Our Platform
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A People’s Vision for Racially Just Public Schools
New Yorkers for Racially Just Public Schools (RJPS) and our coalition partners have been working to build schools that deserve our students for decades. We have achieved significant victories, but the work is not yet done. Our Vision for Racially Just Public Schools offers a comprehensive and holistic approach to public education that counters the poisonous education policy agenda presented by the Trump administration. We need a Mayor who will join the fight to protect public education in NYC from Pre-K to CUNY. Our vision centers systematically excluded and historically marginalized groups, especially, recent arrivals, English Language Learners, students with disabilities, students in temporary housing, students in foster care, and students involved in the juvenile/criminal justice system, and LGBTQ+, and gender nonconforming students.
Our policy vision represents the expertise and brilliance of the many groups that make up our coalition. We invite New Yorkers to provide feedback on our vision as we transform this vision into a policy roadmap for the new mayor of New York City. No one policy solution is sufficient to achieve racial justice alone, nor can we achieve our goals without the voices and perspectives of our community. Let’s build better schools together.
We believe a strong public education system in New York City requires investments in the continuum of services that began in Early Childhood Education, continue in K-12, and culminate in CUNY. We honor and uplift the work of groups like ECE On the Move, New Yorkers United for Childcare, and the Professional Staff Congress (PSC) of CUNY as policies that complement our vision for Racially Just Public Schools.
Early Childhood Education: We stand in solidarity and fully support universal child care, as defined by the Empire State Child Care coalition, as a public good that covers children up to the age of twelve while adequately compensating the workforce, most of whom are women of color.
CUNY: We stand in solidarity with the NYC Union of Students and urge the creation of a Department of Higher Education to build a pipeline from Kindergarten to CUNY and coordinate across public and private universities to make higher education more affordable and accessible for all NYC students.
People’s Plan: We stand in solidarity and fully support the Affordable Futures-Real Public Safety Budget Demands of the NYC People’s Plan.
POLICY PLATFORM
What are Safe and Supportive Schools?
- Schools that fully fund efforts to build nurturing and supportive school communities through culturally responsive mental health services and support.
- Schools that eliminate policies and practices that criminalize and dehumanize youth.
What are Inclusive and Integrated Schools?
- Schools of belonging that center all policy decisions and investments on student populations that are systematically excluded and historically marginalized, and enact policies and programming that grant access and opportunity to these groups.
- Schools that eliminate exclusionary admission policies that facilitate segregation.
What are Culturally Responsive Schools?
- Schools that use curriculum, pedagogy, assessments and policies that honor and respect the histories, cultures, languages, identities and experiences of NYC students in every grade, every class, every day.
What are Truly Public Schools?
- Schools halt the privatization of public schools, the expansion of charter schools.
- Schools that protect students and families by securing private data and embracing ethical standards for edtech and AI usage.
What are Fully and Equitably Funded Schools?
- Schools that close the resource gap and provide all students with the small classes, enrichment, hands-on education and care that all young people deserve.
What are Engaged Schools?
- Schools that implement a democratic school governance system that leverages the expertise of youth, families, educators, and school staff, as key partners in decision-making at all levels.
- The eventual phase-out of Mayoral Control.