Report on Civil Society and School Accountability: A Human Rights Approach to Parent and Community Participation in New York Cit

Produced by Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR) in collaboration with the New York University Institute for Education and Social Policy's Community Involvement Program (CIP), this 48-page report offers a civil-society perspective on developing a rights-based governance structure for schools in New York City (NYC), New York, USA.

In the report's Foreword, Katarina Tomasevski, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, writes that "This publication simply and clearly diagnoses the many wrongs in education, ranging from the well-known racial profile of the denial of the right to education, to the absence of any help for immigrant parents in understanding how the system works, to the widespread incomprehension of the jargon used by education bureaucracy, or to the simple fact that most teachers do not have telephones." Such problems might explain figures cited in this report: In 2001, 70% of NYC public school eighth graders tested below grade level, and 20% of high school students dropped out of school before graduation. "While many factors contribute to the poor quality of education, parents and advocates universally report that one of the primary obstacles to guaranteeing the right to education is a widespread lack of accountability by school officials.

Participation on the part of parents and communities is the key strategy explored in this report for addressing that lack of accountability. While parents, young people, and community groups are the civil society actors most intimately tied to the students and communities that NYC schools are working to serve - and, further, key potential advocates for children's right to a quality education - low-income families are often barred from full participation. Drawing on a series of interviews with parents, community organisers, and education advocates, the paper identifies and critiques the obstacles to participation that exist in the current school system, including long work hours, limited English, single parenthood, and inadequate public transportation. "Schools and administrators rarely seem to consider involving parents and the broader community as a central obligation of their work, and often take an adversarial stance toward parents. Consequently...low-income parents are routinely dismissed, mistreated, and excluded."

Communication is key to ensuring more effective participation, according to this report. Among the particular strategies that author Elizabeth Sullivan proposes:

Put structures in place to engage parents and community-based organisations (CBOs) in the full range of educational decision-making:

• Define clear roles for "participation structures" - such as school leadership team (SLT) meetings and public fora - that enable civil society to have a meaningful impact on education (e.g., by granting approval or veto over key decisions and the authority to select and evaluate administrators)
• Ensure that parents and community groups who serve on governance bodies are sufficiently represented
• Provide adequate resources to ensure that participation structures are able to carry out their functions
• Guarantee equal access and adequate representation of all constituencies - particularly the poor, immigrants, and minorities - in procedures for electing or selecting representatives to participation structures.

Create an environment that fosters and respects participation and guarantees access across communities and sectors:

• Create system-wide standards for a welcoming environment, and evaluate administrators based on the degree to which they meet and support these standards
• Ensure that meetings and public fora provide language interpretation, are publicised adequately in advance, and are held at accessible locations and times
• Require that school employees develop new communication channels and work with community groups and other local institutions to reach and involve more parents
• Ensure that superintendents and their staff, as well as parent support centres, are accessible to the parents and community groups they are meant to serve.

Ensure greater transparency and access to information (e.g., data on school and student performance, and curricula): Present information openly, in formats that are easy to understand and in the primary languages spoken by the community, working with CBOs and other civic actors to develop more effective, timely dissemination strategies.

Strengthen the capacity of parents and communities for informed and effective participation: Identify priorities for training, make training sessions accessible to civil society, and ensure that those who conduct trainings are knowledgeable, qualified, and skilled in communicating effectively with parents and communities.

One specific proposal explored here is that an independent Ombudsperson for the Right to Education be set up to facilitate and support effective participation in education governance and create greater transparency of and access to information. This office would monitor and investigate violations of the right to education; issue public findings and recommendations documenting these violations; serve as an advocate for civil society; and work to support victims of violations. Further, "the office should also work closely with parents and community organizations to organize dialogues about schooling effectiveness and bring undetected violations to light, and to facilitate the exchange of information among groups or institutions undertaking their own monitoring of the right to education."

In conclusion, CESR and the CIP note, "It is our intent that this paper will trigger a broader discussion of how these recommendations might be concretely implemented in relation to specific reform efforts."