millions to the Student Leadership Network, the non-profit that subsidizes her chain of schools, to hire college counselors, trips, and other opportunities for their students. The network recently received $7 million from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott. An investigation by Liz Rosenberg at NYC News service found that from 2006 to 2018, the Tisch Foundation gave nearly $50,000 to the Eagle Academy Foundation,  which supports the single-sex chain of schools for boys started by Chancellor Banks.  

Moreover, this year, the Student Leadership Network paid $12,000 to one of the top lobbyists in the city, Kasirer LLC to lobby Banks and other city officials. Further digging by Daniel Alicea under his twitter handle Educators of NYC  reveals that they have spent over $120,000 on lobbying since 2021.  A look at NYC lobbying reports shows the Network has paid Kasirer $194,000  for lobbying since 2020.  As a result, they have received $250,000 in NYC Council discretionary funding every year since at least 2016.  (I couldn't find any discretionary funding for West Side High School.)

As Diane Ravitch points out, the Network could easily use some of the $7 million given them by Mackensie Scott to obtain a new home for TYWLS, rather than force the West Side students out of their home.  Yet according to a reliable source, when alternative sites were recently proposed to the Chancellor for TYWLS, including the buildings of a nearby charter school that is closing and/or several closing parochial schools, he rejected these options to say that these buildings may be needed to house some of the 14 zombie charter schools that Governor Hochul has now insisted be authorized as part of the state budget, whose rent will be paid for at public expense.

So this is the Darwinian universe that NYC students are subjected to. Schools with wealthy backers, whether charter or public,  can afford to spend thousands of dollars to extract more in government funding, further widening the opportunities and resources offered their students.

Be sure to listen to tonight's Talk out of School show with Daniel Alicea on WBAI.org at 7 PM EST, which will feature the voices of West Side High School community, fighting to retain their home.   Tomorrow's PEP meeting at which their fate will be determined starts at 6 PM.  If you want to speak at the meeting, you should sign up starting at 5:30 PM at https://www.learndoe.org/pep/may01/.

 

Tell DOE & PEP NO! on cutting 22,000 funded school seats out of the capital plan

 

Updated 4.18.23

The Panel for Educational Policy will be voting this Wed. night, April 18 on the February proposed amendment to the capital plan which would cut more than $2.2 billion from the plan, completely eliminating more than 11,000 new school seats and moving another 11,000 seats into the category of “funded for design only,” compared to the plan adopted in June 2021.  That’s a cut of 38% in the number of new seats.

These radical cuts make no sense, especially given the fact that more than 300,000 students are enrolled in overcrowded schools, and the new class size law that comes into effect next fall will require more space not less to lower class size.  Instead, the capital plan should be expanded rather than contracted. Amazingly, the capital plan in more than 800 pages never mentions the new state class size law once.

See how many seats are being cut out of your district in the chart here  and below. If your district isn’t mentioned, that means NO NEW seats are planned for your district.

Send a letter today to urge the PEP to vote NO on these massive cuts to the capital plan; deadline to send your letter to be incorporated into the public comment summary is  6:00 p.m. on April 18, 2023.  We suggest you copy the members of the PEP below.  Suggested language is also below; but please change the title and add as much info as you can about the overcrowding in your child’s school or class.

Please also consider speaking at tomorrow’s PEP meeting about the need to expand rather than cut the capital plan; you can mention the crowded conditions at your child’s school and whether they have the space to lower class size. You can sign up to speak starting tomorrow Wed. at 5:30 PM at https://www.learndoe.org/pep/apr19.  

