The Court of Appeals has appointed three special masters:

        Dean John D. Feerick: Former dean of Fordham University School of Law and past president of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.  A highly praised mediator and arbitrator who has chaired state commissions on government integrity and public confidence in judicial elections.

        The Honorable E. Leo Milonas: Served 16 years as an Associate Justice of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York and Chief Administrative Judge of the State of New York – also a past president of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.

        The Honorable William C Thompson: Served as New York City Council member, state senator and an Appellate Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of New York.

         The masters have until November 30, 2004 to submit their report to Justice De Grasse who will then rule on what is to be done.  They held their first meeting on August 4, 2004 and set up a schedule for reviewing CFE’s and the state’s plans for complying with the Court of Appeals’ decision in CFE v. State.

The panel announced that public hearings were beyond the scope of their charge, but that they would encourage submission by individuals

Amicus Brief  from the Interfaith Working Group for Quality Education
(CFE v. NYS Index No. 111070-93)

        The Interfaith Working Group for Quality Education appreciates its opportunity to participate as an amicus and file a brief in response to the CFE decision and your respective roles as Referees. The Interfaith Working Group for Quality Education is composed of  The New York State Council of Churches, The New York State Catholic Conference, Lutheran Statewide Advocacy, The New York State Episcopal Public Policy Network, Interfaith IMPACT of New York State, The Interfaith Alliance of New York State, and the National Council of Churches in Christ. We recognize that public education has reached a crisis in too many communities in New York .

        Our respective faith communities share these beliefs regarding education and the common good:

• All persons are created in God’s image, with common human dignity.
• The persistence of poverty and racism are measures of the extent American society falls short of recognizing the universality of human dignity. Reducing these evils are basic steps toward establishing common humanity as a reality.
• Equal opportunity is an important secular expression of common human dignity.
• Many factors conspire to deny and confer dignity. Opportunity denied is dignity denied. Equal opportunity is a necessary, although not sufficient, condition toward the manifestation of human dignity.
• God’s image is actualized by people reaching their God-given potential.
• Growth to potential is an individual and collective responsibility.  These responsibilities are complementary, and neither is to be minimized as a justification for abdication of responsibility.
• Public education is the social baseline of equal opportunity.  
• Many approaches to education can facilitate children’s growth to their potential, but only a strong public education system can, in our society, begin to approach equal opportunity for all.
• Government bears a major responsibility for ensuring basic education.
• Because public education is a basic system without which equal opportunity cannot be realized, government becomes the primary resource through which equal opportunity, and therefore common human dignity, can be realized.

         The groups working together as The Interfaith Working Group for Quality Education represent a majority of New Yorkers. Collectively, we take responsibility for the spiritual and moral formation of New York’s children under our care. Our motivations are grounded in the preciousness, in God’s sight, of every child, regardless of circumstances. Our colleague, The Rev. Heidi B. Neumark, expresses the intensity of our motivation in Breathing Space: A Spiritual Journey in the South Bronx (2003, Beacon Press):

        “A fine baby. That’s what we see in every child here, every child with an asthma pump in the pocket, with a parent in prison, every child labeled as an alien, born HIV positive, every child who is worth more to the economy locked in prison than learning in school, every child for whom so many statistics spell disaster. A fine baby. That’s also what Moses’ mother saw when she held him in her arms for the first time: She looked and she saw that he was a fine baby (Exodus 2:2).” [page111]

Moses, it may be noted, was himself earmarked for destruction as a baby .

        While we recognize that the institutions of religion and government are institutionally separate, we also acknowledge that we interact functionally for the greater good of all. Children grow to become productive citizens not only because of the cognitive skills provided by formal education but also because of the moral platform they have developed on which to exercise those skills. Thus do public education and religion interact functionally for the greater good.

        When one element of a child’s formation is compromised, providing the other becomes problematic. The Campaign for Fiscal Equity Decision has indicated that for a significant number of New York’s children, this is the case. Many of these children are our parishioners; we have a pastoral interest in their growth.

        Societal anomalies exacerbate challenges to growth. Pastor Neumark’s experiences in the South Bronx provide a case study. She describes a “major investment in the youth of the South Bronx. Nineteen ninety-eight brought the dedication of a state-of-the-art facility that had been in the works. This one was topped by barbed wire. . . It was ‘New Horizon,’ a new prison for youths aged ten to fifteen, built on the edge of the ‘Hub,’ a major South Bronx shopping district at 149th Street and Third Ave” [page 141]. She continues,

        “A block away from the ‘New Horizons’ prison is an intermediate school. The school is in one of the city’s educational ‘dead zones,’ defined as areas where less than one-third of the children are reading at grade level. All of the dead-zone schools, comprising approximately 70,000 children, are in predominately poor, Latino and African-American communities. . .

        “. . . teachers were reaching into their pockets for things like paper and pencils. It has never been unusual for children in our [church] after-school program to line up to make copies of readers, stapled-together sheets in black and white. The children had never laid hands or eyes on the colorfully engaging originals. A fourth grade class attended by some of our children had only dog-eared first-grade reading materials” [pages144-145].

        How can we tell these children that they are created in God’s image, and are precious in God’s sight, and remain silent when institutional arrangements so dramatically preclude equality of opportunity? How can we be credible as long as such unjust institutional arrangements continue?

        To be sure, many denominations have responded to need by establishing their own institutions. Several have developed extensive networks of fine denominationally-based schools. However, we all concur that a strong public education system absolutely essential in our common goal of an educated citizenry.

        We believe that the primary goal of equitably funding education in New York is to identify and bring these so-called “dead zones” back to life. Given misappropriation scandals of recent years, care needs to be taken so that funds appropriated are used as intended. We are hopeful that those of the least opportunity in New York may soon be brought into the main stream, where the possibility of reaching one’s potential is an accepted fact.