Dear Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer,

We write to urgently demand that you rescind your appointment of Shino Tanikawa to the Community Education Council for D2 and instead appoint a parent of a current Pre-K-8th grade student who will advocate for the families of our District.

Ms. Tanikawa does not dutifully represent the parents of District 2. She has made clear by her words and actions that she is pursuing her own personal ideology at the expense of our children. She has plainly demonstrated that she has no intention of listening to parent voices or honoring our aspirations and hopes for our children.

All public school parents deserve CEC leaders who respect and represent parents’ wishes and transparently work in their interests. 

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Ms. Tanikawa is unfit to serve as Manhattan BP Gale Brewer's appointee for the following reasons:

(1)  She Secretly Lobbied Against a $3.1MM Integration Grant for D2 Students

Ms. Tanikawa secretly lobbied AGAINST receiving a $3.1 million NYS Education Department grant to integrate District 2 schools and improve academic support. She wrote to the NYS Education Department urging it to not award D2 schools grant money for integration efforts. Her actions AGAINST the interests of the District are inexcusable, but are especially egregious and devastating during the simultaneous health, education and financial crises our children and families currently face.

Ms. Tanikawa wrote seven pages of complaint about the grant submission which amounted to “I would have done it differently.” 

Ms. Tanikawa incomprehensibly states that the District should “withdraw” the proposal which was worked on extensively for over two years which would disqualify the District from receiving the State funds. She suggests instead that the District “seek foundation funding so that the Design Team can continue the work in the absence of state funding.” 

Her blithe and incredible assertion that $3MM worth of private funding is readily available to District 2 schools to achieve the grant’s aims—explained on the NYS website as “increase student achievement in New York State public schools by encouraging greater racial/ethnic, special education, English Language Learner/Multilingual Learner (ELL/MLL), and socioeconomic integration,”—would be laughable if it was not so disastrous for the students and families who will be harmed by her efforts to stop needed funding.

(2)  She Refuses to Work with Those With Different Viewpoints 

On June 28, 2020, Ms. Tanikawa wrote an “Open Letter to Maud” which inexcusably threatened to withhold “peaceful collaboration” until Ms. Maron, at the time the president of CEC D2, adopted the beliefs of Ms. Tanikawa. She subsequently co-sponsored a resolution to remove Ms. Maron as the president of the council to punish Ms. Maron for not acquiescing to her radical demands. 

Ms. Tanikawa wrote: “....I have no interest collaborating with you on policy positions until you exhibit your commitment to anti-racism work…..I am committed to anti-racism work and will not compromise to create a resolution that makes you comfortable and I must protect myself from harm caused by non-racists.”

All members of CEC, whether elected or appointed, have the basic requirement and obligation to work together regardless of whether they have disagreements. In a school district and city as diverse as ours, they should expect diverse views as normal and should welcome them. They absolutely should not demand homogeneity of views as a condition of cooperation and collaboration on behalf of our children and families. 

(3)  She Engages in Self-Dealing

Ms. Tanikawa successfully lobbied the NYS Legislature to overturn term limits for Borough President CEC appointees in order to extend her tenure on CEC D2. If not for the self-dealing and conflict of interest in successfully changing State Law for her own benefit, Ms. Tanikawa would be barred from serving in CEC 2 next term as she already served for two terms (2017-2019 and 2019-2021).

This blatant self-dealing and unethical conduct should disqualify Ms. Tanikawa from being your proxy. Even you are subject to term limits. NYC residents have always supported term limits including imposing term limits on community boards by an overwhelmingly supported referendum in 2017.

(4)  She Actively Evades Open Meetings Law to Pursue Her Own Educational Agenda 

Ms. Tanikawa is the co-founder and current chair of the Education Council Consortium (ECC), a private entity which masquerades as a State Education Law-Sanctioned body and meets with the DOE Chancellor bimonthly. 

While ECC enjoys access, influence, resources and other trappings of a quasi-governmental entity, it is insulated from the same standards of accountability and transparency that would apply to governmental agencies or not-for-profit organizations engaged in this work. 

In response to a CEC D2 Resolution seeking to allow parents to attend ECC meetings to hear what was being advocated purportedly on their behalf, Ms. Tanikawa wrote to the Committee on Open Government seeking to PREVENT parents from attending the meetings, let alone providing feedback. Nevertheless, every ECC resolution starts with the deceptive and false statement that it “represents 1.1 million public school students.”   

(5)  She Has No Children Currently Attending a NYC Public School

Ms. Tanikawa was appointed to CEC 2 in 2017 and again in 2019 despite the fact that Ms.Tanikawa was statutorily unable to run for an elected seat on the council in either term because she had and has no children in Pre-K to 8th grade. You chose to overlook scores of actual eligible NYC public school parents who ran for the council in order to appoint Ms. Tanikawa. 

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In summary, Ms. Tanikawa’s actions and conduct in office have brought disruption and strife to the District and dishonor to your office. She lobbies against the needs of D2 families, bullies public school parents and fellow Council Members who disagree with her, engages in self-dealing, actively tries to exclude parents from her secretive advocacy organization, and is no longer a public school parent.

It is outrageous that your appointee would work actively against the interests of YOUR constituents. All CEC Members need to conduct themselves with honesty, transparency, and fidelity to their District families. Ms. Tanikawa has repeatedly failed to adhere to these maxims. She is unfit to be your appointee.

Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, we the undersigned, respectfully and urgently ask you to acknowledge the severity of the concerns outlined here and to immediately rescind Ms. Tanikawa’s Borough President appointment as she no longer represents the families or students of our District.