To capitalplan@schools.nyc.gov;

CC: ABogad@schools.nyc.gov; aong3@schools.nyc.gov;  gward7@schools.nyc.gov ; gregfaulkner1@gmail.com; agreen419@gmail.com ; GChacon@schools.nyc.gov; ksalasramirez@schools.nyc.gov;  msapp@schools.nyc.gov; MKenley@schools.nyc.gov; MDienstag@schools.nyc.gov; naveed@cs.columbia.edu; PSadearnold@schools.nyc.gov; sgibson11@schools.nyc.gov; tazad4@schools.nyc.gov; TSheppard5@schools.nyc.gov; jlee235@schools.nyc.gov;michellewjoseph1@gmail.com; Lilly.chan@revlon.com; Khari.edwards@gmail.com; Effiz4@yahoo.com; Anthony_giordano@yahoo.com; avazgarcia@gmail.com; cabrera.chantel@gmail.com

The Feb. 2023 amendment to the capital plan proposes to cut more than $2.2 billion and 22,000 funded school seats from compared to the plan adopted in June 2021.  This is completely unacceptable, and I urge you to vote no.  If adopted, this will make the challenge of complying with the new state class size law difficult if not impossible to achieve.  There is no mention of the new class size law in the capital plan, an omission which in itself is unacceptable.

The new state law requires NYC to begin reducing class size next fall, and within five years, all classes throughout the city are supposed to adhere to much smaller limits.   More than 300,000 students are currently crammed into overcrowded schools, so if NYC students are to be provided with their right to smaller classes within the time frame established by the law, the capital plan should instead be immediately expanded and accelerated.  It takes about five years to site and build a school in NYC, so there is no time to waste.

Yours sincerely, —-name, address, parent/teacher at what school

State & city budget update, and how you can help prevent further cuts to our schools

April 12, 2023

Dear all:

The state budget is now nearly two weeks overdue, with negotiations showing little evident progress so far. As a result, Gov. Hochul’s controversial proposal to raise the NYC charter cap is still up in the air, that the city says would cost another $1.3 billion, over and above $3 billion that charters already subtract from the DOE budget each year.

Charter co-locations also take up increasing space in our public schools, space that is desperately needed to lower class size, as pointed out by a new lawsuit filed on March 28 to block charter co-locations in Brooklyn and Queens. My affidavit in that case, as well as other legal papers are here. A court hearing is scheduled on May 12 before Judge Lyle Frank, who previously ruled for parents and against the DOE by ordering that that this year’s budget cuts to schools be restored, before the Appellate Court reversed his ruling in November.

Speaking of budget cuts, last week the Mayor announced his intention to cut the DOE’s budget by another 3% next year, amounting to more than $400 million . This is in addition to school budget cuts that DOE officials admitted they had already planned during Council hearings last month. Yet the City is expected to have a surplus of more than two billion dollars, and our schools are due to receive an additional $568 million in state Foundation Aid next year. The City Council released a preliminary budget response that allocates more funding for some important school-based programs such as arts and mental health services, but does not clearly oppose any more cuts to schools.

We have drafted a resolution against any further cuts to school budgets and the capital plan, and that urges the Council to restore the cuts already made; please consider forwarding it to your CEC, Presidents Council or other organization to consider.

We are also scheduling briefings for NYC Council Members on these issues and are looking for parents and other constituents who’d be willing to join us. If you’re able and interested, please sign up on this google doc today.

Thanks Leonie

PS The Gates Foundation recently revealed a grant of $6 million to the Fund for Public Schools, NYU, and Amplify, a for-profit ed tech company, “to develop R&D tools and related instructional strategies” in NYC schools.

According to the DOE website, there are 15 Amplify programs that students already use in our schools; and yet they have failed to disclose what personal data these programs collect, how the data is used or how it is protected, as required by law. More on this here, including a sample letter you can send DOE to demand this information for your child.

New $6M Gates grant to Amplify, DOE and NYU MetroCenter; time to ask what personal data Amplify holds for your child!

Last month, the Gates Foundation awarded a $6 million grant to the DOE’s Fund for Public Schools, Amplify, and the NYU MetroCenter “to develop R&D tools and related instructional strategies.”

I wonder why Amplify is involved; are they supposed help develop these R&D tools? And how much money are each of these organizations receiving? The grant notice does not say.

It is amazing how many different Amplify products are being used in NYC schools that collect and use personal student data – with little information made available at about which student personally identifiable information (PII) is being collected, how that data is being shared and how it will be protected.  

