ITHACA, N.Y. -- Veteran civil rights activist Robert Moses encouraged educators, parents and students to join a national debate and a movement for change in public schools in a community forum held June 7 in the Ithaca High School cafeteria. 

The second Community Forum on Education and Society, titled "Equity and Excellence: Quality Education as a Civil Right," was presented by Cornell University in partnership with other local educational institutions.

"We should ask this country to pass a Constitutional amendment that says every child in the country is a child of this country … and is entitled to a quality public school education," Moses told an audience of about 150, including more than 80 central New York educators. The aim, he said, is "to raise this issue to the federal level." Moses also related the proposed amendment to his work in the 1960s with voter registration in Mississippi and Alabama, as a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

"This is what we called in the civil rights movement 'working the demand side of the problem' -- getting the people to demand their rights," he said. "If we learn how to demand them, then we can begin to change things in this country."

As he invited the members of the community to discuss his proposal, Moses advised them to have a reasoned debate. "This is an issue that goes to the heart of teaching," he said. "We need to have intellectual empathy or accurate empathy -- that is, we all need to feel safe in this discussion. Race is not a topic in this discussion, nor is class."

His mention of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), however, brought those topics to the fore in comments by local students. Some voiced concerns over the SAT being culturally biased and limited to only certain skills, and other issues such as being the only person of color in honors classes.

Educators and parents also spoke up. "We are taking the time to teach kids about classism and capitalism," said Meggin Rose, a reading teacher at Ithaca's Lehman Alternative Community School, in her impassioned turn at the microphone. "Educating is teaching people to find success and not to impose it on them."

In 1982, Moses founded the Algebra Project, a national mathematics literacy program for low-income students and students of color in middle schools. Moses and Cornell professor of mathematics David Henderson are currently working together on a proposed high school curriculum for the program.

Local teacher Jeff Claus said educators should think "more in terms of equal outcomes" rather than equal opportunity. "The thing I love about the Algebra Project is it has found very rich, quantitative, meaningful ways to help [students] to succeed and achieve," Claus said. 

"I was impressed with Dr. Moses' ability to stimulate discussion, and then weave into that discussion, useful information and perspectives," said Stephen Hamilton, associate provost for outreach at Cornell, whose office organizes the community forum series. "His manner was understated and very respectful, and yet the authority of his experience and his wisdom comes through."

Introducing Moses, IHS Principal Joe Wilson said he had seen his work in action while at a previous post. The 1,400 Algebra Project students and tutors at Baltimore's City College not only "improved dramatically in use of mathematics" but became publicly involved in ensuring the program would continue, he said.

Moses also signed copies of his book, "Radical Equations: Civil Rights from Mississippi to the Algebra Project," which he co-authored with Charles E. Cobb. During his visit to Ithaca, Moses also led workshops for BOCES and Ithaca City School District mathematics teachers; attended a community dinner at the Greater Ithaca Activities Center, where he talked with young people about the civil rights movement; and visited Cornell's newly renovated Africana Studies and Research Center and Sage Chapel, where a stained glass window memorializes slain Mississippi civil rights workers Michael Schwerner (Cornell '61), James Chaney and Andrew Goodman.

The Community Forum on Education and Society is held twice each school year. The first event, "Shared Challenges, Shared Opportunities," a discussion of how gender, race and class affect education, was conducted in December 2004 at Cornell's Statler Hotel with 120 participants, including a cross-section of students and community members. 

Partners in the second forum were the Ithaca College Center for Teacher Education, The Village at Ithaca, the Ithaca City School District (ICSD), Tompkins-Seneca-Tioga BOCES and the Ithaca Public Education Initiative.