6/3/09 Letter from educators & community organizations:

On June 3, 2009 fourteen distinguished educators and twelve community organizations

sent the following letter to Ms. Lacey and Chancellor Klein:

Dear Ms. Lacey and Chancellor Klein:

We are educators and community organizations in NYC concerned with issues of equity
and justice in our public education system. We understand that large numbers of students
and other members of the community at the Beacon School, one of our City's highly
regarded public high schools, are concerned about making its admissions process as fair
and equitable as possible.

In recent years, Beacon's student population has had a small--and shrinking--number of

students of color, low income students, English Language Learners, and students with
special needs. The exact statistics are listed below.

We know that these critical issues of access and equity are relevant to all our public
schools across NYC and that many of our schools, particularly those considered top
schools, are not as accessible to low income students and students of color or to English
Language learners and students with special needs as they should be. Our concern about
Beacon is part of our larger concern about the need for an equitable admissions process in
our City's schools.

We support the efforts of the Beacon community and hope that the Beacon administration
and DOE will address their concerns and work toward insuring that we have schools and
a school system that serve ALL our children and provide them the high quality education
they deserve.

Signatories:
Scholars Organizations:
Professor Gary Anderson Bloomingdale Family Program

Professor Jean Anyon Congrtegation B’nai Jeshurun

Professor Anthony De Jesus Center for Immigrant Families
Professor Michelle Fine Independent Commission on Public
Professor Ofelia Garcia Education
Professor Maxine Greene It Is Time
Professor Linda Levine Jews for Racial and Economic
Professor Deborah Meier Justice
Professor Kate Menken Judson Memorial Church
Professor Pedro Noguera NY Collective of Radical Educators
Professor Katherine O'Donnell Teachers Unite
Madeline Perez Three Parks Democrats
Professor Bree Picower Time Out from Testing
Professor Luis O. Reyes
Professor Klaudia M. Rivera
Dept. of Education’s response to educators’ and community organizations’ letter

Eric Nadelstern, Chief Schools Officer, responded by email to the educators’ and
community organizations’ letter later on 6/3/09:

Mr. Nadelstern’s letter:

Dear Concerned Educators:

Chancellor Klein has shared your e-mail and asked me to respond to your
concerns. Firstly, I need to express our commitment to the goals of
access and equity that you have articulated. Toward that end, we have
implemented a high school admissions process that is driven by student and family
choice, and that has provided our students with more high school options than
ever before.

Beacon High School is one of our highest-performing high schools, and

attracts many more applicants than available seats. As a screened
school, all applicants are expected to meet the same high standards for
admission. While there has been a small decrease in enrollment of students of
color, it should be acknowledged that in some categories of your analysis,
Latino students for instance, the decrease over the last three years is but a
single student. In fact, most of the data you reference can
be accounted for by demographic changes in Manhattan, and the change in admissions
status for Beacon from "educational option" to "screened" during this same time
period. Beacon remains one of the most diverse screened high schools in
Manhattan, and is more diverse than the population of that borough.

Nevertheless, we remain as committed to equity of access at

this school as we do at all others across the school system. Toward
that end, we intend to work with the administration at Beacon to conduct targeted
recruitment in underrepresented communities in Manhattan and the other
boroughs.

It is our belief that through this process, we can maintain high

standards for admission as we strive to maintain a diverse student
population.

Thank you for sharing your concerns.

Best regards,

Eric Nadelstern
Chief Schools Officer