Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE)

We worked with the CFE and Public Agenda in helping facilitate the dialogue and public engagement aspect of their efforts. The CFE, a coalition of parent groups, community school boards and education advocacy organizations, launched a constitutional challenge to New York’s education finance system in 1993 on behalf of school children from and around the state. The CFE won their case in 2005 when schools were awarded an additional $5.6 billion for operating expenses to be paid out over four years and $9.2 billion for facilities. The public engagement aspect of this effort was to create community-level dialogue to inform and stimulate public education reform. The complexity of the educational system and prevalence of seemingly intractable conflicts among the various stakeholder groups pose challenges to social change in areas that are in alignment with the educational, scholarly, and practical foci of the ICCCR.