Chalkbeat

Former NYC Chancellor Banks urges ‘decisive action’ on school cellphone ban

2025-01-03T21:59:17+00:00

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Former New York City Chancellor David Banks on Friday urged Mayor Eric Adams to take “decisive action this year” on a systemwide school cellphone ban, in some of his first public comments since his abrupt exit last October.

“As Chancellor, this was one of the initiatives I deeply believed in,” Banks wrote on LinkedIn Friday, referring to a New York Daily News op-ed entitled “Ban smartphones in public schools.”

“While Mayor Adams decided to take more time to consider this policy, I hope that we see decisive action this year,” Banks continued.

Banks’ comments Friday were his clearest effort yet to distance himself from the decision to not move forward with a systemwide school cellphone ban this school year.

Adams put the kibosh on that proposal last August after Banks spent months hinting about an imminent plan. Disagreement over the cellphone ban was reportedly part of a growing rift between the longtime friends in the final months of the school chief’s two-and-a-half year tenure. Banks departed in dramatic fashion last October amid escalating federal investigations into Adams’ inner circle.

Banks’ push also comes as conversations about school cellphone bans are heating up again in Albany. Gov. Kathy Hochul has repeatedly expressed her concerns about the role of phones in schools and is mulling issuing statewide policy in the coming weeks.

Adams said in a press conference last month that the city would comply with state policy.

The idea of a systemwide school cellphone ban in the nation’s largest school district gathered significant momentum last school year in a matter of months.

Banks expressed skepticism about the idea as recently as last March, but quickly became an ardent supporter. Banks credited the book “The Anxious Generation” by NYU professor and New York City public school parent Jonathan Haidt and conversations with school principals for changing his mind.

“The evidence is clear,” Banks said Friday on LinkedIn. “Limiting phone use in schools improves safety, reduces distractions, and addresses the growing mental health challenges our children face, including online bullying.”

Roughly 90% of schools across the country reported incidents of cyberbullying last school year, according to federal education department survey data.

Banks signaled early last summer that he intended to implement a systemwide ban starting this school year.

But Adams threw cold water on that idea in late August, saying the city was “not there yet” and that he didn’t want to introduce a policy he would later have to roll back. “We want to make sure we have parents on board,” Adams said.

Education Department officials ultimately encouraged schools to consider cellphone bans but didn’t mandate it. Officials said at the start of the school year that they expected some 850 of the city’s roughly 1,600 schools to have a ban in place this year.

Education officials also said they planned to work with the Health Department this school year to study the best practices for cellphone use in schools. A spokesperson told Chalkbeat that study is underway but didn’t share any findings or say when it will be done.

A spokesperson for Adams didn’t immediately respond to questions Friday about Banks’ comments or the city’s plans for school cellphone policy.

Less than two weeks after Adams announced he was pumping the brakes on the school cell phone ban, federal officials searched the home of Banks and his wife, former First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright. Investigators were reportedly looking into whether Banks’ brother Terence improperly leveraged his family relationships to try to secure city contracts for clients of his consulting firm. Soon after, Adams was charged with violating federal bribery and campaign finance laws as part of a separate investigation. Neither Banks nor Wright have been accused of wrongdoing.

Banks announced his retirement in late September, saying he had been planning to step down for months and denying that the decision had anything to do with the investigations.

He initially planned to stay in his position through the end of December, but Adams accelerated that timeline amid an effort to demonstrate to Hochul, who has the power to remove the mayor, that he could continue governing. That prompted a critical statement from Banks, who said the earlier departure date undercut his ability to conduct a “responsible transition for our staff.”

Banks didn’t respond Friday to a request for comment.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

‘A mess on our hands:’ NYC teachers union raises alarm on math curriculum overhaul

2024-10-11T20:20:37+00:00

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New York City’s teachers union has been a key supporter of the ambitious effort to overhaul the literacy curriculum in elementary school, but it’s been a very different story when it comes to a big math curriculum push.

Schools Chancellor David Banks is mandating almost every city high school adopt the same curriculum for Algebra I – a move that United Federation of Teachers president Michael Mulgrew in recent weeks has been publicly criticizing in stark terms.

“We have a mess on our hands,” Mulgrew told Chalkbeat this week. “I’ve been to a lot of high schools, and in every school, they’re telling us the same exact thing: that in the end, the students are going to be harmed.”

Mulgrew’s opposition is a dramatic turn from the union’s literacy support, and comes at a crucial moment for the nascent math curriculum overhaul. After rolling out Illustrative Math — a curriculum that emphasizes open-ended activities and student discussion — to roughly 260 high schools last year, officials expanded it citywide this year, while also mandating roughly 100 middle schools to use one of three pre-approved math curriculums.

The union chief’s pushback could spell trouble for the Education Department, especially at a time of transition. The department is already navigating the turmoil of an abrupt leadership change and chaos in city hall following Mayor Eric Adams’ indictment.

One looming question is how the curriculum shift will impact students’ scores on the Algebra I Regents exam, a state-mandated test at the end of the course that students must pass to move on to higher-level math courses and graduate.

While officials have yet to share citywide results for last year’s Algebra I Regents, some early results are sparking concern.

Josephine Van Ess, superintendent of Queens South High Schools, whose district participated in last year’s Illustrative Math pilot, told parent leaders Algebra I Regents pass rates in her district fell from 59% in 2023 to 45% last year, the New York Post first reported. Van Ess attributed the drop in part to the new curriculum and referenced “a decline across the city” in Algebra I Regents scores.

The test also changed last year, making it difficult to do an apples-to-apples comparison with 2023, but educators said the changes weren’t extensive.

Mulgrew said union officials were not involved in planning the math curriculum changes and have been raising concerns for the past year over the curriculum’s lack of remediation for students far behind grade level, unrealistic expectations about how quickly teachers should move through lessons, and misalignment with the Algebra I Regents exam.

Expanding it this year was “doubling down on a bad bet,” Mulgrew said.

Education officials are holding firm. Banks has argued that math results were so underwhelming across the city, and riddled with so many inequities, that he had to try something new and ambitious. Just 48% of Black and Latino city students who took the Algebra I Regents in 2023 passed, compared to 74% of white and 83% of Asian-American students, according to state data.

Big new curriculum efforts often lead to early “implementation dips,” officials have argued.

“We’re playing the long game here,” Banks said at a September press conference.

And many educators support the philosophy behind the new curriculum, which pushes students to discover math concepts on their own rather than relying on teachers to explain rules that students then memorize and practice. Education Department officials emphasized that teachers new to the curriculum are receiving extensive professional development.

Deputy Chancellor Danika Rux, who is overseeing the curriculum overhaul, said addressing the union’s concerns is a “priority for us.” She said officials are meeting with the union to hear their concerns and quickly address them. ”We’re committed to making this work,” she said.

Debates flare over content, rollout of new curriculum

From the outset, the sweeping curriculum changes have drawn clashing responses from educators.

Some of the disputes reflect a long-simmering tension in math education between giving students room to explore and discover ideas on their own, and offering direct instruction with practice and repetition.

“You coming up with what ‘congruent’ means, that will stick with you a lot longer than if somebody’s telling you the definition of ‘congruent,’” Rux told reporters who participated Thursday in a sample Illustrative Math lesson at Fannie Lou Hamer Middle School in the Bronx.

But some educators said it’s simply not realistic to expect students to learn math skills without lots of built-in time for drilling and practice.

“All of the discovery is one thing, but not being able to actually make it ‘sticky’ is really something that I struggled with,” said one Brooklyn math teacher who participated in last year’s Illustrative Math pilot and spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. “The more [students] practice, the more they retain. But there was very little practice actually provided in the [Illustrative Math] curriculum.”

The Brooklyn teacher said he appreciates aspects of the new curriculum, and has used activities from it for years, but took issue with the city’s rollout of the mandate.

“People were just getting insane burnout,” he said. “All this stuff was coming down from the top. All of it, we were being told you have to do it by this date.”

His experience teaching Illustrative Math last year was so draining that he decided to stop teaching math this year, he said.

Teachers express concerns over fast pace of curriculum

For Mulgrew, the pressure to keep moving through the curriculum prevents teachers from stopping and shoring up lagging foundational skills for struggling students when it’s needed.

“Knowing that the majority of [their] students aren’t getting this, [teachers] can’t back off to do any sort of remediation to try to help them, because [they] have to stay on this pacing calendar,” he said. “This is insane.”

But some educators say continuing to offer challenging activities even while some students need extra support is part of the point.

“The result of focusing all of your attention on what students don’t know and remediating something from previous grades is a lack of equity in the grade-level content that students are allowed to learn,” said Emma Comstock Reid, a Fannie Lou Hamer algebra teacher.

Comstock Reid, who has been using Illustrative Math for years, added that the curriculum does include “adaptation packs” to help support kids behind grade level. Officials added that the curriculum’s open-ended activities allow students at different grade levels to contribute.

Educators have also raised concerns that the curriculum doesn’t align well with the year-end Regents exam. And while the long-term fate of the Regents exams is murky, they play a critical role now in students’ ability to graduate and move on to higher-level math courses.

Education Department officials urged patience with the test scores.

“There is something to be learned” from the Queens district that saw a big drop in Algebra I Regents scores this year, including the need for additional professional development for teachers, said Miatheresa Pate, the city’s interim chief of academics and instruction. “All data is good data.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Departing NYC chancellor David Banks’ next act? Writing a book.

2024-10-10T18:13:05+00:00

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Departing New York City schools Chancellor David Banks is already lining up his next act: a book based on his experiences leading the nation’s largest school system.

Banks, who will leave his role Tuesday following a public spat with his longtime friend Mayor Eric Adams over his departure date, has been taking copious notes every single day for the more than 2½ years he served as chancellor, he told parent leaders Thursday.

“I capture my notes on a daily basis, and I have not missed a day since I’ve started,” he told the Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Committee. “Every meeting that I’ve had, everything I do, before I go to bed at night, I reflect on it, it’s captured, I edit it. I’ve got binders now … . I’m going to capture all that into a story.”

It wouldn’t be Banks’ first foray into authorship: He previously wrote a book about his experience founding Eagle Academy, a network of public schools focused on Black and Latino boys.

Banks’ plans mirror those of Adams, who talks frequently about the book he’s assembling based on his mayoralty.

But Banks’ promise to share his unvarnished reflections also takes on a new meaning in the wake of a turbulent end to his tenure that involved FBI agents seizing his cell phones, the historic indictment of Adams on corruption charges, and the chancellor’s stunning rift with Adams over his departure date, which Banks had wanted to come at the end of the calendar year.

Banks’ promise of a tell-all also follows a cryptic social media post from his wife, First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright, who resigned earlier this week and was reportedly upset about how Adams treated Banks. In an Instagram post Wednesday, Wright referenced “testimonies” and having “stories to tell.” Banks’ younger brother, Phil, also resigned over the weekend from his post as deputy mayor of public safety after the federal agents seized his phones. Neither Banks’ brother nor Wright has been accused of wrongdoing.

But even putting aside the recent drama, Banks will have plenty of material to fill his tome. He led a major overhaul of the city’s literacy instruction and ramped up focus on getting high schoolers work experience. He presided over a tumultuous year of student protests surrounding the Israel-Hamas war, including one that garnered national attention at his alma mater, Hillcrest High School in Queens.

Banks found himself in the national spotlight several months later as he testified before a U.S. congressional panel grilling K-12 school leaders on their responses to antisemitism in schools.

“It’s a job where you in many ways are the repository of just what everybody wants,” he said Thursday. “It’s a great responsibility … and when you do it the way I do it, you can run out of gas.”

Banks told parent leaders at his final meeting with them that one of the best pieces of advice he got about the schools chief job came from former Chancellor Joel Klein, who served for eight years under Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

“You will never be able to keep up with all of it,” Banks recalled Klein telling him. “It’s too much information that happens every single day.”

That advice was part of what prompted Banks to start taking detailed notes, he said.

Banks’ departure coincides with a gathering the city is hosting to discuss the role of artificial intelligence in education, a topic about which Banks has become increasingly passionate.

After attending the AI conference, he said, he’s looking forward to the chance to rest and stop waking up at the crack of dawn, but doesn’t plan to withdraw completely from the education world.

“I’m not done in this work,” Banks said. “I’m just done in this particular role.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

David Banks has been the public face of NYC schools. Some call Dan Weisberg the ‘shadow chancellor.’

2024-10-09T21:55:02+00:00

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Within 24 hours of announcing his plans to step down as New York City’s schools chancellor, David Banks flanked Mayor Eric Adams at a jubilant press conference naming a successor to run the nation’s largest school system.

Neither Banks nor Adams took credit for selecting Melissa Aviles-Ramos, a deputy chancellor, as the next schools chief. Instead, they pointed to a top aide seated in the front row who had worked behind the scenes to elevate her: First Deputy Chancellor Dan Weisberg.

The moment revealed a dynamic inside the Education Department that could prove critical to how well it withstands the crisis enveloping the Adams administration. While Banks has served as the public face of the department, Weisberg has taken the lead backstage shaping and implementing policy as his second in command.

Weisberg, 61, first joined the department as a labor negotiator during Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration, which favored charter school expansion and clashed with the teachers union. After leaving the department, he spent a dozen years at a national nonprofit focused on teacher quality that advanced contentious policy ideas.

He now oversees a sprawling portfolio that includes an overhaul of reading and math instruction, opening new schools, and supervising the department’s senior leadership. He also led policy discussions on hot-button issues, from reintroducing selective admissions in the wake of the pandemic to navigating complex tradeoffs stemming from a state mandate to slash class sizes.

“A lot of advocates kind of describe him as the shadow chancellor,” said Matt Gonzales, director of the Education Justice Research and Organizing Collaborative at the NYU Metro Center. “Everywhere we turn, Dan Weisberg is showing up.”

A graduate of the city’s school system, Weisberg has won admirers. Some parents and education leaders described Weisberg as thoughtful and unusually responsive for a senior official. Others bristled that he is a lawyer by training with no teaching experience who nonetheless shapes policies directly affecting classrooms. And integration advocates have been frustrated by his support for selective admissions and gifted programs, which they blame for exacerbating school segregation.

But as a raft of top officials resign from the Adams administration in the wake of an unprecedented federal indictment of the mayor, Weisberg is now responsible for maintaining stability at the Education Department — an urgent task in the weeks ahead.

Banks’ sudden departure comes just over a month after his phones were seized by federal agents as part of a sprawling probe into Adams’ inner circle. Banks, who contends the mayor pushed him out of office ahead of schedule, has not been accused of wrongdoing.

In the meantime, Weisberg must help quickly smooth the transition for Aviles-Ramos, who is taking over as chancellor months earlier than planned. And he must also help cement the administration’s signature policy initiatives so they outlast Adams, who has pledged to run for re-election but faces corruption charges, multiple federal investigations, and an uncertain future as mayor.

Even before the recent upheaval, Weisberg said the department focused on building political support for their top initiatives among parents, educators, and union officials to ensure they outlive the Adams administration.

“Sustainability is something you should always have in mind,” he told Chalkbeat. “That was true under Mayor Bloomberg. It’s true under Mayor Adams. You never know exactly how much time you have.”

A one-time union foe, Weisberg charts a new path

Three years ago, as Banks prepared to take the reins of the Education Department, he called Weisberg for advice. The pair didn’t have a close relationship, though Weisberg had long admired the Eagle Academy network of public schools that Banks helped launch to serve boys of color.

Weisberg, then CEO of TNTP, an organization focused on teacher quality, said he and Banks shared a similar sense of humor and “clicked.”

But Banks’ decision to tap Weisberg immediately raised alarms from a powerful constituency.

Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, expressed “severe doubts” about Weisberg, he said in a recent interview. One educator wrote at the time that Weisberg is “one of the most dangerous people in the country who could rise to be the second highest ranking administrator” of the city’s public schools.

Weisberg helped lead labor negotiations under Bloomberg, who saw the teachers union as a powerful roadblock to overhauling the public school system. The administration pursued ideas that often drew fierce resistance: embracing charter schools, pushing for merit pay, vowing to overhaul teacher tenure protections, and closing a raft of schools, replacing them with new smaller ones.

Chancellor David Banks looks on as Dan Weisberg, first deputy chancellor, speaks during a press conference.

His role at TNTP, formerly known as The New Teacher Project, also drew scrutiny, as the organization often recommended policies that earned pushback from some educators. Shortly after joining TNTP, Weisberg co-authored a report that argued school districts were failing to distinguish between excellent and weak educators, effectively treating them as identical “widgets.” The influential paper helped spark a controversial push in many states to overhaul teacher evaluation systems, including tying them to standardized test scores.

When Weisberg was tapped to be Banks’ top deputy, taking a roughly $90,000 pay cut from his $354,000 TNTP salary, some of his critics feared the administration would follow through on the policy ideas Weisberg had been sharpening for years.

But Banks has focused on a narrower set of policies that have won broad support, including reading and math curriculum overhauls and a push to expose high school students to career options. Instead of trying to transform the way teachers are assessed and ferreting out weaker ones — proposals that have fallen out of favor politically — Weisberg has helped create more consistency over the materials teachers use.

The teachers union is a key backer of those efforts, even as some educators and parents raise concerns about the quality of the curriculum choices and complain that the mandate is too rigid.

Weisberg still believes the school system is falling short for too many children and that policymakers should take bigger risks. But he also thinks the curriculum overhauls are potentially transformative and dovetail with his prior focus on teacher quality.

“What I’m confident in is that the quality and the effectiveness of teachers as a whole is going to increase as a result of all this work,” he said.

He’s even won some grudging support from Mulgrew, who pointed to Weisberg’s role spinning up training to help teachers acclimate to the new curriculums.

“Weisberg has been very good with working with us on those things,” Mulgrew said. But the union chief stopped short of a full endorsement of his leadership. “I think he follows the lead of the people he works for.”

The clock may be running out on the Adams administration

With a little over a year left in his first term, Adams has pleaded not guilty to corruption charges and vowed to stay in office despite calls for him to step down. But uncertainty over how long he might remain in control looms over the school system.

Under a distracted City Hall with little political capital to spend on new initiatives, Weisberg and other top education officials must either focus on keeping the lights on and ensuring Adams’ existing education priorities take root or head for the exit themselves.

Aaron Pallas, an education policy expert at Columbia University’s Teachers College and longtime observer of the city’s public schools, said Weisberg may play a valuable role amid the uncertainty and transition to a new chancellor. Weisberg has a tight relationship with Aviles-Ramos, elevating her as a top aide in his office before recommending her to replace Banks. And he has deep knowledge of the literacy overhaul and career education expansion, the department’s signature priorities.

“He can probably troubleshoot and speed those along better than someone coming into his role anew,” Pallas said. “At the same time, there is so much built in regularity in a large bureaucracy that particular people may not matter quite as much as you think.”

Not everyone is rooting for stability. Some critics of Adams’ education agenda hope the political crisis at City Hall leads to new leadership at the Education Department sooner rather than later, pointing to heated fights over the department’s budget and prekindergarten program cuts.

Melissa Aviles-Ramos (center) has vowed to carry the torch on Banks' and Adams' education priorities.

School integration advocates also have been frustrated that the administration has resisted calls to address the system’s status as among the most segregated in the country.

Instead, the department has expanded academic screening in the wake of the pandemic, and more recently reinstated special access for Manhattan students at a handful of coveted high schools, decisions Weisberg helped facilitate. Banks and other top officials argue accelerated learning opportunities are crucial to keeping families in the system, though advocates contend those policies will exacerbate segregation.

“I ultimately want to see change — this administration has felt chaotic and stressful for the last few years,” said Gonzales, of the NYU Metro Center, a critic of Adams’ education policies and an integration advocate. “Dan Weisberg is part of that.”

East Harlem parent leader Kaliris Salas-Ramirez agreed. She said the administration has not moved swiftly enough to plan for a state law that mandates smaller class sizes, an issue Weisberg has helped oversee.

And she is skeptical of the department’s curriculum mandates and Weisberg’s supervision of them given his lack of teaching experience. She pointed to the decision to dissolve the department’s division of teaching and learning, a move Weisberg supported, which led to the resignation of Carolyne Quintana, a well-liked deputy chancellor. (Weisberg declined to comment on the specifics of her exit, and Quintana could not be reached for comment.)

“This man has no background on how children learn,” said Salas-Ramirez, who worked with Weisberg as a former member of the city’s Panel for Educational Policy. “For me, that’s been the difficult part of engaging with him.”

Weisberg has also faced some scrutiny over management of his staff, including raises and promotions to an enrollment official in the wake of an investigation that found she sold clothing online during the work day, the New York Post reported. The employee has since been fired and the Education Department’s enrollment chief, the staffer’s supervisor, was reassigned. (Weisberg declined to comment on the incident through a spokesperson, citing pending litigation.)

Yet other parent leaders are rooting for Weisberg to stay. “I’ve had a lot of feelings about the DOE over the years, and Dan was one of the first people who made me feel I could trust him – that he wasn’t treating parents like mosquitoes,” said Deborah Alexander, vice president of the Citywide Council on High Schools who generally supports efforts to expand selective admissions. “He always, always would respond to emails.”

For his part, Weisberg is adamant that he’s not eyeing the exit.

“I intend to stay on as long as the mayor and Melissa want me to serve in that role,” he said. He left the door only slightly ajar.

“You can never be sure what’s coming down the pike that might change things,” he said. “But I’m very committed to the work we’ve undertaken.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC schools Chancellor David Banks will retire months earlier than expected. He blames Mayor Adams.

2024-10-03T01:45:21+00:00

Chancellor David Banks will leave his position running the nation’s largest school system in two weeks – several months earlier than originally planned, city officials announced Wednesday night.

The change in plans means Melissa Aviles-Ramos will take over as New York City’s schools chief on Oct. 16 instead of Dec. 31.

In a stunning move Thursday morning, Banks blamed Mayor Eric Adams, his longtime friend, for moving up the date.

“Last week, I announced my planned retirement, and I was ready, willing and able to stay in my post until December 31st to conduct a responsible transition for our staff,” Banks said in a statement issued by a public relations firm, rather than the city Education Department. “The Mayor has decided to accelerate that timeline.”

In remarks to reporters Thursday morning, Adams said that having Banks and Aviles-Ramos overlap wasn’t bringing the “stability we wanted.”

Having her start closer to the beginning of the school year rather than the middle is a “good look” that will allow her to more quickly start implementing her plans, he added.

“One message, one leader there, and allowing her to get the job done correctly,” he said.

Those sentiments directly contradict the message that officials delivered just a week ago in a celebratory press conference announcing Aviles-Ramos’ appointment.

“This is the most responsible way that you can do this,” Banks said then of the plan to overlap with Aviles-Ramos for three months.

Despite Adams’ statement that Aviles-Ramos should get to work as soon as possible executing her vision, the incoming chancellor has made clear that her primary goal is continuing the work that Banks already started.

“My North Star is their North Star,” she told Chalkbeat, referring to Banks’ and Adams’ education priorities. “I share their vision … That’s why I agreed to be chancellor.”

The remarkable back-and-forth between Banks and Adams and the changing succession plans are the latest unprecedented developments involving city and education department leadership. They come as Adams faces federal charges of wire fraud, bribery, and receiving contributions from foreign nationals that he knew to be illegal. Adams has pleaded not guilty.

Banks and with his wife First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright have become tied up in the federal inquiries looming over City Hall. Both Banks and Wright had their phones seized by federal agents in September, just one day before the school year started, as part of a probe into Adams’ inner circle. Banks and Wright haven’t been accused of wrongdoing.

Just three weeks later, Banks announced his retirement effective Dec. 31, saying he was tired and “out of gas.” Adams tapped Aviles-Ramos as the schools chancellor the following day, just hours before news broke that he was indicted on federal corruption charges.

News of the expedited timetable for Banks’ departure comes amid reports that Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has the authority to remove the mayor from office, called on Adams to remove city officials who have been under investigation. Earlier this week, senior advisor Tim Pearson announced he is stepping down.

Asked if he had spoken to Hochul about removing Banks earlier, Adams told reporters he doesn’t reveal private conversations.

Though Hochul has not publicly called on Adams to resign, a growing number of local and state officials have done so — arguing Adams is incapable of leading the city while battling the federal charges. Adams, who is the first mayor to face federal charges while in office, has fiercely resisted those calls.

Adams also recently issued an executive order that would make it easier for Wright to step down from her role as first deputy mayor, fueling speculation she is also headed for the door, The New York Daily News reported.

Banks and Wright got married in a Martha’s Vineyard celebration last weekend.

The change in leadership comes at a critical time for many of the Adams administration’s signature education policies, with the rollout of multiple curriculum overhauls still underway.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org .

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org

NYC piloting school bus cameras from company run by ex-Eric Adams aide

2024-09-30T23:05:14+00:00

When New York City wanted to test cameras on city school buses, they tapped two vendors to pilot the technology.

One was Verra Mobility, an Arizona-based smart transportation company with a history of working with the city’s Transportation Department. The other was BusPatrol, a Florida company run by a former high-ranking official in the office of Mayor Eric Adams.

BusPatrol’s president and chief innovation officer is Justin Meyers, who until last September worked as chief of staff to Deputy Mayor of Public Safety Phil Banks. Federal agents seized the phones of both Banks, his brother, outgoing schools Chancellor David Banks, and a third brother, consultant Terence Banks, earlier this month as part of a federal investigation into Adams’ inner circle. Adams was indicted last week on bribery and fraud charges stemming from another investigation. He has pleaded not guilty.

City officials revealed the pilot program with BusPatrol Monday during a City Council hearing on school bus service. The cameras are mounted on school bus stop arms and snap photographs of the license plates of cars that illegally pass stopped school buses.

Officials didn’t share when the pilot program began. A City Hall spokesperson said the city didn’t pay anything for the pilot, which was led by NYCSBUS, a nonprofit bus operator that contracts with the city.

But the pilot, which started with 30 buses, was successful enough that City Hall and the Education and Transportation departments recently agreed to expand it to 250 buses, said James Sarkis, the executive director of contract operations in the city’s Office of Pupil Transportation.

In his time in City Hall, Meyers was closely involved with the city’s efforts to bring in new technology to aid law enforcement, including the failed pilot to have a robot patrol the Times Square subway station.

Officials will solicit new bids from companies for the expanded program, Sarkis added.

A spokesperson for BusPatrol said “Justin Meyers did not lobby the City of New York for or participate in discussions with the City” about the pilot or the request for proposals for the expansion. The spokesperson added that BusPatrol has no current contract or agreement with the city and said the company followed all city lobbying rules.

Chancellor Banks’ public schedule, obtained by Chalkbeat via public records request, listed a meeting with a “Justin Meyers” on Nov. 28, 2023, just months after Meyers, the chief of staff, left City Hall for BusPatrol. Banks’ schedule also lists a Zoom meeting with “Bus Patrol” in May 2022.

An Education Department spokesperson said the agency played no role in arranging or organizing the pilot.

City ethics rules bar top government officials who recently left their posts from appearing before their former agencies on behalf of a private business for a year. But officials who work for the mayor’s office are often allowed to appear before other city agencies on behalf of private businesses, said John Kaehny, the executive director of Reinvent Albany, a good government group.

But the revelation still raised eyebrows among some lawmakers and ethics watchdogs – especially as Adams and members of his inner circle face scrutiny following federal prosecutors’ unprecedented indictment of Adams.

“This is a disturbing example of the revolving door that desperately needs to be shuttered,” said Council member Lincoln Restler, a Brooklyn Democrat. Restler said he’s introduced legislation that would bar former officials in the mayor’s office from having contact with other city agencies following their departures. “It’s wrong to trade in your relationships from public service to immediately go and make money on the outside on behalf of corporate interest.”

Federal investigators are reportedly scrutinizing contracts and pilot programs for companies with ties to the Banks brothers. That includes Saferwatch, a company that produces a panic button app for schools and hired Terence Banks, a former MTA staffer, as a lobbyist in an effort to bring its product into city schools.

Saferwatch targeted Meyers and Chancellor Banks in their lobbying efforts, THE CITY reported, eventually winning a $67,000 pilot program, though city officials ultimately declined to move forward with a full contract.

Another company formerly owned by Banks, the deputy mayor, won a $145 million contract to provide fire watch services for the New York City Housing Authority, the New York Times reported.

Pilot programs are often subject to less scrutiny than official contracts, which must be publicly reported and solicit multiple bids, Politico recently reported.

BusPatrol lists a number of large districts across the country as its clients. Its website advertises AI-powered cameras that can be mounted on school buses to photograph the license plates of cars that illegally pass stopped buses, and share the information with law enforcement.

In a recent interview with a Buffalo, New York, radio station, Meyers said the company partners with roughly 450 school districts, and that the cameras can reduce instances of cars passing stopped school buses by around 40%.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Mayor Eric Adams faces federal indictment hours after naming new schools chancellor

2024-09-26T02:50:36+00:00

A federal grand jury has indicted Mayor Eric Adams, according to the New York Times, a destabilizing blow to the city just hours after he named its next schools chief.

The charges against Adams were unclear since the indictment was sealed, the Times reported. He is expected to surrender to authorities early next week, sources told the New York Post.

Adams’ indictment is both symbolically and practically significant for the nation’s largest school system. Under mayoral control — a governance model that Albany lawmakers extended twice under Adams’ watch — the city’s chief executive is responsible for overseeing its 1,600 schools, along with picking the schools chancellor.

Adams, the first New York City mayor to be charged while in office, can continue to serve as mayor even while facing charges. But he’s faced mounting pressure from local and state officials to step down, and news of the indictment was likely to fuel further critics.

“I always knew that if I stood my ground for New Yorkers that I would be a target — and a target I became,” Adams said in a statement Wednesday night to multiple news outlets. “If I am charged, I am innocent and I will fight this with every ounce of my strength and spirit.”

Wednesday night’s news raises questions about the leadership of the city as well as its schools. Schools Chancellor David Banks – whose phones were seized three weeks ago along with those of other top officials – announced Tuesday he plans to retire at the end of the calendar year.

It’s also unclear if the fallout from an indictment could impact Adams’ plan to have Melissa Aviles-Ramos replace Banks after his Dec. 31 retirement.

“It has the potential to really paralyze the DOE and really prevent it from doing anything novel and anything other than limping along,” Aaron Pallas, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College and longtime observer of the city’s school system, said of the indictment. “Many people feel like limping along is certainly not good enough.”

Even before news of the indictment began to spread on Wednesday evening, a growing chorus of elected officials had begun calling for the mayor’s resignation — most notably Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

If Adams were to resign or be forced out of office, decisions about the school system — including whether to move forward with Aviles-Ramos’ appointment — would fall to Jumaane Williams, the city’s public advocate. Williams’ office did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday about how he would approach managing the Education Department.

Just hours before word of the indictment broke, Adams joined Banks for a celebratory press conference where they formally announced Aviles-Ramos’ new role. She voiced her full-throated support for the mayor. “I want you to see me as a symbol of stability,” she said.

Multiple federal investigations have touched Adams’ inner circle, and several top officials have stepped down or announced plans to leave in recent weeks, including the city’s police commissioner and health commissioner. The Times reported that the investigation leading to the indictment probed whether the mayor, who received foreign donations to his campaign, expedited approval of a new high-rise Turkey consulate, despite safety concerns.

As news of the indictment spread Wednesday night, new calls emerged for Adams to resign — including from City Comptroller Brad Lander, state Senator Zellnor Myrie, and former Comptroller Scott Stringer, all of whom are running against Adams.

State Sen. John Liu, a Queens Democrat who chairs the Senate’s New York City education committee, acknowledged Adams was “entitled to his due process” but also called for his exit.

“The people of New York City, however, need a mayor who is able to devote full time and full energy to putting the city on the right track, including recruitment and retention of top leadership for the City,” Liu said in a statement. “Mayor Adams is simply unable to do that for the foreseeable future and therefore, for the good of all New Yorkers, must resign immediately.”

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Melissa Aviles-Ramos, NYC’s next schools chancellor, says she’ll have Mayor Adams’ back

2024-09-25T21:31:48+00:00

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One day after schools Chancellor David Banks abruptly announced that he will retire at the end of the year, he and Mayor Eric Adams tried to project an air of calm as they formally introduced the woman who will lead the Education Department.

Melissa Aviles-Ramos, the highest-ranking Latina in the public school system, has been instrumental in her work with migrant students, Adams said, even as he celebrated Banks’ nearly 40-year career in the city’s schools. Both men emphasized that Banks’ impending departure — the latest in a series of high-profile resignations at City Hall — had nothing to do with multiple federal investigations into Adams’ inner circle.

“I want you to see me as a symbol of stability,” said Aviles-Ramos, who was quick to cement herself as an ally to Adams as he faces growing pressure from some local and state officials to step down.

“Mayor Adams is New York City,” she said at a press conference. “Before, you would look at mayors and you would see someone cold and inaccessible and on the news. You see Mayor Adams everywhere.”

Adams and Banks publicly announced the succession plan at the Bronx School for Law, Government and Justice, where Banks was founding principal in 1997. They emphasized that the chancellor’s Dec. 31 retirement plans — and their choice to tap Aviles-Ramos — predated the current swirl of federal investigations.

Aviles-Ramos, who was born and raised in the Bronx, started in the system as a high school English teacher in 2007 and then rose to being a principal, acting superintendent, and Banks’ chief of staff. She was responsible for overseeing the Education Department’s effort two years ago to help the thousands of migrant students coming into the school system.

She left the department in February to work at a college only to return this summer to assume a role as deputy chancellor for family and community engagement and external affairs.

Aviles-Ramos’ return was part of a handoff plan that had long been in the works, Banks and Adams said. The mayor tied conversations about Banks’ retirement to January, while Banks said those conversations “intensified” in the early months of the summer.

Though running the nation’s largest school system is considered one of the most prestigious — and difficult — education jobs in the country, multiple observers said it would be next to impossible to attract a talented leader outside the city. The next schools chief may only be in the role for a year if Adams does not win re-election — or less if he is forced to resign.

“It’s hard to imagine who would want to work under Eric Adams right now given the cloud and chaos surrounding his mayoral administration,” said Aaron Pallas, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College and longtime observer of the city’s school system.

Asked about his decision to step down in the middle of the school year, Banks said remaining in his role until June was “a romantic notion.”

“But the reality is that, after 40 years, when you recognize that it’s time, you feel that,” he said.

Banks departs at a pivotal time for some of his key initiatives — including a literacy curriculum overhaul — but he said Wednesday that he will leave in December with “no regrets.”

“I gave it everything that I had,” he said. “I poured it all out.”

Deputy Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos and Chancellor David Banks at Bronx School for Law, Government and Justice on Wednesday, September 25, 2024.

Aviles-Ramos has fans among Bronx educators

During the press conference, city officials portrayed Aviles-Ramos as a talented manager who impressed City Hall by coordinating across multiple agencies to support migrant students as part of Project Open Arms. Banks described her as hard-working and single-minded but also called her “side-cracking funny.”

Aviles-Ramos has also won fierce loyalty from some principals she worked with, both as a colleague and a superintendent overseeing Bronx high schools.

“She’s the kind of person you would follow into the gates of hell and back,” said Ron Link, principal of the Theatre Arts Production Company School in the Bronx, who got to know Aviles-Ramos when she oversaw his school as a deputy and acting superintendent.

Other education leaders who have worked with Aviles-Ramos pointed to her experience up and down the Education Department’s organizational chart.

“She is one of these people that is able to take the experiences she’s had as a teacher, as a principal, as a superintendent, and speak with authority on what those roles entail and the challenges that folks in those roles face — but can think at a big systems level,” said Mark Dunetz, president of New Visions for Public Schools, an organization that supports a network of city schools.

As she addressed the crowd on Wednesday, Aviles-Ramos leaned heavily on her Bronx roots. She noted her family had struggled with the city’s schools in the 1980′s.

“The Bronx was a forgotten place,” she said. “Public schools did not work out so well for my two siblings. … They had to fend for themselves and find their way after school.”

As a result of that experience, Aviles-Ramos said her mom, a single parent, worked hard cooking and cleaning in order to pay tuition at a Catholic school. But Aviles-Ramos said that if families leave the system, it shouldn’t be because they don’t have good public options.

“We shouldn’t have to move to different districts,” she said.

John Powers, who retired as principal of Herbert Lehman High School in 2023, got to know Aviles-Ramos well when she took over in 2016 as principal of Schuylerville Preparatory High School, a small school in the same building.

The school was in rough shape when she came in, and just 26% of students graduated within four years the year she started, city officials said Wednesday. Aviles-Ramos helped push that number to 67% the next year, according to city data.

“She’s the real deal,” Powers said. “She actually knows instruction.”

Hard road ahead for transition to chancellor job

Powers said he expects Aviles-Ramos, whom he described as a “very thoughtful planner,” to make good use of the coming months to map out a smoother transition.

He said he thinks she will focus on supporting teachers, a key task as educators adapt to sweeping curriculum mandates.

Some caregivers said they were glad the next chancellor already has relationships with parent leaders, as Aviles-Ramos served for the past three months as the deputy chancellor overseeing family and community engagement.

Though some education leaders treat soliciting input from parents as a box-checking exercise, “it’s definitely going to go beyond [that] with her,” said Shirley Aubin, the co-chair of the Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Council. “She respects and appreciates the parents and families and community voice.”

Still, steering the city’s school system, a vast bureaucracy with roughly 130,000 staffers and 900,000 students, is a tall order under normal circumstances. The situation Aviles-Ramos is stepping into is hardly normal. Her predecessor is leaving amid several federal investigations of the mayor’s administration, which could cut short the mayoralty of Adams, leaving the length of Aviles-Ramos’ tenure uncertain.

Aviles-Ramos will face a range of thorny policy questions on class sizes, cell phone bans, and other issues that will likely require buy-in from the Adams administration, which will be harder if officials are preoccupied with the investigations, said one Education Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“I think the bigger question is … how do you make sure the distractions don’t stop work from happening,” the official said.

Other leaders had more experience than Aviles-Ramos at the highest levels of the Education Department, the official said. That includes Deputy Chancellor Danika Rux, who oversees the city’s 45 district superintendents and recently took responsibility for Banks’ key literacy and math initiatives.

Aviles-Ramos is also in the unusual position of having been named chancellor months before she is expected to assume the role.

“This is the most responsible way that you can do this,” Banks said. “It doesn’t usually happen this way.”

Banks said Aviles-Ramos would be joining him at “all of the chancellor’s meetings” over the remainder of his tenure.

And Aviles-Ramos told Adams she was committed to continuing the mayor’s education initiatives.

“I have your back,” she told the audience. “We are going to get stuff done.”

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Melissa Aviles-Ramos expected to take over as NYC schools chancellor, sources say

2024-09-25T03:00:51+00:00

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Melissa Aviles-Ramos, who helmed New York City’s efforts to incorporate thousands of migrant students into city schools, will take over as schools chancellor following the departure of David Banks, according to sources familiar with the situation.

Mayor Eric Adams was expected to announce Aviles-Ramos’ appointment Wednesday afternoon in the Bronx.

The succession plan follows Tuesday’s stunning news that Banks – a longtime friend of Adams who has served as schools chief since Adams took office in 2022 – was stepping down amid widening federal investigations into the Adams administration.

Banks will leave his post on Dec. 31, he said in a letter Tuesday. The announcement came three weeks after federal agents seized Banks’ phones, along with those of his partner, First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright, and his brothers, Deputy Mayor of Public Safety Phil Banks, and Terence Banks, a consultant and former MTA staffer.

Banks was the latest in a string of high-ranking city officials to announce their resignations in recent weeks, throwing the Adams administration into chaos. The quick naming of a successor to lead the Education Department is likely an effort to inject some stability into the operations of the largest city agency, which oversees 1,600 schools and more than 900,000 students.

Aviles-Ramos, who currently serves as a deputy chancellor overseeing family engagement, took on the high-profile task of steering the Education Department’s efforts to incorporate the wave of migrant students who began arriving in Summer 2022 – an initiative the city dubbed Project Open Arms.

Adams has cited that effort as a major success of his administration.

“When you do an analysis of the last two years, we incorporated over 40,000 students,” Adams said at a recent press conference. “It’s clear the Project Open Arms … has really met the mark.”

Aviles-Ramos began working in the city Education Department in 2007 as a teacher, according to her LinkedIn profile, later serving as a principal, acting superintendent, and Banks’ chief of staff.

She left the city Education Department in February to take a job as a college administrator, only to come back several months later in the new role as deputy chancellor for family and community engagement and external affairs. She replaced longtime Banks ally Kenita Lloyd, who took Aviles-Ramos’ old job as chief of staff.

Adams is expected to announce Aviles-Ramos’ appointment on Wednesday at the Bronx School for Law, Government and Justice — a school Banks helped launch as its founding principal in 1997.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC schools Chancellor David Banks announces he’s retiring amid federal investigations

2024-09-24T20:46:30+00:00

Less than three years after taking the helm of New York City’s school system, Chancellor David Banks is planning to retire at the end of the year amid widening probes of City Hall.

Banks’ stunning Tuesday announcement comes nearly three weeks after federal agents visited his home the day before school started and seized his phones as part of a broader investigation into members of Mayor Eric Adams’ inner circle. Investigators also confiscated phones from Banks’ partner, First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright, and his two brothers, Phil Banks, deputy mayor for public safety, and Terence Banks, a consultant and former MTA staffer.

Investigators are reportedly looking into clients of Terence Banks’ consulting firm who sought contracts with the city.

The announcement from the 62-year-old schools chief concludes a 40-year career in the city’s public schools that stretched from being a school safety agent to helping launch a network of public schools geared toward boys of color. Tapped by Adams, who said he never seriously considered other candidates to helm the nation’s largest school district, Banks promised sweeping change to a system he described as “fundamentally flawed.”

In his time in office, though, Banks focused narrowly on two goals: overhauling reading instruction and exposing students to career options before graduating high school.

In a Tuesday letter informing Adams of his plan to retire, Banks said he would do “everything possible to ensure a smooth transition.”

“Serving as Chancellor has been a profound honor and a deeply fulfilling experience,” he said. “I am confident that NYC Public Schools will continue to grow, innovate and excel under the next Chancellor.”

Banks did not acknowledge the federal investigations in his letter, and he said his intent to retire by Dec. 31 predated the start of the school year.

“On behalf of all New Yorkers, we thank Chancellor Banks for his service, and wish him well in his retirement at the end of the calendar year,” Adams said in a statement Tuesday.

Melissa Aviles-Ramos, who currently serves as a deputy chancellor overseeing family engagement, is expected to take the helm of the nation’s largest school district, according to sources familiar with the appointment. She previously steered the Education Department’s efforts to incorporate the wave of migrant students who began arriving two years ago, in an initiative the city dubbed Project Open Arms.

Adams is expected to announce her new role on Wednesday in the Bronx.

Banks’ announcement comes on the heels of a series of resignations of high-profile figures in the Adams administration, including former Police Commissioner Edward Caban, who stepped down earlier this month, and Health Commissioner Ashwin Vasan, who plans to resign at the end of the year.

As members of his administration have left City Hall, Adams has faced pressure from some local and state officials to step down. Critics were quick to use the school chancellor’s announcement as further fuel for those calls.

Banks’ tenure has been filled with a host of challenges: prioritizing what programs to save amid fiscal pressures of evaporating federal COVID stimulus funding, figuring out how to meet the needs of thousands of migrant children, and responding to the ways in which ChatGPT and other AI technology are remaking the learning experience.

For much of last school year, the Israel-Hamas war has fueled tensions between students, teachers, and parents, thrusting Banks into the spotlight when he testified before Congress in May, defending the city’s record on responding to antisemitism.

In response to questions about the federal investigations, Banks told reporters two weeks ago he is someone “who lives his life with integrity.”

Several days later, he said there’s a “genuine fondness across the system” for his leadership. But roughly 32% of teachers surveyed this year said they were dissatisfied with the chancellor, the highest rate in five years and nearly double the figure in 2019, when former Chancellor Richard Carranza was at the helm.

Ties between Banks and Adams go deep

Banks has repeatedly touted his longstanding relationship with Adams, and their professional and personal lives are intertwined. In addition to Banks’ brother and partner holding key roles in the Adams administration, Adams’ girlfriend, Tracey Collins, and his sister-in-law, Sharon Adams, both work in the city Education Department.

Schools Chancellor David Banks (left) with Mayor Eric Adams at an East Village school on April 19, 2024.

Stepping into the chancellor role could prove challenging for Aviles-Ramos, as federal investigations continue to swirl, and there is no guarantee she will have enough time in office to put her own stamp on the system.

“One of the challenges of mayoral control is you’re basically hitching yourself to a mayor who may not be there that long,” said Aaron Pallas, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College and longtime observer of the city’s school system.

The next chancellor also inherits a system that is still reeling from the pandemic — from student learning loss to deep mental health challenges — but with fewer resources to respond. Banks’ successor also may have limited room to pursue their own policy goals. The Education Department is in the midst of implementing a state class size mandate that will require negotiations with union officials and billions in new spending, limiting dollars that could go to other projects.

Enrollment remains far below pre-pandemic levels, and the system has a growing number of small schools. Decisions about whether those schools should be merged or closed are often politically fraught and can consume the school system’s leadership.

The arrival of more than 45,000 migrant children over the past two years has helped stanch deep declines in student enrollment, though the city has long struggled to properly serve English learners and hire enough bilingual educators to support them. It still remains an urgent task.

The new chancellor will serve under the supervision of a mayor whose political standing has been riddled by investigations into campaign fundraising practices. The mayor and his staff have not been accused of wrongdoing by federal officials, and Banks did not indicate that the political scandal played a role in his departure.

Still, Banks has at times appeared to distance himself from Adams, a mayor who has not staked out a detailed agenda for the city’s schools. In the wake of Adams’ threats to slash funding from the Education Department, Banks — who earned $363,346 last year, according to public records — often said he had no choice but to implement the budget he was given.

And in response to a raucous student protest over a teacher’s support of Israel at Hillcrest High School in Queens, Banks’ alma mater, Adams was quick to condemn it as a “vile show of antisemitism.” But Banks struck a more conciliatory tone, cautioning against painting the students with too broad a brush (though in congressional testimony he later said some students were engaged “in an act of antisemitism”).

Banks’ departure comes at a particularly delicate moment for his literacy initiative. He has staked much of his legacy on ridding schools of curriculums he says are subpar and replacing them with materials aligned with the “science of reading,” a longstanding body of evidence about how children learn to read.

The rollout of that program has been bumpy, with some teachers reporting that they have not received sufficient training in adopting new materials, and experts widely agree that such transitions often take years to execute. There is scant evidence of the program’s effect on student learning so far. Test scores dipped slightly more in districts that began using the new curriculums last year, which officials have characterized as an “implementation dip” as teachers get used to the new materials.

It remains to be seen whether the new chancellor will prioritize those curriculum overhauls, including a new Algebra I curriculum that is mandated across the city’s high schools. Many advocacy groups, including the teachers union, have backed them.

Aside from a separate initiative to expose more students to career opportunities before they graduate high school, the new chancellor will not inherit many existing policy efforts. Banks has resisted calls to focus on integrating the city’s schools, which are among the country’s most segregated, and has argued it’s more important to elevate the quality of all campuses.

Some observers said it was shrewd to focus on a small number of initiatives instead of trying to disrupt the system as a whole given how difficult it is to change a system of its size. Still, others contend the administration doesn’t have a clear set of education priorities that match their rhetoric about how schools often fail the most vulnerable students.

Michael Mulgrew, president of the teachers union, praised Banks as “an educator who sought to improve public education for all students.”

State Sen. John Liu, a Queens Democrat who chairs the Senate’s New York City education committee, said in a Tuesday statement on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, that Banks had been “a good Chancellor” for the city’s schools.

“But this departure is terrible news for our schools and the city, comes at the worst possible time, and will be a loss difficult for the mayor to recover from,” he said. “Heaven help our City.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Students targeted a Hillcrest High School teacher who supported Israel. Now she’s suing NYC.

2024-09-18T22:13:47+00:00

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A teacher who faced raucous protests over her public support for Israel filed a lawsuit last week, claiming city officials failed to protect her before students began marching through her Queens school calling for her ouster.

Despite the suit, Karen Marder, the teacher targeted in the protest, told Chalkbeat that she is committed to staying at Hillcrest High School. This year, she became one of the school’s deans and helps oversee student discipline.

“Hillcrest is my home,” she said. “It never really was a question for me about coming back.”

It has been a tumultuous year for Hillcrest, which garnered national attention as public schools and universities have struggled to address fallout from the Israel-Hamas war. The episode was a flashpoint during a congressional hearing where schools Chancellor David Banks was grilled on New York City’s response to antisemitism.

On Nov. 20, students flooded the hallways between classes in protest of a photo Marder posted of herself on Facebook holding a sign that read “I Stand With Israel.” The image of Marder, who is Jewish, was from a rally she attended two days after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7.

In response, “hundreds of students congregated outside her classroom and throughout the school, chanting threats and demanding her termination,” contends Marder’s lawsuit, which was filed in state court in Queens. Video posted on social media showed students dancing in the hallways and a water fountain ripped from the wall. At the time, Marder was locked in an assistant principal’s office on a different floor watching the events unfold on a monitor.

Marder said she notified Hillcrest administrators on Nov. 19, a Sunday, that students were planning to protest the next day. But her lawsuit contends that “no concrete measures were taken to protect” her. Although the suit acknowledges that school officials filed a report, and police officials came to interview her, they “were not present to take action on [Marder’s] behalf.”

The lawsuit asserts that school officials had no plans to keep Marder out of the classroom that day, and it was coincidental that police officials happened to be interviewing her when the protests started, keeping her out of the fray.

Later that evening, students posted Marder’s home address and family members’ names online, the lawsuit alleges. The following day, Marder said, the school’s principal told her to stay home from work and use sick time. “I had to fight with them over that,” she said. “I wasn’t sick, I was in danger.” (She was later placed on a different form of leave, according to the suit.)

The entire episode caused her “severe psychological and emotional trauma,” according to the complaint, which seeks unspecified monetary damages.

A spokesperson for the city’s law department said they will review the case and an Education Department spokesperson did not comment. Banks previously said that Marder was “never in direct danger.”

During his congressional testimony in May, Banks, who is a Hillcrest alum, said that the leaders of the protest “engaged, clearly, in an act of antisemitism” and “a number” of the students responsible for organizing it were suspended. The city removed the school’s principal and assigned him to a central office job, Banks said.

But in the immediate aftermath of the episode in November, Banks struck a more even tone — rebuking students whom he said behaved inappropriately but expressing understanding for their strong reactions. Roughly 30% of students at Hillcrest are Muslim.

“They consume their information through social media,” Banks said. “And what they are seeing on a daily basis are children and young people in Palestine … being blown up.”

Marder was given the opportunity to transfer to a different school in the aftermath of the November protest. In an April USA Today essay co-authored with Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, Marder argued she planned to stay — “to connect, to listen, learn, debunk misinformation and combat intolerance.”

Hillcrest teacher becomes a dean

Marder told Chalkbeat things have been relatively calm this year so far, which she credits in part to the school’s new principal. Under the previous leadership, problems with campus climate had reached a boiling point well before the November protest, she said.

This year, she is teaching just one health class and has taken on a new role as a dean, overseeing discipline issues and restorative justice programs that seek to mediate conflicts instead of resorting to suspensions.

“Not one student has said anything about what happened last year,” she said.

City officials have launched some training efforts to help schools have difficult conversations around the Israel-Hamas war and have promised to unveil new curriculum materials that include the experiences of Jewish and Muslim communities. Some of those are not slated to be released until the end of the school year.

Marder said there have only been superficial conversations at Hillcrest to help the community process the conflict in the Middle East as well as the turmoil at the school last year.

“I’m willing to do the work with the students and staff about the issues that took place,” she said. “That doesn’t mean I’m letting the DOE off the hook.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

AI’s new role in NYC schools? Chancellor Banks teases personalized learning and college counseling

2024-09-17T21:12:51+00:00

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After ChatGPT exploded in popularity, New York City’s public school system quickly pushed back on the powerful chatbot, arguing it couldn’t help students build critical thinking skills and often spouts misinformation.

Nearly two years later, during his annual “State of Our Schools” speech on Tuesday, schools Chancellor David Banks completed his about-face on artificial intelligence. The school system should get ready to inject the technology into nearly every aspect of its operations, from teaching and learning to transportation and enrollment, he said.

The schools chief laid out an expansive vision that includes customized college advising, instant assessments of student work, personalized instruction, and even replacing annual standardized tests.

“AI can revolutionize how we function as a school system,” Banks told the audience of administrators, elected officials, and union leaders at Frank Sinatra School of the Arts High School in Queens as he outlined his plans for the nation’s largest school system.

Still, Banks acknowledged that the Education Department has no concrete plans, timelines, or cost estimates for those AI projects. The goal is to signal to AI companies that the school system is interested in their technology and wants to hear ideas, he said, adding that officials are convening an advisory council next month to help brainstorm.

Aside from his embrace of AI, the most significant announcement from Banks on Tuesday was a plan to open a new high school in southeast Queens next fall, called HBCU Early College Prep, that will have strong ties to historically Black colleges and universities.

Banks’ annual speech otherwise stuck to promoting initiatives that he has been building since taking office in 2022. He noted that his signature literacy curriculum mandate is rolling out to all elementary schools this fall. He vowed to continue investing in FutureReadyNYC, an initiative in 135 high schools that gives students access to coursework geared toward specific industries and paid internships.

And he noted the city is adding to its library of curriculums focused on underrepresented groups called “Hidden Voices.” The city recently launched materials devoted to people with disabilities, and Banks said the department will offer lessons focused on the Latino community soon.

Though Mayor Eric Adams attended the speech, he did not offer any remarks — a break from the previous year. Adams and several senior members of his administration have been engulfed by multiple federal investigations. Earlier this month, federal agents searched homes or seized electronic devices from Banks, his two brothers, and his romantic partner, First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright.

Asked about Adams’ lack of a speaking role during the event, Banks declined to comment.

Here are three takeaways from the chancellor’s speech:

Banks thinks AI will become pervasive in the city’s schools

Banks sketched out a few ways he thinks the technology can significantly change the way schools operate. He said the systems could “give teachers a daily, accurate, and comprehensive picture of a child’s progress” based on homework assignments, exams, and other student work.

AI tools could also offer “personalized learning plans for every child” alongside extra instruction based on those plans. The idea, Banks said, is to make it easier for teachers to reach students at a range of academic levels who are all in the same classroom. Still, some previous efforts to promote personalized learning, including by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, have fallen short of their lofty ambitions.

The technology could also provide students with more comprehensive college and career counseling, Banks suggested, drawing on information like employment outcomes at different schools. An Education Department spokesperson did not immediately respond to a question about whether there are any real-world examples of the technology being used in the ways Banks described.

Asked about the technology’s limitations, such as offering incorrect answers to basic math problems, Banks acknowledged it is “not fully baked yet,” but “I wouldn’t be overly concerned about some of the early missteps.”

The schools chief also sought to calm fears about the technology.

“AI will never be able to replace the personal connection that a teacher provides,” he said. “We’re not displacing human beings.”

A new high school is coming to Queens

On the heels of opening two new Bard Early College campuses in Brooklyn and the Bronx, officials said they’re planning to open a third “accelerated” high school this fall in Queens — HBCU Early College Prep.

Officials have previously said opening new campuses is part of a bid to keep families in the city’s public schools, which have seen enrollment drop 9% over the past five years.

The campus will partner with Delaware State University, a historically Black college, and will give students a chance to earn an associate degree before leaving high school.

“They’re also going to be immersed in the history and culture of multiple HBCUs across the country through college visits, the opportunity to study abroad, and research opportunities,” Banks said, adding that there will be “synchronous instruction from professors, alumni, mentors and more.”

Education Department officials said the school will be screened and will give priority to Queens residents.

Spinning up schools that serve specific student populations is in Banks’ wheelhouse. Before becoming chancellor, he helped establish Eagle Academy, a network of public schools geared toward serving young men of color. At the conclusion of his speech on Tuesday, Banks led the crowd in a recitation of the poem Invictus by William Ernest Henley, a daily practice at Eagle.

Tweaks to career-focused learning efforts

City officials are making some tweaks to its FutureReadyNYC initiative, which gives students access to career-connected learning opportunities. Participating schools will be able to add new “industry focus areas” in social work and decarbonization.

That builds on existing tracks in business, education, technology, and health care.

Banks touted a previously announced plan to launch a new high school, Northwell School of Health Sciences, that is designed to prepare students for careers in the health care industry. The school is supported with nearly $25 million from Bloomberg Philanthropies, which Banks said is the single largest grant the school system has ever received. (Chalkbeat receives funding from Bloomberg.)

The chancellor also announced that Mount Sinai Health System will help support the city’s career education efforts.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Where does NYC Chancellor David Banks stand on a school cellphone ban? Here’s a timeline.

