The principal scandal at Pan American

TEACHERS, PARENTS and antiracist activists protested July 8 outside the headquarters of the New York City Department of Education (DOE) after evidence emerged that a high school principal used racist language in describing two Black teachers, both of whom she subsequently fired.

Pan American International High School in Queens is a small school designed for recent immigrants to the United States. According to the DOE's enrollment data, the student body is 99 percent Hispanic, and some 80 percent are English Language Learners, meaning that they require language instruction to develop proficiency in English for high school academic work.

According to Assistant Principal Anthony Riccardo, Principal Minerva Zanca targeted two Black teachers in particular. John Flanagan, who taught Spanish, was called into the principal's office to meet with Zanca and Riccardo after a classroom observation. In an affidavit, Riccardo stated that Zanca asked him after the meeting, "Did you see his big lips quivering?"

On another occasion, Riccardo stated that Zanca said Heather Hightower, who taught English as a Second Language (ESL) at Pan American, looked like "a gorilla in a sweater." On another occasion, Riccardo says Zanca described Hightower's hair as "nappy."

Flanagan and Hightower were both fired after Zanca claimed they were underperforming. A third Black tenured teacher and 10-year veteran, Lisa-Erika James, made the heartbreaking decision to transfer to another school after her highly successful theater program was cut suddenly without explanation by Zanca. No Black teachers remain in the school. Hightower and Flanagan have since filed a complaint with the DOE's Office of Equal Opportunity (OEO). Zanca recommended that Riccardo also be fired.

A growing outcry over the revelations about Pan American has led to a Change.org petition demanding Zanca's ouster, as well as a protest sponsored by BK Nation and joined by the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), the Movement of Rank-and-File Educators, the social justice caucus within the UFT; the New York Collective of Radical Educators (NYCoRE); and the International Socialist Organization.

A crowd of teachers, parents, students and activists gathered on the steps of the DOE headquarters in sweltering heat to demand that the DOE fully investigate the allegations against Zanca. Chanting "Hey, ho, hey ho! Principal Zanca's got to go!," speakers vowed to keep the pressure on Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott and elected officials to reverse the firings of the Black teachers at Pan American and protect the job of the whistle-blowing assistant principal.

NO ONE should be subjected to racist abuse and discrimination in the workplace, and the power exercised by principals over what should be an environment for teaching and learning makes Zanca's racist remarks even more appalling.

But the issues raised by Pan American are even more significant when seen as part of a pattern of racist "reform and accountability measures" in public schools.

In New York, as in other cities across the country, the schools hardest hit by the current fashion for "turnaround"--wholesale firing of teachers and staff in schools deemed to be failing by flawed performance measures--and closures have been those with the highest proportion of Black and Latino enrollment, and those with the highest numbers of Black and Latino teachers. In Chicago, for example, as a direct consequence of closures, Black teachers comprise less than one-third of the public school teaching force, but account for more than half of layoffs as a consequence of closures. Black and Latino teachers have been disproportionately targeted by policies that jeopardize public schools serving Black and Latino students.

In some cities, the disproportionate impact of layoffs on Black and Latino teachers followed years of dwindling percentages of Black and Latino candidates among new hires. In New York City, some 27 percent of teachers newly hired during the 2001-02 school year were Black--by 2007-08, that percentage had fallen to 13 percent.

In a school like Pan American, which is evaluated based on its ability to prepare English Language Learners for demanding statewide content exams required for graduation, administrators are given broad discretion to address the "failure" of teachers to ensure that students demonstrate in English that they have met the graduation standards. When teachers lack tenure, as Hightower and Flanagan did, they have little recourse.

Further, tenure denials are increasingly becoming the norm, even for experienced teachers. In 2010, Mayor Michael Bloomberg launched an attack on tenure, vowing to overhaul the process. A series of often contradictory pronouncements and standards followed, with some teachers granted tenure, only to have it rescinded. In the 2010-11 school year, nearly one in four teachers up for tenure had their probationary period extended, compared to one in 10 the year before.

AS PAN American teacher John Flanagan told supporters:

We feel we were unjustly discontinued from our school based on poor performance ratings that were racially motivated in nature. The principal...said various hurtful, racial comments to us, and we were subsequently discontinued. Basically, we're just here to get the chancellor's attention and tell him that we want justice for what happened to us, and we want the principal to be accountable for her actions.

Both Flanagan and James called for supporters to maintain pressure through social media, petitions and direct communication with the Chancellor.

It's essential to stand with teachers like Hightower and Flanagan who have been targeted by administrators because of their race--and with whistleblowers like Riccardo who expose racism within the public school bureaucracy. As the UFT's chapter leader at Pan American, Peter Lamphere, said in a statement read at the rally:

As their union representative, I watched John and Heather struggle as they worked hard on their pedagogy and with their students, but in the eyes of Ms. Zanca, they could do no right, no matter how much they tried. We finally know why...Because of the bravery of [assistant principal] Riccardo and of these quality educators in coming forward and deciding, at immense personal risk, to shine a light on this injustice, we finally know why.

We work in an educational system that lets principals get away with anything and drives teachers--and increasing numbers of teachers of color--out the door. This is not just happening at one school. We need a union that can take this on school community by school community--defending teachers and students rights. We need a movement of community members, parents and educators that will take on racism wherever it raises its head in the school system.

Echoing the call from inside Pan American, Marissa Torres, speaking on behalf of NYCoRE and its Educators of Color Working Group, demanded that the principal's actions against Flanagan, Hightower and Riccardo be reversed, and the principal be held to account under the DOE's own anti-discrimination regulations:

[W]e stand today in support of these educators who have directly experienced the personal and professional effects of structural racism in our schools...[W]e stand here to demand that the DOE be proactive in promoting anti-racist and anti-discriminatory policies and practices amongst all DOE personnel.