Educational Advocacy
At Empower CNY, we prioritize advocacy for equality, safety, and the general advancement of both our national and local youth education systems.
Calling for Gun Safety in Schools
Each day, on average, twelve children die of gun violence in schools. Understanding and realizing the harm that guns pose to children in our schools motivated our team to take action towards the cause of increased gun control. Empower CNY partnered with March For Our Lives (MFOL) organizers in the Central New York area to alert our local policymakers. MFOL is a national organization that promotes heightened gun control in our country and sheds light on the violence that a lack of gun control precipitates. This year, in response to recent shootings, MFOL decided to march again on June 11, 2022. Empower CNY took charge by becoming one of the primary organizers of the Central New York movement, where protestors marched on the James M. Hanley Federal Building. Two of our directors addressed the crowd of over 400 people.
With the help of our volunteers, we helped distribute 10,000+ fliers to SCSD students & utilized a budget of $7,000+ (granted by MFOL National) for marketing and logistics. Our work undoubtedly fueled the national movement, which led Congress to pass the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (S.2938) on June 25, 2022.
Repealing the Inequitable Suspensions System in NYS Schools
Looking through the current legislative pipeline in the New York Senate, we stumbled upon an important bill (S7198) that hasn’t seen much momentum since being introduced in the 2015-2016 session. The bill, titled the ‘Solutions Not Suspensions Act’, aims to dismantle the systemic discrimination in New York’s school suspension system. The following statistics are based on policy research conducted by the legislative team which introduced the bill:
• There exists a nearly 19-point percent-age gap in the graduation rate between Black students and their White peers in New York State.
• In Westchester County, while Black students are only 11% of all students, they make up 40% of those who are suspended at least once.
• In New York City high schools, Black girls are six times more likely to be suspended from school.
Our work focused on alerting one of our policymakers, New York State Senator John Mannion (SD-50), of the bill’s importance. We wrote a letter addressing Empower CNY’s stance and how the bill could directly improve the educational outcomes of many local students, including those whom we work with. Senator Mannion responded with a letter of support, validating our beliefs and stating that he would keep the group’s views in mind the next time the bill came up for a vote. See the letter here.
Our L.E.A.D. team and board of directors also co-signed a letter written by the NYCLU (New York Civil Liberties Union) addressed to Governor Kathy Hochul and other high-ranking officials in the New York legislative chambers.
Campaign Against Markedly Low SCSD Scores on NYS ELA Testing
Through our work with students in the Syracuse City School District (SCSD), we have seen that parents of younger students primarily reach out for help in ELA (reading comprehension & grammar). Our team conducted our own review of the data on NYS testing in both suburban and urban regions in Central New York and found that SCSD students are underperforming heavily in ELA compared to their peer groups.
The factors that contribute to this are intricate and complex. Yet one stood out to us: students in low-scoring (ELA) SCSD schools are part of ‘book deserts’. Book deserts are communities in which access to books and libraries is not available to most students. Although libraries exist, the lack of information amongst students on how to use a library card, for instance, is troubling. Such knowledge is especially overlooked amongst first-generation & refugee youth.
To combat this issue, our team set up a book drive in spring 2022 that collected 300+ books (from school districts across the region). We hope to launch a ‘back-to-school’ book drive in fall 2022 as well. With the collected books, we are donating to student-support organizations and schools characterized as book deserts.
Letter Writing Parties, Action Research, and Current Goals
Our efforts to make improvements within our community go far beyond just tutoring. Over the past two years of operation, Empower CNY has worked to research and identify key educational problems across Central New York, made partnerships with local legislators, and provided support for state and federal bills.
In the future, however, we plan only to expand upon these initiatives through a variety of different efforts. We plan on continuing to develop our L.E.A.D team’s experience and familiarity with the bill-drafting process in hopes that we may one day be able to present ideas of our own to local leaders in education. Having worked with students and educators from around the CNY area we have come to witness the many problems that still remain within our education system. And we believe that with this first-hand understanding, trying to solve these issues from both the top down (via legislation) as well as the bottom up (via tutoring and local partnerships) will allow us to further strive towards our goal of achieving educational equity.
