Gotham Gazette

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Education

Education

  • The Covid Crisis Has Made It Additionally Clear: It’s Time to End School Admissions Screens in New York City

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    Brandon St. Luce, the author (photo: Dulce Michelle)


    Sunday, May 17 of this year, marked 66 years since the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that “separate is inherently unequal.” Yet today, many of our nation’s public school systems remain both separate and unequal. Nowhere is this clearer than in New York City, where I attend high school. 

    For five years, Mayor Bill de Blasio has touted an “Equity and Excellence” agenda while maintaining discriminatory admissions requirements at hundreds of middle and high

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  • Prioritize Schools - New Yorkers Demand a Real Plan for Our Students and Our City

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    students and schools in focus (photo: William Alatriste/City Council)


    It can't be easy to be in charge of New York City schools right now, facing a triple threat of crises: health, financial, and educational. However, our city as a whole can't function without our schools open—until that happens, parents, guardians, and caregivers can't get back to work; businesses across our city can't rely on their employees; and many children can't get the educational, social-emotional, and nutritional support they need.

    We know there are increasing numbers of unknown

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  • Max & Murphy Podcast: Teachers Union President Michael Mulgrew on Reopening New York City Schools

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    UFT President Michael Mulgrew with Mayor de Blasio (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)


    July 8, 2020 - Max & Murphy Podcast: Teachers Union President Michael Mulgrew on Reopening New York City Schools

    Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), joined the show to discuss the planning for reopening New York City schools in September and the various educational, health, and other measures that will need to be in place. He reacted to how Mayor Bill de Blasio has handled schools amid the coronavirus pandemic and the

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  • As Unemployment and Crime Spike, City Plan for Disconnected Young Adults Remains Years Behind Schedule

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    The mayor is behind on a plan for disconnected youth (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)


    A city task force meant to address the needs of out-of-school, out-of-work youth in the city, who pre-pandemic numbered at over 118,000 in New York City, has not yet released its report, over two years after it was due. Now, with over 35% of young adults in the city unemployed and gun violence increasing, advocates like Marjorie Parker of JobsFirstNYC, an advocacy group that was a ...

  • Make My School and All Others Police-Free

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    Students rally for police-free schools (photo: Urban Youth Collaborative)


    Every morning, I walk through a metal detector to start my day. I’m one of thousands of students who attend heavily policed schools, where there are more school safety agents than nurses, guidance counselors, and therapists combined. Students of color like me deserve to feel safe and supported, not policed, in our classrooms — but a new proposal to simply transfer school safety agents

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  • How We Must Reinvent New York City Education After Coronavirus

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    (photo: Benjamin Kanter/Mayoral Photo Office)


    It’s 8:30 a.m. on a Tuesday. My youngest, now 13, needs help setting up for the Zoom meeting I wrangled with his math teacher so they can address how his dyscalculia is making fractions difficult. My middle child has just roused, a mark of my hard-earned success in resetting her circadian rhythm disrupted by these strange times. My eldest wants to discuss whether she should take “no-grade” on one of her courses during her second semester in college—the transition to remote learning at home has been too rocky for her to maintain focus on

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  • Reimagine Education in New York – Without Segregation

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    (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


    Governor Andrew Cuomo has called rightly on New Yorkers, in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, to reimagine education. We should reimagine it without racial segregation. 

    The novel coronavirus’ path of destruction has starkly illuminated the structural racism that underpins so much inequality in America. That inequality includes educational segregation in New York. 

    Structural racism, which is the historical and ongoing racial discrimination and segregation of Black people in particular, is typically

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  • The Mayor’s Short-Sighted Professional Development Design

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    Mayor de Blasio goes to school (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


    It was 2014 when Mayor de Blasio declared that “under Carmen Fariña’s leadership, principals and teachers alike have been training and training and training – it’s like they’re all going to the Olympics – they’ve been training all summer to be the best they could be.”