2024-09-12T21:22:45+00:00

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Will they or won’t they? That’s the question many New Yorkers are asking about a citywide school cellphone ban.

Over the past six months, schools Chancellor David Banks has swung back and forth: from largely dismissing the idea in March, to hinting a citywide ban would come in a matter of weeks over the summer, to once again casting doubt on the fate of the proposal on Thursday.

“Who knows, we may not do a full-on ban, period,” he told leaders on his parent advisory council. “Ultimately, at the end of the day, that’s still the mayor’s call to make.” (And it was indeed Mayor Eric Adams who first announced during a late August press conference that the city was pumping the brakes on a systemwide ban,.)

City officials plan to take the year to study the approaches of the schools that already ban phones to figure out what works best. Roughly 350 schools had their own bans at the end of last year, and another 500 plan to implement them this year, Banks said.

If there is a citywide ban, it won’t come until next school year at the earliest. And these bans can be pricey: storage and staffing for collecting phones can add up, as do the pouches that some schools buy for students to carry their phones locked away. Those cloth cases cost $25-$30 per student. Banks acknowledged Thursday that the city would likely have to front that cost if he imposes a systemwide ban.

The chancellor, who is currently caught in a federal investigation, made light of his predicament, in which FBI agents seized his phone, along with those of other top officials, before the first day of school.

“I think they heard I was trying to do a cellphone ban in New York, so they decided to let me see what it feels like,” he told parent leaders Thursday. Banks is cooperating with the investigation but was told he was not a target, he said Thursday on WNYC.

To help you make sense of the phone ban back-and-forth, Chalkbeat created a timeline of Banks’ public statements.

The timeline traces Banks’ personal evolution on the idea, but also provides some insight into why it’s been so complicated to settle on a policy for banning phones in the nation’s largest school system.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

How is your school’s literacy curriculum changing? What parents should know about NYC Reads.

2024-09-06T16:51:52+00:00

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Sweeping changes to literacy instruction are underway in New York City, with all elementary schools for the first time using one of three mandated curriculums this September.

By requiring instruction in line with long-standing research about how children learn to read, known as the science of reading, the city is hoping to boost its literacy rates. Just under half of students in grades 3-8 are considered proficient in English, according to state exams.

After Chancellor David Banks took the helm of the nation’s school district more than two years ago, he said the city’s approach to reading instruction “has not worked” and has since made the curriculum overhaul his signature initiative. His other policies, he told Chalkbeat, pale in comparison to fixing reading instruction.

“None of that will even matter if kids can’t read,” he said.

But what do the new curriculums look like? How do caregivers know if they’re working? And what should you do if your child continues to struggle?

Here are answers to some common questions caregivers may have about the changes, based on interviews with reading experts and educators.

How were schools teaching reading before?

Stretching back decades, the Education Department embraced a program developed by Teachers College professor Lucy Calkins, which viewed reading as a natural process that could be unlocked by exposing students to literature. Teachers delivered mini-lessons on a specific skill then encouraged students to read books at their individual levels to practice what they learned.

But most reading experts say the approach did not include enough emphasis on teaching children the relationships between letters and sounds, known as phonics, leaving behind a substantial share of students who would benefit from more explicit sound-it-out lessons.

Calkins’ curriculum also deployed some dubious methods, such as encouraging students to use pictures to guess at a word’s meaning rather than relying on the letters themselves. Though she has since added a greater emphasis on phonics, the city’s public schools will no longer be allowed to use her program.

What is the philosophy behind the literacy shift?

All schools are now required to deliver regular phonics instruction that explicitly teaches the relationship between sounds and letters. Those lessons, which are prioritized in grades K-2, typically run about 30 minutes a day.

In addition to those lessons, schools must also use one of three approved reading programs that are designed to help build vocabulary and comprehension by exposing students to social studies and science topics alongside works of literature and poetry. Research suggests that students are more likely to understand what they’re reading if they’re already familiar with the underlying topic. The new curriculums are designed to build students’ background knowledge across a range of domains.

“You should, as a parent, ask your kid about the books that they’re reading and be prepared to hear an earful from your child about how they read about Jacques Cousteau and the discovery of the giant squid — or to know a whole lot about pollinators,” said Kristen McQuillan, who consults with districts on literacy efforts and is affiliated with the Knowledge Matters Campaign, which raises awareness about the role of background knowledge in reading comprehension. Students should be bringing home writing about those books, too, she added.

Under the old curriculums, students often picked books that interested them from the classroom library that were targeted at their individual reading levels. Although the city is moving away from that leveling system — and instead having kids spend more time reading common books as a class — the practice may continue to some degree. Teachers will still have access to those leveled books, though they have been asked to organize them by topic or genre. Into Reading, the most widespread curriculum under the new mandate, also offers its own set of leveled books that schools can use.

What are the three new curriculums and which one is my school using?

The curriculum rollout began during the 2023-24 school year with 15 of the city’s 32 local school districts required to use one of the three reading programs: Into Reading from the company Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Wit and Wisdom from Great Minds; and EL Education from Imagine Learning.

Beginning this September, all elementary schools must use one of those three programs, with local superintendents in charge of making curriculum decisions for all schools in their district. Here’s what each district is using:

What do the three new reading curriculums look like?

Into Reading from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Into Reading is by far the most popular choice among superintendents. Schools in 22 of New York City’s 32 local districts must use it. The most traditional of the three curriculums, Into Reading is organized as an anthology-style textbook packed with passages specifically designed to help teach reading skills, an approach known in education jargon as a “basal reader.” Some caregivers may be familiar with the approach from their own schooling.

Unlike the other two curriculums, Into Reading includes a Spanish-language version. And it covers a lot of ground, with roughly a dozen units in some grade levels that include how plants live and grow, the relationship between sports and teamwork, and how a person’s experiences shape their identity. Some educators say that breadth can be helpful since students may be more likely to encounter subjects that pique their curiosity.

Kate Gutwillig, a veteran New York City educator who has taught all three of the mandated curriculums, recalled one instance where a fifth grader who was reading at a second-grade level was captivated by an Into Reading lesson on Greek mythology.

“He was able to read the Medusa myth and that kid just came to life — he wanted to read aloud and write,” she said. “There’s something good about having a lot of variety.”

Still, Into Reading has earned criticism from some observers, parents, and educators who contend that it is weaker than the other two curriculums because it includes less focus on knowledge building, and relies too heavily on excerpts rather than full books. A New York University report also warned that its materials are not culturally responsive, a claim the company disputes.

Wit & Wisdom from Great Minds

Wit & Wisdom is known for building students’ background knowledge by going deeper into a smaller number of units. The curriculum includes four modules each year — ranging from civil rights heroes to a study of outer space — devoting about 6-8 weeks per topic.

The curriculum exposes students to a mix of fiction and nonfiction texts. It also stands apart for including a “close examination of artwork related to the core topics,” according to the Knowledge Matters Campaign.

“You tend to see a bit more of that literary fiction,” said McQuillan. One fourth grade unit called “the great heart” introduces students to the biology of the heart as muscle that pumps blood while weaving in the figurative meaning of the heart as a representation of emotion and love.

Third graders at the Fresh Creek School/P.S. 325 in Brooklyn participate in a Wit & Wisdom lesson.

Some educators say adapting to Wit & Wisdom is challenging. The lessons can be lengthy, requiring teachers to figure out how to cut it down to be more manageable. And, as with all three curriculums, students are generally expected to read the same books on their grade level as a class, a challenge for students who don’t yet have strong reading skills.

“I think that’s our biggest struggle,” one teacher who was implementing Wit & Wisdom previously told Chalkbeat. “We’re coming in assuming that the kids have the skills to do this.” (If you’re interested in a deeper look at Wit & Wisdom, Chalkbeat previously featured a Bronx school that was in the process of adopting it.)

EL Education from Imagine Learning

Similar to Wit & Wisdom, EL Education deploys a handful of units each year that students spend several weeks unpacking. Formerly called Expeditionary Learning, the curriculum emphasizes teaching children about the natural world around them and includes lots of opportunities to write. Two kindergarten units focus on trees, for instance, and a significant chunk of second grade is devoted to pollination.

The emphasis on exploring the outside world, McQuillan said, “tends to be a feature of EL that kids get excited about.”

Janina Jarnich, who teaches second grade at P.S. 169 Baychester Academy in the Bronx, previously told Chalkbeat that one of her favorite lessons to teach focuses on paleontology and fossilization.

“By the end of the module, they write a narrative where they are the paleontologist that makes the greatest discovery of their lives,” she said. The lesson “lends itself to lots of hands-on experiences, like making imprints and doing a ‘dinosaur dig.’” She also takes her students on a field trip to the Museum of Natural History.

Some educators noted that the curriculum can be overwhelming — an issue that some teachers said is true of many curriculum packages.

“The weakness is the difficulty of navigating all of the materials,” Jarnich said. “Even after using EL for four years, it can still be tricky to find the end-of-unit assessments and to make sure you have all of the materials necessary for each lesson.”

Are there any exceptions to the new curriculum mandate?

So far, only one school has won an exemption, a K-8 gifted and talented program. However, some other school communities have pushed back against the new curriculum mandate.

Randi Weingarten, head of the American Federation of Teachers, suggested more schools should be offered waivers.

How do I know if the new curriculum is working for my child?

Schools are expected to screen students three times a year to assess their reading skills. Caregivers can find the results of those assessments in their NYC Schools Account, which indicate whether a student is performing at or above grade level or needs more support to be performing at grade level. (These screeners are supposed to replace a previous system that assigned students a reading level from A-Z.)

Multiple experts said teachers are generally also doing more regular assessments on top of that, so it’s a good idea to get in touch with them if you have any concerns.

“The answer is: ask the teachers,” said Susan Neuman, a literacy expert at New York University. They should have a sense of whether a student needs extra help based on a range of assessments beyond the screeners, she added.

What should I do if I’m concerned about my child’s progress?

Experts said caregivers should reach out to their child’s school if they suspect their child is behind in reading or if their screener results suggest they are below grade level.

“A plan needs to be put in place, so parents do need to serve as their child’s advocate,” said Katie Pace Miles, a literacy expert at Brooklyn College who launched a tutoring program to help catch students up. “I would ask about what skills can be reinforced at home, and what materials can be provided to the caregivers.”

She said parents should ask their schools to outline whether they are offering their child extra small-group or one-on-one instruction, how many days a week it’s offered, and how long each session is.

“Parents should not be left in the dark,” Miles said. If a student continues to struggle despite efforts to provide extra help, caregivers may want to ask for more detailed assessments of their child and potentially request a special education evaluation, she said.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Federal agents seize phones of NYC schools Chancellor David Banks and his brothers, reports say

2024-09-06T13:13:04+00:00

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Federal agents seized phones from New York City schools Chancellor David Banks and his partner, First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright, early Wednesday at their Harlem home, the New York Times reported.

Federal agents also seized devices at the Queens home of Banks’ brother, Phil Banks, also a top aide to Mayor Eric Adams. Agents searched the home of a third Banks brother, Terence Banks, who retired from the MTA and now works as a consultant, according to the New York Times. THE CITY first reported some of the moves made by federal agents.

In a statement on Friday, Chancellor Banks confirmed he was cooperating with “a federal inquiry.”

“Yesterday was the first day of school for the 1.1 million students and staff of New York City Public Schools, and I remain focused on ensuring they have safe, academically rigorous, and joyful school year,” he said. “I am confirming that I am cooperating with a federal inquiry. At this time, I cannot comment any further on that matter.”

None of the officials have been accused of a crime, according to the New York Times.

The news of federal agents’ arrival at the doorstep of the schools chancellor came Thursday, on the first day of classes, casting a cloud over the typically ebullient first-day-of-school mood.

As he left a visit from a Queens high school Thursday afternoon, Chancellor Banks told a reporter from Fox 5, “Today is the first day of school, it is all about the kids. If there’s any other comments that are made, it will be happening tomorrow.”

Several Education Department staffers said news of the federal agents’ moves spread quickly in education circles Thursday. Multiple sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Education Department employees were shocked by both the news and timing, as the nation’s largest school system reopened its doors to nearly 900,000 students on Thursday.

Aaron Pallas, a Teachers College professor and longtime observer of the city’s Education Department, said the incident could impact Banks’ work leading the nation’s largest school system.

“Anything that can distract them from staying focused on the task at hand could impede their effectiveness,” he said.

Wednesday’s activity was the latest move in a swirl of law enforcement inquiries surrounding Adams, his administration, and his campaign. Federal officials are also looking into possible illegal campaign activity involving the Turkish government. The New York Times reported that the federal campaign inquiry was separate from the matter that federal agents were looking into Wednesday.

Meanwhile, search warrants were also executed on NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban and Tim Pearson, a top mayoral aide embroiled in multiple scandals, New York 1 reported.

“Investigators have not indicated to us [that] the mayor or his staff are targets of any investigation,” Adams’ chief counsel, Lisa Zornberg, told THE CITY in a statement. “As a former member of law enforcement, the mayor has repeatedly made clear that all members of the team need to follow the law.”

As he left City Hall on Thursday, Adams also told reporters that he had “confidence in the team,” according to THE CITY. “The goal is to follow the law and that is what this administration always stood for and what we’re going to continue to stand for,” he said.

Chancellor Banks is a core member of the unusually tight-knit inner circle of the Adams administration. Banks and Adams have known each other for years, and their family and professional lives are intertwined. Adams’ girlfriend, Tracey Collins, and his sister-in-law, Sharon Adams, both work in the city Education Department.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

NYC ousted a controversial parent leader from her Manhattan council. A judge reinstated her.

2024-09-04T19:43:30+00:00

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Months after schools Chancellor David Banks removed a controversial parent leader from a Manhattan education council, a federal judge this week ordered she be temporarily reinstated to her position pending the outcome of an ongoing lawsuit.

Maud Maron, a member of the Community Education Council in Manhattan’s District 2, was removed from her post in June for allegedly violating city regulations governing the conduct of parent leaders. That decision followed months of critics calling on the city to take action against Maron, who is affiliated with the right-wing group Moms for Liberty and has been embroiled in several high-profile controversies over the past year.

The court order issued on Tuesday could have far-reaching implications for the city’s process overseeing parent leader conduct. U.S. District Judge Diane Gujarati raised concerns that the city’s regulations may be unconstitutional and could breach the First Amendment, which prohibits the government from infringing on free speech.

In the order, Gujarati said there was a “clear and substantial likelihood” that parts of the regulations were overly broad and vague and could discriminate against certain viewpoints. Gujarati granted a temporary injunction reinstating Maron to her council position pending the result of a lawsuit against the city’s Education Department. (Maron is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.)

The city’s Education Department also paused enforcement of parts of the regulations last month, as it seeks to revise them to address concerns raised by the lawsuit, according to the court order.

Maron was a sponsor of a resolution District 2′s council passed in March calling on the Education Department to reconsider its guidelines allowing transgender students to join sports teams that align with their gender identities — which sparked national media attention and sharp condemnation from Banks. That followed texts she had sent in a private group chat denying the existence of transgender children, according to The 74. Earlier this year, she also called an anonymous student at Stuyvesant High School, where Maron is a parent, a “coward” and accused them of “Jew hatred” in response to an opinion piece published in the school newspaper.

Maron’s statements about the Stuyvesant student were cited in the city’s decision to remove her from her council position, according to the court order. City officials argued her statements violated regulations that prohibit parent leaders from making “derogatory or offensive comments about any DOE student,” as well as forbidding “conduct that serves to harass, intimidate, or threaten, including but not limited to frequent verbal abuse and unnecessary aggressive speech that serves to intimidate and causes others to have concern for their personal safety.”

Both of those provisions likely run afoul of the First Amendment, according to Gujarati.

The judge’s decision comes as a reversal of one of only two removals from the city’s parent councils in recent history. Under state law, the chancellor has the authority to remove members from local parent-led councils, but it’s unclear if any chancellor had exercised that power before Banks took action in June.

At the time, Banks also removed Tajh Sutton, the former president of the council in Brooklyn’s District 14, from her position for allegedly violating open meetings laws. (Sutton and District 14′s CEC are also named as defendants in the lawsuit, which alleges that they and the city’s Education Department are misusing the grievance process and suppressing the voices of some parent leaders.)

As part of the preliminary injunction granted Tuesday, the court also temporarily prohibited District 14′s council from enforcing some of its internal policies and from “discriminating against speakers at CEC 14′s public meetings on the basis of viewpoint and/or political association.” It also blocked the council from restricting access to its official account on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

In a statement over email, Maron said she was “thrilled with the judge’s decision.”

“There is more work to be done to make sure the DOE does not silence dissenting parents, but this is a great first step,” she said.

Nathaniel Styer, a spokesperson for the city’s Education Department, said the department was “disappointed by a ruling that limits our ability to protect students from harmful conduct by parent leaders.”

“Even prior to the court’s ruling, we began reviewing the applicable Chancellor’s regulation and are preparing to propose revisions and initiate our public engagement process,” he said in an email. “We will also continue to support CEC 14 towards complying with its legal requirements. We will continue to review the ruling for next steps.”

Sutton did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

More bullying, teacher dissatisfaction with the chancellor: 5 takeaways from NYC’s 2024 school survey

2024-08-30T18:10:31+00:00

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More New York City students than at any point in the past five years say kids in their schools regularly bully each other, newly released 2024 school survey results show.

More than half of the roughly 355,000 middle and high school students who responded to the city school system’s annual survey earlier this year said their classmates sometimes or often bullied, harassed, or intimidated each other last school year – up from 44% in 2019, the first year for which citywide survey numbers are available.

The rise in student reports of bullying comes as city schools confront a swirl of social challenges including the lingering effects of the pandemic, cyberbullying, social media, and global tumult such as the Israel-Hamas war and mass migration into New York City.

The rising student bullying numbers are among several notable trends from the latest annual questionnaire, which also reached roughly 66,000 teachers and over 400,000 parents and guardians this year.

For educators, the survey suggests that sweeping new curriculum mandates are trickling down into classrooms, with teachers reporting less influence over selecting curriculum, but more coherence in how their schools are approaching instruction. And nearly a third of city teachers reported dissatisfaction with the schools chancellor – a figure that’s nearly doubled since 2019.

Parents, meanwhile, continued to express a desire for more extracurricular and after-school options.

Here are five takeaways from the 2024 school survey. You can access the full results by navigating to the Education Department’s 2024 survey page and clicking on the “results page” link.

Cyberbullying, discrimination on the rise

In all five questions on the 2024 survey involving bullying and harassment, students reported worse outcomes than in previous years.

Among the most notable changes: Roughly 43% of students reported seeing regular bullying and harassment online this year, compared to 35% in 2019.

Educators across the city have sounded the alarm about the effects of social media and online bullying spilling into classrooms. One Queens school administrator threatened last fall to suspend students for following an Instagram account that posted vulgar and insulting comments about students.

Increasing awareness of the harms of online harassment has also played a role in some schools’ decisions to ban cell phones during the school day, and in the city’s debate over instituting a systemwide ban.

More students also report seeing classmates bullied over their backgrounds, with 40% of students seeing harassment based on race, ethnicity, religion, or immigration status, up from 30% in 2019.

The reports came during a school year marked by explosive conflicts over the Israel-Hamas war and the continued arrival of tens of thousands of migrant students – some of whom expressed concerns that their immigration status made them targets.

As in past years, girls – and Black girls in particular – reported the highest rates of bullying and harassment.

Education Department spokesperson Jenna Lyle said, “Bullying has absolutely no place in our school communities.” She pointed to a citywide Respect for All initiative that provides professional development for school staff to deal with bullying and designates a liaison in every school.

Teacher dissatisfaction with the chancellor is up

Roughly 32% of teachers said they were dissatisfied with schools Chancellor David Banks – up from 30% last year and 17% in 2019, when former Chancellor Richard Carranza was at the helm.

A plurality of teachers, 44%, reported that they were satisfied with the chancellor, while 24% said they didn’t know.

It’s difficult to know exactly what’s driving the rise in dissatisfaction. Banks has launched several major curriculum initiatives that have forced big changes in how schools teach reading and algebra, drawing mixed responses from educators.

Earlier in Banks’ tenure, he and Mayor Eric Adams presided over deeply unpopular budget cuts as federal pandemic aid dried up, though officials replaced much of the expiring funding last year.

Teacher dissatisfaction with the schools chancellor has swung dramatically in previous years as well. It dropped from 43% to 18% between 2014 and 2015 when Carmen Fariña took over from Dennis Walcott.

Lyle, the Education Department spokesperson, said Banks is making “needed changes” to the school system, but said he is “committed to supporting staff” during those changes. “95% of families are satisfied with the education their children are receiving and teachers report high levels of satisfaction with their work, their schools, and the professional development they are receiving,” she added.

Effects of curriculum changes take hold

Rising dissatisfaction with the chancellor may not be the only impact of the big curriculum changes.

Teachers, particularly those in elementary schools, where officials have mandated superintendents to choose one of three pre-approved literacy curriculums, report having less influence over selecting curriculum in their schools, with 67% saying they have some or a great deal of influence, down from 71% last year. Only 58% of elementary teachers said they had influence over choosing curriculum materials.

On the other hand, teachers reported more “instructional coherence,” with 81% saying that when their school started a new program, they followed up to make sure it was working, up three percentage points from last year.

Parents continue to crave more extracurricular options

When asked which improvement they most wanted at their kids’ schools, the largest group of parents asked for stronger enrichment programs like clubs and after-school activities.

That tracks with past years. Stronger enrichment programming has been the top request of parents for years, with smaller class sizes next in line. In 2024, 24% of parents said more enrichment programs were their top priority, while 15% said smaller class sizes. In 2017, 24% of families chose enrichment programs, while 21% chose class sizes.

Enrichment programs can be particularly difficult for small schools to offer because they are funded on a per-pupil basis. As enrollment has shrunk, the number of tiny schools has also grown.

Average class sizes for elementary, middle, and high schools are down slightly compared to 2019, though they’re up compared to 2022. The 2022 state class size law will require the city to continue significantly reducing class sizes in the coming years.

Mental health, classroom behavior remain challenges

Educators across the city and country have confronted growing challenges with student mental health and behavior in the wake of the pandemic, and those issues remain challenges, the survey data indicates.

This year, 68% of teachers said their students regularly do their work when they’re supposed to, down from 69% last year and from 75% in 2022 and 2019. Roughly 77% of teachers said adults in their buildings had access to mental health support, down two percentage points from last year, and eight percentage points compared to 2022.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org

NYC test scores: Math scores rose, while English scores declined, data shows

2024-08-21T19:08:18+00:00

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Math scores rose across New York City public schools last school year while English scores ticked down, according to state test results released Wednesday by city officials.

Among students in grades 3-8, 53.4% were considered proficient or above in math, an increase of 3.5 percentage points. The share of children considered to be reading on grade level slipped to 49.1% — a 2.6 point decrease.

The dip in English scores comes at a pivotal moment, as schools Chancellor David Banks’ top priority is to raise literacy rates. He has required all elementary schools to use one of three approved reading programs. City officials acknowledged that the curriculum overhaul — which began in just under half of the city’s local districts last year and will roll out to all schools this fall — might have negatively affected test scores as teachers were getting used to unfamiliar materials.

A Chalkbeat analysis found that districts that began using the new curriculums last school year saw average proficiency rates drop by 3.5 percentage points. In districts that were not covered by the curriculum mandate, the drop was slightly smaller, at 2.8 percentage points. An analysis conducted by the Education Department shows similar trends.

Those figures only include students in grades 3-5, as middle schools have not been universally required to change reading curriculums. (Students who score a 3 on the state tests are considered proficient, while a 4 is above proficiency.)

“Significant change does not happen overnight, and the slight decline in [English] test scores represents a transitional period as our school system adjusts to a new method of instruction,” Banks said in a statement. City officials said other states that have pursued curriculum overhauls have also seen initial test score declines.

Still, experts said that aggregate test scores should be interpreted with caution, as many other variables besides the curriculum changes could push scores up or down, such as fluctuations in federal COVID relief funding and elevated rates of chronic absenteeism. The Education Department did not randomly select which schools were required to overhaul their curriculums in the first phase of the rollout.

The state test scores should be used “as only a rough indicator of students’ performance and not in any way as a decisive evaluation or referendum” on the curriculum overhaul, said Aaron Pallas, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College who has studied school performance and accountability systems. “When there’s multiple things changing at once, it’s really, really hard to isolate the impact of a curriculum change.”

Officials pointed to data from a separate battery of assessments that the city delivered to students in grades K-2 last spring that showed an uptick in reading scores compared with the year before as a sign of improvement. But those statistics also show that the scores among schools that adopted the new curriculums rose slightly less than schools that were not part of the curriculum mandate. Officials said the differences were not statistically significant.

Susan Neuman, a New York University professor who has supported the curriculum changes, said that while the city’s assessment data seemed more encouraging, it is too early to draw conclusions. “I don’t think it is valid” to use the state test scores to assess the curriculum mandate so far, she said. “I’m not concerned” about the decline, she added.

For his part, Pallas was skeptical that the city’s assessment data, based on a screener from a company called Acadience, could reveal much about policy implementation since it is typically used to identify individual students who are struggling so schools can deploy extra help.

“I fully understand the impulse of the city to crow about numbers that seem to be going up,” Pallas said. “But there, too, I think that has very little to do with the curricular changes that we are seeing.”

The state test scores released Wednesday came out months earlier than in recent years, which city officials said was due to state education officials giving them the green light to release local scores earlier. Scores were delayed until the fall last year as state officials developed cut scores for the new exam, but in 2022 and 2021, the data was released in late September and late October, respectively.

The scores continued to reveal disparities between different student groups.

About 70% of Asian American students and nearly 66% of white students scored proficient or above on English exams compared with nearly 39% of Black students and about 36% of Latino children. About 21% of students with disabilities were considered to be on grade level.

In math, almost 80% of Asian American children and just over 72% of white children were proficient, compared with about 38% of Black students and nearly 40% of Latino ones. Math proficiency rates were much lower for students with disabilities, at just over 27%.

The figures released Wednesday do not include charter schools.

More broadly, the state’s standardized tests have undergone a series of changes in recent years, making it difficult at times to compare data from one school year to the next. In 2020, for example, the exams were canceled due to the start of the COVID pandemic, and the following year they were reinstated but made optional for students across the state.

In 2023, students for the first time took a new exam aligned with the Next Generation Learning Standards, which were established after revisions to the controversial Common Core. Earlier this year, the city’s fifth and eighth graders took a computer-based model of those exams, as the state continues its multiyear phase-in of computer-based testing.

And across the city, an additional 185 schools opted into digital English exams for some portion of their third, fourth, sixth, or seventh graders, while 166 schools did so for math.

City data showed a larger drop in the share of fifth and eighth graders who scored proficient in reading on the most recent exams when compared to the city’s 3-8 grade students as a whole. While some studies have found students tend to do worse on exams taken on a computer or tablet, research isn’t definitive. Many states have already switched over to a computer-based model, but there have been different outcomes across the country.

City officials said they were “not able to confidently disentangle the impact of computer-based testing versus other factors” on students’ scores.

Still, the tests can be helpful for schools and districts, informing instructional decisions and assisting in the development of individual student learning plans.

Curious about school-level test results? Here is a searchable breakdown of math and English scores across all of the city’s public schools.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org

Simone Hawkins returns to the Education Department as deputy chancellor for early childhood

2024-07-26T19:03:34+00:00

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A top official who oversaw payments to preschool providers amid a crush of delays is returning to become deputy chancellor of early childhood education, officials announced Friday.

Simone Hawkins, who abruptly left her post as chief executive for operations in the early childhood division in 2022, will now oversee the city’s publicly funded preschool programs and subsidized programs for infants and toddlers that currently serve about 140,000 children.

Her appointment by Chancellor David Banks comes just weeks after the departure of Kara Ahmed, the previous deputy chancellor, whose two-and-a-half year tenure was marked by upheaval.

Hawkins’ “expertise in early childhood education and her ability to implement complex, large-scale operations make her just the right person to take the helm at this critically important time,” Banks said in a statement.

The new deputy chancellor will assume an early childhood division that has experienced a bumpy staffing shakeup, payment delays, a controversial curriculum mandate, and a longstanding failure to provide preschool seats to children with disabilities who have a legal right to them.

The division has also been at the center of a major budget fight between Mayor Eric Adams and the City Council over how much funding the city should allocate for 3-K, the city’s free public preschool program for 3-year-olds.

The program has expanded under Adams’ watch, but the mayor has also followed through with $150 million in cuts for the program’s budget this year. He contends that the city has been paying for empty seats, though advocates have pushed for more aggressive outreach efforts. Not all families who applied on time for a seat this fall have been offered a spot.

Local lawmakers, including those who have sharply criticized the Education Department’s approach to early childhood programs in recent years, praised Hawkins. Rita Joseph, who helms the City Council’s education committee, said Haskins appointment “presents a significant opportunity to address and solve the challenges facing our youngest learners and their families.”

And Lincoln Restler, a Brooklyn council member who has often sparred with department officials about cuts to preschool programs, wrote in a text message that Hawkins “is a smart, experienced and capable leader and I am hopeful she can right the ship of our troubled early childhood education system.”

Hawkins’ most recent role was with the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene as a deputy commissioner and chief equity officer. For now, it appears she will split the time between the departments of health and education.

Her first day as deputy chancellor is slated to be July 29, according to a press release, though Chalkbeat obtained an internal message to health department staff that indicates she will continue to work part time for that agency through August. An Education Department spokesperson did not say how much time she would devote to her deputy chancellor role during the transition. Her salary will be $275,126.

Her stint at the Education Department’s early childhood division in 2022 lasted less than a year. The department was struggling at the time to pay preschool providers on time, which hobbled some programs and forced others to close. In her role as executive director for operations, Hawkins oversaw the payment process.

Top officials said they inherited a flawed payment system from the prior administration, though other department staff suggested that Ahmed drove out longtime staffers with deep knowledge of how the systems work, exacerbating the issue.

Two days after testifying in front of the City Council about payment problems, Hawkins resigned her post, only about eight months after taking the role. Department officials said at the time her resignation was for “personal reasons” and had been in the works for “several weeks.”

Hawkins’ early childhood experience stretches back at least a decade. Beginning in 2014, she worked as a deputy budget and operations director in the early childhood division of the Children’s Aid Society, an agency that operates preschool seats among other school-based services. More recently, she was the chief financial and administrative officer at Covenant House, an organization that serves homeless youth.

She also previously served in government, including as an assistant commissioner in the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which oversees child care providers, and as a budget analyst for the city’s office of management and budget.

Early childhood advocates largely praised Hawkins’ appointment.

“She is someone who is well respected and liked by the provider community,” said Randi Levine, policy director at Advocates for Children, a nonprofit that works with low-income families. “Deputy Chancellor Hawkins brings a wealth of experience in the field of early childhood education and a long history of partnering collaboratively and working through operational challenges.”

Gregory Brender, chief policy and innovation officer at the Day Care Council, which represents early childhood providers, noted that Hawkins will immediately have a full plate. Early childhood organizations are “facing significant challenges from understaffing to budget cuts,” he wrote in an email. “We look forward to working with [Hawkins] in her new role.”

Amy Zimmer contributed reporting.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Kara Ahmed, NYC’s head of early childhood education, to leave after turbulent tenure

2024-07-09T21:57:13+00:00

This article is part of an ongoing collaboration between Chalkbeat and THE CITY.

Kara Ahmed, the deputy chancellor who oversaw New York City’s early childhood education programs during a turbulent two-and-a-half year period, is leaving her post, she told staffers in a Tuesday morning video conference.

Ahmed will take over in September as the president of Educare Network, a group of 25 birth-to-5 schools across the country serving approximately 4,000 students, according to a press release. Ahmed told staffers the job would allow her to “help elevate the quality of early childhood education on a national level,” according to a recording of the video call obtained by Chalkbeat.

“While that is extraordinary, and I’m excited and I’m thrilled,” she said, “it certainly does not take away the feelings I have of sadness and just absolute emotion to think about the work that I’m leaving.”

Ahmed’s tenure at the Division of Early Childhood Education, which oversees publicly funded child care for some 140,000 students enrolled in universal prekindergarten (for the city’s 4-year-olds), 3-K (for 3-year-olds), and subsidized programs for infants and toddlers, was marked by upheaval.

Since her start in January 2022, the free 3-K system has grown dramatically, but has also seen budget cuts and thousands of unfilled seats. Ahmed presided over a crisis in payment delays that forced some contracted early childhood to shutter — a problem she said she inherited and has worked hard to fix. She also revamped the way central staffers support programs and introduced a controversial universal curriculum.

Ahmed and schools Chancellor David Banks have steadfastly defended her record, arguing that she took over a deeply flawed system that needed to be rebuilt from the ground up.

“Dr. Kara Ahmed has been with me since Day 1 of this administration,” Banks said in a statement, “and I am immensely grateful to her for her service, dedication, and unparalleled passion for high-quality, equitable Early Childhood Education.”

But critics, including many staffers in the division of early childhood education, say she’s done more harm than good.

“What they did was they came in and dismantled the entire system,” said one early childhood staffer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. “Instead of making it better, they made it more chaotic.”

Ahmed faced battles over payment delays, staff restructuring

Some of Ahmed’s early struggles centered on payment delays for early childhood operators, which crippled many programs and forced some to shutter. In October 2022, the Early Childhood Division official in charge of overseeing those payments left the agency.

Officials blamed the broken payment system on their predecessors and said there were scores of unsubmitted invoices from providers. Some current and former staffers disputed that, arguing that Ahmed and the new leadership drove out long-time staffers with the institutional knowledge to keep the payment systems running smoothly.

In October 2022, officials introduced plans to eliminate the delays, efforts they said have paid off. In his statement Tuesday, Banks credited Ahmed with “removing barriers and delays to provider payments.”

But one leadership coach at the Division of Early Childhood Education, who asked to speak anonymously for fear of reprisal, said that while the payment delay problem was no longer as acute, the issue hasn’t gone away entirely. The leadership coach cited one contracted early childhood provider who recently couldn’t make payroll because they were waiting for a payment from the Education Department.

The payment delay crisis collided with another controversy over a major reorganization of hundreds of centrally employed instructional coordinators who offered coaching and support to early childhood teachers and program leaders. Ahmed argued that the move would help bring the staffers closer to schools. But the reshuffling spurred confusion and fear for many of the staffers, and ultimately prompted the city teachers union to hold a rare vote of no confidence in Ahmed.

(In a statement Tuesday, United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew said, “We look forward to working with the DOE and the administration to ensure that there are robust early childhood programs in every neighborhood in the city.”)

Nearly two years after the restructuring, the leadership coach said many of those staffers have left and have not been replaced.

“It has taken support away from classrooms, teachers, children and families,” the coach said.

A new curriculum sparks controversy

In recent months, Ahmed has touted the results of another seismic change that she helped usher in: the introduction of a universal curriculum in the city’s 3-K and pre-K programs.

Similar to the Education Department’s efforts to standardize classroom literacy instruction in elementary schools, the early childhood division has rolled out a single curriculum, called Creative Curriculum, in almost all of its programs, Ahmed recently said.

“It has been thrilling and exciting and absolutely amazing … to see a singular curriculum, a singular assessment system, a singular screening, all of these instructional schools taking place in 90%” of early childhood programs,” she said at a March press conference.

The idea behind the push, Ahmed said, was to “ensure instructional coherency and cohesiveness so all children in all ZIP codes have access to high quality early childhood education.”

But the mandate, and the curriculum itself, have ignited a groundswell of opposition among many early childhood educators, administrators, advocates and parents.

A petition launched by a coalition of opponents of the curriculum called “People’s Early Childhood Education NYC” called on the city to “halt all restructuring and roll out of costly and inappropriate corporate curriculum.” It has garnered more than 900 signatures in about three months.

Lacey Peters, a professor of early childhood education at Hunter College who trains city preschool teachers and has been studying the rollout of Creative Curriculum, said in an email she’s seen how it “prioritizes teaching content over teaching children, and 3 and 4-year-old children are being deprived of opportunities to learn in developmentally appropriate and meaningful ways.”

The new curriculum also came with significant new data reporting requirements. Teachers are now asked to evaluate children on roughly 30 developmental metrics three times a year, early childhood staffers said.

“Teachers are spending more time uploading data than actually having natural interactions with their children and seeing how they progress and seeing their social-emotional needs,” said one early childhood staffer.

Future of 3-K expansion remains murky

The last year of Ahmed’s tenure was marked by clashes between the City Council and Mayor Eric Adams over the budget of the newly expanded 3-K program.

Adams, Banks, and Ahmed have argued that overall, the system has an excess of seats, but that many of them are just located in the wrong places. Banks said Tuesday that Ahmed has helped shift 7,000 of those seats, and has overseen the addition of 800 seats for children with disabilities — though hundreds of children with disabilities were still waiting for a seat as of this spring.

The city commissioned consulting firm Accenture to study where to move seats, but the city has yet to publicly release the $760,000 report.

Despite officials’ promise that every family that wants a seat in 3-K will get one, approximately 6% of the 43,000 who applied on time for 3-K this year, roughly 2,600 students, didn’t get an offer this year, according to the Education Department.

Adams committed this year to using city funding to replace some of the expiring federal pandemic aid that paid for the expansion of the 3-K program, but had still proposed to cut the program’s budget by roughly $170 million next year. Ultimately, Adams and the City Council agreed to add $20 million back into 3-K in the recently-adopted budget, lowering the total amount of the cuts from $170 million to $150 million.

But advocates say it’s not enough, and hope that Ahmed’s successor will push for a more aggressive expansion.

“They’re making a big deal about adding these seats, but it just comes after cutting outreach teams and cutting the seats in the first place,” said Rebecca Bailin, executive director of New Yorkers United for Child Care, a grassroots organizing group. “We need a leader and the mayor to make 3-K a priority because it’s certainly a priority for New Yorkers.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

High-ranking NYC education officials switch positions in staffing shuffle

2024-07-08T22:04:52+00:00

In an unusual staffing shuffle, two high-ranking New York City Education Department officials are effectively swapping positions — with one returning to the public school system just months after leaving for a new job.

Melissa Aviles-Ramos, who left her role as chief of staff for schools Chancellor David Banks in February to start a job as a college administrator, will return to the Education Department to take over as deputy chancellor for family and community engagement and external affairs, officials announced Monday.

She will replace Kenita Lloyd, a long-time colleague of the chancellor’s, dating back to his days running a network of all-boys public schools. Lloyd was named Banks’ chief of staff Friday.

In press releases announcing the changes, Banks and Mayor Eric Adams praised both Lloyd and Aviles-Ramos and emphasized the importance of both positions.

Banks framed Lloyd’s move as a promotion, saying in a statement Friday that he was “elevating” her to the chief of staff role because “her deep knowledge of how this system and our communities work will provide my leadership team with the guidance and support it needs to pursue our critical priorities.”

Lloyd will be the fourth person to serve as chief of staff for Banks, who took over as chancellor in January 2022.

In Monday’s announcement about Aviles-Ramos’ return to the Education Department, Banks said her “extensive experience and dedication to advocating for students and families make her exceptionally qualified for this role.”

The press release highlighted Aviles-Ramos’ experience as a teacher, school leader, deputy superintendent, and acting superintendent, but left out her most recent and highest-ranking position as chief of staff.

Aviles-Ramos’s salary in fiscal year 2023, before she became chief of staff, was listed as $204,000, while Lloyd made $240,000 that year, according to payroll records posted on SeeThroughNY.

Both Lloyd and Aviles-Ramos took on some of the Education Department’s highest-profile challenges in their prior roles.

Lloyd oversaw the family and community engagement office, or FACE, which has dealt with a surge in conflicts among elected parent leaders over transgender students, the Israel-Hamas war, and other charged political issues. Last month, the department took the rare step of removing two parent leaders for allegedly violating the city’s code of conduct.

Even before those parent leader dustups, FACE has been roiled by internal strife over its handling of the most recent Community Education Council elections.

Aviles-Ramos, meanwhile, took charge of the Education Department’s efforts to support tens of thousands of newly arrived migrant students – an initiative officials called Project Open Arms. That initiative is no longer under the purview of the chief of staff, according to an Education Department spokesperson.

Banks has made several changes recently to the leadership structure of the Education Department. In March, he dissolved the Division of Teaching and Learning, a department that had roughly 2,000 employees and oversaw major initiatives like the NYC Reads elementary school curriculum mandate. Last month, he announced a new deputy chancellor to oversee special education and multilingual learners.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

These 6 NYC high schools are exempt from a new math curriculum mandate

2024-07-02T20:30:22+00:00

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New York City’s sweeping effort to overhaul algebra instruction with a new curriculum mandate will exempt some campuses — all of which are specialized high schools, officials confirmed this week.

By next fall, 420 city high schools will be required to use a curriculum called Imagine Learning Illustrative Math for Algebra 1, part of an effort to address plummeting math achievement in the wake of the pandemic.

The Education Department has granted just six exemptions to that mandate, all of them specialized high schools that admit students on the basis of a single standardized test.

Those six schools are: Stuyvesant High School, Brooklyn Technical High School, Brooklyn Latin High School, High School for Math Science and Engineering at City College, Bronx High School of Science, and the High School of American Studies at Lehman College.

Officials said those campuses were allowed to opt out of the new curriculum “due to their strong academic outcomes and existing supports.” Most students at those schools take and pass Algebra 1 in middle school, officials added.

Meanwhile, 36 “consortium” high schools — which are exempt from the state Regents exams and use capstone projects to assess student performance — will not be required to adopt new curriculum materials until the 2025-26 school year. They will have additional curriculum choices beyond Illustrative Math, said Education Department spokesperson Nicole Brownstein. District 75 schools, which serve students with more complex disabilities, will also have more time to implement a new math curriculum.

Math overhaul part of wider instructional changes

Schools Chancellor David Banks has made overhauling classroom materials a centerpiece of his administration, most notably in elementary school reading. He has been reluctant to grant exceptions to those directives. Just one campus — a gifted and talented school in Brooklyn — has been allowed to sidestep the reading curriculum overhaul.

Many experts, advocacy groups, and the city’s teachers union have backed the curriculum changes, which allow for larger-scale teacher training and fewer disruptions for students who switch schools.

“I think very highly of Illustrative Math – it’s a really good curriculum, and so it generally makes a lot of sense for the [Education Department] to standardize,” said Maria Klawe, the president of Math for America, an organization that offers fellowships and training opportunities to New York City math teachers.

“The flip side of what I just said is that if a teacher or a school has made tremendous investment in developing curriculum that for whatever reason works well,” she added, “it makes sense to make exceptions.”

The move to exempt most specialized schools, widely perceived to be among the city’s most prestigious, has frustrated some math educators.

“If the [Illustrative Math] curriculum is that good, then shouldn’t all schools be required to use it without modification?” said Bobson Wong, a veteran math teacher at Bayside High School.

City officials began rolling out the Illustrative Math curriculum in 265 high schools during the 2023-24 school year, winning mixed reviews from educators. Unlike many standard math curriculums that focus on memorizing procedures and terms, Illustrative Math aims to foster deeper conceptual understanding of mathematical principles, often through real-world examples.

Some educators said the curriculum draws in students with rich classroom conversations and can engage children from a wide array of skill levels.

But others contend that without a solid foundation of math terms and procedures, the more open-ended lessons can leave students without the tools they need to successfully solve problems. Some teachers also worry that it is not closely aligned with the material that appears on state exams that students typically must pass to graduate high school.

Officials have not laid out any specific criteria for exempting schools from the Algebra 1 mandate; for the reading curriculum changes, the Education Department insisted those decisions are made purely on a case-by-case basis.

The Education Department did not say why only six of the city’s eight test-in specialized high schools were granted an exemption to the mandate, which appeared to stoke some confusion. At Staten Island Technical High School, officials were under the impression they did not have to implement the new curriculum.

“As far as I know from my district support team, we’re exempt as well,” Principal Mark Erlenwein wrote in an email. He added that only 31 of the school’s roughly 338 ninth graders took Algebra 1 this year.

Brownstein insisted the school was not granted an exemption.

Teachers await training info on the math curriculum shift

Gary Rubinstein, a math teacher at Stuyvesant High School, said his school’s exemption had little practical impact because virtually every incoming student has already passed Algebra 1. But he said he would be wary of efforts to require him to use a mandated curriculum in other subjects, a move city officials are considering.

“I would never use a canned curriculum with a pacing calendar” that dictates how long to spend on each unit, he said, noting that such a directive could make it difficult to cover certain topics effectively.

As the city moves to roll out new math materials, some educators said they’ve received little information about what training to expect. Among schools in the first phase of the rollout this past school year, officials previously said teachers should receive eight “intensive” training sessions from Illustrative Math as well as at least eight “job-embedded coaching sessions” per teacher.

City officials did not respond to a question about their training plans for the coming school year, as many schools in the second phase of the rollout are set to the program for the first time.

For his part, Wong said he’s reviewed the Illustrative Math curriculum and believes there’s plenty of useful material in it, and it jibes with his own approach. But he worries the new mandates could be too rigid, forcing him to discard lessons he’s honed over the years.

He also hasn’t heard much about the city’s plans to get teachers up to speed.

“I don’t expect anything to happen until two days before classes start, which is of course not enough time to learn how to use a new curriculum,” he said.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Cell phone ban for NYC schools could come ‘within 2 weeks,’ Chancellor David Banks says

2024-06-26T20:51:38+00:00

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New York City schools Chancellor David Banks may announce a cell phone ban for the nation’s largest school district “within the next two weeks,” he told reporters on Wednesday.

“You’re going to hear, within the next two weeks, the big announcement, but I will tell you we are very much leaning towards banning cell phones,” Banks said outside of P.S. 165, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, as kids were dismissed for the last day of school. “We’re working out the kinks on this, and we want to make sure that we do it right.”

The move comes as momentum is swiftly building around school cell phone bans. The board for Los Angeles public schools, the country’s second largest district, voted last week to ban phones and expects to implement a plan in January 2025. Gov. Kathy Hochul last month said she was mulling a statewide school cell phone ban. And in a New York Times op-ed last week, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy called for a warning on social media platforms, and said that schools should be phone-free spaces.

Banks first mentioned the two-week timeline on NY1.

New York City currently allows principals to set their own policies on cell phones, after a citywide prohibition was dropped in 2015.

But in recent weeks, Banks has raised alarm over the harmful effects of cell phones on student mental health and learning. He has also pointed to safety issues, previously stating some students have used phones to arrange after-school fights.

“I can’t think of any good reason why kids would actually have their phones while they’re in school,” Banks said on Wednesday.

Banks previously said he’s been talking with “hundreds” of principals, and they have overwhelmingly told him they’d like a citywide policy banning phones.

The details of any ban are critical as to whether it will help reconnect students with their schoolwork — and each other, according to results of a Chalkbeat survey.

Most schools across the five boroughs already have bans in place, but they differ dramatically. Some schools mandate their students carry around Yondr pouches, cloth cases for phones that are locked from morning to dismissal. Others collect and store phones during school hours. Still other schools have policies on paper that ultimately put the onus on teachers to enforce – and many students and educators said that often leads to a patchwork of policies.

None of these approaches is foolproof, according to educators, parents, and students. To avoid the pouches or collection systems, kids might use “dummy” phones or say they forgot to bring their devices, teachers and parents said. Nonetheless, many educators are hungry for a clear and consistent policy.

Any ban would need to address not only the school-level logistics of collecting or storing cell phones but also the concerns of parents, who are often prime offenders of contacting kids during the school day.

“We know [students] need to be in communication with their parents after school,” Banks said, “and if there’s something going on during the day, parents should just call the school the way they always did before we ever had cell phones.”

Banks recently told parents in Brownsville that he read “The Anxious Generation,” a new book by Jonathan Haidt, a New York University Stern School of Business social psychologist and New York City public school parent. In the book, Haidt makes a strong case for phone-free schools. He also recommends that parents not give smartphones to students before high school and prohibit the use of social media before age 16.

The chancellor’s latest comments on cell phones represent a relatively recent shift in his views.

“I’m not sure that we’re at the point yet where we’re talking about banning the cell phones,” he said when Chalkbeat asked about the possibility of a citywide ban in March. “It’s a very, very difficult thing to enforce, number one. Number two, I want to make sure schools are figuring out ways to better engage kids in more beneficial uses of technology, including their phones.”

Antoine Zoundi, a parent of a first and fourth grader at P.S. 165, said he was in favor of a school cell phone ban. His kids do not yet have mobile phones — and he doesn’t anticipate allowing them to have devices until they’re 15 or 16, he said — but he can already see how phones are making it harder for students to concentrate on schoolwork.

The dad, who lives in the Bronx, wasn’t concerned about needing to reach his children during the school day, saying he could reach out to the school.

“When I want to get in touch with my child,” he said, “I have to get in touch with the school because they are responsible for the safety of the child during this time of school hours.”

The parent of another student at P.S. 165, who asked not to be identified for privacy reasons, added that she’s hoping to see the city adopt a cell phone ban in schools.

“Recently, I was on a field trip with my fourth grade son and his friends,” she said of a school trip to a nearby playground. “Some of them, instead of playing games, they were just on their phones.

“They’re so young for that,” she added. “I don’t think they need a phone at school.”

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Six popular Manhattan high schools will prioritize applicants from the borough

2024-06-20T22:01:47+00:00

Six of Manhattan’s most popular high schools will set aside 75% of their seats for students who live in the borough for the coming admissions cycle, schools Chancellor David Banks announced Thursday.

Eleanor Roosevelt High School, Millennium High School, The Clinton School, NYC Lab School for Collaborative Studies, The Museum School, and Baruch College Campus High School will all offer the borough priority, Banks said. All six schools also screen students on the basis of grades.

The policy shift comes after some Manhattan parents lobbied Banks to impose geographic admissions preferences at high-demand local high schools, arguing that competitive schools in other boroughs often give local students a leg up. Parents from District 2, which spans much of lower and midtown Manhattan and the Upper East Side, point out that their children got into their top choice schools at the lowest rate in the city last year, according to Education Department data.

But critics contend that Manhattan’s high schools are the highest-demand in the city in part because the borough is an appealing destination and transit hub for students from across the five boroughs. They say the city shouldn’t restrict access to them.

At a press conference Thursday, Banks said he believes his new policy stakes out “a reasonable middle ground” by granting some geographic priority, while still keeping the schools open to a diverse swath of students.

“Manhattan parents generally were locked out of most of the seats in these schools even though they were geographically close,” he said. “So many Manhattan kids went to schools that were a long train ride away. That doesn’t make sense to me.”

Schools previously had district preference

Most of the schools that will now offer the borough priority previously gave a leg up to students who lived in District 2 – a policy that former Mayor Bill de Blasio scrapped in 2020.

Several of those schools, including Eleanor Roosevel, Baruch, and Lab, have seen their shares of Black and Latino students, as well as those from low-income families, increase substantially since they dropped the District 2 priority and began setting aside a percentage of their seats for students from low-income families.

Schools with set-asides for students for low-income families will retain those policies, and officials said Thursday that by including the entire borough of Manhattan in the priority, rather than just students from District 2, they project that the percentage of Black and Latino students as well as those from low-income families won’t change significantly.

According to the department’s analysis, the overall percentage of Black and Latino students admitted to the six schools would stay at 26%, as would the percentage of students living in poverty, at 48%. The biggest change, according to the analysis, would come in the proportion of admitted students from Manhattan, which is projected to rise from 59% this year to 76% next year.

Principals at several of the schools now adopting Manhattan priority were vocal in their support of abandoning District 2 priority in 2020.

Patrick Sprinkle, a history teacher at NYC Lab School, said he was “disappointed” in the new decision. “I would like to see Manhattan schools open themselves to anyone who wants to attend instead of wall themselves off.”

An Education Department spokesperson said decisions about adding borough priority at the six schools were made “in tight coordination with the superintendent, principals, and with input of a wide-range of parent voice.”

Lisa Marks, the parent of a rising middle school student in District 2 who is part of a group of hundreds of parents that have been advocating for increased geographic admissions preference in Manhattan schools, said the decision was an “olive branch to Manhattan parents” and a “very positive development.”

“I think he’s clearly trying to strike a balance and address the parental feedback he heard,” she said of Banks.

She added that “only time will tell” if the changes can help lower the number of District 2 students who didn’t get into any of their 12 choices. Last year, District 2 led the city in its share of students not getting into any of their high school choices at 13%, though that number dips to 7% when accounting for students who got into specialized high schools, which use a separate admissions process, according to Education Department data.

Parents from other boroughs push back

Still, the idea of a geographic priority at some of Manhattan’s most popular high schools has stirred concerns among families of rising eighth graders in other boroughs, who say Manhattan schools are often the most accessible quality options for their kids.

Kim Gabriel, the parent of a rising eighth grader in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, noted the dearth of high schools in her neighborhood. Many of Brooklyn’s competitive high schools with geographic priority are located in southern Brooklyn and would be a far lengthier commute than schools in Manhattan, she said.

“It doesn’t make any sense to me,” she said.

The Community Education Council in District 30 in Long Island City, Queens, passed a resolution opposing borough priority at selective Manhattan high schools, noting that “because of the layout of the New York City public transportation system, many high schools in Manhattan are a shorter commute away from neighborhoods in District 30 than comparable schools in Queens.”

The resolution noted that while Queens high schools have a deficit of seats, Manhattan high schools have thousands of open seats, even if they’re not at the highest-demand schools.

Nyah Berg, the executive director of New York Appleseed, a group that advocates for school integration, called the move “unsound policy, informed by limited community engagement and an even smaller group of select voices trying to reinstate gatekeeping relics from before the pandemic.”

Officials said on Thursday they heard from a range of parents and advocates, and noted that the schools will still leave some seats open to students from other boroughs.

“This change won’t make everyone happy,” he said. “But I believe it’s the right one and that it’s responsive to parents across the city with a diverse set of opinions and perspectives.”

Banks also pointed to his efforts to open more academically screened schools in parts of the city that have historically had fewer of them, and said he hoped to challenge the notion there’s “a handful of really great high schools in Manhattan and if you don’t get into those schools you’re doomed.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

NYC specialized high school offers to Black and Latino students inch up but remain stubbornly low

2024-06-18T22:32:11+00:00

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Despite a modest increase in the number of Black and Latino students offered admission for next year’s freshman class, New York City’s vaunted specialized high schools will remain deeply segregated, according to city data released Tuesday.

Just 4.5% of offers went to Black students and 7.6% to Latino students, a slight uptick from last year when 3% of offers went to Black students and 6.7% went to Latino applicants.

Education Department officials trumpeted this year’s admissions rates for Black and Latino students as “the highest levels since 2013.” About 65% of the city’s public school students are Black or Latino.

Asian American students received about 52% of the offers, and 26% went to white students. About 32% of the city’s students are white or Asian American.

The city’s specialized high schools represent a tiny fraction of the high school population. But they garner disproportionate attention because they are considered among the country’s most prestigious public high schools, even as they contribute to New York City’s status as home to one of the most racially stratified school systems in the country. Admission to eight of the city’s specialized schools depends solely on a student’s score on a single standardized test, which has long been blamed for cementing segregation.

In line with patterns in previous years, four of the eight schools that rely on the Specialized High School Admissions Test, known as the SHSAT, admitted 10 or fewer Black students. Of the 744 students offered admission to Stuyvesant High School, 10 are Black. Just one Black applicant won a seat at Staten Island Technical High School out of 294 offers.

Overall, nearly 27,000 eighth graders took the SHSAT, and 4,072 were offered a seat.

City officials said in a press release that their “goal is that students in Specialized High Schools reflect the diversity of New York City.” But schools Chancellor David Banks has not advanced any major efforts to alter the racial makeup at the specialized high schools, nor has he made school integration a priority more broadly.

The Education Department noted that they invited students to participate in a longstanding program that offers students a chance at admission even if they just missed the test score cutoff, an effort to help diversity the specialized schools. However, that program, called Discovery, has historically done little to move the needle.

“They’re still intensely segregated schools, and it’s unacceptable that we’re allowing that to occur year, after year, after year,” said Nyah Berg, the executive director of New York Appleseed, a group that pushes for school integration. Though she acknowledged some small gains, “at the end of the day, you still have 10 Black students attending Stuysevant,” a situation she described as “egregious.”

Former Mayor Bill de Blasio sought to scrap the sole admissions test in favor of a system that would automatically admit the top-performing students at each middle school, a reform that officials projected would reshape the demographics of the specialized schools. But that proposal hinged on approval from the state legislature, which took away the city’s authority to govern the admissions process to three specialized schools in 1971.

Pushback to de Blasio’s plan was fierce. Some members of the Asian American community blasted the mayor for not including their community in developing the proposal, and it never gained traction in Albany. Subsequent efforts by some state lawmakers to reform the admissions process have also failed. Efforts to diversify the city’s specialized schools have faced court challenges while others have sued in an effort to force the system to address segregation more broadly.

