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Let's Be Cautious With Local Minimum Wage


Mark Weprin

Council Member Mark Weprin, the author, and his guest council member for a day (William Alatriste)


During his State of the Union address, President Obama vowed to work with Congress on legislation that would increase the Federal minimum hourly wage from $7.25 to $10.10. A week later, Mayor de Blasio told reporters that he supports legislation that would raise the State's minimum wage from $8 to $10.10 next year. That same bill, now reported to be backed by Governor Cuomo, would also allow local municipalities to set their own rates for the minimum wage.

I agree with the president, the governor and the mayor that the minimum wage needs to be increased. Working families all across the country are struggling to make ends meet and putting more money in their pockets is undoubtedly a step in the right direction. It is outrageous that here, in New York State, retail employees, fast food workers and other minimum wage earners are expected to provide for their families with an $8 hourly wage. The cost of living continues to rise and today's minimum wage is clearly failing to keep up.

At the same time, I have serious concerns about permitting local municipalities to set their own minimum wages. While the concept sounds great in theory, in practice it has the potential to hurt local small businesses and deter businesspeople from opening up new businesses in certain areas of the City.

The Council district I represent encompasses a number of neighborhoods on the Queens County/Nassau County border; the entire district is within a 10-minute drive of Nassau County. Many of my constituents even live within walking distance of the city line. If New York City sets a higher minimum wage, entrepreneurs considering opening businesses in Eastern Queens will have a financial disincentive. Why open a new business in a Queens neighborhood like Floral Park, Glen Oaks, New Hyde Park, or Little Neck when you can simply site the business a few blocks away in Nassau County, where the minimum wage is lower? A similar problem presents itself in neighborhoods across the Northern Bronx, which borders Westchester County, and Staten Island, which is close to New Jersey.

Businesses that are already established in areas on the outskirts of the City will also suffer if the proposed legislation is approved. To compensate for the financial losses caused by minimum wage hikes, business owners will need to increase the prices of their products. Doing so could have a devastating impact on many of the local establishments that operate on thin margins to begin with, as consumers will have cheaper alternatives nearby. The consequences may even be severe enough to put some places out of business.

Raising the minimum wage is a great idea, but we should implement the change for the entire country or at least the whole State of New York. Setting different wages in neighboring cities and towns is a well-intentioned concept that can backfire big time.

***
Mark Weprin is the New York City Council Member for the 23rd council district, in Queens.

 

21st Century Learning Includes BYOT


cell phones schools


Kids are doing it in Cincinnati and Tacoma. They're doing it in Louisville, Ocean Springs, Dallas, West Fargo, Atlanta, Brentwood and New Smyrna Beach. It's time we worked together for New York City youth to do it too.

I'm talking about students in public schools with programs called Bring Your Own Technology, or BYOT, which support and encourage the use of personal devices like smartphones, tablets or e-readers in classrooms.

Rather than confiscating phones upon entry to the building, teachers in BYOT schools are integrating mobile apps and tools into their lessons. Students use Google Drive to collaborate on projects, answer pop quizzes, participate in class discussions, snap photos of assignments and classroom presentations and much more. Meanwhile, teachers are using their own tools to help them create data visualizations showing whether students have grasped a concept, to track class participation and to communicate with students learning English as a second language.

But, in New York City public schools, mobile devices have been banned since the 2005-2006 school year.

According to a 2013 study by the Pew Research Center and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 37% of all teens have smartphones, compared to 45% of all adults. Moreover, teens living in households with annual incomes under $30,000 are only 4% less likely than their wealthier peers to own a smartphone. Given these findings, it makes sense for schools with tight budgets to have students use the technology they already own, rather than invest in computers and other digital labs.

Of course, there are hurdles we will need to work to overcome: so many online devices can stress school data networks, forcing many teachers to allow students to access the Internet using their own data provider network, which allows them to get around firewalls blocking social media and inappropriate websites. Not every student in a class uses the same device, and it's important for teachers to receive training before implementing a BYOT program.

With The LAMP, media literacy program facilitators travel to schools and communities throughout New York City, typically transporting laptops, cameras, microphones and other equipment, enabling us to bring 21st-century learning opportunities to young people and adults who otherwise use technology primarily for entertainment. We've worked in schools of five hundred students, all sharing one laptop cart and one media librarian. We've been in school technology labs stocked with computers that rarely get used, often because they're horribly out-of-date or because few people have any training on how to use them to support teaching. Meanwhile, most of the students have their own technology, which they already know how to operate, and which are typically not more than a couple of years old.

