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The latest episode of the Family Homelessness Coalition’s ‘Hear Our Voices’ podcast features Kayla Mumtaz at the Alliance for Quality Education. The conversation touched on how New York funds its schools, what universal childcare would mean for struggling families and how parents can advocate for change.
Each year for nearly the last decade, more than 100,000 children in the city’s public school system experienced homelessness—meaning they lived in shelter, at a motel or were “doubled up” in shared housing.
Homeless students and their families often face additional educational barriers and disruptions. This was a focus of the latest episode of the “Hear Our Voices” podcast, which shares stories, resources and information about family homelessness in New York City (the podcast is produced by the Family Homelessness Coalition, whose members include Citizens’ Committee for Children, a City Limits funder).
Podcast host Kadisha Davis was joined by Kayla Mumtaz, legislative affairs and community engagement specialist at the Alliance for Quality Education. Mumtaz spoke about AQE’s Education and Early Education Warriors programs, which train parents on how to advocate for city and state policy changes.
“We always say at the Alliance for Quality Education that if you’ve lived it, you are an expert,” Mumtaz said. “So you don’t need a degree to tell you that something in your life is wrong and that you need to change it.”
Among the changes the group is pushing for: reforms to the state’s Foundation Aid Formula, which determines how much funding schools receive based on the needs of the students they serve.
“Foundation Aid Formula accounts for different things like poverty rates, homelessness, free school or reduced lunches, things like that,” Mumtaz explained. But it hasn’t been updated in more than 20 years, something AQE is pushing the state to do now to account for increased housing insecurity and other criteria.
AQE also advocates for more affordable childcare, calling for New York to move toward a universal childcare model.
“Education doesn’t start in kindergarten,” Mumtaz said. “The state should be funding it, because parents can get out of these situations that they’re in if they have childcare. They could work more. They can get better jobs. They can work flexible jobs. They can go to college if that’s what they decide to do. They can do a lot more.”
You can listen to the full podcast episode, which was recorded in two parts, below.