The specialized schools are often seen as a springboard into top colleges and other opportunities, though studies have found that students with similar academic qualifications who attend different schools end up with similar SAT scores and college admissions offers.

New York City is unique in its share of high schools that admit students based on their academic records and city officials also released statistics Tuesday on admissions offers to screened programs outside of the specialized schools.

Overall, those campuses have not seen their demographics shift significantly since last year. But screened schools have offered admission to a higher share of Latino students and students from low-income households, compared with before the pandemic when state test scores and attendance factored into admissions. The city generally only considers a student’s grades in core subjects, though there are a few exceptions for schools that use other assessments like essays.

Across all 72,000 eighth graders who received a high school admissions offer, 51% got their first choice, up from 48% last year. About 77% received one of their top three choices, up 3 percentage points.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

In rare move, NYC schools Chancellor Banks removes two parent leaders following controversies

2024-06-15T00:43:52+00:00

New York City schools Chancellor David Banks on Friday removed two parent leaders who have been entangled in high-profile public controversies over transgender students and the Israel-Hamas war from their roles on elected Community Education Councils.

Parent leaders Tajh Sutton, the president of the CEC in Brooklyn’s District 14, and Maud Maron, a member of the CEC in Manhattan’s District 2, were removed from their posts for allegedly violating open meetings laws and city regulations governing the conduct of parent leaders, an Education Department spokesperson confirmed.

The removal of the parent leaders is the culmination of a year of escalating tensions in the city’s elected parent leadership bodies, which are largely advisory. Disputes have surged this year among parent leaders over the Israel-Hamas war and policies governing sports for transgender students, leading to a spike in complaints against council members.

The chancellor has the authority under state law to remove CEC members, but it’s unclear if a chancellor has exercised that power before. A spokesperson couldn’t immediately confirm if CEC members have been removed in the past.

“It is a sad day when New York City Public Schools is compelled to take the actions I have ordered today, but the violations committed by these two individuals have made them unfit to serve in these roles,” Banks said in the statement.

Some critics have been calling on Banks for months to remove Maron from the council after she sent texts in a private group chat denying the existence of transgender kids and calling an anonymous student at Stuyvesant High School, where Maron is a parent, a “coward” and accusing them of “Jew hatred” in response to an opinion piece the student authored in the school newspaper.

Maron, who ran unsuccessful campaigns for the city council and U.S. House of Representatives in recent years, was also a sponsor of a resolution passed by CEC 2 in March calling on the Education Department to reconsider its guidelines allowing transgender students to join sports teams that align with their gender identities. The resolution has drawn national media attention and sharp condemnations from Banks.

An April letter from the Education Department to Maron preceding her removal ordered her to cease “derogatory or offensive comments” toward students and stop “verbal abuse and unnecessary aggressive speech,” according to The 74.

Maron previously told The 74 that the Education Department hadn’t made the specific allegations against her clear and called the process “Kafkaesque” and an “embarrassment.”

Maron didn’t respond to a request for comment Friday, but told Chalkbeat in March that she stood by her comments in the group chat, saying “defending the rights of girls and women is not anti-trans.”

Maron is a plaintiff in a lawsuit against Sutton, the other parent leader removed Friday, and the city Education Department alleging that they’re misusing the grievance process and suppressing the voices of some parent leaders.

Second removal relates to pro-Palestinian advocacy

Sutton, the president of the CEC in Williamsburg and Greenpoint’s District 14, has been embroiled in a controversy surrounding her pro-Palestinian advocacy, and subsequent decision to shift council meetings online over safety concerns stemming from threats she said she received over her views. The threats included an envelope of feces sent in the mail, she said.

In a copy of the removal letter obtained by Chalkbeat, Banks accused Sutton of making comments and distributing protest materials that have “justifiably been perceived by many community members as anti-Israel and antisemitic.” Sutton did not create the materials, but helped distribute them in advance of a walkout calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip in November.

He specifically cites Sutton distributing a pro-Palestinian protest toolkit that included protest chants such as “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “Say it loud, say it clear; We don’t want Zionists here,” claiming those phrases violate the Education Department’s anti-discrimination policies.

Banks also accuses Sutton of improperly seeking to influence hiring decisions by protesting the dismissal of a paraprofessional allegedly fired from his school over his conduct at pro-Palestinian protests and social media posts.

Finally, the letter charged Sutton with violating open meetings laws by shifting to the virtual CEC meetings. Banks argued that the Education Department offered several supports to help the CEC address safety concerns and resume in-person meetings as required under state law.

Reached by phone Friday, Sutton strongly disputed the characterizations in the letter.

She said she was targeted because “we are a deeply effective and highly autonomous council” and because she “will not be complicit in the violence of the Department of Education.”

Her involvement in the aftermath of the termination of the paraprofessional was the kind of advocacy she said she’s done numerous times during her years as CEC president when she has concerns about a school decision, she said.

She contended that the Education Department has not done enough to address the threats and make the council feel safe enough to resume in-person meetings, aside from offering NYPD presence.

She further argued that many councils are out of compliance with various aspects of the rules, including posting meeting minutes and enlisting student members, but that the Education Department’s enforcement has been selective.

Sutton said she stands by her vocal pro-Palestinian stance and disputed the accusation that it was antisemitic, noting that multiple Jewish community members have supported her statements on the Israel-Hamas war.

Sutton said she plans to continue her advocacy. One member of the Panel for Educational Policy, an Education Department oversight body, said CEC members removed from their positions have the right to appeal the decision to the PEP.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Lax NYC school cellphone policies put burden on teachers, leave students confused

2024-06-13T20:02:36+00:00

On its face, the cellphone policy at Forest Hills High School seems clear: Phones cannot be used in school and must be turned off during the day, unless a teacher allows them as part of a lesson.

In practice, the picture is a lot more complicated.

Some teachers create their own rules, from zero-tolerance approaches like confiscation to more relaxed policies like allowing phones unless a class devolves into chaos, according to Stephan Menasche, a senior at the 3,400-student school in Queens.

The inconsistencies lead to students testing boundaries and giving into the irresistible pull of their phones to watch or create TikToks, text friends, or listen to music.

“There are classes where I’m not using my phone, and they’re interesting. It’s great because I don’t have to get distracted by the notifications or whatever,” Menasche said. “But sometimes the classes are really boring, and I would rather be on my phone.”

Stephan Menasche, a senior at Forest Hills High School, poses for a portrait outside of his Queens school.

Forest Hills is one of hundreds of schools across New York City that instituted cellphone bans after the Education Department dropped the citywide prohibition in March 2015, a move that gave principals responsibility to create their own approaches. As Gov. Kathy Hochul mulls a statewide ban of cellphones in schools, the reality on the ground in New York City illustrates the complexities of such a large-scale effort.

Dozens of responses to a Chalkbeat survey on schools and cellphones revealed that the patchwork of policies not only between schools but within buildings creates confusion for students and a challenging learning environment for teachers to manage. NYC schools Chancellor David Banks told parent leaders on Thursday that he’s spoken to “hundreds” of principals, and overwhelmingly, they’re asking for a citywide mandate.

Enforcement of bans is a growing struggle, the survey showed, as phones have become more pervasive — at younger and younger ages. Storage of phones can be expensive, at a time when schools are seeing budget cuts. And surprisingly, parents are often the main sources of calls and texts to children.

If officials do impose a blanket ban, the details could play a key role in whether officials can achieve their goal of reconnecting students to classwork.

City officials don’t track how many schools have bans, and there is no one-size-fits-all approach that schools are using to curb student cellphone access. Some have bought Yondr pouches, cloth carrying cases for phones that are locked from morning to dismissal. Some schools collect phones before first period and place them in cubbies. Others have general bans but let kids keep phones. Most schools have tiered discipline policies: A first strike might result in a warning; a third strike might involve confiscating a phone and calling a parent to pick it up.

At schools that don’t have a formal system for collecting phones or using pouches, educators say they spend a great deal of time seizing, monitoring, safeguarding, and returning phones. One Brooklyn high school health teacher who replied to the survey lamented how phones were cutting into his ability to build relationships with students.

Teachers are “in a position of watchdog and cajoler in order to get students to part with their device,” said the teacher, who requested anonymity for privacy reasons. “I can’t remember the last time the first words out of my mouth are: ‘Hello! Welcome to class. It’s fantastic to see you in school today.’”

But even some critics of phones understand why students want to hold onto their devices. Students may have part-time jobs or caretaking responsibilities in their families. And in the wake of high-profile school shootings, some parents feel safer being able to reach their children at any time.

“This is a complex host of issues that will not be solved just by ‘changing a policy,’” the Brooklyn health teacher said. “In the end, unless there is a mandate that comes with funding, personnel, education, and culturally-competent training, the policy is only on paper.”

Voices grow louder for addressing cell phones in schools

Hochul’s call for a ban comes as a groundswell of experts and educators are speaking out that the current state of phone access in school isn’t working. Several other states are considering school cellphone bans, following such policies in Florida and Indiana.

Mayor Eric Adams has been raising the alarm about teen cellphone and social media use, with the city’s Health Department issuing an advisory that encourages caregivers to delay giving children a smartphone until 14. Earlier this year, New York City joined other municipalities in filing a lawsuit against five leading social media companies.

The national conversation around the damage caused by cellphones and social media is also ramping up. New York University Stern School of Business social psychologist and New York City public school parent Jonathan Haidt’s book “Anxious Generation” made the New York Times bestseller list, and grassroots activism is gaining traction across the country, led by New York City-based groups like Moms Against Media Addiction.

At a town hall in Brownsville, Brooklyn, last month, Banks told parents he read Haidt’s book and has been asking principals for input on the issue.

“All of them have said, ‘I agree. I think we should take the phones.’ They are distracting. They’re presenting all kinds of problems,” Banks said. He described students using phones to arrange after-school fights or parents calling in the middle of math class, asking kids to pick up groceries on the way home.

At a visit to Thomas Jefferson High School in Brooklyn, Banks said he observed the school’s pouch system and heard from students who initially bristled at the policy saying they’ve come to appreciate how it’s encouraged them to talk to each other more.

“You all gave us a chance for our brains to breathe,” Banks recounted a student telling him.

A Brownsville principal told Banks that after her school started collecting phones every morning, the number of safety-related incidents dropped precipitously.

Chalkbeat’s survey results back up Banks’ concerns. Teachers are feeling “humiliated” as they’re ignored in their classrooms, as one respondent told Chalkbeat. Another wrote that the phones enable students to “bring the drama of outside life (friends, family) into the classroom which used to be a place where they could get away from such things.” Others described how the devices have fostered more cheating and plagiarism during class.

Dramatic changes 10 years after NYC lifts school cell phone ban

Much of the current climate around cellphones and social media was unimaginable 10 years ago, when former Mayor Bill de Blasio lifted the cellphone ban in New York City schools. He said he did so in large part because of the inequities around the policy. Students were able to take their phones to school and keep them in their bags — unless the school had metal detectors. Those schools, which largely served Black and Latino students from low-income families, saw a cottage industry spring up around carts and small businesses charging kids $1 or more a day to store phones.

Back then, parents weren’t calling their kids as often. Teens weren’t widely using social media apps like Instagram and TikTok, and they didn’t have easy-to-hide AirPods.

Some educators saw an immediate shift once cellphones were allowed in schools.

Anita Pinto, a high school speech therapist in Manhattan, remembers that kids would often play Uno when they had free time. As soon as de Blasio lifted the ban, they stopped taking out the card game.

“Immediately after, they were like zombies,” she said. Things became more extreme after the pandemic, when students became accustomed to 24/7 access to devices in their homes.

One time recently when Pinto entered a classroom, she saw a student with a phone out, which was against the school’s rules. He refused to put it away when she asked, so she took it and said she’d return it at the end of the period. The student cursed and threatened violence.

“I gave it back,” Pinto said. “It wasn’t worth it. You have to pick and choose your battles. … Many teachers don’t take [phones] because of the way kids spin out when they’re taken away. It can get intense.”

Cell phone pouches and storage are no silver bullet

The frustration is high among some school leaders. The principal of Brooklyn Collaborative Studies recently emailed parents that students were saying they had no phone when the school collected them in first period, “only for the phones to come out later in the day in the bathrooms, halls, other classes, and lunch/recess.”

A whopping third of New York City high schools use Yondr pouches to collect phones, a 100% year-over-year increase over last year, officials from the 10-year-old company told Chalkbeat.

“This younger generation has not had the experience of life mediated without social media,” Yondr founder Graham Dugoni told Chalkbeat earlier this year. Though some students might push back initially, he said, eventually, they’re happy for the break. Shortly after getting the pouches, one school librarian in Alabama told him that more books were checked out in one week than in the previous year combined.

Yondr pouches average $25 to $30 per student, with pricing varying depending on school size, a company spokesperson said. The company is expecting “significant growth” in pouch use in New York City and beyond. Some schools are bracing for price hikes. One principal said the company is raising its prices for the school from $20 to $30 in the coming year. Yondr spokeswoman Sarah Leader said the company didn’t expect plans to be more costly “overall,” and that “pricing will continue to evolve to better meet our partner’s needs.”

Meanwhile, a Manhattan mom said her middle school is asking the parent association to cover a price tag of more than $18,000 to purchase pouches for their roughly 550 students in the fall. The mom, who asked to withhold her name and the school, supports buying the pouches, but doesn’t think the parent association should foot the bill and worries that could give parents more leverage to oppose the measure.

The pouches aren’t a panacea. Besides cost, kids spend a tremendous amount of energy figuring out how to hack the pouches, teachers and parents told Chalkbeat.

“Some kids will only ‘pretend’ to lock their phones into the pouch. … There are kids who put a fake second phone in the pouch,” said Rachel Fields, a Queens mom to a sixth grader at Halsey Middle School, which began using the pouches this year. “It’s concerning to me that so much energy is expended into sneaking in phones.”

She got her son a smartphone recently, after he insisted he was the only kid without one and was being excluded from group chats. Her son said his Yondr pouch lock is broken, but he told her he puts his phone in regardless and doesn’t use it.

“I hope that’s true,” she said.

One Bronx assistant principal said she preferred Yondr to collecting phones because there are fewer liability issues with letting the students carry their encased devices. Once, pre-Yondr, a student’s confiscated phone went missing, and the administrator paid out-of-pocket to replace it.

“Yondr is not perfect because there are ways around it,” said the assistant principal, requesting anonymity because she wasn’t authorized to speak. “But it’s better than the days I was walking around snatching phones out of kids’ hands left and right.”

Amanda Rinzel, a teacher at Bronx Latin, a 6-12 school, knew that cellphones would have a powerful grip on her students when they returned to the classroom after pandemic campus closures. She was glad that her school rolled out Yondr pouches in fall 2021.

The pouches have been more successful with middle school students — who tend to follow the rules more and still care what grown-ups think — than high schoolers, many of whom have figured out ways to game the system, said Rinzel.

Amanda Rinzel teaches eighth grade and 12th grade at Bronx Latin.

“At my school, a teacher could spend all day playing whack-a-mole with phones; get this person to put their phone away, that one to take out their earbuds, the other one to put their phone in their backpack and leave it at their desk when they go to the bathroom,” she said. “It’s exhausting.”

Rinzel also understands the issue as the parent of a fifth grader and middle schooler herself. She paid close attention to cellphone policies as she toured middle schools. She felt her older child needed a device for the commute from Brooklyn to the Professional Performing Arts School in Manhattan — but she settled on a type of phone called Pinwheel. The seventh grader can text friends and use parent-enabled apps like Google Maps and Duolingo, but he has no access to a web browser or social media. His school collects phones in the morning and hands them back at dismissal.

Collecting phones might be easier at Rinzel’s son’s school, which serves about 500 students compared to Menasche’s school, Forest Hills, which has seven times the number of students and is on a split session to reduce overcrowding.

Menasche wouldn’t want to hand his phone into school at the start of the day, he said. He worries if there’s an emergency it would be easier for his mom to text him than contact the school to find him. But he finds the current no-phone policy too unclear.

“They don’t enforce that at all,” he said.

Michael Elsen-Rooney contributed.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

NYC ponders giving Manhattan students admissions boost at some borough high schools, sources say

2024-06-07T19:49:09+00:00

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New York City education officials are weighing a plan to give students from Manhattan admissions priority at several of the borough’s most competitive high schools, according to four people familiar with the plan.

The list and number of schools that would offer the admissions bump is not finalized, but the campuses under consideration include Millennium High School, Beacon High School, Bard Early College High School, and Eleanor Roosevelt High School, according to one of the sources. Baruch College Campus High School, NYC Lab School for Collaborative Studies, and Clinton High School could also offer the geographic priority, the person said.

The geographic priority would apply to students across the entire borough of Manhattan rather than just those in District 2 — the zone spanning most of lower and midtown Manhattan and the Upper East Side. Most of the schools that would be affected are in District 2.

A Manhattan borough preference would mark a major change in admissions policy at some of the city’s most in-demand schools and reverberate across the NYC education system. It would also be the latest chapter in a years-long debate over whether and how schools should consider where students live in admissions.

Several of the schools that could offer the new borough priority had previously given preference to District 2 students until former Mayor Bill de Blasio scrapped that policy in 2020. Other schools being considered, including Beacon and Bard Early College, have not previously offered any geographic priority.

It’s not yet clear how many seats at each of the schools would be held for Manhattan students. Education officials are hoping to finalize a plan by the end of the month. The policy would go into effect for the upcoming admissions cycle for students who start high school in the fall of 2025, according to the sources.

Education Department spokesperson Nathaniel Styer declined to comment on the specifics of the plan. “Every year we engage parents around improving enrollment for all students and families in our schools. We will have more to say about updated policies soon,” Styer said.

In a forum with Manhattan parents Thursday night, schools Chancellor David Banks expressed support for the general idea of a Manhattan priority and sympathy for the borough’s parents.

“If you are a mom or dad and you have a child in District 2, I can only imagine how heartbreaking that is that you didn’t even have an opportunity to get your child into one of the District 2 middle schools or high schools as you’re watching kids coming from all around the city coming to the school and you live across the street,” he said. “I don’t think that is fair, and so I’m looking at a wide range of ways to try to find a common ground for everyone.”

Admissions proposal likely to draw mixed parent reactions

Giving preference to students across Manhattan instead of just District 2 — as Banks had previously hinted he might do — makes the priority available to a wider swath of kids who are more representative of the city.

Across Manhattan, 56% of K-8 students are Black or Latino, and 59% come from low-income families, according to state data. In District 2, 26% of K-8 students are Black or Latino and 35% come from low-income families.

Education Department officials forecast that socioeconomic demographics wouldn’t shift significantly in schools if they adopt the Manhattan preference, according to people familiar with the plans.

Many of the schools under consideration set aside a portion of their seats for students from low-income backgrounds. Those policies would remain in place alongside the geographic preference, the sources said.

Elissa Stein, a high school admissions consultant who works with many Manhattan families through her company HS 411, said “giving every family in Manhattan an opportunity to go to these schools is terrific,” and it’s “a really smart move to include more families” beyond just District 2.

Banks said in the Thursday forum he considered it a matter of fairness to give Manhattan students the kind of geographic priority that selective schools in other boroughs offer.

As of 2021, 235 of the city’s roughly 400 high schools offered a borough preference (Education Department officials didn’t provide an updated number). Another 30 schools, none of which are in Manhattan, prioritize students who live in the surrounding geographic zone, according to the city’s high school directory.

“We’ve got some enrollment policies in place in other boroughs that ensure that folks who are in those boroughs get some level of priority,” Banks said. “We don’t do that as much in Manhattan.”

But Maurice Frumkin, who’s also an admissions consultant and president of NYC Admissions Solutions, said he’s concerned the plan is moving forward without sufficient input from families outside of Manhattan. Such families apply in large numbers to Manhattan’s selective schools because of their strong reputation and their accessibility, and they could have strong negative reactions to the plan being weighed by officials.

“To think that they would be excluded potentially from many schools is really going to be a shock to their system,” said Frumkin, who previously worked in the Education Department’s office of enrollment.

Critics of the plan contend that instituting geographic priority in Manhattan’s most popular schools is more disruptive than adding geographic preferences in other boroughs, because Manhattan is a hub for kids from across the city in a way other boroughs aren’t.

More than half of the students currently enrolled in Manhattan high schools live in other boroughs, including nearly a quarter who commute from the Bronx, according to city figures. Fewer than 10% of students who attend high school in each of the other four boroughs commute across borough lines.

Manhattan also has a disproportionate share of the city’s most sought-after schools. There are at least eight schools in Manhattan that receive at least 10 times as many applications as seats, according to city data. No other borough has more than two.

Debate over geography and school admissions spans years

Some school integration advocates have pushed for years to eliminate all geographic weights in admissions, arguing that they exacerbate racial and socioeconomic segregation.

In December 2020, when he eliminated the District 2 priority, de Blasio seemed to be headed in that direction, promising to get rid of all “geographic screens.” But he reversed course in 2021 after significant pushback from families, and ended up eliminating only the district priority, but keeping the priorities for zones and boroughs.

Many of the city’s largest comprehensive high schools, like Francis Lewis High School in Queens and James Madison High School in Brooklyn, give out almost all their seats to students in their zone or borough. Other smaller competitive schools, like Millennium Brooklyn and the Academy of American Studies in Queens, admitted only students from their boroughs last year.

The city has recently opened several new high schools outside of Manhattan, including Bard Early College programs in the Bronx and Brooklyn. Both new Bard programs are located in lower-income neighborhoods and prioritize students from surrounding districts.

Manhattan has no zoned high schools. The high school directory doesn’t allow a search by borough priority. But a recent tally from the Citywide Council on High Schools, a group of parent representatives, found 19 schools in Manhattan that currently offer borough priority. Those schools tend to be less competitive.

Yael Denbo, a parent and member of the Community Education Council in District 3, which covers the Upper West Side and parts of Harlem, said she’s been hearing from lots of families who “are concerned, rightly so, about their children commuting out of borough for maybe an hour or two per trip.”

Students in District 2 were admitted at the lowest rate in the city to one of their top three high school choices, with 55% getting in last fall, according to Education Department figures. District 3 had the fourth-lowest rate in the city at 63%.

Only 42% and 44% of high school students who live in Districts 2 and 3, respectively, attend a high school in their home district, the second- and third-lowest rates in the city, according to city data.

Critics of geographic priority point out there are plenty of open seats in Manhattan high schools — more than 18,000 last year, according to Education Department figures — but they’re just not at the schools that generate the most interest.

Students from other NYC boroughs brace for impact

The impacts of adopting Manhattan priority at some of the borough’s most popular schools would be widespread.

At P.S. 218 in the South Bronx, where more than 90% of students are Latino and come from low-income families, a large number of students apply annually to some of Manhattan’s most competitive high schools because the families know their reputations and they are easy to get to, said Nicole Jennings, who runs a high school admissions support program through the non-profit WHEDco based at P.S. 218.

“We do have a decent number of students who go to those schools, maybe five to six a year” from P.S. 218, Jennings said. “And if this change goes into effect, I’m imagining it will just erase that.”

Jennings said she appreciates the city’s efforts to open more academically rigorous schools in the Bronx, like Bard Early College Bronx. But she said many of the families she works with are wary of sending their kids there because of neighborhood safety concerns.

“Schools in Manhattan tend to be much more appealing … than ones in the Bronx, sadly,” she said.

Frumkin, the admissions consultant, said his broader concern is that continuing to add more geographic priorities will chip away at the fundamental purpose of the citywide choice system.

“You have this matching process that was pioneered to create this ‘fair and equitable’ citywide choice process,” he said. “And yet you’re overlaying these little intricacies on top of that.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

A Brooklyn ‘gifted’ school wins first waiver to opt out of NYC’s literacy curriculum mandate

2024-05-28T22:26:52+00:00

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After a Brooklyn school’s yearlong fight to be exempt from New York City’s sweeping reading curriculum mandate, officials have quietly granted their request.

The Brooklyn School of Inquiry, a K-8 gifted and talented program known as BSI, is the first school to win permission to sidestep Chancellor David Banks’ signature literacy initiative requiring all elementary schools use one of three city-approved reading curriculums.

The decision to grant a waiver comes at a crucial moment. Nearly half of the city’s 32 local school districts adopted new curriculums this school year, and all districts must follow suit by September. The move may prompt other school communities to clamor for an exemption.

But as city officials have not laid out clear criteria for exemptions, observers raised equity questions about the process, saying it may favor parents with the time and know-how to mobilize.

Banks has staked much of his education agenda on the idea that the city can improve literacy rates by mandating schools use a small number of vetted programs, as campuses across the city have long embraced popular curriculums that have been discredited. Many literacy experts and advocacy groups, including the city’s teachers union, support the effort.

Students and families from BSI, however, have repeatedly shown up at public meetings to critique their school’s new curriculum, created by the company Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. They even won an impromptu sit-down with top officials, including Dan Weisberg, the Education Department’s second-in-command, after testifying at a public meeting last month.

Instead of reading full books with discussions of theme and plot, the BSI students explained that they’re now focusing on shorter excerpts from a textbook followed by short-answer responses. The curriculum sapped their lessons of joy and rigor, they claimed. (A spokesperson for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt previously said the curriculum also includes opportunities to read full books.)

That advocacy paid off. An Education Department spokesperson confirmed the school was granted a waiver due to its high academic performance and is in the process of selecting a new program. About 90% of the school’s students in grades 3-8 are proficient in reading, according to state tests, about 40 points higher than the city average.

“This was very much about preserving and maintaining the unique progressive vision of this school, which we felt was threatened,” said Alina Lewis, a parent association member at BSI who helped spearhead the campaign for the exemption. “While it’s great that my kid can now read a book, every single kid in the city should be able to read rich literature.”

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s curriculum, Into Reading, is the most popular choice — required in 22 of the city’s 32 local districts. It has also faced the most criticism.

Parent leaders at schools beyond BSI worry that the new mandate may brush aside project-based philosophies or other teacher-created lessons that make their schools unique.

Lack of transparent exemption process raises equity concerns

Tensions about whether or not to offer waivers have been rising for months — and the Education Department has vacillated about how the process would work.

Officials initially said that only a small slice of schools with reading proficiency rates above 85% would be eligible, a threshold that Banks recently echoed. But even as students and parents pressed their case at BSI, the school’s superintendent didn’t appear to budge.

“There’s currently no process in place for an exception or a waiver,” District 20 Superintendent David Pretto said at a heated February education council meeting.

Last month, Education Department spokesperson Nicole Brownstein said some schools were under consideration for an exemption, but the schools ultimately decided to stick with the mandated reading programs. Brownstein did not answer questions about what prompted the reversal in BSI’s case nor did she say what specific criteria the city is using to determine eligibility for waivers.

The principal of BSI did not respond to a request for comment.

That lack of clarity around the criteria for waivers raised eyebrows among experts who worry that exemptions could simply go to better-resourced schools with more vocal parent leaders. Fewer than 40% of students at BSI come from low-income families compared with 72% citywide. More than half the school’s students are white, a group that represents about 15% of the city’s public school enrollment.

Susan Neuman, a New York University literacy expert, said offering some waivers is appropriate given the wide variety of schools that the city operates. BSI, she said, “has incredible kids that are doing really, really well and they found the new curriculum is boring, so I think [the waiver] is a wise decision.”

But Neuman also worries the city’s efforts to persuade schools to use new materials could lose credibility if officials don’t explain how those exemptions are doled out.

“The DOE is going to have to come up with some very, very strict guidelines so it’s not about … who is screaming the loudest,” she said. “It sounds like this one was done in the back door, and that’s not the way policy should work.”

This isn’t the first time Education Department officials have faced questions about whether all schools will face the same pressure to use new curriculum materials.

The superintendent of Brooklyn’s District 15 said earlier this year that some campuses would not be forced to implement the curriculums as rigorously compared with a nearby district that educates a higher share of low-income children. Top education officials swiftly clarified that student demographics would not play a role in how the new classroom materials are implemented.

“There’s no difference in how we’re implementing based on demographics of kids,” Deputy Chancellor Weisberg said last month. “That’s actually a pretty disturbing suggestion.”

What’s next for BSI?

It’s unclear exactly what reading curriculums BSI will use next school year — and Education Department officials did not say how the selection process will work.

Officials emphasized the school will continue to use a phonics program that teaches the relationship between sounds and letters, which is also required on campuses citywide. Those lessons are typically separate from a school’s core reading curriculum.

The citywide reading curriculum mandate has only applied to elementary schools — with superintendents charged with picking one of the three approved curriculums for all of their schools. But Pretto, BSI’s superintendent, took that one step further and mandated Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in middle schools. Lewis said her understanding is BSI would not be required to use the curriculum at any grade level. Pretto did not respond to a request for comment.

As city officials are considering curriculum overhauls in a wider range of subjects and grade levels, Lewis said she hopes the city takes community engagement more seriously.

“It has to be a nuanced, community-driven, bottom up conversation,” she said. “It can’t be a rigid, top-down imposition — that’s not going to work.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Pro-Palestinian educators stage die-in after Chancellor Banks testifies on antisemitism

2024-05-09T03:35:33+00:00

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Dozens of pro-Palestinian educators and parent leaders staged a die-in outside the Education Department’s Lower Manhattan headquarters on Wednesday, just hours after New York City’s schools Chancellor David Banks testified at a congressional hearing focused on antisemitism.

In a nod to the bombardment of the Gaza Strip, a handful of protestors in white jumpsuits splashed with red and gray paint sprawled across the steps of Tweed Courthouse. They laid behind toppled school desks littered with stuffed animals, children’s books, and other classroom materials.

The image was a stark contrast to the congressional hearing earlier in the day that focused almost exclusively on the experiences of Jewish students and educators. Organized by NYC Educators for Palestine, the protest focused on an open letter the group wrote to Banks, raising concerns about the city favoring pro-Israeli perspectives and punishing those who support the Palestinian cause.

“We have seen a constant live stream of dead babies on our social media, this impacts us collectively, and it personally impacts the Palestinian students and educators who have lost family in this genocide,” a protester said, reading from the letter.

The open letter was endorsed by several groups, including the Movement of Rank and File Educators, a social justice-oriented caucus within the teachers union; the parent community education council representing Brooklyn District 14; and, Teachers Unite, a group that focuses on racial justice.

“These hearings, and the culture of intimidation they create,” the reader continued, “make our schools and communities less safe.” (Israel has been accused of genocide in an international court, though the country’s leaders strenuously deny the allegation.)

Wednesday’s hearing was conducted by the same committee that has felled multiple college presidents. Republican members of Congress grilled Banks about how his administration has responded to a handful of specific incidents, including a chaotic student demonstration at Hillcrest High School where students demanded a pro-Israel teacher be fired.

Banks conceded that “there have been unacceptable incidents of antisemitism in our schools” but defended the city’s response to them, noting officials have taken disciplinary action against students and educators.

Still, Banks said that the city’s public schools are also contending with Islamophobia, a point that drew virtually no attention from lawmakers. Out of 281 incidents of religious bias in the city’s schools since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 42% involved antisemitism, while 30% targeted Muslim students, Banks said.

In response to a question from a local lawmaker about whether the city could simultaneously combat many forms of bias, Banks responded: “Not only can we, but we must.”

Banks’ assertion that the city has taken swift disciplinary measures against some students drew concern from the New York Civil Liberties Union. In a statement, Executive Director Donna Lieberman urged Banks to “recognize that both pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel speech, including contested political slogans, are protected speech.”

She emphasized that the city should not punish students for speaking out.

Banks believes education can help tackle tensions

In the days leading up to the hearing, Banks said that education is part of the solution, pointing to the curriculums the Education Department is creating focused on Jewish and Muslim history and set to arrive in schools by the end of next school year.

One educator who attended the protest welcomed that approach, though she fears repercussions for talking with students about the Israel-Hamas war. More than 34,000 people have been killed by Israeli bombardments in the Gaza Strip in the wake of Hamas’ attacks on Oct. 7 that killed about 1,200 Israelis.

“I would love this conversation to be happening in classrooms because students need to know they’re part of a historical moment,” said Sarah Elshafie, a Manhattan middle school teacher. But she said there is a culture of fear around teaching the subject.

“Principals at large have not supported educators in teaching this as a conflict,” Elshafie said.

The protest included several rounds of chants, including, “how many children have to die before you hear their freedom cry” and “from the river to the sea Palestine will be free” — a controversial message that Banks told lawmakers would not be tolerated in the city’s schools. Some Palestinian activists see it as a call for freedom and equality, while some Jews see it as a call for the elimination of Israel.

Clash at protest between pro-Palestinian group and pro-Israeli parent

The protest proceeded peacefully, with a small group of police officers insisting only that a narrow path along the Education Department’s steps remain passable.

But nearly two hours into the demonstration, a pro-Israel parent sat on the Education Department steps in the middle of a throng of protestors holding a postcard-sized image of a woman with the tagline “murdered by Hamas.”

The parent, Rachel Fremmer, a member of the Citywide Council for High Schools, said she was there to attend a previously scheduled meeting at the Education Department’s headquarters. She said she often carries the image with her.

After the police unsuccessfully tried for several minutes to convince her to leave the protest, three officers grabbed her by the arms and legs and carried her a few feet away, though they did not handcuff or arrest her.

Asked why she sat in the middle of the protest, Fremmer said: “I want them to see it,” referring to the hostage card she carries. “I’ve had people literally cover their eyes when I show them a hostage photo.”

The police then whisked Fremmer into the Education Department building so she could attend the parent council meeting.

Rachel Fremmer, a member of the Citywide Council for High Schools, attempts to sit in the middle of the protest. She holds a photo of someone with the tagline “murdered by Hamas.” Police forcibly remove her but no arrest pic.twitter.com/ymCRml4Uu7
— Alex Zimmerman (@AGZimmerman) May 8, 2024

The group of pro-Palestinian demonstrators immediately drew a comparison to the police response on college campuses that has led to hundreds of arrests and concern among high school students who are preparing to attend college next year.

“Where was that energy on college campuses in New York City?” Tajh Sutton, the president of the District 14 parent council in Brooklyn, said to the assembled crowd. “Why don’t our children elicit the same respect?”

Tensions between parent leaders at the protest offered a glimpse into how intractable the issue may be for Banks and other school leaders. Sutton, for instance, has faced backlash for supporting a student walkout calling for a ceasefire and is being investigated under a relatively new rule regarding the conduct of parent leaders.

Banks is “a district leader that is looking to solve a very unique policy problem, which is to essentially implement peace,” said Jonathan Collins, the associate director of the Center for Educational Equity at Columbia University’s Teachers College.

Collins said the challenges will only multiply if student-oriented protests grow.

“Banks was hesitant to support the idea of students exercising their rights through protest, but that’s a critical form of political expression,” he said of the chancellor’s testimony. “What happens as students want more than structured civil dialogue?”

Julian Shen-Berro contributed reporting.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

On the hot seat in Washington, Chancellor Banks defends NYC schools’ response to antisemitism

2024-05-08T19:42:54+00:00

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New York City schools Chancellor David Banks defended his record on antisemitism during a tense congressional hearing Wednesday, maintaining that schools have consistently responded to troubling incidents with both education and discipline.

Banks joined school leaders from Montgomery Country, Maryland and Berkeley, California, along with an American Civil Liberties Union staff attorney, in a hearing convened by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce about “confronting pervasive antisemitism in K-12 schools.”

Wednesday’s hearing came in the wake of previous high-profile committee hearings with university leaders that helped lead to the resignation of multiple college presidents. Republican members of Congress say the hearings have shown that higher education leaders have failed to adequately address antisemitism on their campuses in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas. They used the hearing to press K-12 leaders like Banks about similar concerns.

When he introduced the panel, GOP Rep. Aaron Bean said that the aftermath of last year’s attack revealed “some of the ugliest” ideas, and that “our education system has failed” to stop those ideas.

“Jewish students fear riding the bus, wearing their kippah to school, or even just eating and breathing as a Jewish student,” Bean said.

Banks, who presides over the nation’s largest school system with more than 900,000 students and roughly 150,000 staff members, acknowledged that the system’s diversity means “our classrooms have not been insulated from the global stage.”

“There have been unacceptable incidents of antisemitism in our schools,” he said.

Banks emphasized both an education-focused response, including the introduction of several new curricula on preventing hate crimes and on the Holocaust and Jewish history. But he also said that Education Department officials have “removed, disciplined, or are in the process of disciplining” 12 staff members related to incidents of antisemitism.

At least 30 students have been suspended for their roles in antisemitic incidents, he said.

The incidents of hate in city schools following the Oct. 7 attack have not just been directed towards Jewish students, Banks noted. Out of a total of 281 incidents of religious bias in city schools since Oct. 7, 42% involved antisemitism, while 30% were directed against Muslim students, he said.

Asked by Rep. Jamaal Bowman, a New York Democrat and former Bronx public school principal, whether the city could combat antisemitism while simultaneously confronting other forms of bias, Banks said: “Not only can we, but we must.”

Banks rebuts claim about antisemitism among school’s students

Several of the most heated exchanges at Wednesday’s hearing focused on the fallout from a raucous student demonstration at Hillcrest High School in Queens — Banks’ alma mater — where students filled the hallway demanding the ouster of a teacher who posted a picture on social media shortly after the Oct. 7 attacks holding a sign that read “I Stand with Israel.”

After the demonstration, Banks called the “the notion … these kids are radicalized and antisemitic” the “height of irresponsibility.”

When Rep. Burgess Owens, a Utah Republican, challenged him about that comment, Banks told Owens he stood by it, and argued that “the entire school was not radicalized.” He added that “the kids who were responsible, who led that effort, engaged, clearly, in an act of antisemitism, and I dealt with that.” A “number” of these students were suspended, the chancellor said.

Banks also stressed that he removed Hillcrest’s principal, Scott Milczewski, midway through the year over concerns about his leadership. Milczewski was moved to a job in the Education Department’s central bureaucracy.

Several representatives grilled Banks on why Milczewski was still employed by the city’s Education Department and accused him of misrepresenting Milczewski’s status.

“How can Jewish students feel safe in New York City schools when you can’t even manage to terminate the principal of ‘Open Season on Jews High School’?” demanded Rep. Brandon Williams, a Republican from New York.

Banks responded that while he didn’t think Milczewski was fit to continue leading Hillcrest, employees have due process, and the chancellor doesn’t have the authority to terminate someone just because he disagrees with what they’ve done.

Banks also faced heat over Hillcrest from New York Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik, who noted that, earlier in the hearing, Banks appeared to answer “yes” to a question about whether staff members about Hillcrest had been fired, despite his continued role working for the department.

“That’s concerning to me that you have him in a senior position,” she said.

(Rep. Lisa McClain, a Michigan Republican, asked Banks, “So, you fired the people?” Banks replied, “Yes, we moved people, absolutely.”)

Emerson Sykes, the ACLU attorney, warned that while schools are required by federal law to respond to “hostile” educational environments, certain criticism of Israel and its government are protected under the First Amendment.

“Firing may be appropriate in certain circumstances,” he said. “But I think we need to think about how we can address antisemitism, change hearts and minds, make children safe, without only looking to the most punitive tool in our toolbox.”

Lawmakers highlight allegations of rampant antisemitism

Lawmakers raised concerns about the climate at other New York City schools in recent months.

For example, they brought up allegations of unchecked student antisemitism at Origins High School in southern Brooklyn that are now the subject of a federal lawsuit.

Among the claims in the lawsuit are that dozens of students marched through the hallways chanting “F*** the Jews.

Banks said Education Department officials found “no evidence” in their investigation of mass marching through the hallways with hateful chants. But he did say they found other “deeply troubling” antisemitic incidents at the school. He said he couldn’t comment further because of the ongoing litigation.

Rep. Virginia Foxx, a North Carolina Republican, asked Banks about a map of the Middle East in an elementary school classroom at P.S. 261 in Brooklyn that omitted Israel. The school’s Arabic arts program receives funding from a foundation tied to the Qatari government, and Foxx expressed concern that the foundation was pushing unvetted materials into city public school classrooms.

Banks, however, said that the map wasn’t provided by the Qatari foundation. The teacher found it on her own during a visit to Jerusalem, he said. And while Banks thought the map was antisemitic and had the map removed, after talking to the teacher, he said that she didn’t intend it to be antisemitic. (The map had been hanging in the classroom for more than a decade.)

Near the end of the hearing, Banks repeated a criticism that he had leveled in the days before his testimony: that the event was designed to produce “viral moments” rather than actual solutions to complex problems.

He also blamed the problem in part on young people’s emotional but misguided responses to what they see on social media.

“Ultimately, if we really care about solving for antisemitism, it’s not about gotcha moments,” he said. “It’s about teaching.”

Bowman and Connecticut Rep. Jahana Hayes, a Democrat and another former educator, emphasized the need to combat other forms of discrimination, including Islamophobia, alongside antisemitism.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

As Chancellor Banks heads to Washington for antisemitism hearing, NYC is on the offensive

2024-05-07T21:09:55+00:00

All eyes will be on New York City schools Chancellor David Banks on Wednesday as he is set to testify before a Republican-led congressional committee about antisemitism in K-12 schools.

It’s the same committee that has skewered college presidents of elite universities— high-profile hearings that led to the resignation of presidents from Harvard and University of Pennsylvania, and marked the start of Columbia University’s encampment.

New York City schools appear to be on the offensive as Banks heads to Washington, D.C., joined by school officials from Maryland’s Montgomery County and Berkeley, California. All three are liberal-leaning districts with sizable Jewish populations that have faced alleged antisemitic incidents since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, and their leaders are likely to face heated questioning from the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

Some New York City teachers have made national headlines after being targeted by students with antisemitic speech and other threats. Meanwhile some educators who have expressed pro-Palestinian or anti-Israel sentiments have said they’ve faced harsh discipline from school administrators and have been threatened by parents.

In recent days, Banks has emphasized that the Education Department has assembled an interfaith council and developed curricula on Jewish and Muslim history. This fall, the Education Department will launch a Holocaust teaching guide created in partnership with the Museum of Jewish Heritage. Next spring, city schools are expected to expand its “Hidden Voices” series — which celebrates the stories of diverse people often left of history books — to include Jewish and Muslim Americans.

The city has also held training for middle and high school leaders on how to navigate “difficult conversations” and met with all principals to review the disciplinary code, the city’s anti-bullying program, and crisis de-escalation techniques.

Those efforts have won mixed reactions from principals. One Brooklyn high school leader said he appreciated the “difficult conversations” training.

“We talked a lot about norms and community values, taking an inquiry stance, doing a lot of listening,” said the principal, who requested anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak. But he also wondered whether the training would be effective if it isn’t sustained over time.

“There are just so many competing priorities,” he said. “It just depends on what’s in the public eye at the moment.”

Many teens have complained that they’re hungry for information and critical dialogue on the crisis in the Middle East, but their schools are struggling to respond. Earlier this school year, students and staff from some schools in the nation’s largest school system staged a walkout calling for a ceasefire. More than 34,000 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the Israeli bombardments began after the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, according to reports.

Some NYC teachers feel unsafe at their schools

At Origins High School in Brooklyn, a teacher, who is Jewish, alleged that her school was rife with antisemitism, with little response from administrators. After Education Department officials refuted the claims, the teacher, Danielle Kaminsky, filed a federal lawsuit last week claiming that students marched through the campus chanting “F— the Jews,” drawing swastikas on a Jewish student’s property, and exclaiming to a Jewish teacher that they “want to kill all jews.”

Kaminsky has since transferred to another school, according to the New York Post, which reported that she spoke last week at a congressional briefing in advance of Wednesday’s hearing.

“Students and staff deserve to be safe and respected in their school and Origins High School is no different. We will review this lawsuit,” Education Department spokesperson Nathaniel Styer said in a statement.

In another incident that garnered national media attention, a raucous student demonstration erupted at Hillcrest in November after students saw a Jewish teacher’s social media picture with her holding a sign saying “I Stand With Israel.” Karen Marder posted it shortly after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel. The students tried to get into her classroom as they called for her to be fired. Marder was elsewhere in the building when that happened, but dealing with the trauma and press coverage around the incident will still take time to heal, she recently wrote in a USA Today piece she penned with American Federation of Teachers head Randi Weingarten.

Although she was given the option to transfer to another school, Marder decided to return to Hillcrest.

“I stayed to use the experience to connect, to listen, learn, debunk misinformation and combat intolerance,” she wrote. “I had to understand what messages they were absorbing and where they were coming from. I had to answer their questions, address their fears and confusions and simply be there.”

On Tuesday, ahead of the hearing, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights sent a letter to school districts around the country reiterating their obligation to protect Jewish and Muslim students from harassment and hostile school environments while also respecting students’ free speech rights. The letter laid out examples and described when political speech might cross the line into attacks targeted at national origin or shared ancestry.

Worries the hearing will focus on ‘viral moments’

Michael Mulgrew, head of New York City’s teachers union, praised the chancellor’s response to the various incidents here, saying any time there’s been an issue, “we have jumped on it very seriously and quickly.”

Ultimately, Mulgurew said, it was up to the adults to step up.

“How do we use this horrendous, horrible situation that’s going on, with all the adults yelling at each other with everything going on in Palestine and in Israel? And how do we try to use this as an educational opportunity to say, we can have a better world,” he said.

Banks told reporters last week he believed that Wednesday’s hearing would focus more on “viral moments and empty soundbites and cheap political talk” than substantive solutions.

“Trying to create gotcha moments is not how you ultimately solve problems that you really, deeply care about,” he said. “I would ask for Congress to figure out a way to bring people together from across the nation to help to solve for this insidious level of hate.”

Erica Meltzer contributed.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC to restore a controversial admissions boost for Manhattan students, Banks says

2024-05-03T19:04:48+00:00

Schools Chancellor David Banks intends to bring back a controversial admissions bump for Manhattan eighth-graders at some of New York City’s most sought-after high schools, he told parents this week.

The rule, which was scrapped by former Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2020, gave students from Manhattan’s District 2 first crack at a half dozen selective schools in the district, including Eleanor Roosevelt, NYC Lab School for Collaborative Studies, and Millennium High School. The district spans much of lower and midtown Manhattan along with the Upper East Side and is one of the city’s most affluent.

School integration advocates lauded de Blasio’s move. They argue that, in conjunction with other reforms, removing the district priority has significantly increased the share of Black, Latino, and low-income students at several of those schools.

But other parents have been forcefully pushing to restore the priority, saying that without it, district students have less of a chance of getting into coveted local schools and that some frustrated families are pulling out of the public school system altogether.

Banks, who has final say over school and district admissions policies, said at a raucous District 2 town hall Thursday night that he met with a group of those parents, including members of the local Community Education Council and the pro-screening group Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education, known as PLACE, on Wednesday.

“They shared the effects of removing the priority to District 2 families,” he said. “And we are committed to granting D2 some kind of priority. I’m looking at various models as we speak,” he said. Details will be finalized before the start of the next admissions cycle this fall, he said. Applications are typically due in early December.

The announcement drew immediate plaudits from supportive council members at Thursday’s raucous town hall meeting, as well as boos from some members of the audience.

“I think that’s a huge win,” said Craig Slutzkin, a parent on District 2′s Community Education Council and PLACE member who met with Banks earlier this week. “It shows he understands the needs of District 2 families.”

The announcement set off alarm bells for school integration advocates, who worry reinstating the admissions priority could roll back significant progress diversifying some competitive high schools.

“It’s extremely frustrating and concerning and sad to hear that he meets with this really small group of constituents and then decides to reverse a policy that was extremely effective at opening access and opportunity for some of our most marginalized student groups in the city,” said Nyah Berg, the executive director of Appleseed NY, a group that advocates for school integration.

“For me, it’s fundamentally just not sound policy.”

Banks rolls back pandemic admissions reforms

The reinstatement of District 2 priority would represent another reversal of a de Blasio pandemic-era admissions reform meant to chip away at racial and economic segregation in the city’s stratified public middle and high schools.

Banks halted a de Blasio plan to phase out separate elementary school gifted and talented classes, and he allowed local superintendents to bring back selective screens at middle schools, which were banned during the pandemic.

Banks’s announcement about District 2 priority came the same day that New York’s appellate division ruled a lawsuit filed by student integration advocates could proceed. The suit claims that the city’s segregated school system denies Black and Latino students their constitutional right to a sound, basic education.

The District 2 admissions priority, which school officials introduced in the 1990s as an effort to keep middle class families from fleeing public schools, has long attracted intense criticism from integration advocates.

In general, the city’s system of high school choice aims to give students from across the city equal access to high schools. There are some schools that grant borough preferences and others that prioritize students from the surrounding neighborhoods, but the District 2 priority was unique in giving a district-wide bump at some of the city’s most-sought after schools.

In practice, the rule virtually guaranteed that students outside of the district would not have a shot at getting into a handful of coveted high schools, no matter how stellar their academic records.

Eleanor Roosevelt offered 100% of its seats to District 2 students in 2017, while Baruch College Campus High School was 98% District 2 students, Chalkbeat reported in 2018.

In the months leading up to de Blasio’s 2020 decision to scrap the District 2 priority, several principals of schools included in the policy spoke out against the practice.

“The lack of diversity among students, faculty and staff is a disservice to our community as a whole,” Eleanor Roosevelt principal Dimitri Saliani wrote in a 2020 email to parents, according to the New York Times.

Removing District 2 priority, in conjunction with broader changes to the admissions system for selective high schools and initiatives from individual schools to set aside more seats for underrepresented students, has made a significant impact at several schools.

In the span of a single year, Eleanor Roosevelt went from sending 1% of its offers to students outside District 2, to 62% after the district priority was removed. The share of offers going to low-income students jumped from 16% to 50%.

Over time, the changes have profoundly shifted the demographics of schools like Roosevelt, which is now 27% Black and Latino and 37% low-income students. The school was 12% Black and Latino and 19% low-income students in 2019.

The NYC Lab School for Collaborative Studies jumped from 14% Black and Latino and 28% low-income students in 2019 to 20% Black and Latino and 43% low-income students in 2022. A similar change happened at Baruch College Campus High School.

At Millennium High School in lower Manhattan (which gave priority to students living or attending school south of East Houston or West Houston Street) and School of the Future in Gramercy, the numbers of Black and Latino and low-income students have stayed relatively flat. And at the NYC Museum School in Chelsea, the share of Black and Latino and low-income students decreased.

District families have mixed reactions

Slutzkin cited intense demand from district parents to bring back the rule, saying he heard from roughly 1,000 people in support of a petition to reinstate it.

He also pointed to the fact that only 55% of District 2 students got an admissions offer at one of their top three high school choices last year, the lowest rate of any district in the city, according to Education Department data.

“No families should be forced to have excessive commutes to go to schools that meet their needs,” he said.

But Gavin Healy, another parent on the local education council, said the relatively low rate of top choice matches for District 2 students likely has to do with families disproportionately selecting a small number of highly-competitive schools on their application.

“Manhattan has room, it’s just not at the schools that some of the families in the district want,” he said.

Slutzkin argued that schools with open seats in Manhattan may have low graduation rates and would not meet the needs of high-achieving students, saying it’s “incumbent upon the Education Department to work on those schools and get them to be schools that are desired.”

Proponents of the D2 admissions priority have also argued that some district families are pulling out of the public school system and enrolling in private school because they’re not getting into their top choice public schools.

One Manhattan principal of a school that formerly offered District 2 priority wasn’t surprised that officials plan to reinstate the policy.

“I get the sense that the battle to keep students in the public schools for financial reasons is a big one,” said the principal, who spoke anonymously because they weren’t authorized to talk to the press. “They need to put up dams, and this is one way.”

Healy said he was “not worried about the threat of people leaving,” adding that the district is also seeing an influx of new students, including asylum seekers.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

NYC schools chancellor to student activists: Don’t allow ‘discontent to morph into hatred’

2024-05-02T22:48:58+00:00

New York City schools Chancellor David Banks sought to strike a balance between affirming students’ rights to protest and disavowing hate speech as he responded to college campus unrest and previewed his upcoming testimony before Congress.

Citing his own history of involvement in student activism and social justice — including in the movement to divest from apartheid-era South Africa when he was a college student — Banks told reporters on Thursday that he supports student activism “at the highest level.”

But he urged activists not to “allow that discontent to morph into hatred for anyone.”

Banks was on the scene Tuesday night at Columbia University as police raided a building that demonstrators had occupied. He later made his way to City College of New York, where police cleared a tent encampment and made hundreds of arrests.

He said he was troubled by an experience at City College in which roughly a dozen protesters “surrounded” him when he tried to enter the quad and barred him from entering, telling him, “We own the quad.” He said he was disappointed by graffiti he saw on the campus the next morning that said “Death to America,” and “Death to Israel.”

The protests and police backlash have garnered international attention, and have been closely watched by many city high school students, some of whom are considering attending the colleges at the center of the tumult.

Banks’ comments Thursday previewed the message he intends to deliver next week before the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce — the same committee that has grilled college presidents from Columbia, Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, and MIT in recent months.

Banks is expected to appear alongside district leaders from Maryland’s Montgomery County and Berkeley, California, to share their responses to antisemitism in K-12 schools.

New York City’s school system, the nation’s largest, has seen multiple flare-ups over the Israel-Hamas war, including a raucous student demonstration at Hillcrest High School over a teacher posting a photo with an “I Stand With Israel” sign, a citywide student walkout calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, and allegations of unchecked student antisemitism at a Brooklyn High School — allegations officials have denied.

Banks emphasized that his approach has leaned on convening community members, including assembling an interfaith council, while developing curricula on Jewish and Muslim history and reviewing the disciplinary code with city principals.

His own background “as a Black man who is keenly aware of trauma and pain and oppression that my own people have suffered in America” has given him “an affinity for both the Jewish and the Palestinian people,” he added.

Banks expressed concern that the questioning from the Republican-led committee, which includes New York representative Elise Stefanik, would be more focused on “viral moments and empty soundbites and cheap political talk” than substantive solutions.

“Putting a spotlight on any particular individual and sometimes trying to create gotcha moments is not how you ultimately solve problems that you really, deeply care about,” he said. “I would ask for Congress to figure out a way to bring people together from across the nation to help to solve for this insidious level of hate.”

Banks acknowledged that the city’s response to tensions over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict hasn’t been “perfect,” but said he’s proud of the efforts so far.

He also expressed confidence in his own ability to go toe to toe with his congressional questioners, noting that he’s “from New York,” and that squaring off with Brooklyn Councilmember Lincoln Restler, a progressive Democrat, during council hearings was good preparation.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

LISTEN: An exclusive interview with schools Chancellor David Banks

2024-05-01T10:00:00+00:00

In this special episode of P.S. Weekly, student reporters Shoaa Khan and Jose Santana spoke to Chancellor David Banks about a range of issues facing the city’s schools — from efforts to expand how Black history is taught in the classroom, to the harms of social media, and the continued use of academic screening in the high school admissions process.

Banks, who oversees New York City’s sprawling school system, emphasized the importance of the “Hidden Voices: Stories of the Global African Diaspora” curriculum that the city unveiled in February.

It’s one of several curriculums to come out of the city’s Hidden Voices initiative — Banks signaled more loom on the horizon.

“We’ve got others coming up for the Latino community,” he said. “We’re working on several others as well, particularly in light of what’s going on right now in the Middle East and what’s happening in Israel and Gaza.”

And as New York City’s schools have remained among the most segregated in the nation, Banks touched on the difficulties of implementing integration efforts, particularly as families remain fiercely divided over practices like academic screening.

“It’s a complicated issue,” he said. “For me, I have not spent a lot of time on it because I recognize that as chancellor, you can’t do everything. … The major issue for me has been around how do I ensure that no matter where you are, that you have a good school experience, you learn to read well, you learn to think critically, and you can have a great life for yourself.”

Listen to the full episode to hear his thoughts on academic screening, student mental health, cell phone usage in schools, and even his upcoming podcast.

P.S. Weekly is available on major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Be sure to drop a review in your app or shoot an email to PSWeekly@chalkbeat.org. Tell us what you learned today or what you’re still wondering. We just might read your comment on a future episode.

P.S. Weekly is a collaboration between Chalkbeat and The Bell. Listen for new episodes Wednesdays this spring.

Read the full episode transcript below

Shoaa Khan: Can I hold it?

Sanaa Stokes: Yeah.

Shoaa Khan: Hey, everyone. So we’re going up the stairs to Tweed Courthouse, and, I’m here with Sanaa, and Santana, and Jose, and I’m super nervous. Super quiet, super pretty. Looks like a castle, and I’m nervous.

Santana Roach: We’re currently walking down some really beautiful architectural stairs. It’s quite...

Sanaa Stokes: In this special episode of P.S. Weekly, a few of us went down to the Tweed Courthouse in lower Manhattan, where New York City’s Department of Education is headquartered, to talk to the person who makes decisions on the issues we talk about on this podcast every week.

Chancellor David Banks: All right, you ready? All right. My name is David Banks. I’m a proud product of the New York City public school system, and I currently serve as chancellor of the New York City public schools.