    But six years later, the mayor has changed his tune. He’s proposing to slash funding for professional development for the city’s 75,000 educators at a time when children need us most and teachers most need it

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  • Encouraging Trends to Embrace for Path Forward at City’s Specialized High Schools

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    Mayor and Chancellor have major decisions to make (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)


    While our schools are shut down because of the coronavirus, recent good news points to successful efforts to improve the ethnic diversity of the city’s specialized high schools -- Brooklyn Tech, Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, and five others.

    At the end of May, the New York City Department of Education issued its report on the Discovery Program. Created over 50 years ago to improve admissions for black and Latino students, it had fallen into complete disuse, except at Brooklyn Tech. To

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  • New Yorkers Can Weigh In On Recommendations for New Student 'Civic Readiness' Standards

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    A task force is examining student 'civic readiness' (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


    New Yorkers can now weigh in on developing state standards for “civic readiness” among students in K-12 schools. The New York Board of Regents’ Civics Readiness Task Force put forth three major recommendations in January, after a yearlong process, and a public comment period is now open as the Board is set to further consider what steps to take to mandate new civics standards in schools across the state.

    The process is part of a

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  • Pandemic Reinforces De Blasio's Inaction on School Desegregation Recommendations

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    Mayor de Blasio during a school visit (photo: Edwin J. Torres/ Mayor's Office)


    As the coronavirus pandemic further exposes deep fissures in the city's education landscape for low-income students and students of color, it has also further stalled Mayor Bill de Blasio's already-halting efforts to integrate New York City's deeply segregated schools.

    In the nine months since a de Blasio-appointed advisory group released its final recommendations on ways to desegregate and in other ways improve city schools, virtually nothing has been said on the

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  • To Reopen Schools, The Mayor Needs Smaller Classes - Here’s $570 Million in Potential Department of Education Savings to Get Him Started

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    Mayor de Blasio needs a plan to reopen city schools (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


    The New York City Department of Education has lost 74 employees to the novel coronavirus, including 30 teachers and 28 paraprofessionals who have died as of May 8. Evidence has also emerged that children can develop serious illnesses after being infected with the virus, and even those who are asymptomatic are often effective transmitters. 

    Now

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  • Solving the School Nurse Crisis Before Schools Reopen

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    Mayor de Blasio talks with nurses (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)


    Long before COVID-19, New York City schools were dealing with a public health crisis: a lack of full-time nurses. Despite operating more than 2,000 schools, the city only employs around 1,400 nurses. It outsources others through private companies, wasting precious tax dollars, more than $100 million per year, on profiteering vendors rather than investing in the nursing staff that our schools need. And that they will need even more once schools open back up.

    On Thursday

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  • How is New York City Going to Safely Open Its Many Overcrowded Schools, Like Mine?

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    Mayor de Blasio has major school decisions to make (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


    We’re looking at a possible school re-opening this September. I can’t wait to go back. Remote learning is better than nothing, but it’s no substitute for a live classroom. In a live classroom, I can see what students are doing. I can check their work in real time and quickly offer tips for improvement. I can urge students away from sleeping or fiddling with electronic devices.

    Now I’m reduced to looking at a bunch of avatars. Who knows what the kids are doing behind them?

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  • Coronavirus Tests New York City Schools

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    (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


    Mayor de Blasio faced a short-answer, timed test: whether and when to close New York City's public schools. It was not an easy question. But his delay in answering and failure to adequately prepare has been costly in lives and learning. We continue to pay the price.

    Even where the coronavirus outbreak was less severe and despite ambiguous advice from the CDC, district after district, state after state, had already decided to close their schools. But de Blasio hung on, ignoring dire warnings of community spread from his own

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  • Coronavirus Threatens to Perpetuate Generational Inequality, Leaving Young People Behind Yet Again

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    Young people are again in highly precarious positions as the economy crumbles (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)


    If we have learned anything from the Great Recession just a decade ago, it’s that young adult generations that enter the labor market in an economic downturn are at a serious disadvantage, impacting their ability to successfully launch a career and reach financial security and self-sufficiency like the generations before

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  • Max & Murphy Podcast: Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza on the City's Shift to Remote Learning

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    Chancellor Carranza and Mayor de Blasio (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)


    April 1, 2020 - Max & Murphy Podcast: Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza on the City's Shift to Remote Learning

    wbai robert carranzaNew York City Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza joined the show to discuss the city's shift to remote learning amid the coronavirus crisis.

