NYC parents tell the Mayor to stop stalling and stop giving charter schools access to student information
Video and press release below about our press conference this afternoon. Sorry for the low quality- it was broadcast on twitter live.
For immediate release: April 15, 2019
For more information contact: NeQuan McLean, 347-470-4975, educationcouncils@gmail.com
NYC parents tell the Mayor to stop stalling and stop giving charter schools access to student information to market their schools
This afternoon, in front of the NYC Department of Education headquarters, NYC public school parents told Mayor de Blasio to stop bowing to the charter school lobby and halt the practice of giving charters access to student personal information to market their schools. Instead, they said, he should listen to parents’ concerns, stop violating their children’s privacy, and cease this practice, which by helping charters expand, causes the loss of funding and space from our public schools.
In recent weeks, Chancellor Carranza has repeatedly promised parent leaders, both publicly and privately, that this practice would be discontinued, but the Mayor has yet to make a commitment to do so, and in the last few days he has said that he has not yet made a decision.
Said Johanna Garcia, public school parent and President of Community Education Council in District 6 in Upper Manhattan: “It is unconscionable that this practice continues. For more than a decade, parents and advocates have complained to DOE about the privacy violations incurred by allowing charters to access our children’s personal information without our consent. I filed a FERPA complaint to the US Department of Education about this practice in November 2017. Moreover, I am not aware of another school district in the country that voluntarily makes this information available to charter schools and undermines our public schools in the process."
NeQuan McLean, co- chair of the Education Council Consortium and the President of Community Education Council in District 16 Brooklyn said: “My mailbox is continually flooded with deceptive promotional materials from charter schools. As a result of expensive marketing campaigns and the damaging co-location policies of the DOE, my district has been overrun by charters. The Mayor repeatedly says he listens to parents; we are saying loudly and clearly that he should end this practice now.”
“Not only is personal student information unnecessary for appropriate marketing, providing access to it is an unacceptable violation of student privacy,” said Mark Cannizzaro, CONTINUE READING: NYC Public School Parents: NYC parents tell the Mayor to stop stalling and stop giving charter schools access to student information