Santana Roach: For those of you who don’t know Chancellor Banks, he was appointed by Mayor Eric Adams in January 2022. In simple terms, he’s the head of the Department of Education for the City of New York. He oversees policies for the largest school system in the nation.

Sanaa Stokes: When we first started this podcast, we knew we wanted to speak to Chancellor Banks, considering his powerful position at the DOE. We were very excited that he agreed to meet with us. As New York City high school students, we asked him questions about things that matter to us, like the new Hidden Voices curriculum, which elevates diverse stories, often left out of the history books.

Santana Roach: Academic screening for selective high school admissions.

Sanaa Stokes: And interestingly enough, his future podcast.

Santana Roach: We talked about all sorts of topics with Chancellor Banks, including some breaking news.

Chancellor David Banks: I’ve never said this to anybody. I love pajamas. Like when I’m done at the end of the night, I have to go to all kinds of events. I’m a pajama guy. I love to put on nice, warm, comfortable pajamas.

Sanaa Stokes: You’re listening to Pierce weekly. The sound of the New York City school system. I’m Sanaa Stokes, a junior at the Professional Performing Arts High School.

Santana Roach: And I’m Santana Roach, a senior at Frederick Douglass Academy.

Sanaa Stokes: So here’s an edited version of the interview led by our fellow student reporters Shoaa Khan and Jose Santana.

Shoaa Khan: Good morning. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us. Let’s get started. So we would like to know more about your Hidden Voices curriculum. This is something that you’re really passionate about. Your announcement comes at a time where schools are trying to restrict what we learn about race. So what is your message to New York City students and teachers and others around the country about why this curriculum matters?

Chancellor David Banks: My message to teachers, administrators, students all around the nation is that to have a real education, you must be exposed to the contributions of many different cultures. And I’m thrilled. We just recently announced, as part of our Hidden Voices initiative, the Global African Diaspora curriculum. That really is all about the contributions of Black folks inAmerica and to the world, and that the history of Black people did not start at slavery in the United States, but that we have a history that goes back thousands of years. And the hidden voice is really our profiles on a wide range of different individuals in history where we were able to teach you about history, sometimes through the lens of some of these people, most of whom you’ve never heard of. And so that’s why I’m excited about Hidden Voices. We —we’ve already launched Hidden Voices for the Asian American Pacific Islander community.

Chancellor David Banks: We’ve launched Hidden Voices, for the LGBTQ community because it’s really important that everybody have an idea and understanding around these communities. We’ve just launched one now for the global African diaspora. We’ve got others coming up for the Latino community, and we’re working on several others as well, particularly in light of what’s going on right now in the Middle East and what’s happening in Israel and Gaza and that war. It’s really important for more of our kids to have a deeper understanding about Jewish history and the Holocaust, because I think when you understand that and you appreciate what the Jewish community has gone through, you have a different level of respect and understanding. Similarly, those of, Muslim background and the Palestinian cause, it’s important to understand what their history is and what their contributions have been to the world and to this nation. And so, yes, we have a message to send to the nation that exposure to history is critically important to the building of the consciousness and of the mind.

Shoaa Khan: So, is there some kind of system or how are you going to, like, measure how much impact this has had in schools?

Chancellor David Banks: You know, we’ve got certain measures that we have in place now, just with respect to some of the assessments that we give to our kids. And any of these curriculum that we roll out have their own kind of built in assessments that are tied to that. But I think much more broadly than just exams that are given in school, I think about a societal impact. I think about how do we reduce a level of hate and ignorance in our nation and in our world? When I go and I visit schools and I see kids who lock arms, who have-- who come from very different cultures, very different backgrounds, and have an appreciation for one another, that’s how I see an overarching assessment. It’s greater than a test that you would take in class. But ultimately the greatest assessment is how we change society and how we get young people to be more accepting of one another. That’s what I’m pushing for.

Shoaa Khan: So how should us as students advocate for change and what we want to see in the curriculum?

Chancellor David Banks: I, you know, listen, some of these things that we’ve put into the curriculum, into hidden voices and a passport for social studies. Which, lifting up a lot of these issues, are coming directly from our students and our teachers. I mean, they are the ones that have been raising it to us to tell us this is what we think we need for our experience. I’m a big believer in student voice. You know, a lot of kids who are experiencing serious challenges with their own mental health. And so one of the things that we did, working with the New York City Department of Health, they recently announced the formation of something called Teen Space, which is a mental health initiative where high school kids who are going through some things, maybe suffering from some form of depression or mental challenge, can call and get real support in real time. This is a new initiative, and that’s coming from kids who kept saying that to us. I visited so many schools and kids would tell me mental health is such a huge issue.

Chancellor David Banks: So keep lifting your voices. I remember when I was in high school, I led a walk-out at high school, and I marched everybody out of the back door to a building. I remember when I got outside, I said, “Okay, now what am I supposed to do?” And hundreds of kids followed me outside. And I remember the assistant principal came over to me and said, “if you would have just asked for a meeting, we would have met with you and discussed all of this.” See, so sometimes, just do that. Show up at public forums. We have something called the Panel for Educational Policy. We have those meetings every month, and we talk about real issues of the day. There are not a lot of kids who show up for that. But if students started showing up for that, you’d be amazed how much your voice would really be heard. We look to hear the voices of young people. So a lot of ways to do that.

Shoaa Khan: Yeah. So this is kind of on a different branch. But according to the UCLA Civil Rights Project, New York has the nation’s most segregated school system today. So how do you feel about that?

Chancellor David Banks: I think there’s a lot of research that says that the more integrated school experiences that you can create for kids, the better it is for them. They get exposed to different cultures, much like what I talked about a little bit earlier, exposure, learning about other people, making new friends with people who have different cultures is really a good thing. The challenge in a place like New York is creating those systems, because many of our kids and families live in very segregated places. So while the city is diverse, we’re diverse in that we have so many people who live here from different places, but many of them live in isolation from each other, and then they go to school in isolation. Thus, integration is a good thing. It’s a serious challenge to implement, and we have some districts in the city which have done this district 15. Brooklyn has done a great job with some of their integration efforts. There’s been a wide range of resistance to that as well. So yeah, it’s a complicated issue. And for me, I’ve not spent a lot of time on it because I recognize that as chancellor, you can’t do everything. Generally when people were asking about integration efforts, historically, that question was about how do you get more black kids into predominantly white schools? That’s historically what I meant, because that was what my experience was.

Chancellor David Banks: I grew up in southeast Queens, in pretty much all Black neighborhoods, and everybody was trying to go to better school districts and the better school districts, quote unquote, really meant going to the more whiter, more affluent neighborhoods because those schools seemed like they had everything. I’m trying to make sure that wherever you happen to be your district, your neighborhood has all the great stuff that anybody else has. In New York City, I asked people, I said, “What’s the percentage of students who are Black students who go to New York City public schools?” Most people tell me, “I don’t know, 50%, 40, 50, 60%.” It’s only 24%, and it’s dropping every day. It’s very different than it was years ago. White students in New York City public schools is only 15% and dropping every day. So the two Black and white, historically who made up the school system, are the ones who are in decline. And the groups that are on the upswing are Asian and Latino. Asian is 17% and growing, and Latino is 41%, and climbing significantly every day.

Chancellor David Banks: So we’ve got to be clear also about when we say diversity and integration. Who are we talking about? But the major issue for me has been around how do I ensure that no matter where you are, that you have a good school experience, you learn to read well, you learn to think critically and you can have a great life for yourself? I think an integrated school helps in that, but it’s a human’s task to kind of get to that place. And while we’re doing that, that I can help to deliver so that they can-- they can have a great, great school experience.

Santana Roach: We’re going to take a quick break, but stick around for the rest of this interview with Chancellor David Banks.

Shoaa Khan: We hope you’re enjoying listening to P.S. Weekly as much as we enjoy making it. We spend a lot of time after school planning each episode, setting up and conducting interviews, cutting the tape, writing scripts. It’s a long process and totally worth it. But here’s the thing. We don’t have a bunch of money or millions of followers, so we’re counting on you, loyal listener, to help us get the word out. So take a few seconds and send this link wherever you’re listening to three friends so they too can enjoy P.S. Weekly. Thanks for your support!

Sanaa Stokes: Welcome back! Our weekly reporters have been speaking with Chancellor David Banks. Let’s get back into it.

Shoaa Khan: So you mentioned integration a lot. And, you know, I think as high schoolers, we can all kind of speak on this, that a lot of segregation happens because of, like, the high school admissions process. Like, for example, the academic screening; students are separated based on their GPAs or their seventh-grade GPAs. So we are curious, like, why do you support this kind of process?

Chancellor David Banks: Well, to the contrary. One of the things that we have been working to do here is, to reduce the amount of separation that happens as a result of these kinds of screens. When you look at the specialized high schools as an example, there’s not a lot that I could do about that. You know, schools like Bronx Science, Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Tech. Their admissions policies are really determined by the state, not by me. And even in the administration prior to my coming here, as they sought to try to change that, tremendous resistance from families who said, “We want to maintain those academic screens”. And you’ve got to understand and appreciate that everybody does not have the same opinion. You know, and sometimes I talk to people and there’s almost a righteous indignation because they have their opinion. It’s strong and they don’t understand why you would see it any way differently than they would. Well, the reality is that this– this is New York City and people have lots of different opinions. I try to honor as many of their voices as I can possibly do. I see that as my role, not to impress upon them what I think, that somehow my opinion is greater than theirs. No, I try to facilitate honest dialogue and honor the voices of everybody.

Shoaa Khan: So I think I’m going to pass it to Jose now.

Jose Santana: We’re going to go to some additional topics we have. One of them is school start times. Last year I reported a story about school start times, and I found that lack of sleep is a major, not just physical, but mental health issue for teens across the nation. And the sleep experts I spoke to all agree that high schools in particular should start later. So would you consider a policy to push start times back as other cities and states have done?

Chancellor David Banks: I absolutely will consider it. I’m making a note of it right now. The research is very solid, particularly for older students like yourself, the high school students. Getting in a little later start, even an extra hour where you get that extra hour of sleep, is important. Now here’s the challenge for it, because there are lots of conditions that are in place. If we start school later for the students, that means we’re starting school later for the teachers as well. Many of them would say, “We think it’s a good idea,” and many of them would say, “That doesn’t work for us.” Because school is not just about the kids. You can’t have a school without students, but you also can’t have a school without teachers. So there are lots of these kinds of things that have, because this has come up before as something for us to look at. The science is very clear. Giving high school kids more sleep time is better for their brains. Thus, the reason I wrote it down again. I want to take another look at this and try to push on this a little bit more. I think every high school student across the city would be thrilled if we said, high schools are going to start like an hour, an hour and a half later than what we typically start now.

Jose Santana: Appreciate that. Yeah, and I’ve also looked at research that shows that the teachers themselves would benefit in terms of sleep from a later start time.

Chancellor David Banks: Send me some of your research, too. I’d like to see what you’ve come up with already. I think what I can do certainly is to share the science with all the schools, encourage folks to try to get started later, start to have conversations with our union partners, our labor partners, and, say, “Let’s see if we can have a framework that pushes back a later start times for high schools.” And let’s see. But we would even then, we would still need to have community hearings. We’d have to hear from other parents as well. A lot of people that that would affect. So there are a lot of issues here, but it’s certainly an issue worth taking a look at for sure, Jose.

Jose Santana: All right. So the mayor has spoken repeatedly about the harms of social media and phones on teenagers. And the health department is recommending that students not have a phone until the age of 14. Are you considering a city-wide policy to restrict phone usage in schools?

Chancellor David Banks: We’re taking a look at all of it right now? I would really love to know what you guys think about that. And so we’re gonna have to create some real forums, with young people to hear directly from them about this, because that’s a huge issue. There’s a lot of research that’s coming in now. It’s still coming in about social media, the access to social media, that the brain almost needs a break from it. Some kids are fully addicted to their phones. The question is, now what can we do about it? I would imagine there would be a tremendous amount of pushback from kids if we were to try to take their phones during the day, but you say, is it a fight worth having if we ultimately look at the science and say, the science says it’s going to be better for you. But I don’t know yet, so I’ve not made any decision on it. I’m just starting to look at it, and maybe you all can help me and think about how we can do a forum with young people and kind of hear their opinions.

Jose Santana: Absolutely. Yeah, I know in my school, from what I’ve seen, students want their phones all the time. And my school actually used to have yonder pouches, but they don’t have it anymore because of the difficulties that were in place in my school. But if you were a principal today, what would be your direct take?

Chancellor David Banks: So I would talk to students, I would talk to parents, and then I would talk to teachers. And collectively seeing what the feedback would be from that, and then trying to make the best decision going forward. I couldn’t tell you right now what that decision would be.

Jose Santana: Yeah. Appreciate that.

Shoaa Khan: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Those are all the questions that we have. We hear that you’ve been planning, reporting a podcast, or working on a podcast. So when is that coming out?

Chancellor David Banks: We haven’t really started yet, so they keep telling me it’s coming soon. But we have the studio, we got all the equipment. It’s ready to roll. But this is the best podcast that I’ve done. But I’m hoping that we can get going because I think a lot of people would probably listen and want to know what the Chancellor’s thinking. And it’s not just for me.

More than that, it’d probably be me interviewing and speaking to a wide range of other people. Some students, some teachers, some parents, but some cultural icons who are out here, people in the music industry and hip hop industry. And you know, who’s your favorite teacher and how did school shape you? Business leaders, lots of people. So we have lots of ideas and we have a lot of stuff laid out. We just haven’t started yet.

All right. We’re good.

Santana Roach: Thank you so much.

Chancellor David Banks: Thank you. You’re fantastic. Wow.

Shoaa Khan: Thank you.

Sanaa Stokes: Well, there you have it, our conversation with Chancellor David Banks. Is there anything that stood out to you about the conversation, Santana?

Santana Roach: Yeah. I think when he was emphasizing the importance of student voice and advocacy, it was really powerful and really interesting to hear that, especially coming from Chancellor Banks himself.

Sanaa Stokes: I thought it was really awesome to see how much he supported us and the work that we’re doing through P.S. Weekly. I also thought it was really interesting when he said that he’d look into further research about pushing back school start times.

Santana Roach: I think a lot of students would appreciate later school start times.

Sanaa Stokes: I know I would.

Santana Roach: Before we go, here’s the Chalkbeat bulletin with news you may have missed over spring break.

Alex Zimmerman: I’m Alex Zimmerman, a reporter from Chalkbeat. Here’s a recap of the week’s biggest education stories.

Mayor Eric Adams released a budget proposal that will save several education programs that were on the chopping block. The mayor will maintain funding for hundreds of social workers, an expansion of preschool for three-year-olds, internship and career preparation programs, and other initiatives that were paid for with about 500,000,001 federal dollars. The Education Department’s budget would still be about 2.4% smaller next year because the city is not replacing all of the federal money that is expiring. A final budget must be negotiated with the City Council by July 1st.

Adams will also continue mayoral control of the city schools for the next two years, a deal that was struck between the governor and lawmakers in the state budget.

Finally, a new report by the city comptroller found that 560 public schools took on water during Tropical Storm Ophelia last September, far more than previously known.

To stay up to date on local education news throughout the week, go to chalkbeat.org/newsletters and sign up for the New York Daily Roundup.

Santana Roach: That’s our show for today. We’re back next week with a special episode in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week.

Sanaa Stokes: Until then, class dismissed.

CREDITS

Sanaa Stokes: P.S. Weekly is a collaboration between The Bell and Chalkbeat, made possible by generous support from the Pinkerton Foundation, the Summerfield Foundation, FJC, and Hindenburg Systems. This special episode was hosted by me, Sanaa Stokes.

Santana Roach: And me, Santana Roach. We were also producers for this episode, along with.

Shoaa Khan: Shoaa Khan.

Santana Roach: And...

Jose Santana: Jose Santana

Santana Roach: With reporting help from Chalkbeat reporter [Julian Shen Barrow] and [Alex Zimmerman].

Sanaa Stokes: Our executive producer for the show is [JoAnn DeLuna].

Santana Roach: Executive editors are [Amy Zimmer] And [Taylor McGraw]. Additional production and reporting support was provided by [Sabrina DuQuesnay], [Mira Gordon], and our friends at Chalkbeat.

Sanaa Stokes: Special thanks to our interns [Miriam Galicia] and [Makenna Turner]. Music from Bluedot sessions.

Santana Roach: Thanks for tuning in.

Sanaa Stokes: See you next time.

NYC schools Chancellor David Banks to testify at U.S. House hearing on antisemitism

2024-04-11T21:56:41+00:00

New York City schools Chancellor David Banks will testify at a U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce hearing on antisemitism next month, he told reporters Thursday.

Banks said that he received a letter from the committee, which conducted high-profile hearings last year with the presidents of elite colleges, asking him to testify at a May 8 hearing under the threat of subpoena.

The committee, chaired by North Carolina Republican Virginia Foxx, also invited two other school districts that Banks declined to name. A spokesperson for the committee confirmed Banks was invited but didn’t immediately provide other information about the hearing.

“We look forward to joining the committee and sharing how New York City Public Schools continue to deliver an environment of tolerance and respect for the largest and most diverse school district in the nation,” Banks said at a Thursday roundtable with reporters.

The nation’s largest school system, like districts across the country, has dealt with a surge in tensions following Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel and Israel’s subsequent bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

The city’s Education Department is currently under investigation by the federal Education Department for its response to incidents of antisemitism and Islamophobia.

Hillcrest High School in Queens, Banks’ alma mater, made national news in November after students staged a raucous protest calling for the ouster of a teacher who posted a picture of herself on social media holding a sign that read “I Stand With Israel.”

Banks condemned the protest and said several students were disciplined for their part in the affair. But he stressed that many teens at the school, which has a large Muslim population, were seeing images on social media “on a daily basis” of “children and young people in Palestine … being blown up” and struggling to cope with their grief and anger. He vowed to turn the incident a “teaching moment” and ultimately replaced the school’s principal.

Staff at Origins High School in southern Brooklyn recently alleged that rampant antisemitism from students was going unchecked by administrators — an accusation that city Education Department officials strongly disputed.

In January, following complaints from some students and educators about a lack of opportunities to talk productively about the Israel-Hamas war in school, Banks committed to offering new training for school leaders on holding difficult conversations and responding to incidents of bias and discrimination.

On Thursday, as he reflected on the city’s response to the tumult in schools around the Israel-Hamas war, Banks said “I wouldn’t say that I’m proud of what we’ve done.”

But “I think we’ve done what we’re supposed to do,” he said.

The war has stirred up “all kinds of emotions in kids as well as adults, and we’ve got to manage all of that. For an entire system, that is not easy to do,” he added. “But I believe that our team has demonstrated a level of leadership that I am more than willing to be at the table and to express what we have done.”

The House committee that Banks will appear before made headlines in December for a marathon hearing with the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, spawning viral clips of representatives grilling the administrators on their definitions of and policies for antisemitism on campus. Two of those presidents subsequently resigned.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

As NYC’s literacy mandate expands citywide, some school communities are pushing back

2024-04-10T17:07:34+00:00

Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to keep up with NYC’s public schools.

Twelve-year-old Carlo Murray perched on his tiptoes to reach the microphone as he addressed education officials last month. He then unleashed a withering critique of his school’s reading curriculum.

“I love to read all sorts of books,” Carlo told the city’s Panel for Educational Policy, a group that approves contracts and other school policies.

But this year, his teachers are focusing on short passages, leaving him frustrated and bored.

“It feels like I’m getting half an ELA sixth grade experience, half the story, half a piece of writing, only half a curriculum,” Carlo, who attends the Brooklyn School of Inquiry, often called BSI, said to applause.

One by one, Carlo and a handful of his classmates took turns at the microphone to bemoan their experience with the school’s new literacy curriculum. Educators at BSI, along with elementary schools across the city, have been required to adopt one of three reading programs, part of a mandate under schools Chancellor David Banks to boost literacy rates by flushing out popular but increasingly discredited programs.

The BSI students’ strong reactions are notable in part because there has been little organized opposition to the reading curriculum overhaul, as many literacy experts, the city’s teachers union, and several major education advocacy groups have supported it.

But resistance may grow louder as the city has required all local districts to adopt the new reading programs by September, up from just under half this school year. Some parents and educators at schools gearing up to use the new reading materials this fall have started speaking out, arguing the curriculum changes could threaten to upend the project-based learning or teacher-created curriculums that make their schools distinctive.

“Phase two is going to be harder than phase one,” said Susan Neuman, a New York University professor and member of the city’s literacy advisory council. A handful of wealthier districts that also tend to post higher test scores than average — including Districts 2 and 3 in Manhattan and Brooklyn’s District 15 — are all part of the second phase. “It’s going to be very interesting to hear how they respond,” Neuman said.

Most popular curriculum is getting most of the criticism

The reactions at BSI could serve as a preview of worries starting to bubble up elsewhere.

Much of the criticism of the curriculum overhaul has focused on the program that 22 of the city’s 32 local superintendents are requiring in their elementary schools: Into Reading, from the company Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, also known as HMH. The remaining districts are either using Wit & Wisdom, from a company called Great Minds, or EL Education.

Unlike the other two approved curriculums, HMH is built around an anthology-style textbook that includes passages designed to teach reading skills. Experts say the curriculum may feel easier for educators to quickly unpack than the other options, and it also includes a Spanish-language version. One review faulted the curriculum for not being culturally responsive, which sparked considerable criticism, though HMH has disputed the findings.

To some students at BSI, a gifted K-8 program with competitive admissions and reading proficiency rates that topped 90% last year, their main worry is that the new curriculum feels like dry test prep.

Adding to the concern, the local superintendent that oversees BSI has required middle schools to use HMH, a step further than the citywide requirement to use an approved curriculum in grades K-5 — though more schools may be soon heading in that direction. Banks has pledged to overhaul curriculums across a range of other subjects and grade levels, including high school algebra, a process that is drawing mixed reactions.

Sixth grader Penelope Naidich said her reading classes now draw on shorter texts that come from the HMH workbook rather than teacher-designed classroom conversations of full books. Last year, “we had a whole class discussion, like what happened in the chapter, how did it relate to the theme and the plot,” Naidich said in an interview. “The deeper stuff you’re not getting from these excerpts.”

Still, students and parents at BSI said teachers have recently had more freedom to teach full books, though not as many as in previous years. A representative for HMH wrote in a statement that the curriculum materials for middle school grades includes “numerous complete selections, long reads and novels, in addition to excerpts” and the program “is designed to be flexible so that educators can make decisions that best serve their students.”

The school’s principal did not return a request for comment.

Top education officials contend the curriculum overhaul is essential because the city’s traditional approach of giving schools freedom to pick their own materials has produced meager results: Roughly half of the city’s students in grades 3-8 are not considered proficient in reading, according to state tests.

Banks has laid much of the blame on “balanced literacy” programs, including a popular one created by Teachers College Professor Lucy Calkins. That curriculum encourages students to independently read books at their individual reading levels, an approach meant to foster a love of literature but which experts say is less effective for struggling readers who need systematic instruction. Teachers were also encouraged to use discredited strategies like using pictures to guess at words.

Schools Chancellor David Banks reads to children at P.S. 125 The Ralph Bunche School.

Neuman, the NYU professor, applauded the city’s efforts to move away from balanced literacy and reign in the hodgepodge of approaches schools have used. But she acknowledged some tradeoffs. “The whole idea behind this initiative is to lift the boats of the kids who have been traditionally left behind, and that means some of the advanced students might be subject to a simpler program,” she said. “Right now, that’s the cost.”

City officials initially indicated that a small slice of schools with reading proficiency rates above 85% could be eligible for waivers from the mandate — and some BSI parents have pressed for one. Education Department spokesperson Nicole Brownstein said some schools sought waivers, but ultimately chose to use their district’s required curriculum. She declined to elaborate on the process for granting waivers or if the city abandoned plans to consider them for schools with high test scores.

Reading instruction shift worries some parents in next phase

Beyond BSI, some educators and families at schools that are gearing up to implement new reading curriculums in September are also raising alarms.

Alex Estes, the parent association president at The Neighborhood School in Manhattan, said he’s concerned about the new curriculum’s impact. The school, which is in District 1, will be required to use EL Education in September.

With lots of material to cover in the new curriculum, Estes worries educators won’t have time for lessons they’ve prioritized in the past. The school has a particular focus on creating a welcoming environment for LGBTQ students and staff, including a social-emotional curriculum that delves into age-appropriate discussions of gender identity and pronoun use. Estes fears that the school will have to make difficult tradeoffs to make room for the new materials.

“If we take EL’s curriculum 100% and follow it to the T, it is not theoretical that we will lose time for our homegrown curriculum like our identity unit,” Estes said. “There are only so many hours in a school day.”

At a recent Community Education Council meeting in District 15, which stretches across a handful of neighborhoods from Park Slope to Sunset Park, some caregivers echoed that they were happy with their schools’ current approach to instruction.

Students use an EL Education workbook at P.S. 169 Baychester Academy in the Bronx.

District 15 will require schools with dual-language programs to use HMH. All others will use Wit & Wisdom, a curriculum known for building students’ background knowledge and lengthy units on non-fiction topics.

“Mandates in general don’t necessarily acknowledge what’s going well,” said Lauren Monaco, a parent at The Brooklyn New School, a campus that often bucks traditional mandates including state testing in favor of student presentations of deep dives into various topics. “I don’t want the baby to be thrown out with the bathwater.”

In response to families at the meeting, District 15 Superintendent Rafael Alvarez suggested teachers won’t be expected to implement every element of the curriculum right away and said there will still be time for independent reading.

Alvarez also indicated District 15 will have more leeway to implement the curriculum gradually compared with Brooklyn District 19, which includes East New York and used the Wit & Wisdom curriculum districtwide even before the new mandate.

One reason for the added flexibility is their differing demographics, he noted. The vast majority of children in District 19 are Black or Hispanic and from low-income families. About 38% are considered proficient in reading. In District 15, fewer than half of students are Black or Hispanic or live in poverty — and 63% are proficient readers.

“We have a different community,” Alvarez said. “It’s the reason why there’s flexibility around how we’re using the curriculum — because we don’t have the same demographics where all of our kids need it verbatim with fidelity every day.”

Many educators haven’t spoken out

Educators have largely not organized against the curriculum changes. But Emily Haines, a veteran literacy coach at The Laboratory School of Finance and Technology in the Bronx, is trying to change that. She recently launched a petition to drum up support for letting schools pick their own materials.

“Communities should have a voice in choosing a curriculum,” Haines said. Her school covers grades 6-12, but her local superintendent in District 7 has also required that middle schools adopt EL Education, the same program mandated across the district in grades K-5. (An Education Department spokesperson declined to say how many superintendents have issued similar directives for their middle schools.)

Haines said her school currently uses Calkins’ program. She worries the new materials will leave less time for narrative writing, one strategy she uses to get to know her students. And though she acknowledges exposing students to challenging books is important, she’s concerned the new curriculum will force her students to read longer books well beyond their reading levels. About 55% of her school’s students are proficient readers, according to state tests, compared with 32% across District 7.

The Bronx educator said she’s heard from teachers who have privately complained about the changes but, “for some reason it’s not translating into pushback.” So far, her petition has fewer than 100 signatures.

She suspects educators may see little value in speaking out and might be hoping for light enforcement of the mandates. Some principals have indicated plans to sidestep the curriculum requirements.

“I think people are just waiting,” Haines added. “Banks and Adams won’t be around forever and we can go back to what we’re doing before.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC schools disband teaching and learning division, which oversees Banks’ top literacy initiative

2024-03-25T20:34:00+00:00

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In a major shakeup, the city’s Education Department is disbanding its division of teaching and learning, which oversees schools Chancellor David Banks’ centerpiece literacy initiative.

The deputy chancellor who leads that department is leaving at the end of the school year, according to a letter Banks sent to Education Department staff on Monday.

The announcement of Deputy Chancellor for Teaching and Learning Carolyne Quintana’s departure took some staff by surprise. Quintana has been supervising Banks’ top education priority to reshape how the city’s elementary schools teach children to read, mandating that all elementary schools across the five boroughs are using one of three curriculums by next school year. The department has also been working to overhaul high school algebra programs.

“We are moving forward with dissolving the Division of Teaching & Learning and integrating its work into the Division of School Leadership under the leadership of Deputy Chancellor Dr. Danika Rux,” Banks wrote in a Monday letter to Education Department staff.

Banks signaled that the move was designed to put resources closer to schools — a pledge he made with Mayor Eric Adams when he first took the helm of the nation’s largest school district more than two years ago. He suggested some of the staff could be placed under the purview of local superintendents, who directly supervise principals.

The shakeup follows other efforts to give superintendents more power, with Banks previously assigning other Education Department staff who work in central offices to local superintendents’ offices.

“The superintendents are clearly in charge, and the content experts are subordinate,” one staffer who works in a superintendent’s office wrote in a text message, adding that they were “shocked” to learn of Quintana’s departure.

Shakeup could be logical for next phase of literacy push

Some observers are optimistic that the restructuring could help create clearer lines of authority and streamline the implementation of the curriculum changes. Before the latest shakeup, decisions about which curriculums to mandate and how to set up teacher training came from Quintana’s division. But the local superintendents who work with principals to implement those curriculums answer to Rux, the deputy chancellor responsible for school leadership.

There are challenges “having decision making split between the curricular choices and the implementation of those across two different deputy chancellors,” said Evan Stone, the CEO and co-founder of Educators for Excellence, a teacher advocacy group. The organization supported the Education Department’s push for a curriculum mandate, and Stone said Quintana is an “incredible leader.”

Another source involved with implementing the NYC Reads initiative said shifting responsibility for the program closer to the superintendents was logical now that districts have all chosen which curriculum to use and are focused on the daily work of helping schools adjust.

“This makes complete sense in terms of managing the NYC Reads initiative in particular,” said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “Now we’re more into the implementation … and that falls on the superintendents.”

But other observers said that they are concerned that the reorganization will wind up shuffling many of the system’s literacy experts into superintendent offices where those leaders may not be able to deploy them as effectively. Education Department officials have not said how many staffers will remain in central offices or sent to local superintendents.

“Many of these district superintendents are just getting on board [with the new reading curriculums] and literacy is not necessarily their field of expertise,” said Susan Neuman, a professor at New York University who serves on the city’s literacy advisory council. She added the literacy council wasn’t in the loop on the shakeup which “came out of nowhere for us.”

Another department employee who works in a superintendent’s office said change could deliver needed manpower to help schools implement new curriculums.

“We don’t have the people to do that effectively on top of everything else,” the staffer said. Still, they added it was unclear who would be sent to their office and whether they would have relevant expertise.

The reorganization also comes at a delicate moment for Banks’ signature literacy initiative. The second half of the city’s districts will begin implementing the mandated curriculums in September, which requires a massive effort to train thousands of teachers. The initial rollout, which began this school year, has been bumpy so far with some teachers reporting that they have not received sufficient training on the new curriculum materials.

The overhaul of the high school algebra curriculum, which has drawn mixed reactions from educators, is also poised to expand next year.

Layoffs not expected

In his letter to Education Department staff, Banks indicated that the restructuring would not result in layoffs.

“I know change is hard,” Banks wrote. “I want to assure you that this restructuring is not a negative reflection of your work. In fact, we want to make sure that your hard work is as close to our students as possible.”

The teaching and learning division is staffed by about 2,000 people. The division includes hundreds of staff who oversee support for special education and multilingual learners; those people will not move to superintendent offices and will instead report to Rux.

Quintana did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the circumstances of her departure or whether she has another job lined up. The New York Post previously reported that Quintana was frustrated that she was paid less than a male deputy chancellor, though an Education Department spokesperson said that did not play a role in her departure.

“I want to thank the dedicated team of the Division of Teaching & Learning for their tireless work to improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of students daily,” Quintana wrote in a statement. “It was an honor to lead you, and I will always be your ally in fighting for educational equity. I look forward to supporting this transition.”

Banks indicated the department’s Chief of School Support Miatheresa Pate will oversee the restructuring effort and will be the “interim executive chief” of teaching and learning during the transition period. The superintendent of Bronx District 10, Maribel Hulla, will move into the chief of school support role.

The chancellor indicated that Quintana will spend the remainder of the school year helping with the transition and advising him on “other key projects.”

Do you have inside details about the shakeup? Send us a tip to ny.tips@chalkbeat.org

Michael Elsen-Rooney contributed to this story.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC chancellor says controversial school building swap had a happy ending. Teachers disagree.

2024-03-20T19:49:31+00:00

To hear New York City schools Chancellor David Banks tell it, a bitter fight last year over the decision to swap the buildings of two Manhattan high schools had a happy ending.

Students at Edward A. Reynolds West Side High School, an under-enrolled transfer school for kids at risk of dropping out, were forced to switch buildings with The Young Women’s Leadership School, or TYWLS, a crowded school occupying a smaller space across town. The move sparked an uproar last year from West Side’s community, who argued it would deprive already marginalized kids of critical resources housed in its long-time building.

In recent months Banks has shared an upbeat update, telling reporters and members of the city’s Panel for Educational Policy, a board that approves decisions to relocate schools, that he heard from West Side staff that “after the dust settled … everything worked out.”

“They couldn’t be happier,” he added last week, paraphrasing a letter from the principal and the school’s chapter leader, the official representative to the teachers union.

Banks’ update seemed to tie a neat bow on a messy public dispute. It also bolsters his argument for advancing other contentious school merger and relocation proposals and validates his decision-making at a moment when he’s urging the state legislature to extend mayoral control over schools.

There’s just one problem: According to teachers and students at West Side, the move has had anything but a happy ending.

Seven West Side teachers and a student who spoke to Chalkbeat said the move to the new space has worsened their school experience in almost every way. It has reduced access to organized sports and deprived students of the health clinic and on-site day care available in the old building. Forcing kids and staff into more cramped quarters has exacerbated tensions between students and diminished teachers’ ability to provide individualized support, teachers and students said.

“The chancellor was characterizing the move as being good and fine in the end … which is just utterly false,” said Joel Solow, a West Side teacher. “This has been an incredibly challenging year on almost every count.”

For students like Joel Gomez, 17, who started at West Side in October 2022, moving to the new space has felt like having the best part of his school experience “ripped away.”

Spending last year in the old building was “one of the best years of my life,” he said.

But “this year just feels like everything is dampened down,” he said. The move, for him, “did not work out in a great way.”

Even the city’s original justification for the move – that West Side needed much less space, while TYWLS needed much more – hasn’t panned out.

Last year, West Side had only 230 students last year in a building that can fit nearly 800, while TYWLS has hovered between 450-480 students in a building that could hold 560. Officials had predicted West Side’s enrollment would stay flat, while TYWLS would immediately grow when it moved to the larger space.

But the opposite has happened: Enrollment at West Side has surged, to 344 as of this month, thanks to an influx of migrant students and the addition of a bilingual program. Enrollment at Young Women’s Leadership, meanwhile, has shrunk to 363 – leaving the two schools now at almost the same size, according to Education Department records.

Education Department officials noted that despite its enrollment increases, West Side’s daily attendance still hovers around 51%.

An Education Department spokesperson attributed the drop in enrollment at TYWLS to smaller classes of entering 6th and 9th graders, and said the school couldn’t offer more new seats because the move was approved too late in the year. But state data shows that the drops in 6th and 9th grade classes account for only a fraction of the overall enrollment reduction at TYWLS, and other grades shrunk as well.

The West Side building swap reverberates beyond the two schools

The city Education Department is facing increasing pressure to move, merge or even close schools as a result of pandemic enrollment losses – and Banks will need the approval of the Panel for Educational Policy to advance those proposals.

A happy ending to the West Side saga, one of the most high-profile fights in Banks’ tenure, strengthens Banks’ case to move forward on other controversial proposals, offering evidence that dire predictions from angry communities don’t always come true. Already, several proposals on the docket in the coming months have spurred fierce community pushback, some of which echoes the concerns raised by the West Side community.

West Side also is relevant to the ongoing negotiations in the state legislature over if and how to extend mayoral control over city schools. The current governance structure gives Mayor Eric Adams power to appoint the majority of the Panel for Educational Policy, an arrangement Banks says allows him to “make the best decisions on behalf of the entire school system,” even when it means fighting through some opposition, he said last week.

But critics of mayoral control say the West Side move is a case study in the limitations of a system that allows officials to ignore community input to the detriment of kids.

“In mayoral control,” Solow said at a January town hall in Manhattan, “the people who have to deal with the consequences have no voice that needs to be listened to. And the people who get to determine the consequences need to listen to no one.”

Dueling interpretations of a letter

Part of the ongoing dispute comes down to dueling interpretations of a letter sent in the fall by West Side Principal Mara Rivera and chapter leader Mark Weller.

The letter, a copy of which was reviewed by Chalkbeat, thanked facilities officials for the “excellent job” in upgrading the new building, praising the “remarkable” difference in the condition of the facility now compared to last year, and calling the atmosphere in the building “much more uplifting … than we had expected.”

The principal and chapter leader didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Multiple staffers who spoke with the chapter leader said he had explained that the letter, which was written without the knowledge of staff and was not addressed to Banks, was meant to build goodwill with facilities staff to help secure future upgrades. It wasn’t meant as an endorsement of the move or affirmation that it had worked out for the best. The letter writers weren’t notified that Banks was going to share the letter publicly, staffers added.

It was a “fairly simple message about ‘thanks for making the move a little less bad,’” Solow said.

An Education Department spokesperson didn’t directly address criticism that Banks misrepresented the letter, but said he only stated that the “principal wrote a letter of appreciation for the work done to get the space ready for the students of West Side High School.”

Banks heard about the letter through a regular update from facilities staff, the spokesperson said.

“We promised we would ensure the building meets both our standards and those of the school community, and the upgrades have made a true impact in the way students and staff view their new learning environment,” spokesperson Chyann Tull said in a statement.

Enrollment numbers don’t tell the full story

West Side staffers and students argued that there were features of the old building – which the school has occupied since the late 1980s – that were critical to its success and would be lost in the new facility, a prediction they said has come to fruition.

The old space had a child care program and health clinic on site, as well as a full-size gymnasium and access to an adjacent sports field. Those amenities filled specific needs for the school’s students, who are older, often juggle competing responsibilities, and struggle with attendance.

The new space, located on the seventh to 11th floors of an office building, has none of those things. The difficulty of restarting organized sports, such as volleyball, has been a particular blow, since that’s what helps keep many kids engaged in school, staffers said.

An Education Department spokesperson said officials are working to sustain services for students in the new space, including connecting the school to a nearby Mount Sinai location.

Staffers said they appreciated the facilities repairs, but those can’t alter some structural differences in the new building, including classrooms that are often about half the size of their old home.

One teacher described moving into a smaller classroom with multiple students with emotional disabilities. In the old building, there was enough space to separate students during conflicts. The new room doesn’t allow for that, said the teacher, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.

Gomez, the student, said the new building is “claustrophobic” and “dreary.” He misses the joy of seeing the little kids at the old on-site day care, the access to fields and a gym, and the spacious hallways and classrooms where kids could take a lap if they got overwhelmed.

He’s struggled to keep up his attendance this year. For one stretch, he missed a month of school.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

NYC chancellor said he’d resign without mayoral control. His threat could add fuel to critics.

2024-03-15T20:20:00+00:00

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New York City schools Chancellor David Banks made headlines this week saying he had “no interest” in continuing in his role if state lawmakers enact sweeping changes to the city’s school governance structure.

That statement, some observers say, is likely to harm his cause.

For months, Banks has served as an ardent defender of the polarizing mayoral control system, which centralizes power over the city’s schools in the hands of Mayor Eric Adams and is set to expire on June 30.

The comments represent an escalation of the chancellor’s rhetoric on mayoral control. They come just weeks before the expected March 31 release of a state Education Department report on the city’s current school governance structure that Albany lawmakers say will help inform if and how they extend mayoral control.

Earlier this week, state legislators chose not to include an extension of mayoral control in their budget proposals — an initial rejection of the four-year extension sought by Gov. Kathy Hochul. Lawmakers have argued the city’s school governance structure should be determined outside of budget negotiations.

The school governance structure has been regularly extended over the past two decades and has largely relied on the mayor’s power to choose a schools chancellor and appoint a majority of members to the Panel for Educational Policy, or PEP, a city board that votes on major policy proposals and contracts.

In prior years, lawmakers have tweaked mayoral control to weaken the mayor’s grip on the PEP. In 2022, for example, they adjusted the system so that PEP members could no longer be removed for voting against their appointer’s wishes, making it harder to remove a panelist for opposing proposals from City Hall. At the same time, the board also expanded from 15 to 23 members, with the mayor appointing 13 of them and retaining the majority.

But recent months have seen repeated calls from critics of the school governance structure to go a step further and remove the mayor’s ability to appoint a majority of members.

On Thursday, Banks told reporters that such a change would render his position ineffective.

“If you don’t have the majority of the vote, you don’t have the power, because that means now you have to negotiate for every vote that you’re trying to do,” he said. “That’s politics. I do not think that that would be good for the school system. I certainly did not sign up for that.”

Banks added he had “no interest in serving as a chancellor in a system where you don’t really have the authority to make real decisions.”

Observers expressed surprise at the chancellor’s comments, noting they could very well fuel critics who argue the system excludes community voices.

“His reasoning shot himself and the mayor in the foot, regarding the assumption of autocratic rule,” said David Bloomfield, a professor of education, law, and public policy at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center. “He gave opponents of mayoral control good reason for calling out the lack of openness to other points of view.”

Banks opens himself to criticism from opponents

Banks voiced “the quiet part out loud,” said Jonathan Collins, a professor of politics and education at Columbia University’s Teachers College.

“What usually attracts superintendents or chancellors into these roles under mayoral control is, of course, the autonomy — the ability to make sweeping reforms without a lot of political barriers,” he said. “But you still see these administrative figures give lip service to the idea of connecting with communities and making reforms that are rooted in understanding the needs of kids across a district.”

In his two years at the helm of the nation’s largest school system, Banks has staked his legacy on overhauling the city’s approach to literacy, requiring all elementary schools use one of three curriculums. His curriculum mandates have also reached prekindergarten and ninth grade algebra and will likely continue to expand.

To Bloomfield, the Thursday comments suggested that Banks “believes the knee jerk reaction of non-mayoral appointees would be in opposition” to proposals from the chancellor.

“The idea that he doesn’t think he could convince a majority of the PEP — no matter how constituted — to buy into his leadership is shocking,” he said.

Some members of the PEP also felt blindsided by the chancellor’s comments.

Kaliris Salas-Ramirez, a PEP member appointed by Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine, said she’s had productive conversations with Banks, though they don’t always agree. Salas-Ramirez added he should know that she and the other non-mayoral appointees are working with the city’s Education Department to improve its schools.

“What do I believe? Do I believe in the man that sits down and talks to me, or do I believe this person that’s showing up at press conferences and saying the opposite?” she said. “I’m still a little perplexed, and wondering how he believes that after hearing comments like that we can continue to genuinely engage with each other as the state is having these conversations around mayoral control.”

Banks’ comments suggest fears over mayoral control’s future

To Collins, the comments signal the chancellor feels “a high degree of uncertainty” over the fate of mayoral control.

And though Bloomfield does not expect the comments from Banks to significantly influence the decision by lawmakers, he noted they still hurt the case for renewal.

“It’s apparent from his extreme rhetoric that he sees mayoral control in danger,” he said. “But he did the effort for extension a disservice by holding his own chancellorship hostage.”

Meanwhile, Adams doubled down on the chancellor’s opposition to reforming mayoral control during an interview on PIX11 on Friday.

“I am not going to have a pseudo mayoral control. I want to be held accountable for improving our educational system,” he said. “That’s what the chancellor wants. ... Let us continue the good work that we are doing. Don’t let politics get in the way of our pupils.”

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

NYC schools go remote on Tuesday for snow forecast

2024-02-12T19:07:39+00:00

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New York City public schools will conduct classes remotely on Tuesday as a winter storm threatens to dump up to eight inches of snow on the five boroughs, Mayor Eric Adams said Monday morning.

Adult education and Young Adult Borough Centers will not operate on Tuesday. Many after-school programs operated by the Department of Youth and Community Development will run remotely, though an Education Department spokesperson said parents should reach out to their schools for more information.

In the wake of the pandemic, the city’s public schools announced that it will not typically cancel classes in the event of inclement weather and instead pivot to remote instruction. As officials added additional holidays to the school calendar, the Education Department has vowed to offer remote instruction during snow storms in part to meet a state requirement to provide 180 days of school each year.

“Long gone are the days of just a snow day and everybody just has off,” said schools Chancellor David Banks at a snow-related media briefing. “We’re going to have a big snow storm most likely, but our students — we expect for them to be fully engaged.”

Parents, students and teachers: How are you preparing for remote school on Tuesday? Let us know by dropping an email to ny.tips@chalkbeat.org.

Tuesday will be the first major test of the city’s plan to quickly pivot to remote learning due to bad weather, as the city has not experienced a major snowfall over the past two winters. When wildfire smoke engulfed the city last summer, the Education Department shifted to remote instruction for a day, but the vast majority of students already had a scheduled day off.

The decision to pivot to remote instruction comes with tradeoffs, as families may struggle to line up childcare and many students rely on school meals. But keeping school buildings open comes with challenges, too, and Banks said he did not want to risk students getting stuck on yellow buses or strand staff at schools if weather conditions worsened throughout Tuesday morning.

The amount of snowfall is still relatively uncertain. Officials said they wanted to make the decision about whether to hold classes virtually before the storm approached to give schools — and families — more time to plan for remote instruction.

Parents should expect teachers to provide “synchronous” instruction, delivering lessons in real time and mimicking the traditional school day, Banks said. Although he acknowledged there will likely be some technical glitches, Banks noted that schools had previously asked families to practice logging in for remote learning to prepare for possible snowstorms. Additionally, the Education Department has “help centers” for families who need assistance.

Students who want to go outside and play in the snow could do so after class, Banks said.

https://t.co/BcVJPTHEkf pic.twitter.com/SQVseyhSj9
— Chi Ossé (@OsseChi) February 12, 2024

Adams bristled at the notion that switching to remote instruction could present tech roadblocks to families, or that children may simply skip remote classes to have fun in the snow.

He claimed his own mother helped him get to school in poor weather, holding it up as an example for others to overcome their own obstacles. ”You can’t tell me that mommy took me to school with her arthritic knees in a snow day, and you are frustrated by logging on to a computer — that’s not acceptable to me,” he said. “Our children must learn. They fell behind. We need to catch up.”

Still, some schools said it could be a challenge to get students logged in for remote learning. Anna Nelson, an assistant principal at the Bronx Latin, estimated that about a quarter of her school’s students don’t have reliable internet access at home.

“At our school, everyone will have a device,” she said. “It’s whether they will be able to use a device.”

Some observers said the announcement felt premature, coming well before a single flake of snow hit the ground, and reports indicate a more modest accumulation of just a couple inches is still possible.

News of the decision to hold classes virtually trickled out on X, previously known as Twitter, before the mayor’s official announcement. Banks told a gathering of union chapter leaders of the decision in advance of a professional development session related to the city’s sweeping new literacy curriculum mandate, according to a union spokesperson.

The mayor tweeted the news just after 10 a.m. — though schools had yet to receive an official communication, frustrating some administrators who learned of the news from their teachers or on social media. An email to school administrators went out shortly after 11 a.m.

“It shouldn’t be principals hearing from their teachers and Twitter,” Nelson said. “I don’t have a Twitter account.”

Correction: Based on incorrect information in an Education Department press release, a previous version of this story said all after-school programs are canceled. In fact, many will be open remotely.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

The list is out: See which curriculum is dominating NYC’s reading mandate

2024-02-03T00:18:40+00:00

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New York City kicked off its new literacy curriculum mandate this year, requiring elementary schools in nearly half of its districts to choose among three curriculums. One pick dominated: Into Reading, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Teachers wondered whether the same curriculum — which has won mixed reviews from educators — would continue to gain traction, as every elementary school must join the initiative by September 2024.

Now, there’s an answer: All elementary schools in 22 of the city’s 32 local districts will be required to use Into Reading, according to the Education Department.

The program’s popularity means the majority of the city’s elementary school students will soon use the same curriculum for reading. That’s a major shift, as the city’s previous approach gave principals leeway to choose their own materials.

It represents a big bet that one flagship curriculum will help schools Chancellor David Banks achieve his top goal: improving the city’s literacy rates. And it’s also a striking outcome given the Education Department vetted three options that officials said are high quality, including Wit & Wisdom, from a company called Great Minds, and EL Education, both of which have won praise from some advocates and educators.

Five districts will require EL Education, and five will use Wit & Wisdom, including Brooklyn’s District 15, where schools with dual-language programs will use Into Reading. It’s the only district that did not use a single choice across its campuses. (A full list of each district’s curriculum choice is included below.)

“It seems like, once again, Into Reading really wins,” said Susan Neuman, a professor at New York University and literacy expert.

Some educators and advocates have raised concerns about Into Reading, including that it is not culturally responsive enough. But Neuman said there is little definitive evidence about what the curriculum’s popularity will mean for student learning. “It’s really difficult to say one is better than another at this point,” she said of the three options the city selected.

Neuman and others said the three newly mandated curriculums are likely an improvement over the materials many schools have used in recent years, including a popular program created by Teachers College Professor Lucy Calkins. Backed by a growing chorus of experts, Banks has argued that Calkins’ curriculum has not worked, in part because it doesn’t include enough systematic instruction on the relationship between sounds and letters, known as phonics. It also includes some discredited methods, such as using pictures to guess what a word says.

The Education Department said it picked three curriculums more aligned with longstanding research about how children learn to read, often referred to as the science of reading. Separately, the city has required schools to use an approved phonics program alongside the three reading programs. Using a single curriculum across districts will allow the city to scale up more effective teacher training efforts, since materials won’t vary as much from campus to campus. Students who transfer schools will be less likely to start from scratch with a new curriculum.

Into Reading gets foothold in NYC schools even before the mandate

There are several reasons Into Reading likely has proved to be the most popular choice among local superintendents, who were tasked with making the final decision for their districts. The program is perceived to be the most traditional option and easier to roll out, with more regimented step-by-step lessons. And unlike the other two approved programs, Into Reading has a Spanish version that may appeal to schools with dual-language offerings.

“It’s so scripted, and if superintendents and district teams are worried about implementation, it could be easier” than the other choices, said a staffer in a local superintendent’s office who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the company behind Into Reading, also deployed a savvy marketing strategy. The publishing house made digital materials free for schools to use during the pandemic, potentially helping it gain a foothold in several districts. Superintendents may have been more compelled to select a curriculum already in their schools, since switching materials can be a difficult and time consuming process.

EL, Wit & Wisdom gain slightly more traction in second round

Despite Into Reading’s popularity, the other two curriculums were slightly more popular among superintendents who are part of the second phase of the mandate beginning this coming fall. Both Wit & Wisdom and EL Education place a greater emphasis on boosting students’ background knowledge, advocates say, a key element for boosting students’ reading comprehension across a wide range of subjects.

Those curriculums often lean on challenging nonfiction readings in an effort to ensure students are reading at their grade level, though some educators have said they can be difficult for students who are behind.

Some superintendents in the city’s more affluent neighborhoods, where certain schools have long-standing commitments to Calkins’ program, seemed to gravitate to Wit & Wisdom and El Education. District 2, which snakes from the West Village to the Upper East Side, is using Wit & Wisdom as is District 3, which covers Manhattan’s Upper West Side.

District 15, which includes Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Sunset Park, and Red Hook in Brooklyn split its schools between Wit & Wisdom and Into Reading. Still, other districts with fewer children from lower-income households — including Bayside, Queens District 26, and Staten Island — are using Into Reading. And some high-poverty areas, such as District 7 in the South Bronx are using EL Education.

Curriculum choices are only one part of the equation, though. Experts say the quality of teacher training and how committed educators are to making changes are also crucial. Among teachers in the first phase of the curriculum mandate this fall, some educators said they haven’t received as much support as they hoped.

“It’s been effective, but they say they want more of it — that it has to be ongoing,” said Marielys Divanne, the executive director of Educators for Excellence-New York, an advocacy group that supports the city’s curriculum mandate. “Curriculum alone is not sufficient.”

Kindergarten teacher Carla Murray-Bolling said she’s anxious and excited about the new curriculum mandate. Her school, P.S. 84 on the Upper West Side, uses Calkins’ program but will be required to switch to Wit & Wisdom this coming fall.

Murray-Bolling likes certain elements of Calkins’ curriculum, called “Units of Study,” including a recent lesson that teaches children that reading is a special power they can unlock — a superhero metaphor that got her students excited. But she also said the amount of time her students are expected to work independently can be a challenge, since many of her students have yet to master basic reading and writing skills.

“I’m anxious to see the changes,” she said, noting that she was not aware of opportunities for teachers to offer input on the new curriculum choices.

Still, she’s coming in with an open mind for the Education Department’s reading overhaul.

“If they feel it’s a curriculum that’s strong, and they think it’s good for the students, I don’t see anything wrong about that,” she said.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

10,000 NYC students are shut out of programs for children with autism. Adding 160 seats is a start.

2024-01-31T23:30:01+00:00

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New York City is expanding programs for students with autism, part of a broader pledge top Education Department officials announced Wednesday to create special education programming closer to where students live.

Beginning next school year, the city will guarantee that rising kindergartners in three local districts won’t have to leave their neighborhoods to access some of the city’s most popular programs for kids with autism.

Children with disabilities often must travel outside their neighborhoods to attend schools with smaller class sizes staffed by teachers with specialized training. Those trips can stretch over an hour each way, thanks in part to the city’s notoriously unreliable yellow bus system. Lengthy commutes can make it difficult to attend after-school programs or build friendships with children in their neighborhood who attend local schools.

“Many of our kids, we’ve got to send them way out of the neighborhood at great expense to the system and at great inconvenience to the families and to the kids themselves,” schools Chancellor David Banks said during a press conference at Brooklyn’s P.S. 958, which opened last school year as a model for serving local students with a broad range of abilities.

“We’ve got to fix this,” Banks said. “Today really is the beginning of that work.”

Children with autism who are entering kindergarten in Districts 5, 12, and 14 will be guaranteed a spot in a specialized program in their home district. (Those districts cover Harlem, Crotona Park in the Bronx, and Brooklyn’s Williamsburg and Greenpoint neighborhoods, respectively.) To accomplish that, the city is adding 160 total seats in those neighborhoods across three existing programs: ASD Nest, Horizon, and AIMS, which is short for Acquisition, Integrated Services, Meaningful Communication, and Social Skills.

Although Banks previously expanded Nest and Horizon programs, the addition of 160 new slots represents a drop in the bucket given the growing number of children who are classified with autism and who qualify for them. More than 10,000 children with autism could benefit from a seat in a Nest or Horizon program but are placed elsewhere, according to Education Department figures.

City officials acknowledged that they’re starting small and characterized the effort as a pilot program. Christina Foti, the department’s special education chief, said Wednesday’s announcement is “a ripple that will eventually turn into a tidal wave.”

Special education advocates largely cheered the expansion of Nest, Horizon, and AIMS programs, which are in high demand. City officials said 95% of children who attend Nest and Horizon programs graduate from high school, more than 30 percentage points higher than students with disabilities overall.

The city also released a report with a series of recommendations for improving the special education system, after collecting input from parent leaders, policy experts, and educators.

“I think it is a really important first step,” said Maggie Moroff, a member of the advisory group that produced recommendations and a policy coordinator at Advocates for Children, a group that helps families navigate the special education system.

Moroff was glad to hear city officials reiterate their commitment to including students with disabilities alongside general education students when possible and creating more programs in their home neighborhoods. And she also appreciated a new glossary released by the Education Department that aims to help schools use more inclusive language when referring to children with disabilities and the programs that serve them.

But questions remained about the city’s plans, including whether it will scale up special education programming beyond the autism-focused initiative reaching just three of 32 local districts. Multiple advocates also noted there was little mention of the city’s vision for District 75, a network of schools that educate more than 26,000 students with more significant disabilities. Those children are largely separated from students without disabilities.

“Like so many things, the devil is going to be in the details about how it plays out,” Moroff said.

Peer support for parents trying to get special education services

City officials also pledged to beef up recruitment of caregivers trained to help others navigate the meetings where families and schools create individualized education programs, or IEPs. These legal documents spell out what services each child should receive.

Advocates say caregivers often don’t know the ins and outs of the IEP process, what their rights are, or even what services their children may need.

“It’s scary – and that’s universal,” said Lori Podvesker, a parent and director of disability and education policy at INCLUDEnyc, an organization that trains parent advocates and supports families who have children with disabilities.

The parent advocates, who also have children with disabilities, are trained to help other families understand the process. They attend IEP meetings alongside their peers — earning as much as $50 per meeting.

Special education advocate and parent Paullette Healy said she signed up to be a parent member years ago and completed the training, but the city never responded to her request to complete a fingerprinting requirement. She has still shown up to hundreds of IEP meetings to advocate on behalf of families, though not in an official paid role.

