Name: Hudson Lewis

Social Justice Group: Funding Inequality in NYC Public Education (A)

Date of Fieldwork: January 17, 2025

Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):Gabrielle Ramos-Solomon

What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork:

Hudson. L

On January 17, 2025, our field group interviewed Gabrielle Ramos-Solomon, who works at the Robin Hood organization which is a charitable organization for those who have less money to afford things like food, child care, and education. Whose mission is to get people out of poverty. Their main mission is to get people out of poverty. In the past, Gabrielle Ramos-Solomon was the chief of staff to the chancellor of the NYC Department of Education.

When we interviewed Gabrielle Ramos-Solomon, we learned that she used to work in schools that had low test scores, one of the reasons is because of funding inequality. Some of her eighth-grade students were stuck at a second-grade reading level, which is also partly because of funding inequalities. This was very frightening to hear because some schools don’t even teach their students how to read at a proper reading level. We also learned about the funding formula in schools. This is where schools get more money for kids with extra needs. Gabrielle said that the funding formula is very outdated because it does not cover the needs of kids now.

Learning all of this information was very helpful, and good to know because it helped me really understand how big and important my topic really is. Especially when she said that her eighth-grade students were reading at a level six grades below them. I always thought kids in New York had a decent education, at least decent enough to read at a level close to their grade. Hearing this made me actually feel sad because people deserve a better education. I think that because of this interview, I am actually starting to get more interested in my topic.