Speakout Columns
Empty chairs at PEP
Apr 23, 2009 3:02 PM
Empty seats can tell us a lot. If you go to a show and there are a lot of empty chairs it means the performance is either not very well known, or not very good.
The show, we can say, is in need of improvement.
In February — during the buildup to the March 5 Rally for New York, and shortly after the mayor boldly threatened to lay off 15,000 teachers — I decided to attend my first Panel for Educational Policy meeting.
That’s the big committee, the nowadays rubber-stamp committee, but theoretically the one where real decision-making and discussion were supposed to take place.
If I was going to get a chance to speak I knew I had to get there early, get my name on one of the sign-up sheets and hopefully get a good seat.
The public meeting was being held at Long Island City HS, in its huge auditorium, and so of course I expected there to be a lot of people there.
After all, it’s the chancellor.
This would be, I figured, a perfect place for me to get the word out about the rally, tell the crowd about these proposed draconian cuts to our students, and get them all riled up right there in front of the big boss himself.
The parents I expected would be outraged. The crowd would all stand and cheer and demand that the chancellor stand up for their children, and promise to protect the services they need.
That was my plan.
In the end, I was running late from another meeting and got there with about 10 minutes to spare before the meeting began.
When I walked in through the main doors, there to greet me were several LIC students, a welcoming committee of sorts. They came over and asked if I was the chancellor. I told them no — not yet anyway — and that when he got there they would know who he was.
Over to the sign-up sheet. Only one name in front of mine. Wow, must be more sheets all full with names underneath.
I looked, but found that they too were blank.
All of them.
Puzzled, I made my way into the auditorium, past the school safety agents, and began my look-out for the crowds of parents, who were after all to be my captive audience.
The stage was set: a long set of tables, joined in a long forward-facing row with lots of name plates, and a microphone in front of each.
And in the auditorium, all around me, lots and lots of empty chairs.
In fact, I would venture to say that by the time the members of the panel took their seats in front of their individual microphones, there were more of them than there were people in the huge, empty auditorium.
I sat and listened. ARIS. Improving grades in pre-K. Standardized tests for 1st grade. And lots and lots of data talk.
Then came the public forum.
A young teacher from the Rockaways complained about some silly thing the Department of Education did to supposedly alleviate her middle school’s overcrowding issue, that in the end did nothing but make the problem worse.
I shook my head.
The DOE does some silly stuff, and while I forget exactly what she was looking for, I admired her effort. It’s not often you see a young teacher with that kind of backbone, standing up in front of the big boss and putting him on the spot.
Then my turn.
Being a teacher, I decided that I would have to seize the teachable moment that was before me, and get to the budget stuff at the end.
Two minutes I was told.
I pointed out the empty seats all around us, reminding those on stage that this should be heeded by those of us that were there.
This is data, I said, that tells us this current top-down control thing is simply not working. The important stakeholders, the families of our students, don’t even feel it worth their while to show up anymore.
Even for the chancellor.
During these discussions on extending and/or improving mayoral control, this kind of hard data needs to be taken into account. The empty chairs need to be acknowledged. The disengagement from the educational process of the all-important family unit needs to be addressed.
In the weeks ahead, as our legislators debate and fine tune the governance law, all of us need to recognize that these empty chairs are telling us that this past performance is in need of improvement.