“It’s always existed, but wasn’t really utilized,” Healy said.

City officials said they’re working with INCLUDEnyc to bolster recruitment and spread awareness that families can request a parent advocate to attend their IEP meetings. Education Department officials declined to provide any tangible goals for the new effort, including how many parent advocates they hope to train.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

As tensions flare over Israel-Hamas war, NYC to train educators on having ‘difficult conversations’

2024-01-23T00:02:15+00:00

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To help address tensions over the Israel-Hamas war, the city is rolling out new training for educators, expanding curriculum resources, and signaling to principals that they will have more leeway to crack down on bullying and other bigoted behavior.

Beginning this spring, all middle and high school principals will receive training “focused on navigating difficult conversations,” schools Chancellor David Banks said, and those leaders will be responsible for sharing what they learn with their staff. The city is also updating its diversity training to delve more deeply into antisemitism and Islamophobia.

“The way through this moment is not to malign our students or impose our own ideologies on them, or to bury our heads in the sand,” Banks said during an address to school staff, parents, and faith leaders at the department’s Lower Manhattan headquarters. “We must educate our students, and sometimes our staff, to raise their consciousness and to overcome bias.”

The announcement comes after some communities across the city, including university campuses, have fractured over the devastating violence thousands of miles away. In October, Hamas militants killed 1,200 people and took over 240 hostages, with about 130 remaining captive, according to reports. Israel, in response, has bombarded Gaza, fueling a humanitarian crisis and killing over 25,000 Palestininans, including many children, according to health authorities there.

Since the start of the war, city officials have provided guidance to schools about how to have productive discussions about the conflict. Some educators have made efforts to facilitate discussions, including how to identify misinformation on social media. Others have largely steered clear of the issue. In advance of pro-Palestinian protests in November, Banks issued a warning that educators should keep their personal views to themselves, a directive that made some wary of broaching the topic.

On Monday, Banks reiterated that educators should play a role in helping students make sense of what’s happening, while taking care to not express their own opinions.

“We need to point students to reliable and objective sources about the current crisis,” he said. “We cannot leave it to social media to educate our children.”

Some schools have taken matters into own hands

Some students have created their own spaces in the absence of explicit efforts by their schools to address the topic. One campus brought Muslim and Jewish campus groups together to have educator-supervised discussions.

On other campuses, the war has been impossible to avoid. In late November, hundreds of students at Hillcrest High School in Queens flooded the hallways in protest of a photo of a teacher holding an “I stand with Israel” sign from a rally just after the Oct. 7 attacks, which had circulated on social media. Videos of the incident show students dancing in the hallways past a water fountain that had been pulled from a wall. The health teacher in the photo, who is Jewish, took cover in a room on a different floor.

The situation drew significant media attention and condemnation from Mayor Eric Adams and Banks, though the chancellor emphasized that the incident was a “teachable moment.” The Education Department removed the school’s principal. Officials said an assistant principal had been appointed principal and was recommended by current and former educators at the school, including the teacher who was the subject of the protests.

On Monday, Banks promised updated training on school safety for principals in the coming weeks, noting that some have felt “disempowered” from taking disciplinary action even for “egregious” misbehavior — a position echoed by the principal’s union. Although officials indicated the city did not intend to revise the city’s discipline code, which spells out the conduct for which students can be suspended, Banks wants principals to be empowered to enforce it.

“We can not and we will not have schools where students feel like they can do whatever they want without accountability for their actions,” he said.

That move raises questions about whether the new directive could lead to a surge in suspensions, which returned to pre-pandemic levels last school year, and which are disproportionately issued to Black students and those with disabilities.

Nelson Mar, a senior staff attorney at Bronx Legal Services, said he hopes the city takes reports of bullying more seriously, as he said schools often ignore student reports of it. But he worries schools will resort to removing students from classrooms instead of trying to address the “root cause.”

“When staff look to the discipline code they often see suspension and removal as the ONLY response to these behaviors,” Mar wrote in an email.

Educators feel divided over new directive

School leaders offered mixed reactions to Banks’ plan. City officials have not yet named which outside organizations will help lead that training or its cost.

“I am happy to hear about the efforts to step up and do something … but I am hesitant to expect too much,” said one Brooklyn principal who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive topic.

“It’s so hard for the [Education Department] to do anything at its scale,” the leader added. “We’re talking about issues that can really be best solved at the people level.”

One Bronx assistant principal said her school has struggled with tensions around the Israel-Hamas war, including “free Palestine” posters students painted and put up in the hallways that made some Jewish teachers feel uncomfortable.

“There are so many intense feelings around people’s religion and identity — I’d be curious what those kinds of conversations are going to look like,” the assistant principal said. “There was definitely a lack of guidance from the [Education Department], so I guess I’m glad they’re trying.”

Though few incidents have been as explosive as the situation at Hillcrest, a steady stream of controversies have burst into public view, some fueled by conservative media outlets. In one recent example, an art class at a Brooklyn elementary school focused on Arab culture made headlines for its map of North Africa and the Middle East that did not label Israel. The 12-year-old poster at P.S. 261 was removed after the stir, a move lamented by many parents from the school, which serves a diverse population including Muslims and Jews.

And some parent councils have waded into the issue, inviting another set of heated disagreements. Some of the rhetoric in parent council meetings has devolved into personal attacks that have made it challenging for these volunteers to work together. The Education Department said it plans to launch a series of anti-discrimination workshops for parent leaders beginning in February.

Banks also announced an interfaith advisory council to help guide the city’s response.

“This faith advisory council is not a grievance committee,” said Rev. Jacques Andre DeGraff, chair of the council. “If you’ve got a gripe or a beef, go up the street to the United Nations. Here, we are lighting the candle in darkness.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney contributed to this story.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC launches ‘campus revival’ program to upgrade neglected school buildings

2024-01-18T21:46:28+00:00

For years, students and staff at Bushwick Leaders High School for Academic Excellence in Brooklyn had a recurring complaint about their aging school building: There were no working water fountains.

Staff and students tried in vain to get them fixed, and Principal Enrique Garcia resorted to stockpiling bottled water to hand out to thirsty students. Seventeen-year-old senior Gabrielle Smith felt compelled to act after a friend passed out on a sweltering day because of dehydration.

“That was the turning point for me and my mom. She was like, ‘I need to bring this issue up, I need to do something,’” Smith recalled.

Her mom, Florence Knights, brought the problem to East Brooklyn Congregations, the four-decade-old network of faith-based community organizations that helped found the school. Leaders from that group got the attention of First Deputy Chancellor Dan Weisberg, who came to the school to meet with families and staff in spring 2022.

“The day after he met with us, water and AC units were brought into our school,” Smith recalled.

City officials are now looking at Bushwick Leaders’ partnership with the community organization as a model of how to improve conditions in other schools and districts that have been historically overlooked when it comes to facilities upgrades, schools Chancellor David Banks said Thursday.

That means bringing in community organizations to work with school staff and families to identify the most critical facilities upgrades and setting aside funds in the Education Department’s capital plan for targeted districts. The resulting “campus revival project” began in the 2022-23 school year in Brownsville’s District 23 with $10 million in capital funding, and it will expand next year to District 5 in Harlem, District 7 in the South Bronx, and District 29 in southern Queens.

“When you have a building that is in disrepair it sends a message to kids subliminally about how important we really think you are,” Banks said. He added that he’s noticed that some schools have “out of order” signs hanging on water fountains for a year, while others see the problem fixed in a day.

P.S. 137 in Ocean Hill Brownsville, where Banks spoke Thursday, was one beneficiary of the new initiative. The school got a library redesign after several years during which the space was out of date and unusable, according to the principal.

Shaun Lee, the lead pastor at Mount Lebanon Baptist Church, recalled hearing in a spring 2022 meeting with District 23 families and school staff about “young scholars not going to the restroom because of broken and dilapidated bathrooms. Not being able to hydrate because water fountains were broken. Struggling to concentrate on hot days because there’s no air conditioning.”

The listening sessions surfaced a total of 168 repairs that the Education Department pledged to address. Facilities workers completed 117 of them last year, and expect to finish most of the rest this year. Some of the larger projects, like an upgraded swimming pool, will take longer, a spokesperson said.

Officials said schools in the three districts participating in the expansion of the campus revival initiative next year are currently working with community-based organizations to identify the problems they want fixed. Funding for repairs in those districts will depend on what problems the schools and community groups identify, a department spokesperson said.

Garcia, the principal of Bushwick Leaders, said community organizations were a key ingredient in getting the fixes.

“They connect the dots,” he said. “They have relationships with other organizations, they have relationships with elected officials. They’re able to get everyone into the same room.”

Garcia said he hopes this new focus and approach to targeting facilities in overlooked communities can begin to address the stubborn disparities in school buildings he’s witnessed first hand.

“I went to LaGuardia High School. I had students in my class who were from very affluent families. We had an escalator in the building, the water fountains worked,” he said. “You see the difference when you go to other school communities. It’s an injustice when you go to a school in Bushwick, or in District 23 and it’s not the same.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

This Queens teacher went from being an accountant to teaching entrepreneurship

2024-01-17T21:38:18+00:00

Lorena Izzo was working as an accountant about 20 years ago when she was assigned to oversee a college intern and realized her true calling: to become a teacher.

She returned to her alma mater, Hofstra University, to get a master’s in math education (on top of her MBA). She landed a job at the Academy of Finance and Enterprise in Long Island City, Queens, and she has remained there for nearly 17 years, teaching entrepreneurship, financial services, and accounting.

“My students create business plans from scratch,” Izzo said, “starting with the research phase and finishing with viable business ideas that are ready to be presented at national competitions in front of potential investors.”

Some teens have even won seed money for their ideas, with one such student marketing a homemade hand cream to local nail salons and another selling napkins and towels that she personalized with embroidery.

In raising the question, “What is the purpose of school?” New York City schools Chancellor David Banks often talks about the importance of ensuring students have real-world workforce experience and are financially literate. Banks visited Izzo’s class on entrepreneurship last year to see her in action and hear from her students about how they’re preparing for their futures, Izzo recounted.

Izzo began teaching entrepreneurship by chance. Soon after she started working at Finance and Enterprise, her principal asked her to join a class for educators held by the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship, or NFTE, a nonprofit focused on empowering students to build their own businesses. That experience changed her path — as well as that of many of her students.

The organization provides Izzo with a curriculum and professional development. It offers mentors and coaches to her students, who often go on job-shadowing trips and take career readiness workshops.

Several of Izzo’s students have participated in the organization’s National Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge. Two students recently made regionals for their subscription company for culturally diverse treats, inspired by their own challenges finding authentic Vietnamese and Algerian desserts. Another student who always longed for more help with styling her curly hair created an app that recommends styling products and tips.

“It’s very inspiring to see how they take something they see as a problem, and they come up with their own solution,” Izzo said.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Tell us about your own experience with school and how it affects your work today.

I went into teaching because every day is different. That’s what made me want to come out of accounting. Every day was the same.

I’ve been teaching the entrepreneurship class for over a decade now, but it is different every year because the students are always different. Technology is constantly changing along with styles and trends.

I remember 10 years ago, a student told me they were going to send their product to someone on YouTube. I didn’t see how that was a business plan and gave her a zero. Then I saw that person [from YouTube] on television, and the student explained what an influencer was. She was like, “Did you change my grade?” Yes, I did.

Why did you decide to focus on entrepreneurship education?

I loved the class that first year of teaching it. It’s very different from teaching finance and accounting. When teaching entrepreneurship, you get to really know your students through the businesses they want to start. You get to know what drives them, and you’re part of the whole process of making that happen.

My entrepreneurship class is not just about memorizing facts and dates but applying those skills students are learning in class. They can apply them to anything, even if they’re not going to start a business. Maybe students are going into the medical field and want to become doctors. Regardless of the career choices my students make beyond this class, when they face a problem, they will already be thinking about all the opportunities to come up with a solution. And this will open many doors for them.

What’s your favorite lesson to teach and why?

One of the lessons I absolutely love to teach in my Entrepreneurship 1 class is our LEGO activity because it also touches upon accounting.

It’s a very hands-on activity where the students get to play with LEGOs and create a toy. But they also have to tell us a few things: They need to identify the target market for the toy they created, the cost of the materials, and the labor that will be needed. So it helps them figure out what to do for their own projects while practicing on LEGOs.

I mean who doesn’t like to play with LEGOs? The students have so much fun with this one.

What’s something happening in the community that affects what goes on inside your classroom or your school?

My classroom did see an increase in English-language learners, and with that came the need to adapt our curriculum to several languages including Spanish and French. Google Translate has been a major tool to overcome language barriers. I speak Spanish but not French, for example, so when I can’t translate for students personally, I rely on Google Translate.

But at the end of the day, the lessons of the curriculum are so universal and applicable to everyday things that, even if it takes them a little bit more time, they always learn and have fun in my classroom.

I have a student who is an English learner, and his business is a [bilingual English-Spanish] tutoring company that caters to both languages. So if there’s a language barrier, they will have a tutor who can teach you math and science in that language.

In your more than a decade in the classroom, what changes have you seen in terms of the skills your students need now?

I think that the dynamics of extracurricular activities outside the classroom have changed in the past couple of years because of the COVID-19 pandemic. We used to do a lot of trips where we would visit companies and give students the opportunity to shadow people in the industry, but this has become more challenging as companies aren’t all back in the office.

Our students absolutely love to be able to go out, go to companies, and talk to professionals to see what jobs and careers are out there for them. It’s also the little things that give them quite an impression, like, “Wow, look at their desk.” There was one trip last year where the students got free snacks, and they were like, “You give these out for free?”

It’s these experiences outside the classroom that broaden their horizons on what kind of workplaces to strive for and how to get there. And they can only get that from the people who work there.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received, and how have you put it into practice?

This goes for all teachers, especially those who are still starting out: Always have a plan B for the unexpected.

It’s not just about trying to make things work while they’re working. I faced this issue during my first year of teaching where I had a lesson plan, tested it all out, and the next day the website my entire lesson plan was focused on was taken down. And another teacher told me, “You just didn’t have a plan B.”

Always have a plan B, whatever it may be. The last thing you need is chaos in the classroom.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Eric Adams’ budget cuts hamper NYC’s compliance with special education court order

2023-12-13T18:23:59+00:00

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Facing budget cuts and a hiring freeze, New York City’s Education Department has failed to fully comply with a federal court order meant to address longstanding delays in providing services to children with disabilities, according to court documents released this month.

And a court-appointed monitor is urging City Council, Mayor Eric Adams, and other education officials to find “near-term/interim emergency funding” to meet the order’s requirements.

At a hearing in July, a federal judge ordered the Education Department to begin implementing 40 different reforms to more quickly provide special education services — such as speech therapy or payments to families for private school — to families who won them through an administrative legal process.

In an unusual show of support for a court order targeting his own agency, schools Chancellor David Banks personally attended the summer hearing, shaking U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska’s hand and posing for photographs. He issued a statement declaring that “change is long overdue,” earning praise from advocates who note the Education Department has not complied with orders for services on time in more than 90% of cases.

But out of 16 reforms the Education Department was required to make by mid-November to speed up that process, only nine were fully implemented, according to the first progress report from David Irwin of Thru Consulting LLC, the court-appointed monitor overseeing the city’s compliance with the order, known in legal jargon as a “special master.” (The 40 reforms mandated by the court order have deadlines that range from three months to over a year. The special master is expected to file a progress report every four months.)

The Education Department has “shown a significant commitment and effort” to implement the requirements, Irwin wrote, noting that “most” of the outstanding items due in November should be completed by the end of 2023.

Compliance with the order’s upcoming requirements in doubt

But a hiring freeze and budget reductions ordered by City Hall are impeding progress on key elements of the court order, specifically hiring staff and overhauling severely outdated technology systems, Irwin’s report notes. At least five of the 10 changes due in January are not likely to be completed on time, he wrote.

“Each day that passes, thousands of our most vulnerable children are not getting services they need when more steps could be taken,” Irwin wrote.

The office responsible for implementing special education orders relies on handwritten forms, paper-based invoices, and other laborious data-entry practices, a previous report found. Its staff are also overwhelmed, as the number of cases moving through the special education complaint process has exploded in recent years.

The court order was meant to give the Education Department a roadmap for improving its systems, hiring staff, and even launching a helpline for families to get status updates on their cases — goals that may be thrown off course if the department is unable to bring in new employees or win approval for budget requests.

Rebecca Shore, the litigation director of Advocates for Children, which brought a class action lawsuit that led to the court order this summer, said the Education Department has been making efforts to comply. But failing to implement elements of the order is unacceptable, she said.

“The budget constraints the city is announcing should not impact their compliance,” Shore said. Asked if her organization is planning to go back to court to enforce the order, Shore said her team is “discussing our options.”

Spokespeople for Adams and Banks did not answer questions about whether they will allocate needed funding or staff to comply with the court order.

“We continue to work collaboratively and intensively with the Special Master as we move forward,” City Hall spokesperson Amaris Cockfield wrote in an email. Preska, the federal judge presiding over the case, declined to comment.

Order stems from lawsuit filed in 2003

The federal court order stems from two decades of litigation over the Education Department’s failure to swiftly provide special education services or reimbursements. When a family believes their child is not getting the right special education services, they have a right to file a complaint that is heard by an administrative judge known as an impartial hearing officer.

That officer can order a range of solutions, from additional speech or occupational therapy to private school tuition payments if a family can show their child cannot be adequately served in a public school.

Under a 2007 legal settlement, the city is supposed to implement hearing officers’ orders by providing the required payments or special education services within 35 days, unless the officer lays out a different timeline. But the Education Department blows the deadline in the vast majority of cases, often taking months longer.

For orders with due dates between August and November 2022, the Education Department implemented 8.6% of orders for special education services on time and 3% of orders for payments, according to a recent audit released as a result of the 2007 settlement. (Those figures cover a period before the federal court order this summer; more recent figures were not yet publicly available.) The city has paid more than $25 million for the audits and another $912,000 for Irwin’s services as special master as of June.

John Farago, an impartial hearing officer since 1980 and an emeritus professor at CUNY Law School, said he has seen little difference in the speed with which the Education Department implements his orders since the summer.

Irwin’s report “just documents that not only is the district not implementing my cases on time, it’s not implementing the federal court’s order either” he wrote in an email. “It’s a deeply disheartening spiral.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

David Banks has a top priority: improving literacy. Will his agenda be overshadowed by budget cuts?

2023-12-08T10:00:00+00:00

Before running the nation’s largest education system, David Banks had never been responsible for supervising more than a single school.

He had years of on-the-ground experience and often ticks off the jobs he held — safety agent, teacher, principal. He helped launch the Eagle Academy, a network of six district schools devoted to boys of color, ultimately running the foundation that supports them. When Eric Adams, a longtime friend, tapped Banks to be his schools chief, the incoming mayor said he didn’t seriously consider anyone else.

Adams, who often spoke on the campaign trail about his own experience with dyslexia, never staked out a detailed education agenda. At the event formally naming him chancellor, Banks spoke in broad strokes about a “fundamentally flawed” system and a sprawling bureaucracy that isn’t set up to serve vulnerable children. The question remained: What direction would this chancellor take the city’s roughly 1,600 schools?

In contrast with his early comments about transforming a broken system, Banks has narrowed his focus. He’s staked out a goal above all others: improving the city’s dismal literacy rates, particularly for Black and Latino children. He also wants to create a stronger path to the workforce by expanding students’ access to career-focused coursework and paid internships.

To Banks’ supporters, focusing on a couple key issues is more likely to yield results. Still, others say that the administration has struggled to define a clear vision for improving the system as a whole, as many schools aren’t part of his signature initiatives.

Meanwhile, a looming set of budget cuts threaten to overshadow Banks’ agenda, as more than $7 billion in one-time federal relief money is drying up and Adams has ordered up to $2 billion in cuts on top of that.

Banks may have to maneuver to maintain funding for his top priorities. And he’ll have to navigate steady drum beats from politicians and advocates who are pushing to save a range of programs that serve high-need children.

“They are going to need to make tough decisions,” said Mark Dunetz, president of New Visions for Public Schools, an organization that supports a network of city schools. The challenge, he added, will be to make those choices “based on evidence of effectiveness rather than the push and pull of politics.”

A ‘realist’ at the helm?

Two weeks into the school year, Banks took the stage at Boys and Girls High School in Brooklyn, the mammoth auditorium packed with hundreds of department staff, union leaders, parents, and elected officials. With a slideshow at his back, and the mayor looking on, Banks was selling his vision — and in his element.

The “State of Our Schools” speech laid out his case for requiring all elementary schools to use one of three approved reading curriculums by next fall, ticking off statistics that show half the city’s students aren’t proficient in reading, figures that rise to about 60% for Black and Latino children.

“I’m really staking my reputation on reading,” Banks told Chalkbeat in a recent interview. “If you don’t get that right all these other things don’t really matter.”

Banks touted his other signature initiative, FutureReadyNYC, which helps 100 high schools offer more early college credit and paid work opportunities in education, technology, business, or health care. The effort will expand to 50 more schools next year, he said.

To Banks, zeroing in on those two issues is essential to make his mark. Given the system’s size and complexity, “if you don’t focus the entire operation on a couple of areas, it will be just rhetoric,” he told Chalkbeat.

Some observers agree the moment demands a scalpel rather than a sledgehammer, especially as schools are still digging out from under the pandemic and grappling with learning loss, mental health challenges, and alarming rates of chronic absenteeism.

When Banks took office, some educators wondered if he would pursue changes in the mold of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s divisive schools chief, Joel Klein. Klein sought to overhaul the district’s structure and moved to shutter large high schools and replace them with smaller ones like Eagle Academy. Banks tapped Dan Weisberg, Bloomberg’s school labor strategist who often sparred with the teachers union, to be his top deputy.

But observers said Banks has charted a less disruptive path, bringing the teachers union on board with his two biggest initiatives.

“Joel Klein said ‘I’m going to break the system so hard nobody is going to put it back together,’” said David Adams, the CEO of Urban Assembly, a network of about two dozen schools across the city. “I think being really strategic around where your energies are going to be put forth can be a more effective way of changing the system.”

Still, others said it’s difficult to discern Banks’ broader plan to improve schools across the system, a tension with Banks’ initial diagnosis that the system is “broken.”

This administration’s approach is “pretty small bore,” said Clara Hemphill, founder of the school review website InsideSchools. At this point in Mayor Bill de Blasio’s tenure, he had already added tens of thousands of pre-K seats, part of what is widely seen as a successful universal prekindergarten program.

“Having 70,000 pre-K seats was a huge, huge accomplishment. I don’t see a big issue like that with Adams,” Hemphill said. The current administration also seemed to be reversing course in some areas, she added, including abandoning de Blasio’s goal of expanding the program to include all 3-year-olds.

Hemphill acknowledged that improving literacy rates would be a major accomplishment, but she worries the most popular curriculum the city has mandated is not the strongest choice. Plus, the city disbanded an existing literacy coaching program in favor of training from outside vendors and scrapped a program that focused on improving literacy in middle schools, a move Hemphill found baffling.

For their part, school leaders have had mixed reactions to Banks’ tenure so far. Some expected the schools chief, a New York City principal himself for 11 years, to give them more freedom to innovate — something Banks signaled was a possibility.

De Blasio favored top-down supervision of principals, and many school leaders complained of burdensome compliance mandates. Banks has taken a step further, giving superintendents the authority to mandate which curriculums schools can use based on a list of approved options.

“The system is still running the way it was under the last administration which is: Schools are problems to be fixed rather than systems to be supported,” said one Brooklyn high school principal who spoke on condition of anonymity. “There’s just a whole lot more people out there trying to micromanage schools from afar.”

Banks said he believed strongly in principal autonomy when he was a school leader. “I also am a realist,” he said, adding that not every principal thrives with more freedom.

“If they were, we would have much better results than we have,” he recently told reporters.

Banks strikes a middle ground

Beyond his two main initiatives, critics and supporters alike say Banks has earned a reputation for hearing out opposing viewpoints and finding ways to compromise.

“If the evidence is there, he moves. He’s not ideological,” said Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, a strong supporter of Banks’ reading curriculum overhaul.

When Banks took office, he faced a key decision about whether many middle and high schools could resume screening students for top grades and test scores after pandemic-related disruptions to the admissions process.

The debate over how to proceed was charged, with some parents arguing that strong students should have access to accelerated learning opportunities at top schools. Others worried a return to the pre-pandemic norm would exacerbate segregation and contended that public schools should be open to all children.

Though Banks has bluntly suggested some students deserve to be in top schools more than others, he struck a middle path: Selective admissions would continue with key caveats. High schools may no longer consider state test scores, though they can still use students’ grades. For middle schools, he gave local superintendents the authority to determine how to use selective admissions. The result: far fewer screened middle school programs.

Jasmine Gripper, a frequent critic of the administration, said the approach is emblematic of Banks’ leadership style.

“The finesse of this administration has been their ability to take on hot button issues and produce a solution that neutralizes the opposition,” said Gripper, previously the executive director of the Alliance for Quality Education and now a leader of the state’s Working Families Party. Banks “leaves everyone walking away feeling like they won something.”

Financial challenges could derail Banks’ plans

The biggest obstacle on Banks’ plate right now may be one that’s much harder to control.

A brewing storm of fiscal problems could derail some of Banks’ existing initiatives, threaten to consume his agenda with painful fights over budget reductions, and make it difficult to find money for new programs.

More than $7 billion in one-time federal money is running dry. Starting with the previous administration, some of it has been used on recurring costs, including social workers, expanded summer programming, and new seats for preschool students with disabilities who had been shut out of universal pre-K. The funding has also been used to keep school budgets steady despite significant enrollment declines, raising the possibility of painful cuts at individual schools.

As the federal funds evaporate, Adams has also ordered the city to cut 5% of its contribution to all city agencies, a move he said is needed in part to finance services for thousands of asylum-seeking families. The Education Department recently outlined plans to reduce spending by $547 million, and it may need to slash roughly $1.5 billion more if Adams follows through on future rounds of cuts.

Advocates have warned that it will be impossible to make cuts of that size without affecting key programs, and the first round of cuts has already prompted political pushback.

A new state law mandating the city reduce class sizes looms over these fiscal pressures: The Education Department will need to spend billions more in the coming years to comply, city and fiscal watchdogs project.

On top of that, Banks may have another fight on the horizon. As enrollment declines accelerated during the pandemic, the city now has nearly 200 schools with 200 children or fewer.

Banks has suggested that mergers or closures could be on the table, a process that often generates outcry from parents and elected officials with deep roots in school communities.

“That’s kind of a ticking time bomb,” said Aaron Pallas, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College. “It’s just not going to be sustainable to maintain very small schools.”

Banks has offered few hints about how he plans to navigate the growing budget pressures, including what criteria he’s using to determine which programs survive. He said he’s “fighting like heck” to preserve funding for the literacy overhaul and career pathways initiative. Everything else is on the table.

“It’s gonna be a tough negotiating season,” Banks said.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Raucous protest against pro-Israel Queens teacher is ‘teachable moment,’ Banks says

2023-11-28T02:11:23+00:00

New York City schools Chancellor David Banks vowed Monday that last week’s chaotic student rally for the ouster of a pro-Israel teacher at Hillcrest High School can be a “teachable moment.”

The turmoil unfolded on Nov. 20 when hundreds of students filled the halls of the Queens school in protest of a social media photo of a teacher holding an “I Stand With Israel” sign, according to students and officials. Social media videos show a raucous gathering with students dancing in hallways and a water fountain ripped from the wall. The health teacher at the center of the protest, who is Jewish, took cover in an administrator’s office on a separate floor, officials said.

Multiple students were disciplined for their role in organizing the protest, but officials declined to provide details because of privacy restrictions.

The incident drew a wave of condemnations over the Thanksgiving break, including a statement from Mayor Eric Adams calling it a “vile show of anti-semitism.”

During a visit to the school Monday, Banks, an alum of Hillcrest, tried to strike a balance between denouncing students’ actions and pushing back on what he described as overly broad criticism of the students.

“A teacher … was targeted based on her support for Israel, expressed in a permissible way outside of school hours, and her Jewish identity, and that is completely unacceptable,” Banks said Monday.

He added, in reference to media coverage of the incident and statements from some elected officials, that “the notion … these kids are radicalized and antisemitic is the height of irresponsibility, and I for one will not accept that at all.”

Students used social media to organize the walkout, which started during a changeover between classes, officials said. An estimated 400 students participated in the initial protest out of Hillcrest’s roughly 2,300-person student body. A followup student protest was planned for Nov. 22, but administrators were able to shut it down before it started, officials said.

School officials said they got wind of the Nov. 20 protest in time to alert police, who responded quickly. The teacher targeted in the protest, whose name Chalkbeat is withholding to protect her privacy, was already in an administrator’s office on another floor talking with police when the protest began, and she stayed there throughout, officials said.

Banks maintained the teacher was “never in direct danger.”

The educator didn’t reply to a request for comment, but previously told the New York Post that she was “shaken to my core by the calls to violence against me that occurred online and outside my classroom last week.”

Several students and elected officials also reported students threatened the teacher and posted her address online.

Banks said the teacher is expected to return to work this week and promised that the school will “ensure her safety” and that staff and students will “wrap arms around” her.

The school is partnering with an organization called Operation Respect to help lead conversations about improving school culture, officials said.

Students at Hillcrest acknowledged Monday that the protest had gotten out of hand, but maintained that the students who escalated the action weren’t the ones who’d organized it.

“It was meant to be a peaceful protest in the very beginning,” said Muhammad Ghazali, the senior class president. “But some of these students lack maturity. These are teenagers.”

Many of the students who participated didn’t “think of it as a serious moment or a moment to actually go out and protest,” but “did it for their personal enjoyment,” he added.

Another student who spoke to Chalkbeat anonymously pushed back on the accusation that the protest was antisemitic.

“The intent … was just to be pro-Palestine,” the student said. “It was not, it was not to attack her for being Jewish. We have teachers that are Jewish, and we love them to death.”

Banks said he came to Hillcrest Monday not just to offer a condemnation but to listen to students and try to better understand what sparked their anger.

Roughly 30% of Hillcrest’s students are Muslim, and some “came from warzones” like Yemen, said one Hillcrest educator who spoke on the condition of anonymity. What’s happening in Gaza is “traumatic” for them, the educator added.

“They consume their information through social media,” Banks said. “And what they are seeing on a daily basis are children and young people in Palestine … being blown up.”

“When they all of a sudden saw this image of the teacher that says, ‘I Stand With Israel,’ the students articulated to me they took that as a message that I’m affirming whatever is happening to the Palestinian family and community,” Banks said. “That made sense to me.”

Schools across New York City have struggled with how — and if — to talk to students about Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, in which militants killed an estimated 1,200 Israelis and took more than 200 hostage, and Israel’s subsequent bombardment, which has killed more than 14,000 people, according to Palestinian health authorities.

Students told Chalkbeat they’re inundated with graphic images of the violence on social media and often struggle to make sense of conflicting sources of information. Many crave safe spaces to talk about those issues in school.

But many educators are wary of wading into such a potentially explosive conversation — some more so after Banks reminded teachers not to share their political beliefs in class and cautioned about out-of-school political activism.

Several Hillcrest students said they had few chances to talk about what is happening in Gaza and Israel before last week’s events.

“Don’t just think you can just skate by it,” one student said. “Because these [issues] are in these children’s hearts, and they’re going to feel a type of way about it. So it’s best to address it … It’s a boiling pot. Now, that exploded, and this is what happened.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

How is NYC’s literacy curriculum mandate going? Teachers feel unprepared.

2023-11-27T10:00:00+00:00

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For nearly all of her decadelong teaching career, Abby Loomis used one of the most popular reading programs in New York City, a curriculum that aimed to foster a love of literature by giving students plenty of time to independently read books of their choosing.

She found the program, developed by Teachers College professor Lucy Calkins, engaging — particularly for students who were easily absorbed by books. Still, she noticed many other children struggled to read independently, and Loomis cobbled together other resources to help them.

So, the fourth grade teacher felt open minded when the city announced in May a sweeping overhaul of elementary literacy instruction, forcing schools to abandon programs like Calkins’ in favor of those that city officials say line up with an established body of research about how children learn to read, often called the “science of reading.”

But a couple months into the city’s curriculum overhaul, Loomis and several other teachers said they haven’t yet received the training they need to make it work.

“The general sentiment at my school is we’re being asked to start something without really knowing what it should look like,” said Loomis, who asked that her Brooklyn school not be named. “I feel like I’m improvising — and not based on the science of reading.”

In nearly half of the city’s local districts this fall, elementary school teachers were required to adopt one of three curriculums alongside separate phonics lessons that explicitly teach students the relationships between sounds and letters. The remaining elementary schools will be required to use the materials next school year.

Literacy experts have largely praised the new mandate. By moving from a hodgepodge of different curriculums that varied school by school, it’s easier to train teachers at a larger scale. The city has added a pacing calendar that tells educators how quickly they should move through the materials, meaning children may face less disruption if they switch schools.

But observers also warned that getting teachers up to speed quickly with new materials would prove challenging — and that success would hinge on whether teachers felt adequately supported. The city did not give schools much lead time, announcing the overhaul less than two months before the summer break. Teachers were expected to roll out new materials when they returned in September.

Top Education Department officials have said there was little time to waste. About half the city’s students are proficient in reading on state tests — figures that fall to about 40% among Black and Latino children.

“In the best of all worlds, we would have studied this for the next three or four years,” schools Chancellor David Banks said in an interview with Chalkbeat. “We are building the plane as we are flying it because kids’ lives are actually hanging in the balance.”

Training efforts are underway

Education Department spokesperson Nicole Brownstein said the city offered training for all teachers who are using new reading curriculums.

Teachers received between two and three days of training, though teachers said the introductory sessions offered by curriculum companies were mostly broad overviews including how to access digital materials rather than deep dives on instruction.

Educators: How are you preparing for NYC's reading curriculum mandate? Take our quick survey.

After disbanding its in-house literacy coaching program, Education Department officials contracted with several outside companies to provide individualized coaching to educators. All teachers in the first phase should have participated in at least one coaching session so far, Brownstein said, and will receive at least eight sessions overall. The city’s teachers union also hosted two-week seminars over the summer and has over 200 coaches helping teachers with the new materials, a union spokesperson said.

“Educators are receiving ongoing supports, including 1-on-1 coaching, throughout the school year to ensure that they are comfortable with the material and able to teach it with fidelity,” Brownstein said.

Most teachers are using a program called Into Reading from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the curriculum required by 13 of the 15 district superintendents who are part of the mandate’s first phase.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt made its sprawling set of digital materials free for city educators during the pandemic, and boasts a Spanish language version, likely contributing to its popularity. About 53% of schools in the first phase were already using Into Reading before this fall, Brownstein said.

But even as many educators weren’t starting from scratch, several teachers including Loomis — whose school began incorporating Into Reading during the pandemic — said they’ve still struggled with the densely packed lessons.

A classroom board at with an Into Reading lesson at Democracy Prep Endurance Elementary School on June 15, 2023 in the Bronx. Charters aren't subject to the city's curriculum mandate.

Teachers crave more hands-on help

One Brooklyn elementary school teacher said the rollout has been frustrating, noting that some teacher guides arrived late. And while she has concerns about the Into Reading curriculum, including criticism about its cultural responsiveness and emphasis on short text excerpts rather than whole books, she said the coaching has been a bright spot.

During twice-a-month meetings that last two periods, the school’s teachers are encouraged to bring their lesson plans for the next week so they can trouble-shoot with their coach, who was provided by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. “I am learning a lot,” said the teacher, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “I wish it was longer.”

Other teachers said their interaction with coaches has been limited, and crave more guidance on how to transition away from Calkins’ approach. Some schools that previously used Calkins’ materials paid for regular coaching that was popular with many teachers.

Into Reading involves longer periods of teacher-led instruction, and typically asks students to read more difficult texts at their grade level. Instead of encouraging children to read books of their choosing, they spend more time collectively reading excerpts from a textbook.

Some educators said they’re looking for help making the lessons more captivating, finding that students may not be able to sit still for 30 minutes or more of teacher-led instruction compared with the tighter 10- to 15-minute lessons in Calkins’ curriculum. Others said the program’s texts are more difficult and are looking for strategies to make them accessible, especially for English learners or students with disabilities. The curriculum is packed with resources, from vocabulary and spelling materials to writing activities, with little time to get to them all, teachers said.

Meanwhile, multiple educators said they’ve been directed to reconfigure their classroom libraries so that they’re no longer organized by reading level, a hallmark of Calkins’ approach. But it’s a time-consuming task that has frustrated some teachers who contend they received little explanation about what the goal of the reorganization is.

One veteran teacher misses elements of Calkins’ curriculum, which involved modeling a skill and then sending students off to practice on their own. She feels like the scripted lessons from Into Reading lack creativity.

“I feel like I’m not really sure how much they’re loving reading,” said the teacher, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

She’s also struggled with moments when the Into Reading curriculum assumes students have skills that haven’t been explicitly introduced yet, such as a recent writing exercise that involved apostrophes. The teacher quickly pivoted to a mini grammar lesson on the fly.

“I didn’t do it very well because I was trying to cover so many different skills in the little time I had,” she said.

A coach observed one of her lessons, but there wasn’t time for feedback. The teacher said she’s turned to Facebook groups when she has questions. Though she’s been in the classroom since the 1980s, pivoting to a new curriculum has left her feeling like a novice, spending Friday evenings poring over lesson plans for the next week.

Supporters say curriculum overhauls take time

Third grade teacher Marnie Geltman.

Teachers have struggled with other elements of the reading overhaul, including a push to more consistently deploy phonics lessons.

Marnie Geltman, a third grade teacher at P.S. 150 in Queens, said she typically teaches older children where phonics lessons aren’t the norm. Geltman said that neither she nor her co-teacher have received much training on how to deliver the highly regimented lessons.

Education department officials said the city continuously provides phonics training, though Geltman said they’ve filled up quickly and she hasn’t participated yet.

“I just think it’s been too fast,” she said. “We should have been trained first.”

Others involved in the city’s literacy efforts said it is unsurprising that teachers feel overwhelmed in the initial phases of the transition.

Lynette Guastaferro, the CEO of Teaching Matters, an organization that has contracted with the city to help train teachers in three local districts, said the first year of a curriculum change is typically a big learning curve.

She stressed that changing curriculum strategies is a long-term project.

“We’re two months in,” she said. “This is about the next five years of change.”

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Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC students want to talk about Israel and Gaza. Schools are struggling to keep up.

2023-11-21T23:21:34+00:00

For many New York City teenagers, the violence that’s unfurled thousands of miles away in Israel and the Gaza Strip over the past seven weeks has felt startlingly close to home.

Both Muslim and Jewish students told Chalkbeat they’ve noticed an uptick in hurtful and derogatory comments from classmates at school or over social media, echoing a recent state review that found Islamophobic and antisemitic rhetoric have each jumped by more than 400% on social media since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the country’s retaliation.

Students, meanwhile, are glued to their phones. They’re trying to keep up with an endless stream of often-graphic social media content about the ongoing war while attempting to sift through a barrage of conflicting information and viewpoints, they said.

It’s “scary … to be teenagers and dealing with antisemitism and Islamophobia,” one Brooklyn high school student said, adding that they were “grappling with how to feel about this horrible thing that’s going on that we don’t have any control over.”

School can feel like one of the few safe places to make sense of the Israel-Hamas war, learn about the historical underpinnings of the crisis, and try in some small way to take action, teens said.

Hamas militants killed an estimated 1,200 Israelis and took another 240 hostage, and Israel’s subsequent bombardment of Gaza has killed at least 11,000 Palestinians, including thousands of children.

City schools, however, are taking divergent approaches to navigating conversations about the war, and in some cases largely avoiding it, according to interviews with educators and students at six high schools, most of whom spoke only on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

At some high schools — particularly large ones — pressure to keep up with fast-paced curriculums, fears about further inflaming tensions, and caution about steering clear of political landmines, especially after a warning from schools Chancellor David Banks to keep personal views out of the classroom, have made it difficult to create dedicated spaces to talk about the war, educators and students told Chalkbeat.

“It’s kind of like an elephant in the room for many students,” said a senior at Midwood High School in Brooklyn. “There haven’t been any discussions in classes.”

“It’s very sensitive … and no one wants to get written up or lose their job,” added a Brooklyn Tech staffer. “No one wants to say anything because no one wants to get into trouble.”

The Education Department provided school leaders with a resource guide to “help them work with their staff to support instruction based on facts about the war in the Middle East as well as resources on supporting students during this difficult time,” spokesperson Chyann Tull said.

Banks’s warning about political speech was only meant to reiterate existing city rules and to encourage teachers to remain objective when discussing charged issues, according to officials.

At one Brooklyn high school, students frustrated by the lack of opportunities to talk about the conflict during the school day organized an after-school meeting, supervised by teachers at school, between Jewish and Muslim student groups. They plan to invite expert speakers to give students more background, according to a student who helped organize the events and spoke anonymously for fear of retaliation.

“Having these conversations is really important, and if we can have them in a setting that’s monitored and we have access to concrete information, that’s really helpful,” the student said. “It’s something that 16-year-olds should not have to organize … but I think teachers are scared to be talking about it.”

Some schools and teachers wade into difficult conversations

That’s not to say there aren’t educators and schools across the city wading into difficult conversations.

Kate Cook, a Spanish and senior advisory teacher at Brooklyn Tech, doesn’t normally teach about Israel and the Palestinian territories, and she was nervous about upsetting kids and doing justice to the complex history of the conflict. In each of her classes, she knew she’d likely have multiple students with ties to the region, heightening the stakes. But she decided the risks of avoiding the discussion outweighed the potential pitfalls of diving into it.

“If teachers don’t address it, it sends the message it’s not important and we don’t care about it,” she said.

Cook started with several informal check-ins shortly after Oct. 7 and again after the Israeli bombardment of Gaza began, and asked students to check in on both their Jewish and Muslim classmates. Several weeks later, she led a lesson meant to help students think through all of the ways they process news about the war – intellectually, emotionally, and as a matter of conscience.

There were challenging moments, including a spirited debate between a student forcefully arguing “Hamas needs to be eradicated” and another saying you “can’t ignore” decades of occupation, Cook said.

But she knew it was the right decision when the mother of one of her students approached her at parent-teacher conferences to thank her. The girl had family in Israel and “came home in tears because she was so happy” Cook had checked in with her students, the mom said.

“Particularly at a big school, we can often underestimate our impact as teachers,” Cook said. “But when something big happens in the world, we need to say something.”

Other educators who’ve led classroom lessons about the conflict said they prompted valuable discussions about the relative advantages of social and mainstream media.

Teachers said they tried to help students approach social media more skeptically and spot misinformation without dismissing their arguments that social media has galvanized young people and made information accessible to them in a way mass media hasn’t.

“With the mass media, you are fed information, but on social media, you get to contribute to the message,” one Brooklyn Tech teacher recalled a student saying.

At several smaller schools, teachers have organized optional “teach-ins” during lunch periods and after school for students who want more background on the conflict.

“It was very informative and it didn’t try to force a stance and gave students a chance to make their own conclusions,” said Alexander Calafiura, a senior at East Side Community High School in Manhattan who attended one such session to get a better factual understanding of the conflict. (Calafiura is currently a Student Voices fellow at Chalkbeat).

Teachers who led lessons on the conflict said they were acutely aware that it’s emotional for students and took pains to keep their classrooms feeling safe.

One Brooklyn Tech teacher said he had students frequently flash “thumbs-up” signs to each other to indicate they were OK continuing the lesson. Sari Beth Rosenberg, a history teacher at the High School for Environmental Studies in Manhattan, started her lesson by asking students to agree on the shared principle that all death is bad.

“I think you’re more likely to have a civil discourse if you start it off by framing it as ‘what do we agree on,’” she said.

Students, teachers, and pro-Palestinian allies march through Midtown Manhattan during a student walkout protest calling for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas on Nov. 9, 2023 in New York.

Politics loom large

The crisis in Israel and Gaza has reignited long-standing debates about the appropriate role of politics in school.

On Nov. 8, the day before a planned student walkout calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, Banks sent the message to all city schools staffers reminding them that city rules bar teachers from expressing their personal political views in class, and that even out-of-school political activity could be out of bounds if it causes a disruption in school.

An Education Department spokesperson said Banks’ warning wasn’t in response to any single event, and Banks told the publication City & State that his intention was not to “silence anybody.”

But critics including New York Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Donna Lieberman argued the missive would “likely have the effect of stifling political discussion both inside the classroom and in the broader community.”

Some educators said that’s indeed come to pass.

“I think it’s egregious that our voices are being censored right now,” said a social worker who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “As faculty and staff we’ve been clearly discouraged from supporting these students.”

Some students and staff argue, moreover, that condemning Hamas’s attack – like Banks did on Oct. 10 – without also acknowledging the ongoing siege of Gaza is itself a political stance.

One Midwood High School student who participated in the Nov. 9 walkout said it “symbolizes our anger towards the Department of Education for their neutral stance and support of the genocide,” a term that has been hotly contested as a way to describe Israel’s siege of Gaza.

At Brooklyn Tech, students sent a letter last week to Principal David Newman criticizing his decision to send an Oct. 10 email acknowledging the Oct. 7 atrocities in Israel without sending a subsequent message acknowledging the deaths in Gaza.

“The Palestinians currently being killed in Gaza at overwhelming rates, most of whom are women and children, are, above all, innocent civilians,” the students wrote. “They, just as innocent Israeli civilians addressed in Mr. Newman’s email, do not deserve death or suffering in any way. They deserve the same amount of respect as the Israeli civilians that Mr. Newman addressed in his email.”

The students also called for more dedicated spaces in school to talk about the conflict, and additional counseling resources.

Newman didn’t respond to a request for comment.

But it’s not only statements about the violence in Gaza that have proven controversial: At the Museum School in Manhattan, administrators declined to include a statement from the Jewish Student Union condemning the Oct. 7 attacks in the school newsletter out of concern it violated Education Department rules on political speech, the school’s newspaper reported.

The debates over political speech also play out on the smaller stage of individual classrooms.

For some teachers, keeping a firewall between personal political beliefs and classroom teaching is critical.

“We shouldn’t be talking about our political beliefs in the classroom, I don’t think that should be controversial,” said Rosenberg, the Manhattan history teacher, adding that teachers’ backgrounds also shouldn’t play a role in how they discuss current and political events.

“Your classroom is not the place to work out your identity issues,” she said.

But other teachers argue it’s not so simple, and that shielding students entirely from their political beliefs and biases is unrealistic and counterproductive.

“If people ask me, I will have separate conversations,” said one Bronx history teacher, who said her students know she is both Jewish and “anti-occupation.”

“I have no problem with people seeing my point of view as one point of view.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

NYC’s new algebra curriculum mandate divides educators

2023-11-10T21:08:58+00:00

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The ninth graders in Katie Carson’s Algebra I class had only a foggy memory of how to use the “greater than” and “less than” signs that appeared in their warm-up exercise on a recent Tuesday afternoon.

One student said he hadn’t seen the symbols since elementary school.

Carson, a teacher at Energy Tech High School in Long Island City, Queens, gave her class no explanation. Instead, she asked students what they noticed about how the signs work.

“If the open side is pointing to the left, it’s less than, and if it’s to the right it’s greater,” volunteered a student named Adam.

The answer wasn’t right, but Carson gamely copied it onto the whiteboard and began testing it on sample problems. A minute later, Adam interjected. “It doesn’t work. I think it’s whatever the open side is on, that’s greater.”

Dropping students into unfamiliar math problems with minimal introduction and refraining from correcting their errors can seem counterintuitive in a subject where the answers are black and white. But those practices are at the core of an approach that Carson says has transformed her teaching. It’s one that New York City officials are hoping can spark a sea change in how math is taught across the five boroughs.

Carson’s school was an early adopter of Illustrative Math, the curriculum New York City officials began rolling out this year as part of an unprecedented effort to improve and standardize the way algebra is taught across the city’s more-than-400 high schools.

This year, more than 260 schools are using Illustrative Math for Algebra I, while receiving extra coaching, professional development, and supervision from the Education Department. The Algebra I curriculum mandate is set to expand next year, though a department official didn’t say whether it will reach all high schools by then.

A message on the whiteboard of Katie Carson's Algebra I class at Energy Tech High School in Long Island City, Queens.

The stakes are high: Fewer than half of the city’s elementary and middle school students scored proficient on state math exams this year.

The pandemic has only heightened the challenge. Passage rates for high-schoolers on the year-end Algebra II Regents exam, which builds on Algebra I, fell a whopping 24 percentage points over the course of the pandemic, from 69% in 2019 to 45% in 2022, according to state data.

There are also gaping disparities in math achievement between schools: At some selective high schools, 100% of students who took the Algebra I Regents exam last year passed. At others, where almost all students are Black or Latino and low-income, zero did, city data shows.

Two months in, the experiment in shared curriculum has divided educators. Some argue it’s a long-overdue shift toward teaching that prizes deep conceptual understanding of math over rote practice and memorization. But other teachers say the curriculum lacks the kind of structure and built-in repetition that many students — particularly struggling ones — need.

“We show them something and don’t tell them anything, and it’s ‘What do you think?’ with no guidance,” said one special education math teacher in Queens participating in the pilot this year, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. “For a special education student who already needs a little more help, it makes it almost impossible, they check out, they lose interest.”

Proponents of the curriculum, especially teachers who’ve used it for multiple years, say they’ve found just the opposite: The curriculum’s open-endedness can help draw in even the most resistant students.

“You typically have students who walk into a math class and have heard … that they’re either a math person or they’re not,” Carson said. “But when they walk into an [Illustrative Math] class, the curriculum doesn’t care if you’re ‘good at math…’ it just makes you explain and prove and share and discuss in a way that it’s going to be challenging for everyone.”

To standardize or not to standardize?

Schools Chancellor David Banks has bet big on the idea that standardizing curriculum can move the academic needle citywide in a system where that’s notoriously hard to do.

Alongside the math push, he’s requiring the city’s elementary school superintendents to choose among three pre-selected reading curricula that officials say better align with a growing body of research about how kids learn to read. The literacy push has gotten significantly more attention, but educators say the math initiative is no less important – or controversial.

Traditionally, high schools and secondary math educators have had wide latitude to select or create their curriculum. For some teachers, especially experienced ones, that freedom can be helpful and spark innovation. Banks, however, argues that as a citywide policy, curricular autonomy has produced mediocre and inequitable results.

“Everybody is not ready for that level of autonomy,” he recently told reporters. “Because if they were, we would have much better results than we have.”

Why Algebra I?

Banks’s curriculum mandate isn’t the first time city officials have tried to boost math achievement by targeting algebra.

An initiative called “Algebra For All” under former Mayor Bill de Blasio attempted to give every student a chance to complete Algebra I by the end of eighth grade – a goal that has become a flashpoint in national debates about equity and math instruction.

That experiment yielded some positive results: In 2023, about 45% of the city’s 62,000 eighth graders took the Algebra I Regents exam, according to the Education Department – up from 30% in 2015. About three-quarters of them passed.

But disparities remain: A higher proportion of white and Asian American students took the test in eighth grade than Black and Latino students, and they were far more likely to pass it, according to a Chalkbeat review of 2022 Algebra I Regents results in more than 200 middle schools.

For the remaining students who either never took the course in eighth grade or flunked the exam, finishing it in ninth grade is critical, educators argue.

Without that, there’s little chance students will be able to advance to higher-level math courses like precalculus or calculus.

Algebra I teacher Katie Carson works through a problem on the whiteboard during a recent class at Energy Tech High School in Long Island City, Queens.

Teachers of high school Algebra I say there are significant obstacles to that goal, including a large number of students who are far behind grade level.

In many cases, teachers feel pressure to return to what feel like safer approaches, like relying on rote practice and pausing grade-level instruction to focus on remediating basic skills like multiplication, multiple educators said.

Jason Ovalles, a math teacher at Chelsea Career and Technical Education High School and master teacher through the professional organization Math for America, knows that pressure well. He began his career as a middle school teacher in East New York without a set curriculum. He tried finding interesting problems and activities on his own, but was often “pulled back” into the way he was taught: “Just tell them how it’s supposed to be, so that they can copy what you did.”

Switching to Illustrative Math allowed him to keep up with grade-level math without alienating or discouraging his struggling students, Ovalles said. Proponents hope it can do the same thing citywide.

Curriculum draws mixed reactions

Illustrative Math was created in 2011 by a University of Arizona professor in the wake of sweeping changes to math teaching during the 2009 rollout of the Common Core standards, a set of benchmarks meant to give states shared academic goals.

Other large school districts, including Los Angeles, are also rolling out the curriculum at scale.

Teachers participating in New York City’s pilot get eight professional development sessions and between eight and 12 visits from an instructional coach throughout the school year, according to the Education Department.

But multiple educators said there are major flaws in the curriculum, and the Education Department’s approach to rolling it out.

Some students don’t have the necessary vocabulary or background knowledge to engage in the open-ended discussions, said one Brooklyn educator who used the curriculum last year at his administrators’ behest. He compared it to asking students in an automotive class who’ve never seen a car engine before to fix a muffler.

“All the investigative time in the world will not make them successful at making it run quietly,” said the teacher, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

The lack of built-in practice time can make it difficult to verify whether students fully understand concepts before moving on, several educators added.

Katie Carson, standing (in gray shirt), teaches Algebra I at Energy Tech High School on Oct. 31, 2023 in Long Island City, Queens.

Teachers who have used the curriculum for years countered that part of what makes it work is that students don’t need vocabulary up front. They can describe concepts in their own words – a feature that’s especially helpful for English language learners – and teachers can bring in the technical terms later.

Ovalles said he’s learned that it’s okay – and expected – to move on before every student understands 100% of the lesson because the curriculum builds in future opportunities to revisit topics.

Education Department officials are holding teachers to a pacing guide, reminding teachers when they should wrap up units, according to communications reviewed by Chalkbeat.

Several educators said the pacing expectations are unrealistic and have made it harder to adjust to the new curriculum. An Education Department official said the pacing guide is “not a mandate” and teachers have freedom to spend longer on individual lessons if they need.

Regents loom large

A big question hangs over the entire experiment: Will the new curriculum improve results on the year-end Regents exams?

Multiple educators who are using the curriculum for the first time said they’re worried that it doesn’t align well with the Regents. The test is mainly multiple choice and it phrases questions in specific ways.

Energy Tech has been using Illustrative Math since 2020 as part of a pilot funded by New Visions, a network that runs and supports public schools, and the school saw its percentage of students who passed the Algebra I test rise from 64% in 2019 to 72% last year, even as citywide numbers declined, according to state data.

Kiran Purohit, the vice president of curriculum and instruction at New Visions, said overall, the schools in the pilot “saw a better post-Covid recovery” in Algebra I than the city average, with an especially big bump for English learners.

Sixteen-year-old Energy Tech student Mostafa Aboelfadl said he’s “not the best test-taker” and would often freeze up on open-response questions on the Regents. But after spending a year chipping away bit-by-bit at complex problems in his Illustrative Math algebra class, he said he realized he could “extract points” from Regents questions even if he didn’t know the full answers.

An Education Department spokesperson said the pacing guide includes some designated Regents review days and suggestions about which lessons can be “deprioritized” because they don’t appear on the exams.

It’s also likely that the Regents test itself and its role will continue to shift. The Algebra I Regents exam is changing this year to better reflect a new set of learning standards. And a Blue Ribbon commission is poised to release a set of recommendations about how and whether Regents exams should continue to serve as graduation requirements.

Ovalles said after several years of using the curriculum, he hasn’t seen much change in his students’ Regents scores – but that’s okay.

In the past, he’d spend “spend weeks and months” on Regents prep, only to see scores stay flat as well.

Now, at least, the tone seems to have shifted among students. “They’re actually understanding math better and are more confident talking about it,” he said. “It feels like a net positive.”

Alex Zimmerman contributed.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

NYC cautions teachers about political speech amid planned walkout over war in Gaza

2023-11-08T23:37:57+00:00

In advance of a planned student and staff walkout at some New York City schools Thursday to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, schools Chancellor David Banks warned teachers about violating Education Department rules on political speech.

In an email to school staff Wednesday, Banks urged educators to keep their personal political beliefs out of the classroom — and warned that even out-of-school political activity can violate city rules if it “disrupts … the school environment.”

“When speech and action — even on one’s personal time — undermines the mission or core functions of NYCPS, we will review and take appropriate action on a case-by-case basis,” he wrote.

The warning comes a day before some city students and staff plan to walk out of school to call for an end to Israel’s ongoing bombardment of Gaza in response to Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks.

A flyer for the event advertised “100+ high schools and school communities” organizers say are planning to walk out and join an afternoon rally in Bryant Park. Organizers of the event, including left-leaning teacher groups, parent organizations, and youth activist groups, also asked participants to call congressional representatives and encouraged parent groups to draft resolutions calling for a ceasefire.