New York Ed Law 2-D and its authorizing regulations require rigorous transparency and disclosure to parents about the protection and use of their children’s personal data, through a Parent Bills of Rights for each vendor agreement; and each of these PBORs are mandated to be posted on the district’s website.

There is no mention of either Amplify or NYU MetroCenter on the page disclosing agreements with researchers that have access to personal data. On the vendor page, the requisite Amplify Parent Bill of Rights agreement says this about which types of personally identifiable information (PII) the company  is provided access to "Type of PII that the Entity will  receive/access: Student PII."   

Which says nothing.

As to which of Amplify’s products and programs access student PII, it says the following: “Amplify Education Inc. (“Amplify”) provides core curriculum and supplemental programs and services in ELA, math, and science, and formative assessment products in early reading and math….”

The page goes on to list at least 15 different Amplify products in every subject but social studies.  

One of them is described this way: Amplify Math for grades 6–8 and Algebra 1 is a 100% blended core program based on Illustrative Mathematics IM K–12 Math. Chalkbeat recently reported that DOE intends to roll out a "standardized algebra curriculum from Illustrative Mathematics in at least 150 high schools" next year.

Instead of describing how the data will be secured, instead the webpage says the following: 

Describe the administrative technical and/or physical safeguards to ensure PII will be protected and how the Entity will mitigate data privacy and security risks.  [DOE comment: In its agreement, Amplify outlines in detail how it meets the COSO principles. Please contact studentprivacy@schools.nyc.gov if you would like a copy of this information.]

FYI, COSO stands for “Committee of Sponsoring Organizations” which is not fully congruent, as far as I understand it, with the process and procedures required by the law.

I urge parents to ask DOE exactly how Amplify is protecting your child's data, as well as what data elements they currently hold for your child, which is also your right under the law, as the webpage says:

“In accordance with N.Y. Education Law 2-d, parents, students, eligible students, teachers, or principals may seek copies of their PII, or seek to challenge the accuracy of PII in the custody or control of the Entity. Typically, they can do so by contacting the NYC DOE using the email address or mailing address below.”  [studentprivacy@schools.nyc.gov]

We drafted a sample email you can send to DOE, which is below. According to Ed Law 2-D, parents have  the right to receive this information within a “reasonable period, but not more than 45 calendar days.”  So please keep track.

Once you receive the data from DOE and/or Amplify,  you also have the right to challenge it if you think its inaccurate. In any event, you should also ask that all the data that Amplify holds for your child be deleted at the end of the school year.  The posted Amplify Parent Bill of Rights says that the data will be deleted under the following conditions:

• whenever requested by the DOE
• whenever the entity no longer needs the PII to provide services to the DOE
• whenever a DOE school or office ceases use of a product or service of the entity, for the PII that pertains to that school or office
• no later than upon termination of this Agreement

The agreement, however, doesn’t say when it terminates, contrary to the law and the regs which require that  “the contract’s expiration date” be disclosed. 

The Amplify PBOR adds the following:  “to the extent practicable, it will not retain PII for more than one school year after the school year in which the data was received” without explaining what would make deletion practicable or not.

A little history regarding Gates Foundation’s decade-long involvement with Amplify, for those who may be interested:

Founded as Wireless Generation, Amplify was acquired by Rupert Murdoch for News Corporation for $360 million in cash in 2010.  At  the same time, he appointed former DOE Chancellor Joel Klein as  its CEO.  Murdoch invested $1 billion in the company, and in 2011, it was revealed that Wireless/Amplify was supposed to build the NY State student data system through a $27 million no-bid contract awarded by then- NYSED Commissioner John King. As part of its supposed qualifications to create this system,  NYSED wrote the NY State Comptroller that Wireless had created the $80 million NYC student data system called ARIS, which is rather funny because by that point, ARIS was widely acknowledged to have been an useless if expensive boondoggle.

