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Teens Take Charge Fights for Racial Equity

Tax deductible

Join our Local Civics team in supporting the incredible work of Teens Take Charge and their demands for educational equity. This month, we are teaming up with Teens Take Charge to help middle and high school students everywhere learn more about community organizing and activism in a facilitated workshop.

We hope our efforts can help amplify these important youth voices in the fight for educational equity and an end to segregation in our school systems. 

More information about Teens Take Charge and their campaigns for educational equity can be found here. Some of their most recent campaigns are listed below:

Save SYEP
The city announced on April 7, 2020 that it will eliminate the Summer Youth Employment Program, a $164 million program that provides jobs to 75,000 young people every summer. Given the tremendous financial strain on hundreds of thousands of low-income New York City families right now, we should be expanding paid summer opportunities, not cutting them.

Teens Take Charge, along with thousands of other students across NYC, are fighting back against this heartless decision.

Education Unscreened
Discriminatory admissions “screens” in high schools have a profound segregating effect on the system. Of the 30 most academically screened high schools, 27 are majority white and Asian (in a system that’s less than one-third white and Asian). None of those 30 schools approach the system average for economic need. Meanwhile, hundreds of unscreened schools are at least 85% black or Hispanic and 85% low-income. To end this tale of two school systems, we must eliminate all discriminatory admissions screens, including state exam scores, GPA, attendance, punctuality, zip code, portfolios, in-person interviews, auditions, and specialty exams.

Repeal Hecht-Calandra
Named for its co-sponsors, Burton Hecht and John Calandra, the 1971 Hecht-Calandra Act requires NYC to admit students to its “specialized high schools” based solely on a Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT) score.

This single-test system produces extreme segregation in the nine specialized high schools. For years, bills to amend Hecht-Calandra have died in the legislature. These bills have never gotten enough support, partly because they have proposed very specific alternatives to the current process. So, while most legislators can agree that a single test is a bad idea, getting them to agree on the same alternative has proven difficult.

Enrollment Equity
The New York City high school admissions process promises “open choice,” but it does not always deliver. The process favors students with high grades and state test scores and whose families have time and resources to invest in navigating complex admissions criteria. As a result, open choice high schools remain nearly as segregated as zoned elementary schools.

Check out Teens Take Charge in the news:
https://gothamist.com/news/message-mayor-bill-de-blasio-save-our-summer-youth-employment-program" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">New York City’s Summer Youth Employment Program Must Be Restored — Teen Vogue (op-ed by La’Toya Beecham)

A Message To Mayor Bill de Blasio : Save Our Summer Youth Employment Program — Gothamist (op-ed by Ishrat Jahan)

The Students Changing City Schools From the Inside 

In Response to a Surge in Youth Activism NYC Schools Hires Its First Student Voice Manager 

Why Are We Still Waiting For An Integration Plan For NYC High Schools 

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Teens Take Charge is a program of The Bell, which is fiscally sponsored by FJC, a 501(c)(3) public charity. As such, all donations are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.

To learn more, visit teenstakecharge.com.
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Donations 

  • Mariah Celestine
    • $50
    • 5 yrs
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Organizer

Beverly Leon
Organizer
New York, NY
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