Debates over political speech for students and staff have flared at educational institutions across the country in the month since the Hamas attack that killed an estimated 1,400 Israelis, mostly civilians, and took another 200 hostage. The subsequent Israeli bombardment and invasion of Gaza has killed an estimated 10,000 Palestinians, including thousands of children.

Tajh Sutton, a Brooklyn parent and president of Community Education Council 14, which is co-sponsoring the Thursday walkout, said its goal was to provide a “safe space to be in solidarity not only with Palestinian but Arab and Muslim families and young people.”

Sutton said she thought it was “no coincidence” that the chancellor’s warning came the day before the walkout, and said she interpreted it as an attempt to discourage staff from participating.

An Education Department spokesperson said the email was “written not in response to any particular event” and was “not meant to discourage or encourage any particular staff members.”

“We believe our staff will appreciate having clarity about how to balance their personal views and professional responsibilities,” the spokesperson added.

Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said the chancellor’s letter is “inside the bounds of the law” but will “likely have the effect of stifling political discussion both inside the classroom and in the broader community.”

“The Department of Education should spend more time giving teachers the tools to support robust political debate, navigate students’ high emotions, and address serious issues — and less time monitoring their social media accounts,” she added.

Banks weighed in on Oct. 10 to condemn the “horrific acts of violence” committed by Hamas and provided a list of resources for educators to discuss the situation with students.

In an Oct. 26 joint statement with Mayor Eric Adams, Banks decried the “insensitive and threatening language” in “many of the images and videos we’ve seen at educational institutions across our city and this nation over the last few weeks.” Adams and Banks didn’t cite specific incidents, but several city students and educators have come under fire for inflammatory language in social media posts and protests.

Parent organizations have also entered the fray. Some Community Education Councils have passed resolutions condemning the Hamas attacks and expressing support for Israel. Sutton, the CEC 14 president, said her council is introducing a resolution calling for a ceasefire.

The Education Department regulation governing political speech says “school buildings are not public forums for purposes of community or political expression” and prohibits teachers from using school time or resources to advocate for specific candidates, political parties, or “political organizations.”

This isn’t the first time the regulation has come up in relation to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In 2019, the group Palestine Legal challenged the Education Department’s use of the regulation to justify a principal asking a teacher to remove a shirt supporting the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement, which seeks to cut off economic support for Israel.

There’s legal precedent for school administrators to mete out discipline for out-of-school activities that disrupt the school environment. Department officials recently backed a Queens principal’s threat to discipline students for following certain Instagram accounts that he said contributed to cyberbullying.

Mergers, migrants, curriculum mandates: NYC schools chief David Banks on his first 2 years

2023-11-07T11:00:00+00:00

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When David Banks took the reins of New York City’s public schools, he offered a blunt diagnosis. The system is “fundamentally flawed,” he said, and in need of complete transformation.

Nearly two years later, the chancellor’s vision for improving the system is coming into sharper focus. Rather than pursuing aggressive changes in many areas of the system, he has prioritized one problem above all others: Nearly half of students aren’t proficient readers.

In a wide-ranging interview with Chalkbeat, Banks indicated the nation’s largest school system is too unwieldy to change on many fronts at once. And if children graduate without basic reading skills, little else matters, he says.

So far, the literacy overhaul has been swift and bumpy, with some elementary school teachers saying that they haven’t felt prepared enough to deploy new reading curriculums this fall — reports that Banks acknowledged while defending the pace of the rollout.

But even as Banks makes reading instruction his signature issue, the system is still facing many other challenges. Roughly $7 billion in federal relief funding is drying up, and Mayor Eric Adams is ordering significant cuts on top of that. There are a growing number of significantly under-enrolled schools — some of which Banks said will likely need to be consolidated. And the city is also contending with a massive influx of migrant children, many of whom have faced significant trauma and disruptions to their schooling.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You’re coming up on two years running the nation’s largest school system. What surprised you most about the role that you didn’t anticipate?

I think the level of distrust that so many people have about the quote unquote ‘DOE’ [Department of Education]. It’s almost like we can’t trust whatever you say. When I say that, I’m talking about community members, for the most part — parents. There was a heightened state of agitation. And not something that I did. It was just…they were almost ready for battle at every moment.

And I think it was Deputy Chancellor Kenita Lloyd who said to me, ‘There’s been a broken trust.’ And it demonstrated itself in ways like the PEP [Panel for Educational Policy]. You have the PEP meeting that goes all night long.

I said, ‘This doesn’t even make any sense to me.’ People have to stay up ‘till 2, 3 o’clock in the morning for their two minutes. I think the sense was that people didn’t feel like they were being heard. So they’re ready to be really loud to try to be heard.

Once I got in and I got settled I could understand what it was. And I think it’s also my greatest achievement of having been here so far, which is I think we’ve done a lot to help to rebuild a level of trust with communities.

When you were first appointed, you offered a fairly dark assessment of the city’s public school system, saying it was ‘fundamentally flawed.’ You suggested there were too many people working in central jobs away from school. What is your assessment today? Have you done anything to trim the central office other than eliminating the executive superintendent roles?

We have moved, since I’ve been here, over 300 people off of our payroll, number one. Number two, through the local superintendents, we have moved dozens and dozens of people closer to the action into the superintendents’ offices.

What I came to realize is that the narrative of this bloated bureaucracy that’s uncaring — is actually not true. There are a lot of people here, who care deeply about what goes on. I think that’s why the NYC Reads stuff [the reading curriculum overhaul] is so important to me. Because I think we’ve not gotten the results in our schools, which has caused everybody to be turned off. And it’s caused even the people who work here to be deeply frustrated.

Some of your early rhetoric suggested that you were interested in a total transformation of the system. It seems like that kind of rhetoric has given way to a more pragmatic set of initiatives focused on improving the quality of early literacy instruction, and also exposing more students to career options before they graduate. Are there any other big projects on the horizon?

My legacy work will really be around what we’re doing with literacy. And then I think the work we’re doing on career-connected learning and pathways will be right behind it.

But I’m really staking my reputation on reading in particular. Because I do believe that fundamentally, as somebody who’s been in the classroom for years, and has led schools, that it’s the foundation. If you don’t get that right all these other things don’t really matter. It’s the reason why you don’t hear me talking about 20 different things, although we’re doing lots of other things.

I can connect those to other areas that I think are really important and where we’re going to be going as a system. And that would really be around virtual learning, artificial intelligence, the use of technology. I think those kinds of things will fundamentally, whether we like it or not, change not just our system. All systems across America are in for a sea change in that regard. So I’m doing a lot of work behind the scenes to try to figure out how we can get out in front where New York City can lead on that.

But none of that will even matter if kids can’t read.

Your background is mostly in working with middle and high school students. How did you become persuaded to make early literacy your signature thing? Was it a conversation with the mayor?

The mayor focused when we came in on dyslexia, and so we were all in on the dyslexia and the screenings, and really making sure that we’re getting those kids the kinds of interventions or whatnot that they really need to put them on track. But in the midst of that, as I moved all over the system, I was reminded over and over again, beyond the kids with dyslexia, just the average kid who doesn’t have any of those kinds of text-based challenges, they don’t know how to read.

It was over a series of visits and conversations, and talking to teachers who were saying, ‘We are off track. Not only my school, but as a whole system.’ I would hear that over and over again. And people would say, years ago, kids learn through phonics, we learn the phonetic approach to teaching reading.

And then I think, when I listened to the podcast [“Sold a Story”]...that was the first thing that really crystallized these conversations that people were sharing with me, it framed it for me. And then behind that, when I saw the documentary, “The Right to Read,” the combination of those two, fully crystallized these loose conversations that I was having with folks. And I got to the ultimate ‘aha,’ this is where the issue is.

I’ve been spending some time recently talking to teachers who are in the first phase [of the literacy curriculum mandate]. And one of the things I’ve heard from a lot of them is they feel like this happened really fast. Some felt unprepared to teach the new curriculums. What is your message to those teachers?

I’m certainly not surprised by any of that as a response. We are all in a process of trying to catch up because there’s a sense of urgency. In the best of all worlds, we would have studied this for the next three or four years. We would’ve done all kinds of surveys. But when you add the ‘aha moment’ that it is time to move, you have to move, knowing that it’s not going to be perfect. We are building the plane as we are flying it because kids’ lives are actually hanging in the balance.

I do not expect us to have some dramatically different results over the next two to three years. But I do think you will see constant gains over the next several years. And I think you will see dramatic gains over the next five, six years.

One of the biggest challenges for the system right now is financial. About $7 billion of federal relief money is drying up, which has been used to expand summer school, keep school budgets steady despite enrollment drops, hire counselors and fund some of your own initiatives. On top of that, Mayor Eric Adams is ordering pretty significant budget cuts. Can you give us a sense of what criteria you’re using to determine which programs get cut and which don’t?

We’ve not finalized decisions. And these are not all fully just my decisions either. The mayor and the City Council are really going to have to come together and figure out what happens. Everything is on the table to see some level of reduction. I’ve made it clear that I think what we’re doing on the reading, and the [career] pathways as my priority areas. So we’re gonna do everything to fight like heck to protect those. Everything else is subject to it.

Listen, I’m a champion of the arts. I don’t want to see any reduction in the arts. So I’m going to be fighting as well. But we got dozens and dozens and dozens of other initiatives. I think Summer Rising has been a wonderful program. We had 110,000 kids last year, we could easily have 150,000. But it may be reduced because it is the fiscal reality that we are facing.

I’ve heard a lot of City Council folks say, ‘We’re going to fight like heck to make sure there’s no reductions in school budgets.’ That’s great, right? But the funding is going to come from somewhere.

Do you anticipate having to reduce the department’s headcount significantly over the coming years?

The mayor is on record as saying that we’re not going to be letting go of employees. So we’re not going to excess folks. We’re not getting rid of folks, we’re not laying people off.

The challenge is going to be where do we find it programmatically and how much our school budgets [are] ultimately impacted.

New York has seen a large influx of more than 20,000 migrant children. What’s your sense of how that is affecting schools? Can you point to examples of schools that are doing a really effective job?

We can certainly give you a list of schools. All of these schools that I have continued to visit — amazing. These folks lead with their heart. And it goes well beyond even what’s in their particular budgets. You got parent coordinators, who are leading clothing drives and food drives. You got principals who are just organizing their entire school community as a family to wrap their arms around so many of these young people, it is amazing. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, it is New York City at its best, when you see how we are responding.

I haven’t visited one school, Alex, when people are like, ‘We are at our wits end, we cannot help these kids anymore. We don’t know what to do.’ I’ve never been at one school where I’ve heard anybody say that.

The city doesn’t have a great track record of equitably distributing students who enroll after the traditional admissions process. There was some research a few years ago that found that high school students who enrolled midyear were disproportionately clustered at lower-performing schools. Does the city have an overarching enrollment strategy for migrant children? How do you think that students should be distributed in a way that’s equitable?

There’s a wide range of students. For the younger children, we’ve done everything we could to get them into the school that they are kind of zoned for. That’s been dictated by where these shelters have been. We don’t want a child who’s in a shelter in the Bronx and send them to the second grade in Queens.

While we want to get them as close as possible, we cannot overwhelm any individual school. So if that means we’ve got to go to the next neighborhood over with some of those schools who are saying, ‘We would love to have more students,’ many of these schools, you have to remember, are experiencing enrollment decline and low enrollment. We want to make sure that they’re the right kinds of programs and supports in those schools.

One of the other big structural issues that you’re facing is a growing number of really small schools, which are expensive to operate, and also sometimes struggle to offer a full range of programs given that a school’s budget is determined on a per-student basis. I’m wondering if there’s a cut off below which you think at school is just too small to be sustainable?

No specific number, but we had dozens and dozens of really small schools. When I say really small, I’m talking about schools with 125 kids and less. I ran a small school, but my small school had 450 to 500 kids, which was what the initial definition of a small school was. It’s hard to figure out how people can run a full comprehensive high school with 80 kids as your entire school. And we have schools with those numbers.

And should we expect to see that starting this year?

You should probably expect to hear community conversations around that this year. And we will see where it will lead us. But the notion of some level of consolidation is something that I think we would be irresponsible if we were not looking at that, particularly in light of the fiscal challenges that we’re having. So we’re looking at it — nothing definitive yet.

I’m leaving a lot of that to the superintendents themselves who know their school communities best and are already meeting with principals around the city to start those conversations.

The latest round of national test scores indicate that student achievement took a big hit during the pandemic, particularly in math. How worried are you about the lingering effects of the pandemic on student achievement? Is there anything new on the horizon to help schools close those gaps?

I was not surprised at all by the learning loss and the scores and everything else. You know, the immediate shift into virtual learning was a tremendous challenge for everybody. I think the upside is that we got a lot better at it. It’s one reason I’m really excited about some of our virtual schools work that we’re doing, because we see that as a beacon and a blueprint also for the rest of the system. But I do think we’ve got real work to do.

We’re allowing schools to provide a range of supports. Some of them are doing high-dosage tutoring, some of the buddying students up — we leave a lot of that sort of to the schools themselves. We don’t try to mandate everything. What we are mandating is this approach to the science of reading, which I think will ultimately bear fruit in ELA and math, over a period of time.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC revises mandated reporter training to reduce unnecessary child welfare investigations

2023-10-19T21:07:53+00:00

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New York City has revised its training for educators on when to report suspected cases of child abuse and neglect in an effort to cut down on unwarranted investigations that disproportionately target Black and Latino families, officials said Thursday.

Educators are “mandated reporters” under state law, and, for years, the prevailing message in their training was to err on the side of caution by reporting whenever in doubt, officials said.

But that guidance has led to an overreliance on child welfare reports, officials argued, prompting thousands of investigations each year. Few of those investigations lead to confirmed findings of maltreatment, while dragging families — mostly Black and Latino — through a process that can be invasive and traumatic, officials said.

The revised training, which has already reached thousands of Education Department staffers, is an effort to get educators to think twice before defaulting to a child welfare report, and give them a set of alternatives to try first, officials said.

“Today our new mantra is you do not have to report a family to support a family,” said Gail Geohagen-Pratt, deputy commissioner in the state’s Office of Children and Family Services at a press conference Thursday at Education Department headquarters in Manhattan.

The city’s Administration for Children’s Services looked into a total of 59,000 reports of suspected child abuse and neglect last year, and found maltreatment in 25% of those cases, said commissioner Jess Dannhauser.

About 12,000 of those reports came from school personnel, and they yielded an even lower rate of findings of maltreatment, at 16%, a spokesperson said.

Black and Latino families were far more likely to get ensnared in child welfare investigations, with Black families reported at seven times the rate as white families, and Latino families reported four times as often, Dannhauser said.

Too often, he added, families are subjected to child welfare investigations simply for being poor.

“If a family just needs help, such as access to child care assistance, mental health counseling, or concrete resources … there are ways to provide that support without making a call that will lead to a child welfare investigation,” he said.

The new training for educators has rolled out on several fronts.

First, the state’s Office of Children and Family Services, which runs training for all mandated reporters, updated its baseline training to include sections on how mandated reporters can be swayed by implicit bias, and the potential harms of child welfare investigations for families.

The training includes a “decision-making tree” to help educators work through their options when they suspect abuse or neglect.

Dannhauser pointed to the example of a child who comes into school with poor hygiene — noting that the new training would encourage educators to look into whether the parent is providing a “minimum level of care” and ensuring they have access to resources such as running water and a washing machine before considering a call to child welfare authorities.

Similarly, a more in-depth training from the city’s Education Department and Administration for Children’s Services for the designated mandated reporting liaison at each school emphasizes the importance of relying on objective facts over subjective impressions, and offer a refresher on the resources available to schools before they turn to a child welfare report.

Dr. Jessica Chock-Goldman, a school social worker at Bard Early College High School in Manhattan and a professor at New York University, has long had concerns about the role of mandated reporters in schools – and is a member of a group called “Mandated Reporters Against Mandated Reporting.” But she was impressed by the city’s new training.

“They did a beautiful job on this,” she said. “It seems like the movement they started is about how to do these other interventions … to make ACS the last call rather than the first call.”

City officials also introduced a “prevention support hotline” at the Administration of Children’s Services that educators can call for help getting resources to families in need.

Dannhauser acknowledged that the city and state are still bound by laws governing mandated reporting that were written in the 1960s and ‘70s.

“There are a lot of calls for reform … and we think a full-scale look at that would be appropriate,” he said. Dannhauser said he’s not aware of any mandated reporters being prosecuted for failing to lodge a report of suspected maltreatment, but acknowledged it’s still a fear for some.

Changing the practice of mandated reporting in schools could also take a cultural shift that goes beyond training.

“It’s changing but it’s a slow change,” said Chock-Goldman, the school social worker, who suggested that all principals should also get in-depth training on mandated reporting.

Some advocates and parents have urged the state to scrap mandated reporting altogether, and forego the federal funding that comes with it.

But state officials were clear that they still see a role for mandated reporting.

“I wish we lived in a world where we did not have to have this because children are not being abused or maltreated,” said Geohagen-Pratt. “But we know that we are, so we have to have a mechanism in place to be able to respond to that.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

NYC vowed more school contracts for businesses owned by women, people of color. It hasn’t been easy.

2023-10-12T23:35:35+00:00

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Last spring, New York City’s Education Department unveiled its most aggressive step yet to increase spending on businesses owned by women or people of color.

The new directive required all vendors with new contracts to subcontract out a portion of their business to Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprises — a significant commitment for an agency that spends roughly $10 billion a year on contracts.

But the implementation of that promise has proved far more complicated. Late last week, the Education Department began quietly rolling back the requirements for some pending contracts, Chalkbeat has learned.

And the implementation challenges in the new push to increase spending on such businesses — a major priority of Mayor Eric Adams — are even causing problems for companies involved with another top Adams priority — his NYC Reads literacy initiative.

Education Department officials confirmed that certain contracts are now being given the green light to move forward without meeting the new requirements — at least for now. But a spokesperson said the agency still intends to enforce the rules for future contracts.

The subcontracting requirement was introduced in late March, one of a series of changes approved last November as a way to address the department’s abysmal record of doing business with Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprises, or MWBEs.

Effective immediately, officials said in a press release, the department would require vendors to subcontract out at least 30% of the value of any new contracts to businesses owned by minorities or women.

Schools Chancellor David Banks heralded the move. “We are providing these businesses and their owners with the opportunity to build generational wealth and create a more fair and equal city,” he said in a statement at the time.

Figuring out how to put that mandate into practice threw the contracting system into disarray, interviews and documents show. It touched off months of uncertainty and disruption for vendors and Education Department staff, as top agency officials deliberated behind the scenes over whether and how to insert the new language in recently approved contracts, according to communications reviewed by Chalkbeat.

The process for finalizing new textbook, curriculum, and professional development contracts — including a deal with Great Minds, the company that publishes Wit & Wisdom, one of the three mandated curriculums for Adams’s signature literacy initiative — was essentially at a standstill, according to multiple vendors and Education Department staffers.

Also held up in the logjam were two multiyear professional development contracts for math and literacy instructional support with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, the publisher of the most widely used curriculum in the NYC Reads initiative.

“Until leadership can make a decision on this we do not expect any contracts to be circulated for signatures,” according to a notice earlier this month from an Education Department official to a vendor obtained by Chalkbeat.

Then, in recent days, the department appeared to backpedal, sending some vendors notice of “shifts in our implementation strategy” and alerting them that they would no longer be required to adhere to the subcontracting goals.

Education Department officials said certain contracts approved by the Panel for Educational Policy after June were given a pass on the new rules during this “transition” period, but did not say how many got a reprieve.

Spokesperson Jenna Lyle added that “all future solicitations and contracts will include these [subcontracting] goals moving forward.”

But the rocky implementation with the recent round of contracts has left some vendors wondering whether the agency has laid the necessary groundwork to implement such a sweeping change and how it will manage the process going forward.

“To me, it seems like they just didn’t do their research to begin with,” said one vendor who said their contract was frozen for months as a result of the standstill. The vendor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so as not to jeopardize relationships with the Education Department, said they recently received a notice that they would no longer have to adhere to the new subcontracting requirements.

Adams zeroes in on MWBE contracting

The Education Department subcontracting goals are one piece of a larger effort to increase city spending on MWBEs, both in the department and across all city agencies.

Adams appointed a citywide Chief Business Diversity Officer, and Banks named Karine Appollon, a former executive at the nonprofit Reading Partners and educational publishing giant Scholastic, to the newly created role of chief diversity officer to oversee the department’s MWBE efforts.

In November, the Panel for Educational Policy approved a suite of changes to the agency’s procurement rules to ease the process for MWBEs to win large contracts with the Education Department. A parallel change that would incentivize individual schools to hire MWBEs for smaller deals is up for a vote before the panel next week.

The efforts are showing some signs of progress: The Education Department increased its spending on MWBEs from $224 million in fiscal year 2021, to $535 million dollars in fiscal year 2022, Banks said recently. That amounts to 5.6% of contract spending on MWBEs, still last among all city agencies, according to a February report from Comptroller Brad Lander.

That figure is a long way off from the city’s overall goal of directing 30% of all vendor spending to MWBEs. That’s where the subcontracting directive came in.

The directive would guarantee that, even if the primary vendor on the contract wasn’t an MWBE itself, 30% of the value of the contract would end up in the hands of MWBEs through subcontracting.

Companies can subcontract out for all sorts of services, including distribution of print products, technology and software infrastructure, and customer service.

But the directive presented significant challenges for both small and large vendors, according to one person familiar with the Education Department’s contracts processes, who spoke anonymously so as not to jeopardize relationships.

Some smaller companies spend the majority of their contracts on their own staff, while many large companies operate mostly in other parts of the country or world, making it difficult to switch over to MWBEs certified by New York City, who are more likely to be located in and around New York.

“You look at some of the bigger publishers out there, they don’t have distribution or transportation housed in New York City, they wouldn’t be profitable,” the person said. “Most of these companies are now struggling to find an entity to support this.”

Vendors can win an exemption from the subcontracting requirements if there are not enough certified MWBE companies to perform the necessary services, or if they have “legitimate business reasons” for not complying, according to a contract obtained by Chalkbeat. But it wasn’t immediately clear how the Education Department would decide on those exemptions.

New contracts grind to a halt

While officials were debating internally about if and how to implement the thorny requirements, the process for finalizing new contracts effectively ground to a halt.

Typically, contracts are approved by the city’s Panel for Educational Policy and then handed over to the DOE’s legal team, where they are finalized and delivered to the city comptroller for registration. But for several months, contracts for textbooks, professional development and other services that cleared the Panel for Educational Policy made it no further, according to communications reviewed by Chalkbeat.

When vendors don’t have finalized contracts, they have no guarantee of payment. Some larger companies may opt to continue offering their product without payment, but for smaller operators, that can be too much of a financial risk.

For one professional development vendor whose contract was held up, the delay has meant less money flowing in and fewer schools getting instructional support they’ve relied on for years.

“Some of these schools have had these services for many years, and it’s grinding to a halt now,” said a representative from the vendor, who spoke anonymously so as not to jeopardize relationships with the Education Department. “Principals are getting very frustrated…[and] it’s a little bit of a worry for our employees.”

Another contract caught up in the standstill was the one for Great Minds, the company that produces Wit & Wisdom.

As a result, the company’s print materials were temporarily unavailable through ShopDOE, the website where schools buy materials from companies that have contracts with the Education Department, a company spokesperson said. If materials aren’t listed on ShopDOE, schools have to go through a more complicated and labor-intensive process to obtain them.

Wit & Wisdom print materials were added back to ShopDOE in early October, but the contract still isn’t finalized, according to CheckbookNYC.

“Once again the Wit & Wisdom curriculum can be ordered through ShopDOE after a brief delay that occurred when the Great Minds textbook contract was being renewed,” said Great Minds spokesperson Nancy Zuckerbrod.

Among the other contracts approved by the Panel for Educational Policy over the summer but not yet finalized or delivered to the city comptroller is a three-year, $10.6 million textbook deal with McGraw Hill, which publishes widely used textbooks.

Two contracts with publishing giant Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to provide literacy and math coaching and professional development that cleared the PEP over the summer also are not yet finalized, according to Checkbook NYC.

Lyle, the Education Department spokesperson, didn’t say exactly how long it would take to get the pending contracts finalized, but said “we are working with vendors currently going through our procurement process on how they can best support this work as we finalize outstanding contracts.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

After flubbing flood response, NYC education officials send guidance for a drizzle

2023-10-06T17:52:53+00:00

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After New York City’s Education Department flubbed its response to last week’s historic flooding, the agency appears to be on a course correction — and possibly overcompensating for its recent errors.

In advance of about a quarter-inch to an inch of rain expected Friday, officials sent two emails to principals with detailed guidance on how to respond.

“Our expectation is that this rain will not substantially disrupt the regular school day,” a Thursday night email stated, “but we want to be prepared for any potential impact in our most flood prone schools and on afterschool or weekend programming across the city.”

They sent no such information to principals last week before six inches of rain inundated some parts of the city.

Officials sent a second email Friday afternoon with a “brief weather update” for the weekend, and letting principals know they had discretion on how to handle school-based activities since there would be no system-wide decision.

Schools Chancellor David Banks this week admitted there was communication breakdown in how the city handled its response as floodwaters rose. He promised an investigation into what went wrong.

Banks and Mayor Eric Adams mentioned during a storm-related press conference that schools should shelter in place. But that message was never directly communicated to schools, several principals told Chalkbeat.

Banks promised earlier this week: “We can do better, and I think we will certainly be working to do better next time.”

Mayor Eric Adams also posted on X (formerly Twitter) that the city was preparing for heavy rains Friday night and into Saturday.

New Yorkers: periods of heavy rain and potential flooding are forecast late tonight into tomorrow.

We've activated the City's Flash Flood Emergency Plan, proactively staging resources and teams.

You can do your part: https://t.co/bRysa5CObE pic.twitter.com/73nBOjFeiN
— Mayor Eric Adams (@NYCMayor) October 6, 2023

Some principals thought the email sent to school leaders on Thursday night was overkill, much like when a new mayor, after bungling his first blizzard, reacts to a forecast of snow flurries by salting the roads in advance.

Below is the Thursday night letter that went out to principals.

From: Chief Operating Officer <ChiefOperatingOfficer@schools.nyc.gov>

Sent: Thursday, October 5, 2023 11:05 PM

Subject: < Please Read> Weather Update for October 6 and 7

Dear Principals,

We are writing to share some important information regarding the weather over the next two days.

The National Weather Service has reported that New York City will experience two weather systems that will affect the area with periods of heavy rain and potential flash flooding Friday morning through Saturday evening; at this point, roughly 0.25-1 inches of rain is expected.

Our expectation is that this rain will not substantially disrupt the regular school day, but we want to be prepared for any potential impact in our most flood prone schools and on afterschool or weekend programming across the city. Some guidance is below:

Facilities: School buildings that are prone to flooding/power outages have been identified and will be contacted by the Division of School Facilities; Custodial Engineers (CEs) will receive guidance about the management and sustainability of the building should issues arise. Please connect with your Director of School Facilities (DDF) and your CE about the status of your building. If your building experiences flooding, power outages, or other disruptions to the operations, your DDF, CE, or designated member of your school community can reach out to the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) at eoc@schools.nyc.govto report the issue. The EOC will contact NYCPS operations and other partner agencies to rectify the issue.
Transportation: While heavy rain may lead to delays, yellow buses are expected to run as usual. Please work with your transportation coordinators on any yellow bus stop changes or changes to drop off and pick up areas. For the latest updates on public transportation, usehttps://new.MTA.info.
Pickup: In anticipation of parents being delayed due to the weather, encourage your teachers to maintain open lines of communication with parents. Teachers should have emergency contact lists for all of their students. Please designate and assign adult staff to an indoor area where students can wait safely if their parents are late for pick-up.
Afterschool and weekend programming: At this point, we are not making any systemwide decisions about afterschool or weekend programming; decisions about whether programming should continue should be made at the site level. We expect outdoor activities will need to be moved indoors.
Building Response Team/General Response Protocols: As noted above, work with your CE to assess building conditions; if necessary, activate your Building Response Team, and invoke the appropriate General Response Protocol.

Feel free to use this information to communicate with your school communities, and please continue to monitor your email for any updates – if circumstances change, we will follow up with another email update tomorrow. As always, please keep your superintendent informed of challenges or needs your school may face during adverse weather conditions.

The safety and well-being of students and staff is essential during inclement weather. We thank you in advance for being proactive, prepared, and flexible in responding to challenging weather conditions, and for everything you do to support your school communities.

Thank you,

Emma Vadehra

Chief Operating Officer/Deputy Chancellor for Operations and Finance

Danika Rux, Ed.D.

Deputy Chancellor for School Leadership

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

‘We can do better’: NYC schools chief acknowledges flawed communication in response to flooding

2023-10-03T19:42:51+00:00

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New York City botched its communication to schools in response to last week’s record rainfall, Chancellor David Banks acknowledged on Tuesday. He vowed to conduct a review of what went wrong.

Hours after the school day began last Friday, Mayor Eric Adams and Banks said during a press conference about the storm that schools should shelter in place, which typically means that no one is allowed to enter or exit campuses. The Education Department issued the same directive soon after on social media.

But that order was never directly communicated to school principals, Chalkbeat reported on Monday. The communication breakdown created confusion about which procedures campus leaders should have been following in the middle of an emergency.

Banks issued a mea culpa during a Tuesday press conference when asked about the lack of communication.

“This incident does suggest to us that we needed to have a clearer level of communication all the way through,” he said, adding that schools ultimately kept children safe during the storm. “We can do better, and I think we will certainly be working to do better next time.”

The chancellor also suggested that the Education Department never intended to issue a typical shelter-in-place order in the first place. “What we’re trying to say to everybody was: ‘Stay where you are. Don’t send kids out to the streets.’”

A shelter-in-place order was the “closest thing our policies have for taking refuge in buildings,” but that approach is “ill-fitting to last week’s circumstances,” Banks said in a written statement after the press conference.

Ten school administrators told Chalkbeat that they did not enforce the shelter-in-place order largely because they weren’t aware it existed. The first official communication about it came in a 1:56 p.m. email that day to school leaders notifying them that the order had been lifted.

With many parents rushing to schools to pick up their children before the school day was over, enforcing a systemwide shelter-in-place order would have created “a level of chaos” because parents would not have been allowed to do so, Banks told reporters.

The Education Department is conducting a review of what happened “to identify policies and protocols that must be updated to account for increasingly frequent events like Friday’s rain or the air quality emergency this summer,” according to Banks’ statement.

A department spokesperson did not respond to questions about the timeline for completing that review or whether it will be made public.

The chancellor’s comments represented a departure from the Education Department’s position just a day earlier.

On Monday evening, a department spokesperson did not acknowledge any errors in communication and pointed to the mayor’s Friday press conference and subsequent social media posts as sufficient notice to schools about the shelter-in-place order.

Adams has faced intense criticism for not directly addressing the public about the storm until after some neighborhoods had already flooded, though he has largely avoided any acknowledgement that the city’s response was inadequate. Adams also deflected blame for the unclear communication to schools, implying that he hadn’t used the words “shelter in place” on Friday — even though he was the first official to publicly use the phrase. He also said that “the chancellor made a determination of what should be done.”

One Queens assistant principal said they were glad the chancellor acknowledged the miscommunication.

“I appreciate [Banks] taking the responsibility,” said the assistant principal, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The school leader said the city should resist the urge to make blanket directives during similar emergencies in the future, as some campuses experienced significant flooding and others were largely untouched.

“There’s no citywide guidance and directive that they should have made other than: ‘Be safe and please be in touch with your borough offices,’” the administrator said.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Torrential downpour floods 150 NYC schools, throws commutes into disarray

2023-09-29T17:36:02+00:00

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Torrential rainfall sowed chaos for many New York City schools Friday morning, flooding 150 school buildings and throwing commutes into disarray for thousands of students and staff.

Mayor Eric Adams announced a shelter-in-place order for schools around noon. An Education Department spokesperson said it would lift with dismissal.

“If you are at work or school, shelter in place for now. Some of our subways are flooded and it is extremely difficult to move around the city,” Adams said at a media briefing on the storm.

The downpour, which dumped 5 inches in some parts of New York City by early Friday morning, affected service on every subway line, delayed dozens of school buses, and prompted both Adams and Gov. Kathy Hochul to issue a state of emergency. Friday’s attendance rate of 77% was significantly down from about 90% the day before.

Schools Chancellor David Banks said a total of 150 school buildings took on water Friday morning, and that one school, Brooklyn’s P.S. 312, was forced to evacuate because of a smoking boiler. Another Brooklyn school, I.S. 228 sent out a message asking parents to pick up students early, but Banks said the communication was premature.

The extreme weather led some parents and educators to question whether the city should have canceled in-person classes. Banks reassured families that schools were prepared to handle the storm.

“We have folks in our schools trained annually to prepare for days just like this,” Banks said, noting that schools were activating Building Response Teams in response to flooding. “While this was a tough day in terms of the rain, our kids are not in danger,” he added.

Many parents and educators reported that the rainwater had seeped into school buildings, flooding cafeterias and basements and leaking in through roofs, forcing students to move classrooms. On some campuses, children were soaked on their commutes to school, school staff reported.

“Some schools are being flooded from the basement up, and some are being flooded from the rooftop down,” said Paullette Healy, a parent leader in Brooklyn who said she’d heard from nine schools that experienced flooding. Several classrooms had to evacuate students, she added.

At P.S. 84 in Williamsburg, the school kitchen flooded, “which is a problem for our cafeteria workers and our kids,” said parent Jessamyn Lee. Fortunately, the custodial staff, she said, seemed to be able to “get the water intrusion under control.”

Meanwhile, at one Manhattan high school, rainwater leaking through a faulty roof forced students to move classrooms, complicating efforts to make up testing that had already been postponed because of tech glitches last week, according to a teacher, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“My school is doing the best they can,” the teacher wrote. “This is just weather and issues out of our control and I feel for the kids.”

Principals received dismissal guidance shortly before 2 p.m., suggesting they make sure that staff and students were aware of alternate exit routes in case of flooding and that they communicate alternative exits to families. Most schools dismiss between 2:20 p.m. and 2:50 p.m.

Public School Athletic League activities were canceled, and principals could decide whether to hold Saturday programs, according to the email.

Concerns about commutes home from school

Meanwhile, for the hundreds of thousands of students and staff trying to get to school Friday morning, the commute was messy and in some cases harrowing.

“The street leading up to my school is completely flooded,” said Leah Ali, a student at Bard Early College High School in Manhattan. “As cars drive past, water reaches their headlights, and waves of water crash over students trying to make it inside.”

Alan Sun, a senior at The Bronx High School of Science, said the school has been affected by the storm. “The ceilings have been leaking water and the cafeteria is flooded,” he wrote in a text message. “Lunch is now being served in the auditorium.” Sun opted to eat in the hallway instead, as the auditorium was too crowded.

This is the corner of my school’s block.

Cafeteria and basement classrooms are flooded with this water. Families literally have to wade through toxic water to drop off their kids and pick them up.

Why does @NYCMayor never plan for emergencies that affect schools??? https://t.co/trhjCjFrsu
— Sarah Allen (@Mssarahmssarah) September 29, 2023

Morning disruptions on nearly every subway line left many students wondering how they’d safely get home.

“With train service suspensions, track fires, and stations flooded, commuting back home to Queens is a serious concern for me,” Ali had said in the morning.

At dismissal, she was still trying to figure out how to get home since her trains were delayed.

“I might be waiting at the station for a while,” she said. “Unfortunately, my school is a 15-minute walk away from the station, and buses aren’t working at the moment, so I’ll be taking an Uber there.”

Sun, who commutes to Bronx Science by subway, also said he was worried about the trek back to Flushing, Queens, at the end of the day. “I’m hoping the flooding in the subway stations won’t be too bad,” he wrote.

In her guidance to principals sent at the end of the day, Deputy Chancellor of School Leadership Danika Rux wrote, “Please ensure that your students who use public transportation have secured routes home.”

State and transportation officials said that getting the subways back up and running was a top priority, but that MTA buses were in operation and that the agency would deploy extra buses as a backup in case train service wasn’t restored by dismissal time.

The disruptions also affected students traveling by road.

The city’s Office of Pupil Transportation reported roughly 140 weather-related school bus delays as of 1 p.m. Friday afternoon.

Major roadways including FDR Drive were closed Friday morning, adding to concerns about disrupted afternoon commutes.

Banks said that the Education Department dispatched school buses early for the afternoon pickup, so they would be ready by dismissal time. School buses sit high enough off the ground that they are less likely to get stalled by roadway flooding, he said.

Mayor Adams defends NYC’s response

The city’s Education Department first addressed the weather conditions late Thursday night in a series of posts on X, formerly known as Twitter, advising that schools would remain open Friday and suggesting that families and educators leave extra time for their commutes, take major roads, and not enter flooded subway stations.

No systemwide emails had gone out to teachers or parents as of 1 p.m. on Friday.

Several parents and educators said Friday that the city should have closed school buildings on Friday and pivoted to remote learning, similar to snow days, or at the very least improved communication about the risks.

“It’s quite a lapse in safety and concern when our phones send us messages about life threatening flooding and not to travel,” said the Manhattan teacher. “New York City is unprepared for major flooding as a result of climate change and this is more of the same examples we’re seeing.”

Adams defended the decision to keep schools open.

“This was the right call. Our children are safe in schools,” he said. “There is a big inconvenience when you close the schools.”

Climate change fears prompt worries for school infrastructure

The intensity of the flooding caught some parents by surprise. Avery Cole, whose 5-year-old daughter attends P.S. 11, said she wasn’t aware that the weather was going to be so severe until her phone started blaring with emergency alerts after she dropped her child off.

She also received a message from the school pleading for volunteers to help dry and disinfect its ground-floor classrooms “to prevent mold and save as much furniture as possible.”

Cole said she worries that school buildings aren’t prepared for more intense storms and wildfire smoke stoked by climate change.

“These storms are going to be more dramatic and frequent and schools are bearing the brunt of it,” she said.

Rohit Aggarwala, the commissioner of the city’s Department of Environmental Protection, was blunt about the increasing threat of climate change to New York City.

“This changing weather pattern is the result of climate change,” he said, “and the sad reality is our climate is changing faster than our infrastructure can respond.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

To boost public school enrollment, NYC proposes $21 million ad campaign

2023-09-27T22:32:13+00:00

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New York City’s Education Department is seeking approval to spend $21 million over the next two years on an ad campaign to give families information about enrolling in public schools amid a steep decline in student headcount, according to city records.

The proposed contracts, which the city’s Panel for Educational Policy is expected to vote on Thursday, would pay an estimated $10.6 million a year over the next two years to four separate companies to create ads posted in buses and subways, bus shelters, phone kiosks, and small businesses.

The contract proposal cites systemwide enrollment losses due to the COVID pandemic and says “the advertising campaign aims to ensure that families are fully aware of the available enrollment options from 3K through High School.”

Paid ads also provide critical information to families about free meals programs, Summer Rising, and how to access information in languages other than English, said Education Department spokesperson Chyann Tull.

The city’s K-12 public school enrollment fell by more than 120,000 over the past five years, according to city figures. Enrollment in pre-kindergarten classes is also down significantly, and the city’s program for 3-year-olds has thousands of empty seats.

Schools Chancellor David Banks has repeatedly said that “winning back” families is a priority of his administration, and an Education Department spokesperson said “our communities called on us to do more marketing to get more families back into New York City Public Schools.” But some members of the Panel for Educational Policy are raising concerns about the effectiveness of ad campaigns as an enrollment strategy — and whether they’re the best use of city funds.

“I think it’s outrageously wasteful in terms of the money,” said panel member Effi Zakary at a Sept. 18 meeting of the contracts committee. “We need to at the very least see what was the effectiveness of previous advertisement efforts.”

Ad campaigns have been a staple of the city Education Department’s outreach efforts for years. Many private schools and charter schools, which have also struggled with enrollment during the pandemic, also aggressively advertise.

The department previously inked upwards of $13 million in contracts with the same four companies between 2019 and 2021, according to a review of city contracts. An Education Department spokesperson didn’t say exactly how much the city spent on the previous round of ad campaigns.

When the Education Department began rolling out its universal pre-K program in 2014, ads for the new program were ubiquitous, recalled Gregory Brender, the chief policy and innovation officer at the Day Care Council.

Education Department officials say ad campaigns are “both cost-effective in their outreach” and “quantifiable” in their impact, according to the contract proposal.

But they didn’t share such data publicly, and panel members said they’ve received few concrete details to indicate how effective those campaigns were.

“I have a hard time with the fact we’ve never really reviewed what our marketing, communication, advertising, has actually impacted in results,” said Sherée Gibson, a Queens panel member with a background in marketing, at the contract committee hearing.

Education Department officials told the panel members they would offer a special briefing on the contract before Thursday’s meeting, panel members said.

Jasmine Lake, a representative from the Education Department’s Family and Community Engagement office, or FACE, said the agency receives some high-level data from vendors on metrics like how many people walk by a given bus shelter where an ad is placed. The department is working on getting more granular data, including how many people used a QR code from a specific ad, as a way to target the ads more effectively, she said.

The goal of the upcoming ad campaign is to “increase in-person and digital traffic at enrollment centers and continue to provide greater admissions transparency,” according to the proposal.

FACE, the office that will largely coordinate the ad campaigns, has been roiled by internal tensions following its administration of the recent elections for Community Education Councils, which yielded a voter turnout of roughly 2%.

The enrollment challenges facing the city’s public schools are stark: in addition to the K-12 roster declines, enrollment in the widely lauded free pre-K program has shrunk by roughly 11,000 students over the course of the pandemic, and the recently expanded 3-K program had roughly 16,000 unfilled seats as of last year, according to Education Department estimates.

Many of the forces driving the enrollment declines are likely outside of the Education Department’s control.

The city’s birth rate began dropping long before the pandemic. Nearly 60,000 public school students left New York City altogether during the 2021-22 school year, a far greater number than in previous years. Many of those families departed for areas with far lower cost-of-living, according to Education Department data.

The agency’s official account on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, sent out a message Tuesday warning that “if people can’t afford to live in New York City, they can’t send their kids to New York City Public Schools.”

Still, spreading the word about how to enroll in city schools can be a helpful first step, especially at the early childhood level where some families may still not know about the city’s free options. The city is also receiving an influx of asylum-seeking families, some of whom may not know they have the option to enroll their kids in school or how to do it.

“Generally, I think you need to approach it in multiple ways and advertising is one of them,” said Brender of efforts to boost enrollment in early childhood programs.

But he cautioned that the city will need to expand its efforts far beyond advertising in order to improve the enrollment process. Brender’s organization has recommended empowering community-based organizations that have existing relationships with families to enroll children in pre-K, rather than managing the process centrally.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

How to shrink class sizes in NYC? A working group shares its recommendations

2023-09-26T23:29:44+00:00

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Capping enrollment at high-demand schools. Merging schools located in the same buildings. Moving some 3-K and prekindergarten programs out of K-12 schools. Paying extra to bring more teachers to hard-to-staff schools.

Those are some of the steps New York City may have to consider in the coming years to comply with a new state law requiring schools to shrink class sizes for hundreds of thousands of students, according to preliminary recommendations from an Education Department working group.

The recommendations, unveiled at a public hearing Tuesday night, are in the early stages and haven’t been adopted by the Education Department. The group is set to deliver its final recommendations Oct. 31. But the initial recommendations give the most detailed look yet of some of the complicated tradeoffs and challenges ahead as the city attempts to shrink class sizes across hundreds of schools in accordance with the state legislation.

Under the law, K-3 classes must have fewer than 20 students, 4-8 classes must be under 23, and high school classes can have no more than 25 students. The caps will phase in gradually over the next five years before fully taking effect.

Currently, more than half of the classes across the city’s 1,600 public schools are out of compliance — over 73,000 classes, according to the 48-member working group, which includes parents, teachers, administrators, union representatives, advocates, and education department officials. Bringing all of those classes under the legal limits will likely require creating thousands of new classes –- and a multi-pronged effort that involves shifting enrollment policies, moving around existing programming to maximize physical space, significantly boosting teacher hiring, and building some new facilities, according to the recommendations.

The recommendations didn’t come with a specific price tag, but included a suggestion that the city should “aggressively pursue new opportunities for potential funding” to cover the costs of implementation.

Previous estimates from the Independent Budget Office have put the cost of the additional staffing alone at between $1.6 billion and $1.9 billion a year.

“We tried to take on a challenging and vexing problem of, ‘How are we going to do this,’” said Patrick Sprinkle, a history teacher at the Lab School for Collaborative Studies in Manhattan and chair of the working group’s staffing sub-committee.

Deborah Alexander, a Queens parent and working group member, added, “we were really focused on … how to use our diverse perspectives to guide the [Education Department] in ways we are hopeful… will not have too many costs along with the benefit of smaller class sizes.”

Since its passage last year, the law has drawn fervent praise from many educators, union officials, and parents, along with criticism from city officials, and some parent groups and experts.

Research has consistently shown that lowering class sizes can increase student achievement, and lowering class sizes is a major priority for educators and many parents.

Mark Henderson, an English teacher at Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, often has classes of 34 students, which is the limit outlined in the teachers union’s contract. Bringing the number down to 25 would mean “the classes, the teaching, every element of the school experience would be better,” he said.

But city officials contend that the state hasn’t provided sufficient resources to meet the new mandate, and that it will require shifting resources away from other critical programs. Several analyses, moreover, suggest that the highest-poverty schools will benefit less from the law because they are already more likely to have classes under the legal cap.

Working group eyes enrollment changes

One method the city can use to control class sizes is shifting its enrollment policies. The working group acknowledges that the Education Department will likely have to “limit enrollment at overcrowded schools that do not have the space to comply with the new class size caps.”

Working group co-chair Johanna Garcia, the chief of staff for state Sen. Robert Jackson, explained that many oversubscribed schools sit right next to under-enrolled ones. Spreading out enrollment across nearby schools “could lead to benefits at both sets of schools, creating more space for smaller classes and less chaos at the overcrowded schools” while saving the city the cost of building new facilities.

Many of the city’s most oversubscribed schools are among its most popular, and multiple parents voiced vehement objections in Tuesday’s public forum to any efforts to cap or reduce enrollment at overcrowded schools.

“For high schools, in particular, cutting seats” at the most in-demand schools “would have a devastating, cascading impact” resulting in fewer students getting their top choice schools, said Shane Harrison, a parent of a seventh grader.

There is a provision in the law that would temporarily exempt schools from the class size requirements when a lack of space, overenrollment, a shortage of teachers, or “severe economic distress” make it impossible to comply, but the law offers no specifics about the thresholds for qualifying for an exemption.

Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education, or PLACE, a parent advocacy group that supports selective schools and programs, has called for legislators to amend the law to exempt “high-performing” schools and programs from the class size law.

But Tom Sheppard, a Bronx parent and member of the Panel for Educational Policy who also served on the working group, countered that offering a blanket exemption to high-performing schools would “allow schools that people ‘want to go to’ to stay bursting at the seams while schools where you have issues with enrollment, it perpetuates that.”

The working group also recommends instituting multiple shifts at overcrowded schools — so that not all students would be in the school building at the same time — as a temporary stopgap in place of capping enrollments. Some of the city’s large high schools already have multiple overlapping shifts of students.

Some schools will need more space and teachers

The working group suggests shifting school programming in order to maximize all available space to create additional classes. That could involve moving 3-K and pre-K programs out of district school buildings to free up space and merging separate schools co-located in the same buildings to streamline operations, according to the recommendations.

Garcia said relocating pre-K classes from district schools to community-based organizations with “thousands of unfilled seats” in their city-funded pre-K programs could open space in elementary schools without sacrificing quality of the preschool programs.

But Martina Meijer, a Brooklyn public school teacher, raised a concern that such a move would make staffers from those programs ineligible to be members of the United Federation of Teachers.

The group cautioned that spaces for physical education, art, or elective classes shouldn’t be taken over to create more space for core classes.

Opening new facilities should be a last resort — and in cases where the city does need additional school space, it should prioritize leasing existing buildings like shuttered parochial and charter schools, rather than building new schools, according to the preliminary recommendations.

The city’s School Construction Authority recently estimated that between 400 and 500 schools will need additional space in order to comply with the class size law. An estimated 40% of those schools — between 160 and 200 — would likely need entirely new facilities, according to the estimates.

Finding enough physical space, however, is only one part of the equation. The city will also need enough teachers to staff newly opened classes. Education Department officials have estimated that the city’s teaching force, currently at around 76,000, will need to grow by 9,000 by the time the law takes full effect.

Suggestions for boosting teacher hiring include easing the process for paraprofessionals and teacher aides to earn their teacher license and offering pay incentives for teachers who work in hard-to-staff schools and subject areas — an idea the city has experimented with before.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

In ‘State of our Schools’ speech, NYC schools chief emphasizes literacy and career readiness efforts

2023-09-20T22:17:31+00:00

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In his 20 months as chancellor of New York City’s schools, David Banks has repeatedly emphasized the need to boost literacy rates and expose more students to career opportunities before they leave high school.

Those ideas were front and center in a “State of our Schools” address he delivered Wednesday at Bedford-Stuyvesant’s Boys and Girls High School, in an auditorium packed with school staff, administrators, union officials, and parent leaders.

The speech hewed to priorities Banks has repeatedly advanced and provided some insight into how he’d like to expand existing efforts.

A program that gives schools resources to spin up new career tracks and offer early college credit is set to grow next year, he said. And Project Pivot — a $15 million initiative that pairs schools with community organizations that provide counseling, mentorship, and violence interruption — will expand to 250 schools this year, up from 144.

Banks didn’t name any new education initiatives, which could indicate that the chancellor’s focus this year will be on implementing existing programs rather than scaling up new ones. It could also reflect budget constraints, as the city grapples with dwindling federal relief dollars and a new round of budget cuts mandated by City Hall.

Here’s what Banks’ speech did — and didn’t — focus on. We’d also love to hear from you about what you think the chancellor should prioritize. Let us know by filling out this survey.

Literacy, literacy, literacy (and maybe other subjects, too)

Banks’ speech focused on his highest-profile policy initiative: boosting the city’s middling literacy rates by overhauling school reading curriculums. Beginning this fall, elementary schools in nearly half the city’s districts are required to use one of three reading programs — with the rest of schools following a year from now.

For years, principals enjoyed wide latitude to pick their own curriculums — and hundreds selected “balanced literacy” programs that Banks has blamed for poor reading outcomes. During his speech, the schools chief played a video of a student using illustrations to guess the words in a picture book instead of sounding them out, a common element of balanced literacy programs that has been widely discredited.

“That is how we’ve been teaching the kids to read — it’s a completely misguided way,” Banks said. “We are fixing that playbook starting right now.”

Banks signaled that he’s interested in changes beyond elementary school literacy. Already, the city has tapped 250 high schools to use a single algebra curriculum. In a less coordinated effort, some high school superintendents are beginning to institute their own reading program mandates. And early childhood centers are also moving to a uniform curriculum. More curriculum changes could be on the horizon across a range of subjects and grade levels, a process Banks suggested would take years.

“Teachers need more support,” Banks told reporters after the speech. “They need a little bit more of a script of what we’re expecting from them.”

A focus on career and technical programs

Banks framed the event with a philosophical question: “What is the purpose of school?”

Part of the answer, he said, is better-preparing students to enter the workforce, a shift that comes as college enrollment is dipping locally and nationally. This year, 100 high schools are part of a program called FutureReadyNYC that gives schools resources to launch new career tracks and paid work opportunities in education, technology, business, or health care. Officials said they sent about $18 million to those schools to support new programming.

“Historically, too many 12th graders leave our school system with a diploma but not much else,” Banks said. “Our pathways work is rewriting the script.”

Banks said FutureReady will grow by at least half next year, in line with previous promises to expand the program. By 2030, officials also vowed to create plans for every student that outline their postsecondary goals and map out a strategy to achieve them. About 70% of students have similar plans right now, officials said.

The new career tracks created through FutureReady are typically less intensive than state-certified career and technical programs and are easier to quickly scale up, allowing the city to reach more students. However, some observers worry that in an effort to expand those offerings to a wider array of schools, the programming will be less rigorous. (City officials contend that the programming is just as rigorous.)

Principals generally said they’re glad the Education Department is making it easier to set up work-based learning experiences, but it may prove challenging for officials to offer them at a large scale. A department spokesperson said that just over 2,800 students have received paid work opportunities through FutureReady so far.

A separate initiative aims to provide students with paid apprenticeships, and officials have previously said their goal is to offer those opportunities to 3,000 students over three years. About 150 students began apprenticeships last school year and another 257 are expected to start in October, a spokesperson said.

What didn’t get mentioned

Banks’ speech didn’t touch on some of the biggest looming challenges, including a fresh series of budget cuts ordered by Mayor Eric Adams, which could initially require a $700 million reduction to the Education Department’s budget but could exceed $2 billion if the city follows through with all of the planned cuts. The city’s schools are also facing the expiration of billions in federal relief funding, enrollment declines that raise the specter of mergers and closures, and alarming rates of chronic absenteeism.

The federal relief funding has supported a slew of initiatives, including expanded preschool for 3-year-olds, summer school, and hundreds of social workers. It also supports bilingual staff for English learners — a growing need as 26,000 children in temporary housing, many of them new migrants, have enrolled in the school system over the past year and half, Banks said.

Taking questions from reporters, Banks said decisions about cuts have not yet been made.

“Anytime you’re talking about cuts of that magnitude, it’s going to impact some of the programs that we already have in place,” Banks said.

The chancellor added that the department hopes to avoid slashing school budgets and will prioritize the city’s literacy and career pathways initiatives.

“That’s where we’re going to be making sure that the investments are still there,” he said.

This story has been updated with additional responses from the Education Department, which were provided days after this story was published.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

First day of school for NYC: Smiles, sweat, and fears of a possible bus strike

2023-09-07T21:54:13+00:00

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Bronx student Avery Collazo began the school year on Thursday with an annual tradition: donning a bright blue T-shirt proudly exclaiming, “First Day of Second Grade.”

“He likes to stand out, to be a little different,” said Avery’s dad, Albert Collazo, who also brought a uniform shirt just in case.

The family joined dozens of others dropping off their children in the P.S. 121 schoolyard as the first day of school for New York City’s nearly 900,000 students brought out an array of emotions.

Some caregivers shed tears as they watched their kids walk inside the school building. Some kids smiled confidently; some shyly. There was also some sweat. High temperatures prompted a National Weather Service heat advisory, and the Education Department directed schools to limit outdoor activities after 10 a.m. Some educators and parents reported broken or non-existent air conditioners while some families were also concerned about overheated students on school buses.

Avery is enrolled in P.S. 121’s “gifted and talented” program, which pulls students from different neighborhoods. His mom, Elida, praised the city’s move to expand such programs, calling it “a great opportunity for a lot of other children.”

From left, Elida Collazo, Avery Collazo and Albert Collazo pose for a portrait on the first day of school at P.S. 121 in the Bronx.

Because the family has to travel outside of their zoned school to bring Avery to the program, they rely on a yellow school bus for transportation. Even though school bus drivers vowed to stay behind the wheel this week, families were still on edge about a possible strike, which could affect an estimated 86,000 students, or more than half of the children who ride yellow school buses.

“We’re definitely hoping no strike happens,” Collazo said.

For P.S. 121 mom Phyllis Moore, the new school year represented a fresh chance to get involved in her daughter’s education following her recovery from a stroke last year.

“I’m ready to be here, to get involved, to be on the school board, to do what I need to do,” said Moore. “We’re excited.”

Her daughter Lanyah, a fourth grader, has been in the school since kindergarten. She was excited to return to school with more age and experience, she said, but the 8-year-old was still nervous to find out who her teacher and classmates would be.

Schools Chancellor David Banks joined Mayor Eric Adams at P.S. 121, in the Bronx’s District 11, which is one of the districts in the first wave of the NYC Reads initiative. In a major shift in how the nation’s largest school system teaches its youngest children how to read, elementary schools in 15 of the city’s 32 local districts must switch to one of three literacy programs this year, with the rest following next year. District 11 selected EL Education, a curriculum that some schools in the area had already implemented.

“What I am going to be laser-focused on is ensuring every single child in the school system is on grade level no later than third grade,” Banks said. “The broader issue is, for even kids who don’t have dyslexia, they can’t read. And that’s because we haven’t taught them properly how to read.”

The push to change literacy instruction comes after years of attempts to improve the city’s middling reading scores — and after a widely used curriculum, which focused heavily on independent reading without enough explicit phonics instruction, was largely discredited.

Outside of P.S. 165 in Brownsville, Brooklyn, most parents said they hadn’t heard about the city’s curriculum mandate. The school, along with every elementary campus in District 23, is required to use a curriculum called Into Reading — by far the most common program that superintendents have mandated.

