Good Morning CharterFolk.
Today it is our pleasure to recognize Arthur Samuels and Pagee Cheung, the Founders and Co-Executive Directors of Math, Engineering, Science Academy (MESA) in Brooklyn, New York.
Nothing sums up better the spirit that Pagee and Arthur bring to the work they do at MESA than their recent announcement to create …
… 13th grade.
It’s an initiative, as they described it, that will …
… provide our graduates with the same high level of support for another year while they transition out of high school. For some of them, it will be connecting with their community college and ensuring their continued attendance and academic success. For others, it will be connecting them with workforce development programs in areas like information technology, medical services, and building trades. We’ll help them get accepted into training programs based on their interests, provide individualized support to help them persist through, and then assist in landing jobs when they complete the program.
This new program committing MESA to an even higher level of support for students and families comes from an organization that is already broadly recognized to be offering some of the highest quality public education in New York, having recently been named one of Brooklyn’s best high schools …
… and generally being understood to be a “lifeline” school providing a desperately needed better option for one of New York’s highest need communities.
It’s the same spirit of going above and beyond that Pagee and Arthur have brought to everything they have done at MESA going all the way back to the school’s founding in 2013. Prior to starting MESA, Pagee had received her undergraduate degree at USC. Arthur had gotten his from Brown and then went on to Harvard where he got his JD. They met while pursuing advanced degrees at Teachers College where their shared passion for supporting historically underserved students led them to study the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. That research led them to conclude that the community was in critical need of a new high school, which ultimately led them to create MESA.
Since its inception, even among the most liberal of publications …
… MESA has been seen to be accomplishing special things.
Nilsa Cedeño, whose daughter Briana attends the school, says it’s been amazing to see “the transformation of where they were in middle school to where they are today at MESA,” noting that some parents say their kids have done a complete turnaround …. On the day the Village Voice visited MESA, differences in the facilities [between MESA and a co-located district school] were difficult to identify …. The real disparity lay in how MESA students were learning.
Soon data showed that MESA was graduating 95% of its students while area schools were only graduating 60%. When word spread that MESA was sending its graduates to such esteemed schools as Wesleyan, Boston College, and the most competitive CUNY schools, applications spiked. With more than 600 students applying for the school’s 130 spaces, parents began requesting that Pagee and Arthur open another school. In the spring of 2019, MESA had a charter approved to open its second site, but because there is a cap on the growth of charter schools in New York City …
…the new school has not been allowed to open.
It was very disappointing and it was very frustrating. We had poured so much into it and had gotten a lot of hopes up.
Since then, Pagee and Arthur have brought a “13th level” mentality to advocacy efforts related to lifting the cap. That has required making the case for expansion themselves …
… while encouraging more voices in the school community to be heard as well …
… including MESA’s parent and board member, Angel Cortés who argues that charter schools offer more equitable admissions policies than traditional public schools.
It has resulted in Arthur and Pagee finding themselves taking on even more “13th level” responsibility for the broader movement, calling out prominent Democrats when they stray from their long held support for charter schools for political reasons …
… stressing the critical need to provide high needs students like those in Brooklyn as much access to in-person instruction during the Covid crisis as students in other communities receive …
… all while innovating their program to get students additional access to college credit coursework during the pandemic …
… and supporting charter schools with professional development about how to recruit and retain a stellar team despite the HR challenges arising during the Covid era.
Things are definitely changing in New York City …
… but we still have a long way to go until schools like MESA can grow to serve all the students who wish to attend. When our movement ultimately prevails on the various advocacy challenges confronting us, it will be because, like Pagee and Arthur, we have shown a “13th level” of commitment to the students and families and communities that we are privileged serve.
It’s why we couldn’t be more pleased than to recognize Arthur Samuels and Pagee Cheung as stunning examples of CharterFolk Extraordinaire.