Chancellor Encourages Schools to 'Re-Brand' Better

Parents in Brooklyn's School District 13, which stretches from Brooklyn Heights to Bedford-Stuyvesant, on Tuesday pressed Chancellor Carmen Fariña on issues of equity and diversity, among other hot topics.

During the one-hour town hall at P.S. 256 Benjamin Banneker, questions came up emblematic of parent concerns citywide: How much should test scores be used in teacher evaluations, if at all? What is the city's plan for consolidating middle schools? But also this: How can the city prioritize maintaining economically and racially diverse student bodies?

On diversity, Fariña said she favored school-based initiatives, such as the diversity pilot that allows seven schools to set aside seats for students based on certain categories, like income or language learner status.

In response to a pointed question on how to better racially integrate the schools, Fariña spoke of the need for imaginative school leadership, and she invoked a schools-as-marketplace philosophy. 

"What does the consumer want?" she said, adding that school leaders must respond to parents and get smarter at "re-branding." 

She suggested that superintendents and parent leaders on the local Community Education Councils could meet with real estate agents as a way of spreading the word about school options in the neighborhood.

District 13 is home to quickly gentrifying neighborhoods, but its schools have been slower to change. They've just started to confront issues of how to preserve diversity in some historically minority schools that are now embraced by white, well-off families. These schools may face funding challenges if they lose their Title I status and the subsequent loss of federal dollars. Other schools remain homogenous, like P.S. 256 where more than 95 percent of the students are black or Latino. 

A group of P.S. 256 parents took to the mic and ticked off egregious issues they had with the school, including a lack of arts programs, no gym teacher and an unused library. They asked whether a teacher who was arrested last year and accused of sex crimes would ever be allowed to return to the school. (The answer was no.)  

On testing and evaluations, Fariña reiterated her call for evaluating teachers on multiple measures, but with test scores counting for a maximum of 30 percent of evaluations. There's much more to evaluating good teaching, she said.

"Are teachers differentiating their instruction?" said Fariña. "Are they working well with their colleagues?"

And on the movement to opt-out of the tests, she pushed back.

"I do think opting out remains a parent's choice, but in terms of going out there and advocating for it, I don't believe in opting out."

The chancellor has attended approximately 100 town hall events over the past two years.