Sherifa Adams said her 6-year-old daughter Kaydence was already picking up reading skills, and Adams has mixed feelings about the change. “It’s first grade, so she’s already used to something,” said Adams, who learned about the curriculum mandate from a reporter. “I hope that this new reading curriculum only makes it better and not worse for her.”

The school plans to hold a curriculum night next week and will share more information about the new reading program with families then, an Education Department spokesperson said.

The literacy mandate may signal a wider effort to come, Education Department officials noted. The city is already pushing such changes for early education and ninth grade algebra. Some high school superintendents have opted to implement literacy instruction mandates on their own accord.

Students and families on the first day of school on Thursday at P.S. 165 Ida Posner in Brooklyn, NY.

Meanwhile, the city also continues to grapple with how it will accommodate the influx of children from asylum-seeking families. Banks announced Thursday that the city is hoping to address the chronic shortage of bilingual teachers by reducing a bureaucratic hurdle. For educators who are already certified in bilingual education but teach other areas, they will no longer lose tenure by switching subjects, Banks said. The move would affect about 500 teachers.

Despite the ongoing challenges, the first day of school also marked the tremendous progress that many of the newcomers have made since arriving last year.

At I.S. 93 in Ridgewood, Queens, one student who arrived in the country six months ago speaking no English made enough progress to enroll in an honors dual-language class this year. He was part of a team that won a classwide engineering competition Thursday, said his teacher Sara Hobler.

“This sort of thing is why I teach,” Hobler said. “It makes you take a step back for a moment and remember why you go through all the difficult parts of the job — for those looks on those kids’ faces when they realize they’re going to thrive.”

Busing woes, even without a strike

It has become all too common for students to have problems with yellow school buses, particularly on the first day of school. This year was no exception, as union officials continue negotiating with the city over a new contract. There were nearly 1,300 bus delays reported on the Office of Pupil Transportation’s website as of 4 p.m.

Brownsville mom Anika Smith said she received limited information about bus service and had yet to receive pick up and drop off times, even though her second grade son is entitled to transportation because of a disability.

Smith accompanied her son on Thursday to greet his teachers. Though the family lives a few blocks away from school, the mom said ongoing disruptions would be a “catastrophe,” forcing her to scramble to find relatives to help with transportation or rearrange her nursing shifts at a local hospital.

“I’m gonna have to take off a couple of days, switch around my hours,” Smith said. “I lose wages. I could get a write up … the hospital’s already short staffed.”

Outside her son’s school, P.S. 165, a staff member told a small group of families gathered in the schoolyard about the city’s contingency plans, including MetroCards or rideshare services for children with disabilities, those in temporary housing, or children in foster care.

Students and families arrive for the first day of school at P.S. 165 in Brownsville, Brooklyn.

Naomi Peña, a mother of four children with dyslexia and co-founder of a Bronx-based literacy program, said her son’s bus arrived at their home just 10 minutes before his school was scheduled to start. By the time he arrived on campus, he was more than two hours late, meaning he missed his entire morning literacy block, she said.

The late bus – along with her daughter’s class having no working air conditioning – led to a disappointing first day of school, Peña said.

“It’s frustrating because I am just one parent that experiences these things, but it’s part of a larger ecosystem of hundreds of thousands of parents,” she said. “It shouldn’t happen. It shouldn’t. Our kids deserve better, especially on their first day.”

Enrollment, mergers, and navigating the system

Over the past five years, K-12 enrollment has fallen by more than 120,000, which can have big consequences for schools since funding is tied to student headcount.

At Brooklyn’s P.S. 165, for instance, enrollment dipped below 200 students last year — one of a growing share of elementary schools in central Brooklyn and across the city below that threshold. Though small schools can be more expensive for the city to run on a per-student basis, several parents said there are benefits, too.

“With a small school environment, she will get the help that she needs,” said Crystal Salgado, referring to her 6-year-old daughter, Cianna. “The teachers actually know the kids.”

For her part, Cianna was so excited to be back at school that she zoomed past her mother into the schoolyard. She said she was most excited for lunch, preferably pizza.

Crystal Salgado and her 6-year-old daughter, Cianna, arrive for the first day of school at P.S. 165 in Brooklyn. Cianna hoped for a pizza lunch.

Some school communities began to see controversial mergers last school year, like one at Lafayette Academy, which joined with West Side Collaborative.

Despite opposition from both of these small Upper West middle schools, the proposal passed. Morana Mesic, a former PTA president at West Side Collaborative who opposed the merger, said her seventh grade son cried last night as the realization hit that he wouldn’t be returning to the small school that had felt like home. Instead, he’ll be attending West End Secondary School, a much larger 6-12 school on the Upper West Side that he transferred to over the summer.

“He’s going into a whole new environment all over again, so he did have a really emotional reaction,” she said. “He was anxious, frustrated, and scared, saying, ‘I don’t know if I’m gonna be accepted.’”

Just over 30 blocks north, on the Upper West Side campus Lafayette shares with two other schools, families fanned into a crowded street, greeted by welcome signs and an energetic traffic conductor shouting, “Good morning! Good morning! Happy first day!”

Some students matched the excitement as they approached the building.

One Manhattan School for Children student said she couldn’t wait for “math, seeing my friends, writing, and anything I learn.”

Nearby, Jeanelle and Zaki Jarrah, stood next to their eighth-grader Finn. The family is new to the city, having just moved from Flagler Beach, Florida, a few weeks ago.

They said they were looking forward to their son developing closer connections in a smaller school environment. But they didn’t have a clear idea why they picked the Manhattan School for Children.

“We have absolutely no idea what we’re doing,” Jeanelle Jarrah said, laughing. “The school system here is so overwhelming.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

As NYC revamps elementary reading curriculum, some high schools follow suit

2023-08-08T22:08:23+00:00

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While New York City’s elementary schools undertake a sweeping shift in their approach to teaching reading, a parallel change is quietly unfolding at many high schools.

High school superintendents across the city are urging, and in some cases mandating, that schools under their supervision adopt standardized English language arts curriculum, according to principals and district officials.

The superintendent-led changes have focused on one curriculum in particular: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s Into Literature, the high school extension of the company’s hugely popular elementary Into Reading program.

The secondary school curricular shift, while not as sweeping or coordinated as the changes happening at the elementary school level, could have far-reaching consequences for how literacy and literature are taught across scores of city high schools.

“It’s a huge overhaul,” said one Brooklyn administrator who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The school’s English teachers are “absolutely panicking” at the idea of swapping out books they’ve taught for years and creating lesson plans for a new curriculum in just several weeks’ time, the administrator said.

High schools were not subject to the historic mandate announced last spring that city elementary schools use one of three pre-selected literacy curriculums — an effort to standardize how young students are learning to read and move away from teaching practices that have been increasingly discredited.

An education department spokesperson said there are no plans currently to institute a citywide English curriculum mandate for secondary schools.

Nonetheless, it’s likely that high school superintendents are reacting to the changes unfurling at the elementary level, observers said.

“I think some of them are trying to get ahead of the game,” said one district staffer involved in the curriculum rollout, who spoke anonymously because they’re not authorized to talk to the press. “The writing is on the wall.”

The education department didn’t provide the number of high schools using Into Literature or other packaged curriculum, and a Houghton Mifflin Harcourt spokesperson couldn’t say how many high schools have purchased its product for “competitive reasons.”

But there are signs the shift is widespread.

In the Manhattan High Schools district, Superintendent Gary Beidleman is mandating that schools with high numbers of low-performing freshmen adopt Into Literature for ninth graders this year, according to emails obtained by Chalkbeat. In the Urban Assembly/CUNY high school district, Superintendent Fred Walsh asked schools to choose between Into Literature and two other curriculums, according to principals. Among the 47 high schools in the Brooklyn North district, 20 to 30 are likely to adopt Into Literature this fall, after strong encouragement from Superintendent Janice Ross, according to a source familiar with the district.

Education Department spokesperson Nicole Brownstein said “we are proud of our superintendents for taking proactive steps to address gaps in literacy” and that their efforts are “aligned” with the department’s elementary school initiative.

Experts and educators say there are big potential advantages to standardizing curriculum, including better quality control, a reduced burden on teachers to spend their time creating curriculum, and greater ease for district officials in supporting and monitoring schools.

But curriculum standardization is also fraught with challenges, requiring significant buy in from staff and heavy training both up front and on an ongoing basis.

Multiple educators said the early signs in several districts point to a rocky rollout.

“It’s going be really hard, I’m really worried about that,” said the district staffer involved with the curriculum rollout. “There are all these layers, and it just feels like there’s not a lot of time or resources to support these clear lines of communication that will allow this to be successful.”

NYC has history of curriculum changes

The recent moves under schools Chancellor David Banks toward standardized curriculum are far from the first effort to unify what’s taught across city schools.

Former Chancellor Joel Klein took a famously top-down approach to curriculum, including mandating a remedial literacy curriculum called Ramp Up at hundreds of high schools. Klein’s tenure ushered in the widespread adoption of “balanced literacy” — an approach that Banks is now trying to abandon because it didn’t include enough systematic instruction on the relationship between letters and sounds.

Former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s chancellors turned up the focus on ensuring classroom materials were relevant to students’ backgrounds and interests, an approach known as culturally responsive education. That culminated in the city’s first-ever plan to create a homegrown universal curriculum, a $200 million initiative called Mosaic that struggled to get off the ground and was finally killed under Mayor Eric Adams.

Veterans of the city education department say the current leadership would be wise to heed the lessons of those past rollouts: chief among them the importance of adequate training before and during curriculum adoption.

When Klein introduced Ramp Up, the remedial literacy curriculum, “there was so much front-loading before it ever played out in the classroom,” recalled Vivian Orlen, the former Manhattan high schools superintendent, who was a high school principal when Ramp Up arrived.

The current curricular shifts at the elementary and high school levels mostly outsource training to the publishers, rather than offering it in-house, a move that’s raised some eyebrows among curriculum experts.

“I’ve worked with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt trainers,” said Vicki Madden, a long-time teacher and instructional coach in the city education department who retired last spring. “The trainers invariably do a sort of stand and deliver [training],” or a type of instruction that’s heavy on lectures from the front of the room, and lighter on interactive and group work. “No teachers learn a curriculum package [like that],” Madden added.

Moreover, several educators told Chalkbeat they haven’t yet received any dedicated training on the new curriculum or even had a chance to review the materials, which arrived at schools over the summer.

Kathleen Kantz-Durand, an English teacher at Climate Justice High School in East Harlem, which is shifting to Into Literature under a mandate from its superintendent, said she was hoping to attend a voluntary vendor-led training organized by the district earlier this summer, but didn’t have child care.

“I think this return to really traditional curriculum and texts could be a good thing,” she said. “But…the precious little communication I’ve had about it, the lack of training, worries me that it’s not going to be implemented in a way that will work.”

Kantz-Durand said she was still hoping to attend another optional session before the start of school.

An education department spokesperson said that there are four coaches in the Manhattan superintendent’s office who will work with the 18 schools adopting “evidence-based” English curriculum this year.

The training challenges are compounded by the fact that the new contract between the city and the United Federation of Teachers cuts the weekly required professional development block from 80 to 60 minutes.

Schools weigh pros and cons of new curriculum

Among the biggest changes schools are bracing for with the adoption of Into Reading is the curriculum’s focus on shorter excerpts of texts rather than full books.

“I feel kind of complicated about [that],” said Kantz-Durand. “As a person who loves literature, I would love to see students read full text. There’s a lot of pride and joy…in reading a full book.”

On the other hand, Kantz-Durand acknowledged, reading full novels can sometimes take months, especially when students don’t reliably have access to quiet spaces outside of school where they can read independently. So swapping in shorter texts is a change she might have eventually made anyway.

Into Literature does include suggestions for full books to replace the excerpts, but educators new to the curriculum may not know about that feature, and swapping in full books can require significantly more work for teachers, said a district staffer who’s worked extensively with the curriculum.

Other educators questioned whether the pre-selected texts would speak to their students’ experiences.

“When you’re writing a textbook for the entire United States it’s going to look a little different than if you’re writing for a school in Harlem,” said one Manhattan principal, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s elementary school curriculum has received criticism for failing to incorporate a diverse selection of authors, a charge the company denies. One Brooklyn principal told Chalkbeat that Into Literature seemed to have a more diverse set of texts than other curriculums they reviewed.

For some schools, Into Reading won’t be entirely new.

The curriculum, previously called Collections, has been a mainstay for years in the city Education Department, and is currently the only high school English program included on the city’s list of “core curriculum.” That distinction means it’s been vetted by the Education Department and schools can use state textbook grants to buy it, rather than dipping into their general budgets.

Educators who have seen curriculum shifts come and go caution that, however promising a new program is, implementing that at scale is delicate work that can fall apart easily with a haphazard rollout.

“There’s an endless cycle in schools,” said Madden. “People are dissatisfied with kids’ achievement, engagement. People say, ‘We need a new curriculum.’ Within one week of implementation, you’ll hear from people saying, “This isn’t right for our kids, this doesn’t work,” then you have teachers veering off. Some of them will be brilliant, some will not. And then you don’t have shared curriculum at all.”

Alex Zimmerman contributed.

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Federal judge orders NYC to fix special education service and payment delays

2023-07-19T21:56:41+00:00

This is part of an ongoing collaborative series between Chalkbeat and THE CITY investigating learning differences, special education, and other education challenges in city schools.

A Manhattan federal judge on Wednesday ordered the Department of Education to take 40 specific steps to address decades-old delays in providing special education services to families who have won legal battles to secure them.

This includes a mandate that the department assign additional staffers within six months to address the thousands of cases that are currently overdue.

When parents of students with disabilities believe their child is not getting the supportive services they’re entitled to, they can file a complaint that leads to a hearing in front of an administrative judge, known as an impartial hearing officer.

Advocates and eight parents of kids with disabilities sued the department in federal court two decades ago because families were often forced to wait months to obtain services or payments for special education services even after they were awarded them in administrative hearings.

Those services can include transportation to and from school, physical therapy, and tuition payments to private schools when families can demonstrate the district can’t properly serve their children in a public school.

Over the years those delays have stretched for months or even years, forcing parents to forgo crucial services or pay for them out of their own pocket — which can be untenable for some families. Those with means sometimes take extreme measures, such as taking out second mortgages on their homes.

While the original lawsuit was settled in 2007, the case has continued for more than a decade longer because of the education department’s inability to meet the settlement terms, which require that it speed up services and payments considerably.

Wednesday’s order is the latest move, with the most detailed remedy to date, for fixing the issue. Many of the steps delineated by U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska require the education department to act within three to six months, while a number extend beyond a year.

“We are here today to take a massive step toward getting families reimbursed for the costs of services,” Preska said during a court hearing on Wednesday. She referred to the changes required by her order as a “wholesale streamlining of the payment system.”

The ruling also requires the Education Department to set up a hotline from which parents can get updates on the status of their complaints seeking special education services for their children, and to set up a mobile app that allows providers of services to enter their hours worked by phone — rather than through a paper invoice that’s required currently.

“It’s huge and very impactful for students — especially the families that don’t have the resources to put money out and essentially give the DOE a loan until the DOE pays them back,” said Rebecca Shore, the litigation director at the group Advocates for Children, which filed the federal lawsuit in 2003. “Parents, families and students have been harmed because of the DOE’s failure for decades to timely implement [hearing officers’] orders.”

City officials said on Wednesday that they support the changes mandated by the court order. In an unusual move, schools Chancellor David Banks attended Wednesday’s court hearing, shaking Preska’s hand and posing for photographs. Though he did not take questions from reporters, he released a written statement after the order was issued.

“The new requirements are stringent because we, too, believe that change is long overdue,” Banks said. “While case volume and challenges increased over the past decade, we are moving aggressively to set a new course.”

Banks’ statement is notable because he previously cast doubt about the legitimacy of the complaint process, arguing that families have tried to “game this system,” referring to reimbursements for private special education that have ballooned to nearly $1 billion. Education officials later walked those comments back.

Delays are commonplace

Unless hearing officers set different timelines, the education department has 35 days to implement orders for services or payments, under a prior settlement in the federal lawsuit reached in 2007.

That agreement sought to push the education department to comply with the required timelines in more than 90% of the cases, and required the department to pay for an independent auditor to monitor its performance.

The education department utterly failed to meet that standard. The latest numbers supplied by that auditor, covering January to April 2022, show that the department met the deadlines for enacting orders for special education services in just 5.8% of cases, and met payment deadlines in just 2.3% of orders.

There were about 2,800 orders for services and nearly 4,000 orders for payment issued by hearing officers during that three-month quarter. It was the auditor’s 51st report since the settlement, which has come with a price tag for the Department of Education of over $25 million.

Wednesday’s ruling followed the installation of a special master in 2021 to analyze the Department of Education’s challenges in complying with hearing officer decisions in a timely manner, and it mandates most of his recommendations for addressing them.

Earlier this year, special master David Irwin, of Thru Consulting LLC, found that the education department office responsible for ensuring services are provided or payments made is operating with severely outdated methods and technology.

This includes using handwritten forms, paper-based invoices, and relying on “heavy” levels of data entry that involve “simply copying text from one place to another.”

“These outdated processes require more human staff time as the volume of cases increases,” Irwin wrote in a summary of his findings in March. “This is essentially the root cause of backlogs and delays.”

David Irwin worked as a federally appointed special master who recommended the changes ordered on Wednesday.

Irwin also pointed to staffing shortages that are exacerbated by the laborious need for manual data entry and by the administration’s unwillingness to make the positions more desirable by allowing staffers the flexibility to work from home.

“Simply put, kids are not getting services because there are not enough qualified staff to support this work, and the regular means of attracting and retaining staff has not worked,” he wrote.

John Farago, a hearing officer who adjudicates special education cases, said he’s skeptical the court order will transform the process. The problem, he argues, is more systemic and can’t be fixed with a series of technological and workflow changes.

“The culture of the district is to resist its obligation to pay providers,” he said, noting that culture extends to the department responsible for issuing payments to providers and private schools that receive tuition reimbursements from the city.

One solution, he said, could be to take the responsibility for breaking down hearing officers’ orders into specific payments and services out of the education department’s hands and giving it to an independent entity.

“What’s wrong with the order in my view is that it treats a large deep systemic problem as though it’s a series of small technical problems,” Farago added. “When you’re being eaten alive by piranhas it’s a mistake to focus on them individually.”

Irwin, the court appointed special master who came up with the recommendations adopted in the court order, said the education department “hardly pushed back” on any of his recommendations.

It will take time to see results, Irwin said, adding that he hopes that within a year a much larger share of services and payments are delivered within the required timeframe. He suggested that the main reason the education department has struggled to meet the legal timelines is that they have not understood what reforms are needed to fix the process.

“I’m an optimist,” he said. “This order tells them exactly what they need to do.”

Long-running ‘crisis’

But the court order does not address a much larger issue: The entire process disproportionately benefits families with time, resources, and access to legal help. Some families may simply go without services rather than facing a daunting bureaucratic system.

And the order focuses on the final phase of the complaint process, even as many other elements of it have been in crisis for years because of an explosion in cases. The number of complaints filed grew by the thousands between 2014 and 2018, according to a report commissioned by the New York State Education Department in 2019 — which found there were also too few hearing officers and too little space to handle the flood of cases.

At one point in 2019 there were just nine hearing officers on rotation to hear nearly 10,000 cases, and a single hearing officer had more than 1,700 cases on his plate.

The COVID-19 pandemic’s interruption to instruction made things even worse for many special education students, particularly those who relied on in-person services or whose disabilities made remote learning all but impossible.

In early 2021, the special master was appointed to get to the bottom of the education department’s difficulties in implementing the orders of hearing officers.

By the end of 2021, then-Mayor Bill de Blasio put the hearing process under the umbrella of the city’s Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings — a shift away from a contracted system that struggled for years to identify enough willing and knowledgeable hearing officers.

In the last school year under de Blasio, parents and attorneys filed nearly 18,000 requests for impartial hearings, according to The New York Times — almost double the number from 2018.

Shore, the attorney at Advocates for Children, said what’s significant about Wednesday’s order is the level of detail in the mandated action steps and the requirement that the Department of Education provide regular updates to the court about its progress.

“Those steps must be taken,” she said. “This is an actual order with teeth.”

Still, any fixes will be too late for many families, including the students involved in the original lawsuit who have since aged out of the public school system.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Yoav Gonen is a reporter for THE CITY. Contact Yoav at ygonen@thecity.nyc.

PLACE-endorsed candidates win nearly 40% of seats on NYC’s parent councils

2023-06-17T00:26:37+00:00

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Candidates endorsed by a polarizing group that advocates for screened school admissions won the majority of seats on about half a dozen parent councils this year, according to election results released Friday by the New York City education department.

Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education, or PLACE, endorsed 147 candidates across the city for local district council seats, with 115 of them winning their races. The group’s preferred candidates will make up nearly 40% of the Community Education Council members across the five boroughs, according to a Chalkbeat analysis.

Established in 2019, PLACE supports the status quo when it comes to academic screening policies that have resulted in one of the nation’s most segregated school systems. That includes keeping the Specialized High School Admissions Test, or SHSAT, and expanding gifted and talented programs. The group generally opposes lottery-based admissions and paring back screened admissions to the city’s middle and high schools.

The Community Education Councils, or CECs, have the power to approve or reject school rezoning plans, pass resolutions about various school-related issues, and work with district superintendents. The 32 councils, which each have 10 elected members and two appointed by the local borough president, hold monthly public meetings.

There are also citywide councils for high school students, English learners, students with disabilities, and those enrolled in the city’s District 75 programs, which serve children with the most challenging disabilities.

This was the second CEC election where voting was open to parents citywide. To many watching races across the city, this year’s elections seemed more divisive than ever, with some candidates localizing culture wars playing out across the nation. CEC 2 winner Maud Maron, who co-founded PLACE and was previously on the District 2 parent council, told THE CITY, “Land acknowledgements don’t teach anybody more math,” referring to lessons about Indigenous people who inhabited land before European colonialism.

With her victory Friday, Maron will again sit on a CEC that represents one of the most affluent swaths of Manhattan.

Some of PLACE’s ideas have found favor with schools Chancellor David Banks, such as expanding gifted and talented seats. The organization had Banks’ ear at the very start of his tenure, appearing on his schedule last March.

Some education advocates have grown concerned about PLACE’s influence, pointing to the views of some of their members, including comparing critical race theory, an academic framework about systemic racism, to Nazi ideology, as reported by THE CITY. Several candidates endorsed by the group backed away from that support during the election season.

PLACE wasn’t alone in endorsing candidates. A group called Parents for Middle School Equity, based in Brooklyn’s District 15 (which includes Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Red Hook, and part of Sunset Park), appears to be ideologically opposed to PLACE. The group’s interest is in preserving the district’s middle school integration plan. But its influence fell far below PLACE’s: Less than a quarter of its endorsed candidates won seats across the city, a Chalkbeat analysis found.

A few districts appeared to be PLACE strongholds: Every person elected to the CEC in Brooklyn’s District 20, which spans Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Borough Park, and part of Sunset Park, was endorsed by PLACE. All of the group’s preferred candidates also won seats on the CECs representing two large Queens districts — nine people in District 26 (which covers northeast Queens, including Bayside) and seven in District 28, where a controversial push to integrate its middle schools from Forest Hills to Jamaica was derailed by the pandemic.

Still, the Equity group’s preferred candidates outnumbered PLACE’s endorsed candidates in a handful of districts, including East Harlem’s District 4, Harlem’s District 5, Williamsburg’s District 14, and District 15.

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that District 26 includes northeast Queens, including Bayside.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

College felt impossible to this student in foster care. Then NYC offered to pay.

2023-06-15T16:14:05+00:00

At the age of 16, Marowa, a Bangladeshi immigrant, entered New York City’s foster care system, after her parents had physically abused her for much of her life.

Two years and five foster homes later, Marowa fled to California to build a new life but returned to New York City by the age of 19, in search of stable housing and a familiar community. (Marowa said she does not have a legal last name.)

After she reluctantly re-entered foster care, a social worker asked Marowa if she knew that Administration for Children’s Services, or ACS, could help her pay for college and other expenses.

“I was just thinking about surviving,” Marowa said. “I wasn’t really thinking about college.”

Last week — five years after that conversation — Marowa graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Brooklyn College, with the help of the financial assistance that her social worker had described.

Marowa is one of 300 students who used the College Choice program this year to fund up to $15,000 of tuition, room and board, and $60 in daily stipends, according to ACS officials, who said that no eligible student who applied on time was turned away.

The program, announced in October, combined with other state and federal grants, covers all tuition and living expenses for these students. It was similar to other programs that preceded it when Marowa first entered college with some updates that aim to ease the burden on participants: College Choice doubles the daily student stipend and allows them to live on the same campus as where they go to school.

For the 2023-24 school year, the Adams administration has proposed keeping this $10 million initiative.

A more stable future for students in foster care

The program attempts to set up a stable future for students like Marowa, who might otherwise be unable to pay for college or incur student loan debt, even with federal and state grants. In New York City, the cost of higher education is not the only barrier: Last school year, 45% of students in foster care graduated from high school on time, compared with 84% of students not in foster care, according to state data. In 2019, before the pandemic and the loosening of certain graduation requirements, just one-quarter of youth in foster care graduated on time.

The city’s Fair Futures program, which advocates pushed the city to create in recent years, attempts to improve those graduation rates by linking students in foster care ages 11 to 26 with academic, career, and life coaching.

Even children who make it to college can find it financially impossible to stay enrolled, said Jess Dannhauser, commissioner for ACS. Dannhauser, who previously oversaw foster care agency Graham Windam, said he’d hear about students who dropped out of college because they couldn’t afford pricey textbooks or even doing laundry regularly.

“The things that came up both were expensive, and it was hard to be nimble to meet all those needs,” Dannhauser said of students’ experiences. “And it sends a message that they don’t belong there.”

In order to be eligible for College Choice, young people must currently be in foster care, earn a minimum GPA of 2.0, and apply for financial aid grants, such as the federal Pell Grant and New York State’s Tuition Assistance Program, or TAP.

Larger stipends and more places to live

Before Marowa used College Choice this year, there was “The Dorm Project,” which used a total of about $7 million to provide housing and tuition help to about 200 students in foster care last year who attended CUNY schools. ACS also provided $31 daily stipends to college students in foster care.

Marowa pictured on her graduation day at Brooklyn College.

College Choice ironed out a few wrinkles with the previous program, officials said. Unlike previous years, the program helps cover costs for students who attend any college, not just CUNY. Students also receive a $60 daily stipend — and will now receive that money for six months after graduation.

The old program provided year-round housing at certain CUNY dorms where the city had purchased space but not necessarily where students were attending school. In what felt like a particularly important change for children, College Choice allows them to live on the same campus where they’re enrolled.

“We heard from young people that they really wanted to live and go to school in the same place, that they wanted that choice, that they wanted to have the opportunity to go out of state,” said ACS Commissioner Jess Dannhauser in an interview. “And the College Choice program allows for that.”

The program is a positive start at helping students access college, but broadening the eligibility requirements would help many more students in need, said Chantal Hinds, a researcher focused on students in foster care at the Next100, a policy think tank based in New York City. Hinds noted that the program doesn’t benefit students who aren’t in foster care anymore but might still be struggling financially and mentally from their experience in the system.

She noted that Marowa could have been one of those teens had she not re-entered the foster care system after her time in California.

“If you’re in the foster system for a month or 12 years, you’re still impacted,” said Hinds, who was once an attorney for ACS. “There was still a significant portion of your life that was changed because of this experience.”

Marowa began receiving financial support through the old college aid programs and then switched over to College Choice this past school year, which meant her daily stipend doubled in size.

In college, Marowa changed majors twice before landing on English literature, which she fell in love with after being forced as a newcomer immigrant years ago to learn the language.

Marowa was one of the students who pushed ACS for better college assistance, and she continues to advocate on behalf of foster youth, both she and an ACS spokesperson said. She’s considering a teaching job offer, and has qualified for subsidized housing.

Once she becomes more financially stable, she’s hoping to fulfill a longtime dream: to become a foster mom.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

NYC teachers union and Adams administration reach tentative deal on 5-year contract

2023-06-13T20:12:43+00:00

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New York City reached a deal with the teachers union for a five-year contract that includes annual raises, expands opportunities for virtual learning, and allows some remote work for certain employees, Mayor Eric Adams announced Tuesday.

The tentative deal for the United Federation of Teachers’ 115,000 full-time and 5,000 part-time education department employees includes 3% wage increases for the first three years, followed by a 3.25% increase in the fourth year, and 3.5% in the fifth year. The full contract would cost the city $6.4 billion, city officials said.

Starting salary for new teachers will jump from $61,070 to $72,349 by the end of the contract. In five years, the most experienced teachers will earn $151,271. The deal also proposes to cut in half the amount of time it takes teachers to reach a $100,000 salary — from 15 to eight years.

It also includes annual retention bonuses that will grow to $1,000 in 2026, for as long as an employee is an education department employee, and will be built into the system going forward. It’s the first time the union has negotiated such a payment, said Michael Mulgrew, president of the teachers union, during a press conference announcing the deal.

“We’re saying to all of our titles and every member, whether you’re in the first year or your 25th year, New York City is saying that we appreciate you, we recognize the challenges that you take on every day and you will receive $1,000 every [year] for that,” Mulgrew said. [Mulgrew initially misspoke, and his statement has been clarified.]

The retention bonus is “a good strategy” for keeping teachers, said Melissa Arnold Lyon, assistant professor of politics and policy at the University of Albany, who has been following the UFT’s contract negotiations. Teacher turnover rates in New York City and elsewhere hit an unusual high after last school year, potentially exacerbated by the stresses of the pandemic.

“There are a lot of costs of trying to find and hire new teachers,” Lyon said. “If $1,000 helps you to keep a teacher, at least on the micro level, that’s worth it.”

The agreement is retroactive to Sept. 14, 2022, and runs through Nov. 28, 2027, city officials said. The wage increases follow the pattern of raises set by the February agreement with District Council 37, which includes cafeteria workers, parent coordinators, and crossing guards.

Many teachers expected that their union would follow suit and had expressed concerns given that the previous deals were not keeping pace with inflation, which has moderated somewhat in recent months but reached 6.5% last year. Teachers had complained that their responsibilities have only increased since the pandemic, as they continue to catch up students academically and socially from years of interrupted learning.

A virtual learning program to expand

The contract would expand a pilot remote learning project that allowed small schools to offer virtual courses — such as AP Chemistry — that they otherwise couldn’t because of staffing issues. This year, the program used federal funding to grow, reaching about 1,500 students across 58 schools, with 23 separate online courses outside traditional school hours.

Under the tentative deal, high schools, as well as schools that serve grades 6-12, could offer virtual courses after school and on the weekends starting in the next academic year, union officials said, though nothing would bar schools from creating tutoring programs, too. Those programs would be available to students who volunteer to participate, and would be staffed by volunteer teachers. A quarter of high schools would be allowed to participate next year, growing to all high schools by the 2027-28 school year. High schools must apply to participate, education officials said.

Courses might be offered at individual schools or through the central education department, and high schools must apply to participate, education officials said. Part-time remote teachers can apply to be part of their school-based remote program and work before or after the school day; there will also be full-time, centrally hired teachers for the other program.

Programs could vary, Gendar said. For example, a school could offer evening courses, from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m., for students who are missing classes because they’re working day jobs, she said.

Schools could offer non-traditional schedules for students and teachers who want them. If a teacher volunteers to work a virtual program in addition to their regular work day, they will be paid overtime, Gendar said.

During a press conference, schools Chancellor David Banks said the virtual learning agreement gives students more flexibility, noting that some benefited from remote learning during the pandemic.

“Students who were at risk of dropping out were able to continue their coursework on a schedule that works best for them,” Banks said of remote learning during the start of the pandemic. “This expands those types of opportunities across the entire system.”

The contract would also allow some employees, who don’t work directly in schools, to work remotely for up to two days a week. It was not immediately clear which employees that would include.

Another sticking point was over how teachers would get to spend an extra 155 minutes each week after school. The deal would allow them, as they did this year, to do professional development and parent outreach, and it added a new option for teachers to do other classroom work of their choice in that time.

Teachers have mixed feelings

The contract is not yet final. First, the union’s negotiating committee, composed of 500 members, along with its executive board and delegate assembly will decide whether to send the tentative deal to all union members for a vote. Union officials did not immediately provide dates for those votes.

Some teachers took to social media to criticize the deal, but pushing back against it could be an uphill battle. The union cannot easily pull off a work stoppage because a teachers strike would violate New York’s Taylor Law, which imposes significant financial penalties for public sector unions that strike.

Robert Effinger, a union chapter leader at the Bronx High School of Business, said the pay increases surpassed his expectations.

Although some educators hoped that the salary increases would exceed inflation, the union was hemmed in by the pattern set by unions that negotiated contracts earlier this year. But Effinger said he was glad to see the union negotiate a quicker path to higher pay, an issue he hopes will help retain more educators.

“One of the reasons people burn out in education is they feel like they’re doing a lot of labor that is not appropriately compensated,” he said. “Having an accelerated early track is better for keeping people in.”

Still, he said he’s eager to hear more details about other elements of the contract including increased teacher autonomy, a major part of the union’s campaign, which focused on burdensome paperwork requirements educators face.

The union plans to hold a virtual town hall for members on Thursday at 4 p.m.

Alex Zimmerman contributed.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

NYC school admission offers are out. Here’s what the numbers show.

2023-06-02T00:41:43+00:00

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Despite the stress of applying to New York City public schools, more children received offers to their top-choice schools across all grade levels, education department officials said Thursday.

New York City schools have long relied on the practice of sorting and screening many kids, leading to a Hunger Games-like mindset for many families. It has also resulted in one of the nation’s most segregated school systems.

This year’s offer data shows little change in terms of racial and economic diversity compared to last year.

“That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” said Nyah Berg, of the integration advocacy nonprofit New York Appleseed, who previously expressed concerns that changes to this year’s admissions cycle could lead to less diverse schools. “We have made a lot of progress over the past two years.”

As the pandemic forced many schools to drop or shift their admissions criteria, some schools have become more diverse. Though integration advocates had long been pushing for such changes, it only happened by necessity because attendance could no longer be held against students, and standardized tests were not administered as they typically were. Neither Mayor Eric Adams nor Chancellor David Banks has made integration a top priority.

“If we really want to create and foster diverse schools there’s a lot more to be done than tinkering here and there,” Berg said.

Still, she believed this year’s changes centralizing admissions for high school, in particular, made the process more transparent, and she’s hopeful the city will continue to ditch standardized test scores and attendance in screening applicants.

Here’s a snapshot of what offers looked like for different grades.

Status quo for specialized high schools

Once again, few Black and Latino students were admitted to New York City’s eight prestigious specialized high schools, which accept students based solely on a single admissions test.

Black and Latino students made up nearly 10% of offers for next year’s class, according to education department data released Thursday.

That’s about the same as the previous year and the year before that. Just seven Black students were admitted to Stuyvesant based on the admissions exam — and that number was higher than three other specialized high schools.

Black and Latino students make up about 66% of students citywide.

The small number of Black and Latino students at the city’s specialized high schools has long been the subject of fierce debate, with many blaming the disparity on the reliance of a single test for admissions. (The admissions method is governed by state law.) The Adams administration has made little indication that it plans to change the way students are admitted to these schools, largely considered the Ivy League of New York City high schools.

About 26,000 eighth graders took the Specialized High School Admissions test this year, down about 2,000 from last year, according to city data.

Little change at selective high schools

For admissions to other selective New York City high schools, little changed. The education department created a tiered system for the city’s selective schools — like Beacon, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Townsend Harris — based on seventh grade scores in core subjects. The changes were aimed to simplify the process but also raised the bar for scores needed to qualify for the top group, narrowing the group of kids with priority access to these coveted schools.

Banks stirred up controversy when discussing the shift: “If a young person is working their tail off every single day and they get a 99% average … that should be honored,” he said at the time. “You should not be thrown in a lottery with just everybody.”

There were some concerns that the changes would reverse some of the pandemic-era diversity gains seen when competitive schools could no longer rely as heavily on grades and other screening measures, like state tests scores and attendance. But more than 40 of these schools have programs that set aside a certain percentage of their seats for students from low-income families or in temporary housing, for instance. That meant if there were not enough students with top grades for “group 1” who met the eligibility requirements for a school’s diversity targets, such as a certain percentage of students from low-income families, then those seats went to applicants in the next tier.

Despite these shifts in selection criteria, the offers reveal that little changed in racial and economic demographics compared to last year when an 85 grade point average was the cutoff for the top tier instead of this year’s 90 GPA. Roughly 32% of offers at these schools went to Latino students, followed by 25% to Asian American students, 19% to Black students, and 17% to white students. Roughly 66% of the offers went to students from low-income families.

Overall, of the roughly 73,000 eighth graders across the city receiving offers this year, about 48% percent got into their top choice. That isn’t far from last year, when about 50% got their first choice or the previous year when 46% got their No. 1 pick.

About 75% applicants got into one of their top three choices, up two percentage points from last year.

The city extended offers three months earlier than last year. The goal, city officials said, was to let families know before private school deposit deadlines.

Number of screened programs drops dramatically at middle school

Following two years without selective admissions for New York City middle schools — as the pandemic upended state test scores and other screening criteria — Banks let each district’s superintendent decide whether to reinstate competitive middle school admissions.

Some families lobbied to bring back screens, while others pushed to ditch them, saying it was unfair to sort the city’s 10-year olds based on their academic performance from fourth grade.

After superintendents spent about a month deliberating with their communities, nearly all opted for fewer or the same number of screened middle schools as before the pandemic. Nearly 60 of 478 middle schools ended up reinstating screens for at least some segment of their incoming sixth graders based on their fourth grade marks; 24 of these programs used selective criteria for all incoming sixth graders.

That dramatically reduced the number of kids in screened middle school programs from about 16,510 getting such offers in 2020 to about 5,100 with offers for the coming school year, according to the data.

The breakdown of students by income in screened programs remained fairly steady, with about 60% coming from low-income families. The share of Asian American students jumped to 35%, up from 21% in 2020, likely based on the demographics of which districts opted for screened programs.

Overall, 74% of the city’s fifth graders received an offer for their top choice, and 92% got one of their top three choices.

Kindergarten offers slightly up

City data also reflected a slight increase in kindergarten applicants, with about 1,200 more children applying. Those figures included applications for spots in the city’s coveted “gifted and talented” program, which used teacher evaluations instead of the prepandemic exams to select preschoolers.

About 95% of families saw their children admitted to one of their top three choices this year — up 4% from last year — as more seats were available and as the city said it extended more offers to families interested in schools outside of their zone or district.

This year, applications to the gifted and talented program were included with general kindergarten admission. Officials did not release admissions data for the gifted and talented program Thursday.

In the past, the program has faced criticism for admitting small numbers of Black and Hispanic students.

The application process underwent multiple changes during the pandemic, with Adams and Banks reversing a plan to phase out the program and choosing instead to expand the track by 100 seats in kindergarten last year.

Applications up slightly for 3-K and pre-K

For the city’s youngest students, admissions data showed a slight uptick as the city saw more applicants and more children set to receive 3-K and pre-K offers.

Admissions to 3-K programs rose by 8% this year, as the number of applicants rose to roughly 41,600. That was up from just under 40,000 in 2022.

For families applying, 68% were admitted to their first-choice program, up 5% from 2022.

Nearly 61,000 children received offers to pre-K programs this year — a jump of 3% from the year prior. That came as applications were up more than 3,000 from 2022, though still well below pre-pandemic figures.

Among applicants, 84% were admitted to their first-choice program.

The numbers come as a consulting firm’s report found the city’s early childhood system — including 3K, pre-K, as well as infants and toddlers — currently had roughly 30,000 empty seats — many of which were not in areas where demand is high, according to officials. That meant some parts of the city would see waitlists for spots, while others had thousands of empty seats, officials said.

The city did not release the complete findings of the report Thursday, which it paid the firm Accenture more than $760,000 to conduct. But its prognosis echoes a common criticism from the Adams administration — that the supply and demand of seats have been misaligned in areas across the city.

Officials said that the findings pointed toward a need to look at enrollment projections and available seats within zip codes, redistributing seats to areas with higher demand.

Of the approximately 140,000 seats across the city’s early childhood system, between roughly 119,000 and 127,000 were projected to be filled in 2024-25, according to the report.

“The city is focused on matching seats to parent demand—and that’s not a bad thing—but they should also be working to increase parent demand, particularly among underserved communities where children currently have the least access to quality early education programs,” said Halley Potter, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation. “The Adams administration has not provided the needed investments in outreach, and that, combined with the lagging effects of the pandemic disruption to early childhood settings, is a recipe for inequity.”

The city’s free prekindergarten program has struggled this year, as delayed payments have caused some providers to shutter. Some officials and advocates, including City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, have criticized the administration for its handling of the early education system.

Julian Shen-Berro is a reporter covering New York City. Contact him at jshen-berro@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

NYC’s literacy mandate: Why one reading program is gaining the most traction

2023-05-31T10:00:00+00:00

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Under NYC’s aggressive literacy push announced earlier this month, officials are mandating all elementary schools use one of three reading curriculums.

One is proving to be far more popular than the others.

Thirteen of 15 local superintendents charged with selecting their districts’ reading curriculum in this first phase of the rollout picked Into Reading, a program published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

The education department vetted all three of the mandated reading programs, including Wit & Wisdom and EL Education, officials said. And all three received high marks from the independent curriculum reviewer EdReports.

So why is Into Reading far and away the most popular option among superintendents?

Curriculum experts and department insiders pointed to a series of interlocking factors that may have helped Into Reading elbow out the competition. The program is widely perceived as easier for teachers to implement, especially with little time remaining before deploying it in September. Plus, Into Reading has a Spanish version, which may appeal to superintendents who oversee many dual-language and bilingual programs.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt may have also benefited from a savvy marketing strategy, current and former department employees said. When the pandemic forced school buildings to shutter in March 2020, the company quickly made a slew of free digital materials available to the city’s public schools, including Into Reading and its Spanish counterpart.

“It was a huge help. We were able to make sure that schools had the digital resources they needed during remote learning and hybrid learning,” said a current education department employee familiar with the city’s literacy efforts who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Within two years, the education department had added Into Reading to its approved list of curriculum offerings. That meant if principals choose Into Reading, the cost was subsidized, though they were still free to use their own budgets to purchase other curriculums.

“Houghton Mifflin made a strategic decision during the pandemic and they hoped it would pay off,” the official said. “And it did.”

EL Education, one of the other programs included in the new mandate, was also on the approved list at the time. All three curriculums covered by the new curriculum mandate, including Wit & Wisdom, will be similarly subsidized.

A spokesperson for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt downplayed its decision to make materials free as a key driver of superintendents’ decisions to mandate their product. “There were already hundreds of schools across the city using HMH reading resources,” Bianca Olson, a company spokesperson, wrote in an email. “These partners have seen strong results and they want to continue that momentum in support of student achievement.”

A city education department spokesperson noted that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt was one of more than a dozen vendors that provided free digital resources during the pandemic. But officials have generally not collected or published comprehensive curriculum data over time, making it difficult to ascertain the full impact of the company’s strategy.

The education department also declined to say how much they are projected to spend on Houghton Mifflin Harcourt materials and training now that Into Reading is being widely mandated, saying they are still working on creating cost estimates.

Focus turns to ‘science of reading’

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s move to make its materials free came at an opportune moment. Before the pandemic struck, many schools were already in the process of reconsidering their reading curriculum choices, multiple curriculum experts said, pressured in part by a small army of literacy coaches dispatched to schools.

A growing movement backed by years of research, known as the “science of reading,” was persuading more school leaders to back away from “balanced literacy” — an approach that sought to foster a love of literature by allowing students ample time to independently read books of their choosing. It also sometimes included dubious methods, such as encouraging students to use pictures to guess at a word’s meaning instead of focusing on the letters and sounds themselves.

“Every school that I was in was in the midst of changing,” said Heidi Donohue, an early literacy expert at Teaching Matters, an organization that works with city schools to improve reading and math instruction. “They were really talking about, ‘Is the curriculum high-quality? Is it meeting the needs of our kids?’”

More recently, schools Chancellor David Banks has declared that balanced literacy is not an effective approach, often singling out a curriculum developed by Lucy Calkins at Columbia University’s Teachers College — one of the most popular reading curriculums in the city’s public schools. (Heinemann, the publisher of Calkins’ curriculum, is also a division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.)

NYC Chancellor David Banks stands at a podium, with Mayor Eric Adams standing off to the left at Tweed Courthouse on June 27, 2022.

Some observers said they were not surprised that Into Reading has become a popular choice in New York City, since it is also widely used elsewhere. An Education Week survey found that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s reading offerings are among the five most popular early reading programs in the country, in large and small districts alike.

Others emphasized that its lessons may seem easier to unpack: Donohue noted that many lesson plans from the teachers manual can fit on two pages. Experts also said Into Reading has common DNA with curriculums that schools have used for years that are structured as anthology-style textbooks with passages written specifically to teach reading skills. (In education jargon, those programs are often referred to as “basals.”)

“A basal-type program is going to have much more structure in the teaching, in the lesson plan itself,” said Esther Friedman, who directed the city education department’s literacy efforts until 2020. Although Friedman said the other two programs also have detailed teacher guides, Into Reading may feel “a little bit more manageable.”

In Brooklyn’s District 16, which covers a large chunk of Bedford-Stuyvesant, teachers got a head start. About two years ago, nearly all of the district’s elementary schools adopted Into Reading, and the new superintendent, Brendan Mims, plans to keep the program in place.

Even though the district’s schools have already used Into Reading, Mims said there’s still room for improvement. “We haven’t hit that bar yet,” he said, in terms of implementing it as effectively as he thinks is possible. He’s hopeful that a more centralized approach to training will help. “Now, teachers and principals and district staff can work together to make sure that they’re getting what they need,” he said.

No curriculum checks every box

Into Reading has the potential to reshape reading instruction across hundreds of elementary school classrooms. That number could grow as more than half of superintendents aren’t implementing the curriculum mandate until September 2024.

Curriculum experts offered mixed feelings about the popularity of Into Reading. Nearly all said that it has many strong elements, including challenging readings, and a broad array of lessons that build vocabulary, spelling, and grammar skills.

But some also said in an effort to sell the curriculum to the widest array of districts, Into Reading is jam-packed with different strategies and resources, similar to other anthology-style programs. That will require teachers to be selective about which lessons to teach.

“Teachers really have to plan for this, and they have to understand that they’re not going to use all of the resources,” Merryl Casanova, a literacy coach who works with schools in the Bronx, previously told Chalkbeat.

Donohue, of Teaching Matters, said the program can be used effectively, but there are also elements of it that feel “watered down.” She said the texts and vocabulary tend to be slightly less challenging, and the other two curriculums include deeper student discussions and units with more sophisticated themes.

The other two programs “bring a higher quality of text and expectation for kids,” Donohue said. A New York University report also found that Into Reading materials are not culturally responsive, though Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has disputed that characterization and some educators told Chalkbeat the materials do speak to the diversity of New York City’s student body.

Other observers said that EL Education and Wit & Wisdom are somewhat more focused on exposing students to nonfiction in an effort to boost their background knowledge of topics they’re likely to encounter in the future, a strategy meant to boost students’ ability to understand texts about a wide range of subjects.

Still, experts emphasized that all three curriculums come with tradeoffs. And much of the success of the literacy mandate may rest on whether educators buy into the changes — which can be tricky given there was not a public input process. The quality of the training they receive is also critical to the program’s success.

“Really none of the three [curriculums] give a teacher all of the tools for teaching what needs to be taught,” Friedman said. “That has to come from the professional development.”

With just over three months until the next school year begins, there is limited time to fully prepare.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Diwali gains support to become a school holiday in New York and across the U.S.

2023-05-26T19:30:03+00:00

Efforts to make Diwali a New York state and federal holiday gained traction this week.

Such a change, which many of New York’s Indian Americans have hoped for, would impact school calendars every fall.

On Thursday, New York State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said his chamber plans to pass legislation that would make Diwali a state holiday. Also known as the “festival of lights,” Diwali is observed by Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, and some Buddhists as a celebration of light over darkness and good over evil.

Heastie said he expects the bill to pass before the end of the legislative session on June 8. The legislation also designates Lunar New Year as a holiday. (New York City schools already recognize Lunar New Year, though schools did not observe the holiday this year because it fell on a weekend. Absences were excused for children who celebrated on the following Monday, the education department told NY1.)

There is no set annual date for Diwali; it is dictated by a lunar calendar and falls in October or November. (The holiday falls on Sunday, Nov. 12 this year.)

“It is important to recognize New York’s rich and diverse culture,” Heastie, a Democrat from the Bronx, wrote in a tweet.

And on Friday, U.S. Rep. Grace Meng, a Democrat who represents Queens, announced legislation that would make Diwali the nation’s 12th federal holiday. She was joined by many local officials, including New York City Council member Shekar Krishnan, the council’s first Indian American legislator, and schools Chancellor David Banks, who called the effort a “righteous fight.”

“The diversity of our city and country is what strengthens us, and we’d be remiss if we didn’t acknowledge the members of our community who are Hindu, Sikh, Jain and Buddhists,” Banks said during Meng’s press conference. “And I think it’s really important that we show them through our actions that we value their heritage, not just with words and lip service.”

New Yorkers have pushed for years to make Diwali a school holiday along with other religious holidays, such as Rosh Hashanah and Eid al-Fitr. While the U.S. Census Bureau does not ask people what religion they practice, the agency estimated in 2021 that roughly 262,000 Indian Americans lived in the five boroughs. (That figure may include people who practice religions that don’t recognize Diwali and, inversely, could be missing people without Indian heritage who celebrate Diwali.)

Officials have so far declined to recognize Diwali. One complicating factor: The state requires districts to offer at least 180 days a year of instruction.

Mayor Eric Adams vowed on the campaign trail to make Diwali an official school holiday. Once in office, however, Adams and Banks decided in October to support state legislation that would make Diwali a school holiday in New York City by getting rid of Anniversary Day, or Brooklyn-Queens Day, which children get off in June.

It’s still unclear how state legislation would impact school calendars and whether it would compel employers to add it to their list of company holidays.

Heastie said the Assembly is still talking to “stakeholders as to how this affects the school year calendar.” A spokesperson for his office did not immediately respond to offer more information about the legislation they plan to pass or whether they expect the Senate to approve.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

NYC’s Summer Rising program rejected 45,000 applicants, launching scramble for child care

2023-05-24T21:50:38+00:00

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Roughly 45,000 children have been shut out of New York City’s free, popular summer program, education department officials said this week.

The program, which runs between six to seven weeks for most students, provides academics during the morning and enrichment activities in the afternoon for children in grades K-8 across the five boroughs from July to August.

Like last year, a total of 110,000 seats were available this year, with a portion held open for students mandated to attend summer school. During a City Council hearing this week, the education department’s Chief Operating Officer Emma Vadehra said there are 94,000 seats available for 139,000 applicants. Officials initially reported that 30,000 families did not receive spots.

It’s possible that some of the rejected applicants will have to attend the program anyway for academic reasons and will get a seat that has been set aside. Still, many of those families, who were notified earlier this month that they didn’t get seats, are likely scrambling to find summer programs for their children before the school year ends on June 27.

“The basic challenge is that demand outstripped supply pretty dramatically,” Vadehra told City Council members. “And so there’s different ways that could have looked, but we just didn’t have enough seats in the program for the number of kids and families that really wanted this program despite the fact that it is the largest summer program we’ve had – and the largest in the country.”

Two of those unsuccessful applicants were Alejandra Perez’s 5- and 10-year-old sons, who should have been prioritized for seats because they attend an after-school program run by the city’s Department of Youth and Community Development, through a community-based organization that helps oversee Summer Rising.

Perez, a lifelong East Harlemite, paid $2,250 last summer for six weeks of child care, which she can barely afford again this year.

But in mid-May, about three weeks after applying, she was informed via email that her sons, who attend a charter school in East Harlem, didn’t get in. While she can probably rely on a relative to care for her older son, she is scrambling to find free or affordable care for her 5-year-old.

“I am still trying to find a program,” she said. “By the act of God, maybe I’ll get an email like, ‘Hey, we found you a spot!’”

Some children with priority did not get spots

Former Mayor Bill de Blasio established the program two years ago with federal relief dollars as the city clawed its way out of the pandemic, attempting to provide children with a bridge back to school after remote learning. It differs from summer programs in the past: It’s open to any child, including those in charters and private school, not just those who are mandated to attend summer school.

The program, though bumpy with its initial roll out, has grown in popularity. This year, city officials made a couple of key changes to the application process. While still open to the same number of children, applicants were allowed to rank choices for Summer Rising sites instead of the first come, first served process last year. Additionally, students who attend after-school programs subsidized through the city’s Department of Youth and Community Development, or DYCD, were supposed to be prioritized for seats, like Perez’s children. That’s in addition to students living in temporary housing, children in foster care, and children with disabilities who must have services year round.

Perez had ranked three Summer Rising sites close to her home. Perez said the application did not ask if her kids were in an after-school program. According to an education department spokesperson, Perez’s children didn’t receive a spot because there was likely a lot of demand at the sites she chose.

When she asked someone from the after-school program why her sons didn’t get into Summer Rising, they didn’t have an answer — except that none of the kids in the program who applied got in, Perez said. (A representative for their SCAN-Harbor Beacon after-school program did not return a request for comment.)

During the City Council hearing this week, officials said that just over half of the seats that have been filled went to students in the priority groups. Of those, 29,000 spots went to students who were in DYCD-run after-school programs, 16,000 went to students in temporary housing, 3,000 seats to children with 12-month individualized education programs, or IEPs, and another 1,000 to students in foster care. (Last year, Summer Rising had 12,000 students in temporary housing, 2,700 students with 12-month IEPs and 1,000 students in foster care.)

New seats won’t be added, but filled seats might open up

Vadehra said they’re not planning to add seats — emphasizing that this program is being supported by federal dollars that are set to run out next year — and there is no wait list for seats. But they are expecting an unspecified number of spots to open up, either because fewer students will be mandated to attend summer school or because families may decline a seat they’ve been offered. The education department is working with DYCD to figure out how to make families aware of empty seats in June and how they can apply for those, she said.

In the meantime, parents are scrambling to find options that seem few and far between — and too pricey.

Perez’s rejection email from the education department included a link to other DYCD programs that might be available. She said she has called every local community-based organization near her home for some type of programming with no luck.

“At this point I am just emailing everyone,” she said.

Tia Jackson, who lives in Central Harlem, knew she would potentially need to scramble for summer options if her son didn’t get into Summer Rising, so she signed him up for a YMCA program near her home. Her planning came in handy: Her son did not get a Summer Rising seat.

While he doesn’t fall into any of the priority groups, her son, who is autistic, also has an individualized education program. The YMCA program has staff who can assist him if he needs extra support, Jackson said. She will be reimbursed up to $2,250 for summer care expenses through the state’s Office of People With Developmental Disabilities, but that only ensures four weeks of summer programming for her son. He’s planning to visit his aunt in Florida for one week, and she will pay out of pocket for child care for an additional week.

She feels thankful for having a “Plan A and Plan B.”

“I feel like the way they rolled out the program to start was very late, and it wasn’t the best for working parents, typically because when you think about summer camps most applications for summer camp start in February and March,” she said. “We didn’t get the Summer Rising notification until April.”

The department spokesperson did not explain the timing of the Summer Rising application, except to say there are several factors that impact the timeline.

Both of Loretta Bencivengo’s children got into Summer Rising last year, likely because she submitted her application as soon as it opened during the previous first come, first served model. This year they didn’t get spots, said Bencivengo, who lives in Windsor Terrace.

The most affordable alternate option she’s found so far is with the local YMCA for a $5,000, eight-week program for both of her children, which she equated to two months of rent. Many places don’t have space this late in the spring, she said.

“All those slots are filled up in January and February,” she said of private programs. “If that’s the case, why not put this application out in November and December so that you can open an appropriate amount of slots?”

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

NYC won’t slash school budgets at first, but mid-year cuts are still possible

2023-05-22T22:33:01+00:00

New York City schools won’t have to brace for budget cuts next school year — at least at first.

All schools will receive the same amount of money or more at the start of the 2023-24 academic year as they did this year despite some of the “fiscal challenges” facing the city, Chancellor David Banks announced on Monday during a City Council hearing about the education department’s proposed budget for next fiscal year.

But school budgets may not need the extra cushion this year. Unlike the significant drops over the past few years, the education department is projecting enrollment to largely hold steady next year, dipping by less than 1%

The move represents a shift from what happened last summer, when budget cuts tied to declining enrollment, sparked severe backlash, including a lawsuit, and forced schools to shrink staff and programming.

