We are the plaintiffs of Wright v. New York, and this is why we are fighting for educational justice for all parents.
“Jada’s experience is not unique. The Rochester Public School district is ranked number 692 out of 696 districts in the state. That means only four districts are performing worse than Rochester in the entire state. But somehow 66% of Rochester’s teachers are considered effective based on the state’s teacher evaluation system. Something isn’t right. The math doesn’t add up.”
My name is Carla Williams and I’m from Rochester, NY. I’m fighting on behalf of my beautiful, bright daughter, Jada. What’s unique about Jada’s story is that in the 8th grade, Jada wrote an essay comparing the lack of education she and her classmates were receiving to modern day slavery, as told in The Life and Narrative of Frederick Douglass.
I was proud of her, and I was proud of her writing. Jada’s teachers should have been proud of her too, however, her teachers were not pleased. Instead of acknowledging Jada’s powerful reflection, they instead bullied her, isolated her and made her school year extremely unpleasant.
Jada’s teachers acted unprofessionally and because of these laws, I feel they weren’t held accountable for their actions. The way Jada’s teachers acted in response to her essay did not contribute to an effective learning environment.