When advocates like CSM, along with NYSUT and many others,  protested this agreement because of privacy concerns, amplified by reports of News Corp involvement in the UK phone hacking scandal, NYS Comptroller DiNapoli announced he was cancelling the contract on August 27, 2011.

A few weeks earlier,  Vicki Phillips, then director of education for the Gates Foundation, had announced on the Gates website the creation of an "amazing" new software program that resembled a "huge app store … with the Netflix and Facebook capabilities we love the most."  She revealed that Wireless Generation was the vendor chosen for this Gates project, which at the time was called the Shared Learning Collaborative.  She wrote that Wireless  would “build the open software that will allow states to access a shared, performance-driven marketplace of free and premium tools and content.”

Shortly after this, I wrote the first blog post criticizing this venture, pointing out the controversy then raging concerning the proposed Wireless contract  to build NY student data system.

In the months that followed, the Gates Foundation invested $100 million in the massive data project, called the Shared Learning Collaborative (SLC), and boasted that nine states and districts had agreed to share their personal student data with them, including NY State and NYC, with more to come.  

 In February 2013, the SLC was spun off into a separate corporation called InBloom Inc., with Amplify as its prime contractor, which would collect, sort and systematize a massive amount of personally identifiable student data, so that inBloom could deliver it in an easily digestible form to companies, to help them build their tools  around the data and accelerate the expansion and development of the ed tech market.  

Yet within a year, nearly every state and district that had planned to share data with Gates and inBloom had pulled out, after parents rebelled against the whole notion of a private company holding so much of their children's personal data.  Their anger was especially provoked by the provision in the Gates-drafted agreements that neither the Gates Foundation nor inBloom would have any legal responsibility if the data was breached either in storage or transmission. 

 NY State was the last state to pull out of inBloom, and it took an act of the State Legislature to do so, which finally happened as part of the state budget agreement in March 2014.  At the same time,  the Legislature passed the comprehensive student privacy bill, Education Law 2-d.  As NY State was its last customer, inBloom shut its doors in April 2014. A more detailed timeline of these events is here.

As to Amplify, the company kept losing money. In 2013, I had an amusing interchange with Murdoch on Twitter when it was reported that the company had already lost $80 million.  I pointed this fact out to him and said it was certain to lose more, to which he responded, saying  “@amplify not losing money. Not even in business yet.”   

Yet in 2015, it was revealed that Amplify lost an additional $371M.  That year, Murdoch sold it at a huge loss to a “team of 11 Amplify executives” that included Joel Klein.  This group later sold the business to Laurene Powell Jobs at an undisclosed price, though “the company’s top management...picked up a minority position in the Brooklyn-based company as part of the deal.” So, it’s possible that Klein still owns a piece of the business.

How much Amplify was counting on inBloom to keep it solvent one can only guess, but it suffered other disasters over this period as well. With great fanfare, the company produced an educational tablet to be used in schools, preloaded with various curriculum and programs that were supposed to revolutionize education.  Instead, the tablets’ screens easily cracked and their chargers overheated and melted.

Here is a sample letter to you can send to DOE, asking what data Amplify holds for your child, and how it is being protected.  Please let me know if you do, and if you get a response by emailing me at info@studentprivacymatters.org thanks!  Leonie .

________________________

To: studentprivacy@schools.nyc.gov

To whom it may concern,

My name is [name], and I am the parent of [name] who attends [x grade] in [what school], at this address [address].

As stated on the DOE webpage concerning the agreement with Amplify, and in accordance with Ed Law 2-D, I am requesting information on which “administrative, technical and/or physical safeguards to ensure PII will be protected” are being employed by the company for each of its products, and how Amplify will “mitigate data privacy and security risks.”

I also demand that you provide me with copies of all of the personal information that Amplify holds for my child through the use of any of its products, as is also my right under Ed Law 2-D and its regulations. According to §121.12 (e),  “Educational agencies shall comply with a request for access to records within a reasonable period, but not more than 45 calendar days after receipt of a request.”

Thank you,

Your name, address, phone no., and email.