    Listen to the

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  • Max & Murphy Podcast: Remote Learning Begins for the City's 1 Million Students

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    Students at laptops (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)


    March 25, 2020 - Max & Murphy Podcast: Remote Learning Begins for the City's 1 Million Students

    The coronavirus outbreak led Mayor Bill de Blasio to close the city's schools and direct the Department of Education to shift to "remote learning" for its 1 million-plus students. Alex Zimmerman, an education reporter from from Chalkbeat NY, joined the show to discuss the shift to remote learning, how it's gone in its first days, and the larger picture for the

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  • Pre-Registering 16- and 17-Year-Olds to Vote the Focus of Second Annual City ‘Civics Week’

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    The city focused on student voter registration (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


    As fears of the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) mounted, but before Mayor Bill de Blasio made the monumental decision to close the city’s schools for at least five weeks, New York City government held its second annual Civics Week to encourage civic participation and voter registration among students.

    After a new law passed last year to allow it, the city focused this year’s Civics Week on pre-registering 16- and 17-year-olds to vote, beginning with such a voter registration

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  • Far Too Many Classrooms are Overcrowded, It’s Time for City Leaders to Act

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    DOE Chancellor Richard Carranza visits a classroom (photo: John McCarten/City Council)


    In the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case, the state’s Court of Appeals concluded in 2003 that class sizes were too large in New York City schools to provide our students with their constitutional right to a sound basic education, writing that “[T]ens of thousands of students are placed in overcrowded classrooms… The number of children in these straits is large enough to represent a systemic failure.”

    And yet despite this decision, and the fact that

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  • After Cuomo Veto, Uncertain Future for Civic Education Fund While State Task Force Moves Ahead

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    (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


    In response to several trends, including low voter turnout and civic knowledge, the past few years have seen a sporadic push for stronger civics education in New York and beyond.

    In the spring of 2018, New York City launched a ”Civics For All” Initiative, which “provides resources, programming, and professional learning to all NYC schools. The initiative focuses on education models

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  • Reactions Roundup: Elected Officials, Advocates & Others on Cuomo's 2020 State of the State Speech

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    (photo: Darren McGee/Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo)


    On Wednesday, Governor Andrew Cuomo presented his annual State of the Stateaddress from Albany. He opened by highlighting the challenges faced by Americans, and New Yorkers, over recent weeks and years, including earthquakes in Puerto Rico, escalating tensions with Iran, and the surge in hate crimes against Jewish New Yorkers.

    Cuomo gave highlights of New York

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  • What the Future of Education Looks Like

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    (photo: Benjamin Kanter/Mayoral Photo Office)


    Late last year, Mayor Bill de Blasio and City Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza proudly announced “record increases” in internet bandwidth in public school buildings – an important milestone because in a digital world, every school deserves good internet access.

    But, the announcement invited more questions than it answered, especially in light of the Department of Education’s other recent announcement of planning to create or redesign 40 schools “of the future.” 

    What is a “school of

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  • Many Major Challenges, Decisions for De Blasio in 2020

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    (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photo Office)


    As Mayor Bill de Blasio enters his seventh year in office, on the heels of a failed presidential bid and at a time when his political clout appears at its nadir, he faces many major challenges and big decisions ahead.

    2020, the next-to-last year of his second and final term, begins with a focus on public safety, including recent spikes in anti-Semitic hate crimes, murders, and byciclist fatalities, as well as how the city is adjusting to new state-mandated bail reforms that the mayor has

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  • Taking Stock of Significant Progress in New York City Schools

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    (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


    The students in the New York City public schools are doing better -- so much so that the improvements offer Mayor Bill de Blasio a real opportunity for a legacy. The mayor still has two more years to go and two more budgets to invest in kids.

    Mayor de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza announced in November

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