Educators and administrators nationwide are acting on what they see as the inevitability of BYOT in schools. As Lenny Schad, chief technology information officer at the Houston Independent School District, told the New York Times in March, 2013 after implementing a BYOT program in Katy, Texas, "My message: It shouldn't be 'if' we do it, it should be 'when' we do it...On a smartphone, there are no limitations. This is the world they live in and we're bringing it into the classroom."

When we confiscate students' smartphones, we are sending them a firm message that technology devices are toys. So it can be no surprise that young people treat them as such, particularly if they're not fortunate enough to be in schools that issue laptops and tablets to each student, or where each student spends school time every day on a computer connected to the Internet. If we're not showing them the endless possibilities of how they can learn and explore with technology, they're being left behind as millions of other young people come to understand that technological devices are actually tools to connect them with an endless array of resources to support learning, civic engagement and creativity, often available at little or no cost.

Successful BYOT programs are not implemented overnight, but as so many wise teachers told me when I was young, anything easy probably isn't worth doing. Models for BYOT programs are out there and working in school environments that are suburban and urban, advantaged and disadvantaged. It's time for all of us – program providers, students, educators, parents, the Mayor's office and the DOE - to work together to relinquish the ban on smartphones in classrooms, and at minimum launch BYOT pilot programs in our public schools to help New York City students gain the skills they need to get jobs in the multi-billion dollar tech and media industries our city is working so hard to build up.

***
Emily Long is the Director of Communications and Development at The LAMP. Find her on Twitter using @emlong, or follow The LAMP at @thelampnyc.
***

Gotham Gazette's executive editor, Ben Max, is a member of The LAMP's young executive board. Opinions of neither Ben nor Gotham Gazette are represented in this article.

Principal to Chancellor: Take the Lead on School Discipline


Principal Brady Smith

The author, Principal Brady Smith


"Our schools are learning places. They're not suspension places," said Chancellor Fariña to a room full of principals this past Saturday. Could this mean real change in the way we view students in the classroom?

In Los Angeles schools, they call it "willful defiance"; elsewhere, "insubordination." In New York City, "B21" or "defying or disobeying lawful authority" is the second most common reason students are suspended in school each day (based on the data we have available).

Last year in New York City schools, black students, who comprise less than a third of the student population, served more than half of the suspensions citywide. Students with disabilities, making up twelve percent of the student body, served a whopping thirty percent of principal and superintendent suspensions. Are our black students or students with special needs more disruptive, or more dangerous, than their white peers? No.

Mayor de Blasio has made a public commitment to tackle these disparities and I am confident that in this administration, positive school discipline is a priority. I was thrilled to hear the Chancellor say that the Department of Education is "looking seriously at a revised (Discipline) Code". By focusing on those most impacted, students of color and students with disabilities, we can move on making progressive reforms in school discipline in NYC. The removal of suspension as an option for B21 in the soon-to-be-released 2014-2015 Discipline Code will be a great step in the right direction for all NYC students.

An educator for 24 years and principal in New York City public schools for 7 years, I have seen my share of 'defying authority.' One of my former students, who I'll call Gerald, regularly defied school staff and safety officers. He'd get angry and walk out of classrooms, he'd tell off adults who tried to stop him, and he rejected our initial attempts to counsel him. Suspending him may have temporarily put a stop to classroom disruptions, but it would not have given him the tools to manage his anger and strategies to move past his frustration.

Instead we involved him in a Fairness Committee where fellow students and adults described how his behavior affected them. And together with his mother, we collaboratively devised a behavior contract that included supports he might need from adults at school, supports like the opportunity to take a time out if he felt his frustration getting out of hand. His advisor checked in with him regularly and celebrated with him when he managed his anger. He struggled to make the change, and had some bad days, but ultimately he stayed in school, developed skills in anger management, and mastered his academic content. My experience in schools, with many, many Geralds, has taught me that there are more effective ways to shift defiant behavior than suspension.

The current discipline code allows principal's suspension of up to five days as an option for students who defy authority. Although the racial breakdown of the data for New York City's B21 is redacted, it's not a surprise that this infraction is a hyper-racialized one elsewhere in the country. Students of color and students with IEPs are disproportionately impacted.

In Los Angeles, suspension for their version of defying authority has been removed as an option district-wide. The principal of L.A.'s Garfield High School took suspensions off the table altogether last year, noting, "I can't teach a kid if he's not in school." Far from descending into chaos, the school has transformed.

Policy change has to happen from the top, and must be coupled with school-based training and resources. Removing suspension as an option for B21, providing educators with professional development in restorative discipline approaches, and requiring that positive interventions are implemented before suspension can transform our schools. We are days away from the release of the draft Discipline Code. The moment is now; this is the right administration to position New York City as a leader in ending discriminatory discipline.

***
Brady Smith
Principal Co-Director, The James Baldwin School

 



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