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 Gabrielle said that the funding formula is very outdated because it does not cover the needs of kids now.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.

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On January 14, our group went to NEST+m High School to study the inequities within public schools. When we were there we interviewed an English teacher named Ms. Swann-Pye. After that, we interviewed the school business manager of NEST+m, Julie Longmuir. Across both interviews, we learned about many things. For example, we learned about where funds come from. Or about how amazing it is to have public education because nobody has to pay.

When we interviewed the English teacher Ms. Swann-Pye we learned about how good public education is, and all of the flaws within it. For example, she told us that some public schools aren’t the best quality, while others have very good quality materials, staff, and just overall quality. We also learned about how important it is to have meal plans because 30% of students at NEST+m qualify for the free meals program. This means that 30% of students at NEST are not financially stable enough to afford 3 meals a day. NEST is a specialized school, meaning it has helpful AP classes and a better PTA. To summarize, we learned about the flaws of public education, free meals, and the advantages of being a specialized school.

When we interviewed the business manager Julie Longmuir we learned some valuable, and useful information. We learned that NEST has a strong PTA because most families there are financially stable. We also learned that 97% of funds from the city go towards employee salaries. So PTA money is very important to pay for things like facilities or extracurricular activities. NEST was also given 265,000$ to install air conditioners in the auditorium. So it is very important to get as much money as possible to be the best school that they can be. To summarize, we learned about how valuable PTA money is to NEST.

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On December 19 our group interviewed Kate Quarfordt who co-founded a charter school called “City School of the Arts.” We learned about how hard it is to run a school with limited resources. We learned that you can go to specialized schools that are out of your zone, but they are hard to get into. You will need tutors and extracurricular activities which cost money. Another shocking fact is that charter schools have more freedom than public schools, but they have 80% of the funds. This helped us get a basic understanding of our topic.

Kate told us about “the American dream,” which means you go to college and get a good job with a stable life. However, it is hard to get into a good college when you don’t go to a good school. Of course, with no college degree, or a degree from a community college will make it hard to find a high-paying job. Being in a low-quality school also means that you have lower-quality teachers, textbooks, classrooms, etc. This explains why good quality education is important later in life.

One thing that affects school funding, and quality is zoning laws. Zoning laws are when land is divided into “zones.” Some zones are not as rich as the others. That means houses are nicer in some zones, and property taxes go to school funding. Schools in poorer zones will receive less funding from property taxes. It is unfortunate that a lot of schools don’t get to buy higher quality things just because of where they are located.

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