A Conversation on Alternative Accountability

Joshua’s story was one of many experiences shared during the panel convened by Eskolta and the Public Science Project at The Graduate Center of The City University of New York. The conversation, featuring researchers, policy-makers, transfer school educators, students, and alumni, highlighted findings from the Graduate Center’s 2020 report, “And Still They Rise: Lessons from Students in New York City’s Alternative Transfer High Schools.” Panelists discussed the way transfer schools are experienced by students and educators and the threat they face from an accountability system that fails to capture the unique functions and successes of these schools.

This conversation was an inspiring jumping-off point for our partners in the transfer school community to come together and push for changes so that these schools will not continue to be penalized by the system. Currently, one in five New York City transfer schools are designated as Comprehensive School Improvement schools, a designation for low-performing schools that requires them to implement a change plan to reach certain benchmarks while essential programs like Learning to Work have undergone a 25% cut, resulting in cuts to staff as well as paid internships for students.

Evin Orfila, a school aide at Liberation Diploma Plus High School, the transfer school he graduated from, co-moderated the panel with Michelle Fine, Distinguished Professor of Critical Psychology, Women’s Studies, American Studies and Urban Education at CUNY’s Graduate Center.

Alternative transfer schools: filling a critical gap in our education system

More than 100 attendees heard first from Evin about his own experience at Liberation and the deep appreciation he felt for his teacher and principal there, who demonstrated compassion and support as he faced multiple overlapping challenges and whose support continued even after he completed high school and went on to graduate with honors from college. “I needed a home. Liberation was that. I needed to see somebody like me being successful, somebody who could walk on water, brave enough to challenge the powers that be, but gentle enough to nurture me when I fail.”

His and Joshua’s stories illustrated broader themes that researchers Varnica Arora, Mica Baum-Tucillo, Ali Holstein, and Michelle Fine encountered in their research. And Still They Rise is a secondary analysis of 842 survey responses from alternative transfer high school students about their educational experiences, collected as part of the Transfer School Discovery Project facilitated by Eskolta in 2018. Mica, a social worker and herself a transfer school alumna, presented the report findings, highlighting four non-negotiable elements of transfer schools: 

1. Opportunities and resources aligned with student needs
2. School cultures of care and compassion
3. High expectations attuned to students’ needs and supports
4. Ecologies of personal and collective responsibility

Across NYC, the students transfer schools serve are more likely to be Black and Latinx, to experience high economic need and housing instability, to be English Language Learners, and to be classified as in need of special education. As Mica noted, the unique approaches and supports transfer schools provide are part of tempering systemic inequalities for these students: “We find that transfer schools provide opportunities and resources that mitigate the effects of racialized austerity, neighborhood divestment, gentrification, over-policing, and failing social safety nets. Of course, we don’t want to suggest that schools should be where we go to figure out how to fix all of these problems, but we are suggesting that in transfer schools we are finding tremendous counters to these issues.”