It also comes as Mayor Eric Adams has proposed cutting the education department’s budget by 3% next fiscal year, which begins July 1. That $30.5 billion budget is expected to include less spending on fringe benefits and cut a previously announced expansion of preschool for 3-year-olds.

The decision to start the new school year with steady budgets, however, doesn’t mean schools are completely immune from cuts. Banks said the city hasn’t yet decided whether schools will see cuts during what’s known as the “mid-year adjustment”— a practice put on pause this year using $200 million in federal COVID relief dollars.

Schools get money in the summer based on the city’s enrollment projections, and when the final tallies are taken on Oct. 31, schools could lose money mid-year if they’ve enrolled fewer students than projected — or get extra money if they have more children.

“If a school has 500 students, but by the middle of the year, they’ve dropped down to 200 students, we’re not going to make the commitment today to say, ‘No matter what, there’ll be no adjustment even at that point,’” Banks said during the hearing.

That might leave some school leaders with tough decisions. While principals might get the same amount of money as last year, they may be hesitant to hire more teachers or create more programming in anticipation of losing money during the school year.

One the one hand, some city principals said they understand the city’s desire to bring funding more in line with enrollment to avoid big disparities in per-student spending between schools.

“There are schools that are serving many fewer students than they were five years ago, and the city can’t afford to just fund those schools endlessly,” said a Brooklyn principal who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

But on the other hand, the principal wishes that the education department would make it easier for schools to plan by promising budgets will not be cut more than a certain percentage in a given year rather than having to make educated guesses.

And even if a school does not have to return money later in the year, it can be difficult to use before the spending deadline, especially to hire staff. If a school has an unexpected surplus in January, “all of a sudden there’s a spending spree and it’s not effective and efficient,” the principal said. “It doesn’t help to get money in November or January if you needed to hire a teacher in September.”

Schools are expected to receive their budgets by the end of this month, said Emma Vadehra, chief operating officer for the education department. When principals receive those budgets, Vadehra said, they might notice cuts to individual funding streams, such as Fair Student Funding, which is the city’s main school funding formula. (Schools with higher needs and higher enrollment get more money under the formula.)

Such drops will be backfilled with “other funding streams” to hold budgets steady, Vadehra said. However, officials did not clarify how schools will be able to use those funds. While Fair Student Funding can be used to hire teachers, money from other pots can sometimes be restricted for other uses.

The education department plans to use funding from multiple sources to keep budgets level at the start of the school year, Vadehra said. That includes a $160 million in federal stimulus funds that had been announced previously, as well as money from the state, which has boosted dollars for districts through its own school funding formula, known as Foundation Aid.

Several council members raised concerns about education department programs that are relying on expiring federal stimulus dollars, including preschool programming and expanded summer programming. Vadehra acknowledged that the education department does not yet have a plan on how to fund these initiatives once the money runs out in 2024.

“This is a major challenge,” Banks said to council members. “I mean, there’s a lot of great programs — even as we came on board — that have been built off of access to these stimulus dollars. The stimulus dollars are going away. We’re going to have to work very closely together to try to figure this out.”

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC drafts plan to shrink class sizes, but changes won’t start next school year

2023-05-19T22:43:25+00:00

Many education advocates cheered when Gov. Kathy Hochul signed into law last September a five-year plan to reduce class sizes in New York City’s public schools.

For the first year, however, the city’s education department plans to make no changes, according to a draft plan shared with reporters on Friday.

Under that plan — which is supposed to spell out how the city will meet the law’s new requirements — class sizes will remain the same in September. That’s because the education department says that enough of its core classes — an average 39% — for K-12 exceed the requirements in the law for the first year of the plan. (The plan only affects city-run schools, not charters.)

But, for future school years, education department officials are bracing for some big expenses to comply with the law. They estimate it will cost $1.3 billion a year for new teachers when the plan is fully implemented as well as about $30-$35 billion in capital expenditures to construct new spaces or reconfigure old ones.

The education department said it would gather feedback from the public and educators to determine the best way to shrink class sizes by 2028, when state law requires that the entire school system meet the new requirements.

The city teachers union — one of the entities that must approve the plan — blasted the education department’s effort, emphasizing that they will work with the state to ensure the city “fulfills its obligations” of the law.

“Meeting the new class size standards is going to require a real plan — and so far, the DOE hasn’t managed to create one,” said teachers union president Michael Mulgrew in a statement. “This document is missing a strategy for implementation and a targeted proposal for where and when new seats should be built.”

Education department spokesperson Nathaniel Styer responded in a statement that the draft was created after consulting “extensively” with the unions, and they will continue to be able to share feedback.

“The tradeoffs involved in implementation are too important to be made behind closed doors and our entire community must be involved in informing these decisions,” Styer said.

The education department will begin collecting public comment on the plan, which is posted online, in June. Within two weeks of the end of that process, officials must submit the plan to the state education department for approval.

Here are seven things to know:

What are the new class-size caps?

Kindergarten through third grade should have no more than 20 children.

From grades four through eighth, classes should have no more than 23 students, while students in ninth through 12th grades can have up to 25 students.

That’s down from a previous cap of 25 students for kindergarten, and 32 students in the rest of elementary school grades, according to the teachers union contract agreement. Middle and high schools were supposed to be capped previously at 33 and 34 students, respectively, with a 30-student limit in Title 1 middle schools (where at least 60% of students are from low-income families).

What will change next year in terms of class-size reductions?

Nothing. State law requires 20% of the city’s classrooms be in compliance with the new state law each year, reaching 100% by 2028. According to the education department, an average 39% of classes meet the new requirements, meaning they expect to meet the state’s requirements for next school year. This includes elementary school homerooms, where children receive their core instruction, and core subject classes for grades 6-12 — meaning math, science, social studies, and English courses, including gifted and talented, integrated co-teaching, which includes a mix of students with and without disabilities, and accelerated courses.

Ninety-one percent of performing arts and gym courses are in compliance.

In year two, 40% of classes must comply, then 60% and 80% until the final year when all classes are expected to meet the targets (unless they get exemptions).

How will the education department shrink class sizes by 2028?

We don’t know the details yet, but the education department offered some clues in its plan.

From May to October, the education department plans to meet regularly with a working group that it convened this spring to gather feedback on how to meet the law’s new requirements.

Officials wrote that they will identify additional classrooms for space; work with the city’s School Construction Authority on the next capital plan, which lays out building plans for the school system; and would focus on high-poverty schools not meeting requirements, as required by the law.

Starting in November, officials will begin changing policies “and reprioritization of programming” in order to meet the class-size mandates. Officials did not immediately explain what sort of policies or programs would change. But before the law passed, Chancellor David Banks warned that the law could mean a cut in school services or programming because of the cost of creating more classes.

Who will be exempt from the class-size law?

Any exemptions must be approved by the chancellor, as well as the heads of the teachers union and the union representing principals and other administrators. Disagreements will head to arbitration, the law mandates.

Schools might be exempt because of space limitations, but the education department will have to show that they are working to resolve the issue through their capital budget plan. Schools that are overenrolled or ones in which they would face severe economic hardship to comply might get exemptions. (The plan offered no other information on this.) There might be exemptions for schools where they have insufficient numbers of teachers in subjects that are hard to fill, like bilingual math; the teachers union can negotiate higher class sizes for electives and specialty classes if the majority of a school’s staff approves the increase.

Does the law prioritize any particular schools in regards to meeting the new class-size mandates?

The law requires the education department to start with schools with high shares of students living in poverty. In its plan, the education department said that schools with the highest numbers of low-income students are more likely to have smaller class sizes.

Fifty-nine percent of classes meet the new requirements at schools with the most students from low-income families, according to education department data shared in the plan. In contrast, schools with the fewest students living in poverty have just 23% of classes meeting the new requirements.

Where else are schools more — or less — likely to meet the class-size mandates?

Schools with larger classes also hew closely to racial demographics. Roughly 54% of classes already meet the class-size targets at schools with the highest percentage of Black students compared to schools with the highest percentage of Asian and white students, where only about a quarter of classes meet the targets.

Three Brooklyn districts — Ocean Hill/Brownsville’s District 23, Crown Heights’ District 16, and District 18 in Canarsie/East Flatbush had the greatest share of classes at or below the caps, according to the education department data. These three districts have among the highest shares of Black students in the city.

Two Queens districts — Bayside’s District 26 and Flushing’s District 25 — along with Staten Island’s District 31 have the lowest share of classes that meet the targets. District 25 and 26 have the city’s highest share of Asian students, while District 31 has the highest share of white students.

Of the five boroughs, the Bronx might have the easiest time meeting the class-size caps, with 50% of its schools already hitting the targets. Staten Island could have the most challenges, with only 22% of its schools meeting the class size requirements.

Schools that have grades 6-12 or 9-12 are more likely to have smaller class sizes, the figures show, with about 44% of these schools already meeting the new class-size mandates. Only 30% of standalone middle schools meet the targets, followed by K-8 and K-5 schools.

What happens next?

The education department must collect public comments on the plan and then submit it to the state education department for final approval. The teachers and principals unions must also sign off on the plan, which must go into effect in September.

Next month, city officials are holding online public hearings for each borough via Zoom on the following dates, starting at 6 p.m.:

Staten Island: Friday, June 2

Queens: Tuesday, June 6

Brooklyn: Thursday, June 8

Manhattan: Tuesday, June 13

The Bronx: Thursday, June 15

The city will have two weeks to analyze the public comments before submitting its final proposal to the state.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Reading instruction is getting an overhaul in NYC. Here’s how that could affect your school.

2023-05-12T21:22:42+00:00

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Chancellor David Banks is planning the most aggressive overhaul to the way New York City schools teach students to read in nearly 20 years.

The changes, announced this week, will require the city’s elementary schools to adopt one of three reading programs over the next two years. They must also phase out materials from a popular “balanced literacy” curriculum developed by Lucy Calkins, a professor at Teachers College, which has been used by hundreds of elementary schools in recent years.

“A big part of the bad guidance was rooted in what has been called balanced literacy,” Banks said this week. “We must give children the basic foundational skills of reading.”

But what is balanced literacy, anyway? And how are the new curriculums different?

Here’s how the changes could impact students in grades K-5:

What reading strategies is the city moving away from?

For years, many New York City schools embraced a philosophy of reading instruction as a natural process that can be unlocked by exposing students to literature. The idea was that by filling classroom libraries and giving students freedom to pick from them, they would develop a love of reading and absorb key skills to decipher texts.

In many classrooms, teachers offered mini-lessons on topics like how to find a text’s main idea. Then students were often sent to select a book of their choice, geared toward their individual reading level, to read independently and apply skills from the lesson they’d just heard. If a child had trouble identifying a specific word, they were often encouraged to use accompanying pictures to guess at its meaning, a practice that has been discredited.

Critics said the approach lacked sufficient instruction on the relationship between sounds and letters, known as phonics. In response, supporters of the model sprinkled more of it in. That compromise is known as balanced literacy. Balanced literacy was pushed into schools by the city’s education department in 2003, and it has remained popular.

Before the pandemic, roughly half of city elementary schools that responded to a curriculum survey were using a balanced literacy program called Units of Study, developed by Calkins, an investigation by Chalkbeat and THE CITY found. (Calkins has since updated the program, including a greater emphasis on phonics, though most schools will not be allowed to keep using it.)

In practice, instructional approaches often differ from school to school — or even classroom to classroom — with teachers often piecing together lessons from a hodgepodge of different sources. The city’s goal is to ensure all schools have access to, and actually use, high-quality materials.

What is the approach to phonics?

Balanced literacy has increasingly come under fire from a range of experts who point to long-standing research that shows many students won’t pick up reading skills without more systematic instruction on the fundamentals of reading.

Now, all elementary schools are being required to adopt city-approved phonics programs, explicit lessons that drill the relationship between sounds and letters. Those programs are typically delivered separately from a school’s main reading program and are shorter in length, often about 20-30 minutes.

Teacher Lauren Litman delivers a phonics lesson at P.S. 236 in the Bronx.

Even before the latest mandates, most schools were already delivering some phonics, though observers said getting schools to use the same approaches will help streamline training and oversight.

“Many, many schools have adopted a coherent phonics approach over the past few years, but the difference is we’re now organizing the infrastructure … to be able to work together around a common playbook,” said Lynette Guastaferro, CEO of Teaching Matters, an organization that works with about 160 New York City schools to improve reading and math instruction.

What’s the philosophy behind the new curriculums?

In addition to phonics lessons, all elementary schools will be required to use one of three reading curriculums: Wit & Wisdom, from a company called Great Minds; Into Reading from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; or EL Education.

Many curriculums focus on reading strategies, such as how to find a text’s main idea or how to draw conclusions from it. But the three required curriculums build students’ background knowledge in science and social studies.

The idea is that a student’s ability to understand what they’re reading depends on how much prior knowledge they have of the subject at hand. In one famous experiment conducted in the 1980s, researchers found that children who were not strong readers but knew a lot about baseball were just as capable of summarizing what they’d read about a baseball game compared with stronger readers. (A recent study offers fresh evidence that the knowledge-building approach may be effective, though research is limited on whether knowledge-based programs outperform skills-focused curriculums.)

Kate Gutwillig, a fourth and fifth grade teacher at P.S. 51 in Manhattan, previously used Calkins’ balanced literacy program but in recent years transitioned to EL Education and now uses Wit & Wisdom.

She said she appreciated EL Education’s social-justice oriented lessons, including one where students unpack the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and also read a novel about a girl who must flee Mexico with her family and winds up in a farm labor camp in California. More recently, she taught a Wit & Wisdom unit focused on the heart’s role in the circulatory system and the way it’s used figuratively to refer to love and other emotional qualities.

“They’re thriving, they’re doing so well with it,” Gutwillig said of her students. Unlike the balanced literacy program where students picked their own books, students are all reading from the same books at the same time. “It helps to build community,” she said.

Some advocates argue that Into Reading doesn’t have as strong a focus on knowledge building compared with the other two programs, in part because it includes such a wide range of materials, but it has still received high marks from curriculum reviewers.

Which curriculum is your school likely to use?

Thirteen of the 15 districts expected to adopt one of the three approved reading programs this September have selected Into Reading. That curriculum uses an anthology-style textbook with texts specifically designed to teach reading skills. Some observers said the lessons tend to be scripted, and department officials said its “teacher friendly” approach made it a favorite among the local superintendents charged with picking a curriculum for their district’s schools.

“The lessons are laid out so the teacher can walk in and teach them,” said Heidi Donohue, an early literacy expert at Teaching Matters. Into Reading tends to move more quickly through multiple texts each week, she said, whereas Wit & Wisdom and EL Education tend to stay on one text or unit for longer stretches.

Into Reading “has everything that teachers would want,” said Merryl Casanova, a literacy coach who works with schools in the Bronx, pointing to materials that focus on grammar, spelling, reading comprehension, discussion strategies, and more. But that can also be “very overwhelming,” she said. “Teachers really have to plan for this, and they have to understand that they’re not going to use all of the resources.”

Into Reading has received some criticism for not reflecting the diversity of New York City’s student population, which is predominantly Black and Latino. A New York University report found that the program “used language and tone that demeaned and dehumanized Black, Indigenous and characters of color, while encouraging empathy and connection with White characters.”

Officials at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, which publishes Into Reading, have disputed that characterization, arguing that the report focused on a small sample of materials. The city’s education department said schools may also supplement the curriculum with other materials that are designed to be culturally responsive.

All three curriculums have passed muster with EdReports, an independent curriculum reviewer.

Which schools will be covered by the mandate first?

Many schools among the first 15 districts covered by the mandate already use their district’s approved curriculum or are in the process of doing so, city officials said.

The city’s remaining 17 districts will not fall under the mandate until September 2024. City officials said some schools may receive exemptions, which have not yet been revealed, though they emphasized that they expect the number will be small.

Here’s what each district has selected so far:

Into Reading
Manhattan District 5
Bronx District 12
Brooklyn districts 14, 16, 20, 21, 22, 23, 32
Queens districts 25, 26, 29, 30
Select schools in District 75, a citywide district for students with more complex disabilities

EL Education
Bronx District 11

Wit & Wisdom
Brooklyn District 19

How long will it take to see changes?

Experts and educators said that curriculum changes often take years to fully take root, and may depend on how committed teachers and school leaders are to the changes. (The city’s principals union, for instance, has pushed back against the mandate.)

At P.S. 236 in the Bronx, educators began transitioning to Wit & Wisdom in 2020 after using Calkins’ Units of Study for years. Lauren Litman, a second grade teacher, said educators have been learning how to deploy texts that students often find challenging and figuring out how to edit the curriculum down to be manageable.

“We’ve kind of gotten into a better rhythm of how to scale down the lessons because there is a lot of information,” she said.

How quickly teaching practice changes may also depend on how effective the city’s training is — and there’s limited time to help educators learn new materials before September.

“Any new curriculum is going to take time for us to get the routines and the systems and the things in place that are going to make it work for the school,” Donohue said. “No curriculum is going to be the quick fix.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Better pay and more hours: NYC Council leaders push for changes to 3-K, pre-K programs

2023-05-10T00:30:12+00:00

Leaders of New York City Council charged Mayor Eric Adams with failing to address problems that have plagued the city’s public preschool programs, and they made several demands to improve the system.

Speaking in the playground of a Lower East Side 3-K and prekindergarten center Tuesday, Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, several of her colleagues, and advocates listed several items they want. That includes higher pay for workers in programs run by community-based organizations, paying preschool providers on time, improving outreach to encourage more families to enroll, and allowing community organizations to directly enroll families.

The push comes as budget negotiations are underway between the council and the mayor, whose $106.7 billion proposed budget would cut funding for the education department by 3%, or $960 million. That slashes a plan under former Mayor Bill de Blasio to further expand preschool for 3-year-old children, with the Adams administration pointing to at least 16,000 unfilled seats.

Speaker Adams blasted the mayor’s approach, describing the city’s early childhood education system as “broken” and “in full crisis mode.”

“As my colleagues in the council and the advocates here today have pointed out repeatedly, the city needs to correct its course to address the gaps in our system so we provide stability for this very critical sector,” she told reporters outside the program run by Grand Street Settlement.

New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, flanked by council members and advocates, discusses changes they’ll demand of Mayor Eric Adams in order to improve the city’s public preschool system.

Mayor Adams’ first year in office has been marked by changes and sometimes chaos in the city’s early childhood education system. In addition to the cancellation of plans to expand 3-K, many providers have reported that the city has not paid them on time, which has left some programs in financial crisis and caused others to close. Despite the city’s promise to fix the problem, multiple council members said Tuesday that they’re still hearing of issues at centers across the city.

When the education department announced a bureaucratic overhaul, including moving hundreds of early childhood workers to other offices, those workers were left in limbo without clarity about what their new jobs would entail; the department later pulled back on that plan.

At the same time, the mayor has vowed to ensure the city offers enough seats to preschool students with disabilities, an issue that his predecessor failed to solve.

In a statement, education department spokesperson Nathaniel Styer credited the city’s outreach efforts, noting that applications for 3-K have increased by more than 20% compared to last year. The city, he said, has shifted 3,500 3-K and pre-K seats from “unfilled areas to areas of demand, which also includes shifting the types of seats offered to meet actual need.”

Styer added, “there is a misalignment of seats that we are tackling head on.”

Boosting worker pay at community-based organizations

For several advocacy organizations, boosting pay for teachers and other support staff is the most important issue to tackle. Better pay would mean retaining quality staff instead of losing them to programs or jobs that pay better, they argue.

Pay disparities are in part the result of the patchwork of programs that make up the city’s preschool system. Some programs are run by the education department, such as inside schools, while community-based organizations run others. Department staffers are unionized and are generally paid more than their counterparts working in community-based organizations, who tend to be women of color.

Four years ago, the city agreed to boost salaries for teachers at community organizations with a certified masters degree, to $69,000 a year by October 2021, matching the salary of a first-year teacher at the education department. The agreement didn’t include raises after that date, and it also meant a veteran teacher at a community-based organization made the same as a new education department teacher, said Gregory Brender, chief policy and innovation officer with Day Care Council.

Tara Gardner, executive director of the Day Care Council, shared an example of one disparity that still exists: An assistant teacher at a community-based organization earns 53% of their counterpart in public schools. Advocates like Gardner want pay for teachers at community-based organizations to match their years of service, as well as comparable pay for other support staff, such as paraprofessionals and custodians.

“They do the same work as staff at the DOE; the only difference is the building,” said Ayana Reefe, Head Start director for Grand Street Settlement, the community organization where Speaker Adams visited on Tuesday.

Council members will also push for $15 million to provide a longer school day and year for 1,000 3-year-olds. That funding — which would convert existing seats instead of adding more — would also include signing bonuses “to help attract and retain the necessary staff,” officials said.

Currently, many 3-K seats are only available between 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., which advocates argue don’t work for parents who work outside of those hours. In a recent survey conducted by the Citizens’ Committee for Children, one-third of more than 1,000 respondents said they were looking for child care from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Styer noted that there are 11,000 unfilled seats with longer hours that go beyond the school year.

Correction: An earlier version of this story said a survey from the Citizens Committee for Children included 160 respondents due to incorrect information. In fact, there were more than 1,000 respondents.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

NYC forces elementary schools to use one of three reading programs in massive literacy push

2023-05-09T20:09:40+00:00

New York City’s elementary schools will be required to use one of three reading curriculums, a tectonic shift that education officials hope will improve literacy rates across the nation’s largest school system.

Beginning in September, elementary schools in 15 of the city’s 32 districts will be required to use one of three programs selected by the education department, Chancellor David Banks and Mayor Eric Adams announced Tuesday. By September 2024, all of the city’s roughly 700 elementary schools will be required to use one of the three. Chalkbeat first reported the plans in March.

The new mandate won support from the teachers union, whose leaders expressed faith in the city’s efforts to train thousands of teachers on new materials. Training for the first year is expected to cost $35 million, though city officials declined to provide an estimate of the effort’s overall price tag, including the cost of purchasing materials.

Meanwhile, the plan earned a strong rebuke from the union representing principals, who have long had wide latitude to choose which materials their teachers use. That freedom has allowed school leaders to use programs that vary widely in their approach and quality, Banks has argued.

The chancellor has frequently called for a more systematic approach, citing lagging reading scores. About half of the city’s students in grades 3-8 are not considered proficient readers based on state tests. The results are even more stark among certain subgroups: Fewer than 37% of Black and Latino reached that threshold and the numbers significantly are lower for students with disabilities and those still learning English.

“They aren’t reading because we’ve been giving our schools and our educators a flawed plan,” Banks said during the announcement at Brooklyn’s P.S. 156. He added: “It is really an indictment on the work that we do.”

Now, city officials will require one of three reading programs: Wit & Wisdom, from a company called Great Minds; Into Reading from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; or EL Education. They charged superintendents of each district to select their schools’ curriculum. Thirteen of the initial 15 districts are planning to use Into Reading. Some schools are already using these curriculums, and city officials did not say how many will have to switch.

What curriculum is your school’s district planning to use?

EL Education
Bronx District 11

Wit & Wisdom
Brooklyn District 19

City officials said they selected the first 15 districts based in part on how many schools in each district were prepared to make a curriculum change. Notably, some of the city’s most affluent districts (Manhattan’s districts 2 and 3, and Brooklyn’s District 15) will be in the second phase of the rollout. Those districts include many schools that use balanced literacy approaches, including Lucy Calkins’ curriculum, so sweeping changes in those neighborhoods could spark more pushback from educators and school leaders.

All three curriculums have met quality expectations set by EdReports, an independent curriculum reviewer. And they also met the group’s standards for helping students build background knowledge by exposing them to more content in topics like science and social studies, something many experts say is an important ingredient for building reading comprehension skills.

But some of the curriculum materials have also faced criticism. A review from New York University found that Into Reading is not culturally responsive and “used language and tone that demeaned and dehumanized Black, Indigenous and characters of color, while encouraging empathy and connection with White characters.”

Asked about those findings, Deputy Chancellor Carolyne Quintana pointed to the education department’s own culturally responsive materials that can supplement the other reading programs “to better reflect the range of ethnicities and cultures that we have here in New York City.”

The new initiative builds on previous efforts to bolster literacy instruction, including a requirement that schools use city-approved phonics programs, which help students master the relationship between sounds and letters. Education officials have also launched programs to reach students with dyslexia, including a standalone school dedicated to students with reading challenges that will launch in the fall.

Adams, who has repeatedly pointed to his own struggle with dyslexia in school as a motivation for improving literacy instruction, acknowledged that the city’s efforts will take time to come to fruition, likely stretching beyond his administration.

“Is it going to be perfect? No,” the mayor said. “But dammit, we’re going to try.”

Retraining teachers in the shift from ‘balanced literacy’

City officials are pushing schools to move away from a framework known as “balanced literacy” which places a greater emphasis on exposing students to books of their choice to help them develop a love of reading rather than explicit instruction on foundational reading skills.

Balanced literacy was pushed into schools in 2003 under Chancellor Joel Klein and has enjoyed support from successive school chancellors.

But even as a growing chorus of experts have pointed to research showing the importance of teaching foundational reading skills, a balanced literacy program written by Lucy Calkins at Teachers College has remained in hundreds of elementary schools in recent years, an investigation by Chalkbeat and THE CITY found. (Calkins has revised her materials to include more of an emphasis on phonics.)

Many advocates felt relieved when Banks took the helm of city schools and issued a blunt assessment of balanced literacy and Calkins materials, arguing the approach “has not worked.” And literacy experts have widely cheered the city’s plans to mandate a smaller set of reading choices, effectively preventing schools from using balanced literacy programs like the one written by Calkins.

But a new curriculum alone is unlikely to dramatically improve student learning. Much of the plan will hinge on how effective the city’s training is and whether educators buy in to the changes. Meanwhile, curriculum shifts often take years to execute, and there is little time to train thousands of teachers who will be expected to transition to new materials beginning in September.

Education department officials are gearing up training efforts and will pay teachers extra this summer and during the school year to help them prepare, though it’s unclear how much training most teachers will receive before the rollout begins. They also noted each school will have access to more than three weeks worth of training and teachers will receive “job-embedded coaching.”

Michael Mulgrew, president of the teachers union, said he’s seen the city’s training plans come into focus in recent weeks and lent his support, flanking Adams and Banks during the announcement.

“It’s all hands on deck — everybody has to work together,” Mulgrew said in an interview, though he noted that many of his members are “pessimistic” about being forced to adopt new materials. “It should have never been a school system where every school was left on their own to do whatever they want.”

Having fewer curriculums will make it easier to provide teacher training, proponents of the change argue, since superintendents can focus on supporting schools with one curriculum instead of a hodge-podge. And if students switch schools, particularly students who live in temporary housing, they’ll be much less likely to start from scratch with a new program.

“Right now professional learning is like random skills led by fly-by providers,” said Evan Stone, executive director of Educators for Excellence, a teacher advocacy group that has pushed for more standardized curriculums. “Now teachers can become true experts in a core set of tools.”

Principals union worries about buy-in from schools

Still, the changes have met resistance from the city’s principal union, whose members’ freedom to choose instructional materials will be curtailed. And some educators have also expressed frustration that they will no longer be able to use approaches that they believe are working for their students. Other veteran educators have seen education initiatives ebb over time and worry they’re being asked to make a change that will ultimately be scrapped in a few years.

Henry Rubio, president of the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, issued a statement criticizing the department for its lack of outreach in developing its plan, saying that his union repeatedly asked why city officials did not engage parents, teachers, and principals on the shift.

With superintendents choosing their district’s curriculum without giving schools a chance to evaluate them, Rubio cast doubt on whether the move will “earn essential buy-in within their communities.” He also worried that the timeline was too short for many principals, who have been focused on end-of-year activities and planning for summer school.

“This is a massive overhaul of how we teach children to read, and the DOE has provided little detail on how thousands of educators will be adequately trained by September,” Rubio said. “Perhaps more importantly, why have half the districts been given well over a year to adequately prepare while the other half are forced to rush through this vital training?”

Education department officials said there may be some exemptions to the mandate, but emphasized that they will be limited in scope and only apply to a small number of schools.

Some teachers are hoping their schools will qualify for exemptions. At P.S. 236 in the Bronx, the school has been transitioning to Wit & Wisdom from Calkins’ balanced literacy curriculum called Units of Study. Teachers there have been learning how to implement the new lessons, which include more difficult texts and less independent reading time when students read books of their choosing.

And while the school is not in the first wave of those expected to change curriculums, they worry that they’ll be forced to start fresh with a new program depending on what their superintendent selects for their district, even though they’re already using one of the city’s approved programs.

“That would be a lot of work and a lot of wasted effort,” said Susan Mackle, a second grade teacher.

The city is also planning to require more standardized curriculums in other parts of the system. About 178 high schools will begin using a standardized algebra curriculum called Illustrative Math. And early childhood programs will be expected to use a program called The Creative Curriculum.

Amy Zimmer contributed.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC schools grasp for support as some migrant students miss out on mandated English instruction

2023-05-09T10:00:00+00:00

Miriam Sicherman looks at her Google Translate app or her pocket translator an average of 25 times a day while teaching fourth graders at the Children’s Workshop School in Manhattan’s East Village.

For a recent lesson on internet safety, she translated her presentation into Spanish and Russian ahead of time for her five newcomer immigrant students who speak those languages, but then used her phone to look up words like “password” or “email address” to respond to their questions. In an eight-hour school day, she repeats this process over and over again.

On top of the translation apps, Sicherman takes Duolingo Spanish lessons in her own time and accepts occasional help from a bilingual student and a Russian-speaking teacher at another school in her building.

Still, it sometimes feels impossible to explain in-depth concepts in a language other than her own.

An estimated 14,000 asylum-seeking immigrant students have enrolled in New York City public schools, city officials said last month. Teachers are finding that many of these children are learning English at the most basic level, and some hadn’t attended school regularly before arriving in the United States. The students are legally entitled to extra support, but some schools are struggling to provide it.

Failing to meet the needs of English language learners is not a new problem. Since 2016, the state has placed New York City on a corrective action plan because the district has failed to adequately support English learners, including not providing required services for those with disabilities. The plan, which has been extended multiple times over the past seven years, requires the city to gradually provide more of these services.

For Sicherman, it’s crucial that her English language learners get the support to which they are entitled. But there is just one part-time English-as-a-new-language, or ENL, teacher who provides this support to dozens of students at her school. That means Sicherman’s newcomers are getting a fraction of the extra help they should receive, she said.

“I can make them feel comfortable and safe — that I’m doing my best with, and I think I am achieving that — but they really are entitled to much more than that,” Sicherman said.

Sicherman’s concern is one that potentially many educators share, as thousands of new immigrant families have sought refuge in New York City this year, from Central and South American countries, as well as from Ukraine and Russia.

In anticipation of students’ arrival, the city launched “Project Open Arms” in the fall to send a total $12 million to schools that enrolled six or more newcomer students living in temporary housing. Officials also said schools that have enrolled more students than expected have received another $98 million this year.

Still, some teachers say their schools don’t have enough funding to hire more staff who are equipped to work with newcomer English learners. Some schools have the money, but have struggled to find teachers due to a long-standing shortage of bilingual teachers. That leaves teachers like Sicherman feeling overwhelmed and at times unequipped to properly help these students.

As the city expects another wave of newcomer immigrant families, teachers and advocates are worried it will become even more challenging to support English learners without more help from the city.

The New York Immigration Coalition has heard complaints throughout this school year that students aren’t receiving their required services, said Andrea Ortiz, senior manager of education policy.

“We shouldn’t be allowing students to be just housed in places where they’re not gonna be given the types of supports that they’re legally entitled to,” Ortiz said.

In a statement, education department spokesperson Nicole Brownstein said officials are working closely with schools to “assess any gaps in resources and to provide solutions as expeditiously as possible.”

‘It’s kind of demoralizing’

Sicherman’s school has been waiting months for more help.

Over each of the past five years, her school enrolled between six and 13 English learners, according to demographic records. This year, roughly 60 English learners enrolled, Sicherman said.

School leaders volunteered in January to accept more asylum seekers, the spokesperson said. A crush of newcomer immigrant students began coming in February, but even after the principal requested more staffing help from the education department, the school still had just one part-time ENL teacher, Sicherman said.

Budget records show that the school received about $64,600 in funding from Project Open Arms, which can be used to pay teachers overtime, cover teacher prep periods, and pay substitutes, among other uses related to communication with parents. It’s not clear when the school received those funds. The principal did not respond to a request for comment to discuss the school’s challenges this year or explain how that money was used.

As beginner-level English learners, Sicherman’s five newcomer students should each be receiving 360 minutes a week of extra help building English skills, per state regulations for grades K-8. But they are only getting 135 minutes, since the part-time ENL teacher can only work with them for 45 minutes during each of her three days at the school.

Officials did not answer why the school hasn’t received more staffing help. Superintendent Carry Chan, who oversees Manhattan’s District 1, where the Children’s Workshop School is located, has appealed for the school to receive another full-time ENL teacher, a spokesperson said. The spokesperson added that the school also has a classroom teacher licensed to work with English language learners, and suggested they could tweak programming and use that person so that students are getting more services.

Sicherman said she’s constantly trying to balance those students’ needs with those of the 16 native English speakers in her class. She translates many lessons and uses other tools, including donated Spanish flash cards. But it’s difficult to explain topics in-depth, such as the Irish potato famine, or have a conversation about it. She relies “completely” on Google Translate for her Russian student, with whom the language barrier is so thick that Sicherman worries the child won’t be able to tell her if she’s feeling unwell.

Even lighthearted moments are hard. Sicherman recently pulled up Google Translate to tell a few of her Spanish-speaking students that they were “being silly.” Her bilingual student stopped her: Using the app’s suggested word “tonto” would be like calling the children idiots, he said.

“It’s kind of demoralizing,” Sicherman said. “I wish I could be teaching these kids, and I’m really not teaching them.”

There don’t appear to be immediate consequences for schools or districts who are not providing legally required services to English learners. J.P. O’Hare, a spokesperson for the state education department, said the corrective action plan requires the district to submit multiple reports a year about how they’re improving support for these students. In response, state officials share “direction and guidance” on where city schools need to improve and meet regularly with district staff.

Some experienced ENL teachers are struggling this year

Even experienced ENL teachers say they’re overwhelmed by the arrival of thousands of new immigrant students.

Brooklyn ENL teacher Melanie is usually paired with middle schoolers. But this year, as more English learners enrolled at her Bay Ridge school and one of her ENL colleagues went on leave, she was also asked to work with children in grades 2-5.

Melanie, who asked only to use her first name because she was not authorized to speak with the press, found she was “really struggling” to help younger students, since she’s used to helping older children who know how to read and write at more advanced levels.

The school couldn’t find a replacement for the ENL teacher on leave, who returned a few weeks ago.

For most of this year, Melanie served roughly twice as many children in the “beginner” level as she usually does, many of whom haven’t attended school in a while and are learning various skills, such as how to use an iPad. She was providing the legally required amount of support to these children, but she doesn’t think they received enough individual help, she said.

“I know going into it, I am not meeting their needs,” she said.

One Brooklyn high school enrolled about 30 new immigrant students between February and April, causing classes for beginner-level English learners to fill up to the legal limit of 34, said Nathan, an ENL teacher at the school who asked only to use his first name.

The school, which is used to serving many English learners, is staying afloat for now. They’ve created new classes with existing staff, and they’re using some funding to pay one person overtime in order to be a “migrant students coordinator,” who is charged with creating resources for newcomer families.

But if they get another similar wave of students, he’s unsure if the school has enough funding to add another class for beginner-level English learners or even meet legal mandates.

“That would require a lot of creative budgeting,” Nathan said.

Asylum seekers are a ‘blessing’ for one Brooklyn school

Some schools, such as those with dual language programs, seem better set up to welcome newcomer immigrants.

Asylum-seeking families have “been a blessing” for one Spanish dual language program in Brooklyn, where the number of English language learners has doubled this year, said F.C., a teacher at the school who requested only her initials be used because she was not authorized to speak to the press. Typically, the school doesn’t attract many native Spanish speakers. This year, the surge in enrollment has given both English and Spanish speakers a chance to learn from one another.

As a former newcomer immigrant herself, F.C. has used her experience to connect with students. She comforted a student who would occasionally cry because he was struggling in class and missed home. She told him once, “I used to cry, too, because I didn’t understand what everyone was saying, and that motivated me to learn.’” He gave her a hug.

Most schools don’t have dual language programs. There are 245 such programs across all grades for general education students, covering 13 different languages.

While those programs are “set up well” for English learners, they don’t exist everywhere, said Councilmember Rita Joseph, chair of the council’s education committee, who used to be an ENL teacher. Looking ahead, she thinks the education department will have to “pivot” as more asylum-seeking families make New York City their new home.

“We’re gonna have so much that we can no longer have part-time [ENL] teachers,” she said. “That’s the only way you can stay in compliance.”

Sicherman’s school recently launched an after-school program for English learners, which doesn’t count toward their legally required support but is helpful, she said. Her principal also bought each teacher a pocket translator, which Sicherman has found more useful than Google Translate. Sometimes students use it to talk with each other while she uses her phone app.

Five days after Chalkbeat reached out to the education department about the issues at Sicherman’s school, she discovered that their part-time ENL teacher would soon be working with them full time.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

NYC’s education budget could drop by $960M next year under mayor’s proposal

2023-04-27T00:19:25+00:00

The city’s education department budget would drop by nearly $960 million next school year under a more detailed budget proposal released by Mayor Eric Adams on Wednesday, though city officials did not offer specifics about the impact on individual campuses.

Two-thirds of that cut, or $652 million, is the result of Adams’ decision to reduce the city’s contribution to the education department. Another $297 million is from a drop in federal funding, which is drying up as pandemic relief programs end.

Part of the city’s cut is tied to a mandate from the mayor earlier this month calling on city agencies to cut spending, including at the education department. That raised questions about whether schools would take a hit, but on Wednesday, Adams vowed that this specific cost-saving measure “will not take a dime from classrooms.”

Instead, that reduction — totaling $325 million — will largely come from recalculations on how much the city spends in fringe benefits, such as health insurance for teachers. (Officials emphasized this would not result in a loss of benefits or other services.)

“We had to make tough choices in this budget,” Adams said Wednesday. “We had to negotiate competing needs. We realize that not everyone will be happy but that is okay because that is how you get stuff done.”

The education department’s operating budget would total about $30.5 billion next year under the mayor’s plan, down by about 3%.

Some of the cuts were previously announced, including the elimination of a planned expansion of prekindergarten for 3-year-olds. Other impacts of the cuts may come into focus in the coming days as experts and journalists pore over reams of budget documents, which were released late Wednesday afternoon.

Adams has argued school budgets should reflect falling enrollment, but city officials declined to say what overall change they expect to individual school budgets next year. That question is likely to draw intense scrutiny after the City Council was heavily criticized last year for approving a budget that resulted in cuts to many campuses.

After the pandemic hit, Mayor Bill de Blasio used federal relief money to keep school budgets steady even as enrollment plunged. But as the spigot of federal money is drying up, Adams has started reducing budgets to line up with the number of students enrolled at each school, resulting in cuts on the majority of campuses. (Since the start of the pandemic, enrollment dropped about 11% in K-12.)

Next year, Adams plans to use $160 million of federal money to avoid deeper cuts to school budgets. Officials anticipate a much smaller enrollment decline than in recent years, which could insulate schools to some degree.

The budget is not final and must still be negotiated with the City Council. A final deal is due by July 1.

The proposed budget also includes funding for various other items, including services that advocates had been pushing for the mayor to include. Those are:

$3.3 million for keeping a chunk of the city’s new shelter-based coordinators, who are supposed to help families and children who are homeless navigate school enrollment and transportation. The funding for these coordinators was set to run out this June.
$9 million for a telehealth program for high school students who need mental health support.
$2 million for training up to 1,000 teachers in climate education.

The mayor’s budget received a mixed reception from advocates, union officials, and budget experts. Kim Sweet, executive director at the nonprofit Advocates for Children, praised the funding for shelter coordinators, but raised alarms about broader spending cuts — including to a program that provides extra mental health services to students at 50 high-need high schools, and another that provides free child care for undocumented families.

“We are concerned that the Mayor is proposing to cut hundreds of millions of dollars from our City’s schools at a time when there are so many unmet needs,” Sweet said in a statement, including high rates of chronic absenteeism and shortages in services for students with disabilities.

Still, Adams has argued that the city needs to tighten its belt due to costs associated with serving an influx of asylum seekers and potential economic headwinds.

Ana Champeny, vice president for research at the budget watchdog group Citizens Budget Commission, said her organization is worried the city isn’t properly planning now for big budget shortfalls that are expected in future years. That includes hundreds of millions of dollars of federal relief funding for the education department that will disappear in 2024 and could leave several programs and services unfunded.

“From our point of view there is still a major challenge fiscally for the city that’s not far off,” Champeny said. “We really should be taking action now.”

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

As NYC is expected to spend $38K per student, budget watchdog calls for prioritizing ‘critical services’

2023-04-11T04:01:00+00:00

Buoyed in recent years by billions in federal stimulus dollars, New York City is slated to spend about $38,000 per student next school year — the most in recent history — as enrollment is again expected to drop, according to a new report published Tuesday.

The report, from Citizens Budget Commission, or CBC, a budget watchdog group, comes as the education department faces 3% in cuts for next year. Mayor Eric Adams and the City Council are in the middle of budget planning for the next fiscal year, which begins on July 1.

Many of the CBC’s findings focus on the period from fiscal year 2016 through 2022, since the current fiscal year, 2023, isn’t over yet. Some of the report’s highlights include:

In that time period, the education department’s spending per pupil has increased by 47%, in large part due to the $7 billion in federal COVID aid the district received as enrollment has dipped. Three school years from now, in fiscal year 2026, CBC projects the city could be spending as much as $44,000 per student.
Spending grew the most in three areas: early childhood education, at 65%, covering private school tuition, such as for students with disabilities, by 79%, and for charter schools, by 84%. This was fueled by enrollment growth in these specific areas.
Spending related to schools, such as for instruction, grew by about 34%. Spending on school services, such as transportation, food, and safety, grew at a similar rate.
Spending on school support, such as special education instructional costs, grew by about 15%. And spending on central costs, including central administration, fringe benefits, pension contributions, and debt service, saw the slowest growth – by 8%.

CBC called for officials to prioritize programs and services for next year that are most effective and shed others. It also notes that the city faces financial pressures over the next several years, which the Adams administration has also emphasized as they’ve imposed stricter savings targets on city agencies. Those challenges include labor costs that will stem from new union contracts, including with the United Federation of Teachers, and a potential recession.

“We can’t do everything for everyone, so we need to start focusing on the most impactful interventions,” said Ana Champeny, the vice president for research at the Citizens Budget Commission.

New York City spends the most per pupil among the nation’s largest school districts. That cost grew as federal dollars were poured into the school system and enrollment dropped significantly after the onset of the pandemic. Dips in enrollment are likely due to several factors, including demographic changes and the cost of living in New York, which are leading many families to find homes elsewhere.

Roughly one-third of the department’s spending growth between 2016 and 2022 was due to federal pandemic aid, which is set to run out by 2024, CBC’s report found.

Advocates and educators have decried the potential cuts to the education department — amounting up to $421 million — as students continue to struggle with a host of challenges, including mental health, chronic absenteeism, and recovering academically after remote learning. Cuts to school budgets this school year resulted in some schools losing teachers, having larger class sizes, and cutting some programming, such as art and music classes.

Research has found that more money usually leads to better schools. New York, however, is in a puzzling situation: Despite being the leading state in spending per pupil, students score in the middle of the pack on national math and reading tests.

It’s possible to make cuts through central or support costs, such as through transportation contracts, and “avoid cuts to school budgets,” the CBC report notes.

While CBC doesn’t make specific recommendations, Champeny said such cuts could mean negotiating cheaper transportation-related contracts. The department could also look for ways to reduce private school placements for children with disabilities, commonly known as “Carter Cases,” a cost that ballooned under former Mayor Bill de Blasio and continues to grow.

More immediately, however, the group called on the department to be “transparent” about the future of a slate of programs that are currently relying on federal pandemic relief, which other organizations and advocates have also pressed for. These programs include expanded summer school, new prekindergarten seats for students with disabilities, and screening for dyslexia and other literacy programs – an area that Adams is increasingly making one of his signature projects.

Nathaniel Styer, a spokesperson for the Department of Education said, “This Administration has been open and honest about the long-term combined challenges of declining enrollment, programs funded by one-time federal stimulus dollars, and rising costs tied to unfunded mandates from the State.”

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

NYC officials unveil timeline for locking campus doors, beginning with elementary schools

2023-04-07T20:40:56+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for our free New York newsletter to keep up with NYC’s public schools.

In the wake of a deadly school shooting in Nashville, New York City officials sought to reassure families Friday that they are beefing up school security.

City officials said the work to outfit schools with video-equipped doorbells will start at elementary schools in May. Schools Chancellor David Banks said the rollout would take place “over a number of months” with the goal of reaching all school buildings by next spring.

Currently, school visitors must sign in with school safety agents. But under the new plan, they would first need to be buzzed into the building instead of walking in through an unlocked door.

“Something that keeps me up at night is when I look around the country and I see the issues that are happening with these mass shootings,” Banks said during a school safety briefing. He added: “We’re going to do everything we can to prevent something like that from happening.”

The $78 million plan to lock school doors was first revealed in the mayor’s preliminary budget in January, but officials did not say at the time when they anticipated completing the project.

The school safety briefing on Friday included top City Hall and police department officials and comes as violence near school campuses has rattled some communities in New York City and across the country. Though extremely rare, mass school shootings like those in Uvalde, Texas, and more recently in Nashville, often create pressure on school districts to “harden” their campuses with new security measures.

City officials also pointed to several previously announced measures to bolster campus safety, including bringing violence interrupters and mentors to nearly 140 schools and instituting more regular meetings between school principals and police precinct commanders.

But the plan to lock school building doors is one of the most significant changes to school security in recent years, drawing mixed reactions from experts and school communities.

School entrances are already monitored by school safety agents, and experts said it’s unclear how much additional safety value there is in locking them. The doors also won’t be locked during arrival or dismissal, creating stretches of time when the locks won’t be in use. Some parents have pushed for the door-locking policy, though others worry it will make families feel less welcome on campus.

“Obviously, you read about school shootings and it’s scary for all of us, so everyone wants to do something,” a Brooklyn principal previously told Chalkbeat. “But mostly what we need to do is keep doing our jobs and not create a new obstacle.”

Others have pointed out that most serious instances of violence affecting young people have occurred outside school buildings, raising questions about whether the door-locking project is the best use of resources.

City officials on Friday indicated that they’re also planning to bolster the ranks of school safety agents. The unarmed police department employees are stationed in schools and will be tasked with operating the buzzer systems.

The number of school safety agents fell about 20% during the pandemic to just under 4,000, which police Commissioner Keechant Sewell suggested was largely the result of a previous hiring freeze for the role.

“We intend to hire up to the point where we were before if we can,” Sewell said.

But that appears to be at odds with Mayor Eric Adams’ preliminary budget, which calls for eliminating hundreds of vacant school safety positions, according to a recent report from the city’s Independent Budget Office. Spokespeople for City Hall and the education and police departments did not immediately respond to a question about the discrepancy. A more detailed budget proposal from the mayor is expected later this month.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC officials pause school device tracking project

2023-04-07T11:00:00+00:00

New York City’s education department is hitting pause on a sprawling effort to count up electronic devices in all schools and central offices, officials confirmed this week.

The yearlong project, launched last June, had reached just half of city schools before it stopped on March 20. The effort involved 26 teams of five people each who were supposed to visit all district and charter schools and central offices to count up all kinds of technology. That included tablets, laptops, desktop computers, printers, and smartboards.

The novel effort — known as the Central Inventory Project — came after the city had purchased an estimated 725,000 devices over the course of multiple years for remote learning during the pandemic, costing about $360 million.

The ultimate goal of the project was to help schools conduct annual inventories on their own, officials said. But they halted the project last month because of feedback from schools and a decision to review the information they’ve collected so far, according to a department spokesperson. The spokesperson added that the project would not be done by the end of the school year, as originally planned.

She did not immediately share what sort of feedback they received from schools. In a recent newsletter to its members, the Council for Superintendents and Administrators, or CSA, wrote that they shared school leaders’ “negative experiences” from the project with the education department, and “ensured that principals would not be disciplined or penalized for missing devices.”

“Since the project was announced, we escalated school leaders’ concerns about the potential disruptions these visits might cause and shared our opinion that the time and money involved would be better spent elsewhere,” said Craig DiFalco, a spokesperson for the union.

Officials will review the data they’ve collected so far “before determining how and when the project may proceed,” the education department spokesperson said.

Educators who previously spoke with Chalkbeat praised the effort to find schools devices — a key concern of former City Comptroller Scott Stringer, who noted in multiple reports that the department failed to have a centralized tracking system for computer hardware. Many of the 725,000 devices purchased for remote learning during the pandemic have been difficult to account for or track down, as they are supposed to follow the student from school to school, those teachers said.

However, they also shared that the project had hiccups. For example, students forgot to bring their iPads or laptops into school on the day of the scheduled inventory visit, and those devices were then marked as missing. One teacher in Brooklyn said a team that visited his school failed to count up any of the printers in his room.

Both teachers also noted that leaving the inventory process to schools can be hard on staff, especially when there is no technology coordinator on site.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

New cuts may reduce NYC education budget by hundreds of millions of dollars

2023-04-04T23:13:00+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for our free New York newsletter to keep up with NYC’s public schools.

In the wake of an intense budget battle last year over education funding cuts, another round of spending reductions may once again impact schools.

New York City’s education department could face roughly $421 million in additional budget cuts next school year, according to the city’s Independent Budget Office — part of a sweeping set of spending reductions City Hall ordered on Tuesday.

Officials are proposing a 3% cut to the city’s share of the education department’s budget, according to a letter from city budget director Jacques Jiha obtained by Chalkbeat and first reported by the New York Daily News. Most other agencies are facing a 4% cut, but Jiha wrote the Department of Education and City University of New York are exceptions to “minimize disruptions to schools and classrooms.”

Although the entire department is slated to spend more than $30 billion next year, the 3% reduction is calculated based on the city’s contribution of about $14 billion. A City Hall spokesperson said the final number may be lower, as certain elements of the department’s budget may be exempt from cuts, but he did not provide a specific figure.

Agency heads, including schools Chancellor David Banks, have just 10 days to come up with a plan for spending reductions, which would take effect next school year.

City Hall did not rule out the possibility that individual school budgets could be reduced, saying agencies have not yet made plans about how to achieve the cuts. An education department spokesperson did not comment on Tuesday.

More details are expected later this month when the mayor typically unveils an updated version of his proposed budget, though Jiha indicated the reductions “cannot include layoffs and should avoid meaningfully impacting services where possible.” Budget experts said the city could move to eliminate positions that are already vacant and the city is already planning to do so.

The city has previously required the education department to trim its budget, including a 3% cut in city spending officials were expected to make this school year. The 3% spending reduction announced Tuesday will apply on top of those existing cuts.

The new round of budget tightening drew criticism from some education advocates, union officials, and local lawmakers, some of whom vowed to press for changes as the City Council negotiates a final budget due by July.

“Additional [cuts] will paralyze agencies, harm New Yorkers, and make it even more difficult for the city to successfully recover,” City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and Finance Chair Justin Brannan said in a joint statement.

The city’s teachers union also blasted the proposal. “New York State has provided record levels of funding for New York City’s public schools,” Alison Gendar, a spokesperson for the United Federation of Teachers, wrote in an email. “There is no need for any cuts to our school communities. None.”

Officials indicated the reductions are necessary for a variety of reasons, including about $4.3 billion in spending this year and next linked to an influx of asylum seekers. They also pointed to a $1 billion hole linked to “cuts and cost shifts” in the forthcoming state budget, and labor agreements now under negotiation, including with the teachers union, that will require billions in additional spending in the coming years.

“We face these new needs and threats at a time when the city’s tax revenue growth is slowing, and many economists fear that stress in the banking sector increases the odds of an economic recession,” Jiha wrote.

Mayor Eric Adams faced fierce criticism last year over cuts to school budgets — pegged to enrollment declines — but initially held off on proposing even deeper cuts next school year.

His budget proposal, unveiled in January, reversed his earlier plans to cut school budgets by $80 million due to enrollment declines and evaporating federal COVID relief funding. The education department also agreed to pump about $90 million into school budgets to help support students in temporary housing and schools that serve a disproportionate share of students with disabilities, English learners, and those living in poverty. Officials did not say whether those initiatives could be affected by the latest spending reductions.

At the same time, the administration scaled back other programs in its preliminary budget, diverting $568 million in federal relief funding away from a planned expansion of preschool for 3-year-olds.

Some education advocates said they were puzzled by the city’s rationale for the cuts, arguing that an influx of migrants means that schools will need more resources to serve a particularly vulnerable population.

“It’s difficult for me to believe that we have to keep making these exacerbated cuts when we have a population that’s in significant need,” said Kaliris Salas-Ramirez, who serves on the city’s Panel for Educational Policy.

Other groups said the spending cuts are fiscally prudent.

“This action is timely, if not overdue,” Andrew S. Rein, president of the Citizens Budget Commission, said in a statement. “Any delay increases the chance that the City barrels head first into the impending fiscal wall and has to make massive cuts in the future.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC to mandate reading curriculum for elementary schools and high school algebra, sources say

2023-03-28T23:00:17+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for our free New York newsletter to keep up with NYC’s public schools.

New York City education officials plan to take a stronger hand in what curriculums educators can use in their classrooms, a move that could represent a major shift in how the nation’s largest school system approaches teaching and learning, Chalkbeat has learned.

The education department recently began laying the groundwork for superintendents to choose from three reading programs to use across their districts. It is also launching a standardized algebra program in many high schools. The plans have not been announced publicly, but were confirmed by four education department employees familiar with the city’s literacy efforts and multiple school leaders.

Principals historically have enjoyed enormous leeway to select curriculums. Proponents argue this allows schools to stay nimble and select materials appropriate to their specific student populations. But some experts, and even the city’s own schools chancellors, have argued that the approach can lead to a tangle of instructional practices that can vary widely in quality from classroom to classroom.

Now, officials are taking steps to rein in the city’s free-wheeling approach to curriculum. Beginning next school year, elementary schools in about half of the city’s 32 districts will be required to use one of three reading programs: Wit & Wisdom, from a company called Great Minds; Into Reading from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; or Expeditionary Learning, from EL Education.

By September 2024, city officials are expected to require all elementary schools to use one of those three options, according to an education department official familiar with the city’s plans.

Local superintendents will determine which curriculum is appropriate for their elementary schools, and some principals said they’ve already learned their superintendent’s selection. Separately, the city is rolling out a standardized algebra curriculum from Illustrative Mathematics at more than 150 high schools.

Still, the planned shift has already prompted pushback from some principals and their union. And some observers and education department officials wonder whether elements of the policy will ultimately change or be dialed back.

Standardized curriculums draw cheers and jeers

Schools Chancellor David Banks has made literacy a centerpiece of his administration and has demonstrated he’s willing to issue top-down curriculum directives.

This year, Banks required all elementary schools to use an approved phonics curriculum, which schools often deploy in 30-minute blocks, on top of their reading curriculum. Now, many schools may be required to overhaul their fundamental approach to reading instruction, something Banks has repeatedly said would be necessary to address poor reading outcomes. Roughly half of students in grades 3-8 are not reading proficiently according to state tests.

School leaders and experts said the effort to standardize reading curriculums has some clear benefits. If there are fewer curriculums deployed across the city’s sprawling network of elementary schools, the education department can play a stronger role in making sure high-quality materials and training are available to more teachers. And when students or teachers switch schools, there’s less need for them to start from scratch with new materials.

“I’m in favor of more universality,” said Susan Neuman, a literacy expert at New York University and member of the education department’s Literacy Advisory Council. “It allows teachers to begin to collaborate more and develop a shared language. We haven’t had that.”

But the policy change is also raising alarms.

Some department administrators say there has been limited communication about how carefully those three curriculums were chosen. One of the curriculums, Into Reading, was criticized in a NYU report for not being culturally responsive. There have also been scarce details about how thousands of educators will be trained on new instructional approaches. Others noted that educators and families have had little opportunity to provide input.

One central education department administrator who spoke on condition of anonymity said more standardization isn’t bad in theory, but implementing a new curriculum that educators haven’t yet taught comes with challenges.

“It’s like telling a basketball coach to go coach football,” the administrator said. “I’m not sure there are the instructional supports needed to make it successful.”

The move would also require elementary schools to abandon a controversial curriculum called Units of Study, written by Lucy Calkins of Columbia University’s Teachers College, multiple department administrators said. Hundreds of elementary schools used that curriculum before the pandemic hit, according to an investigation by Chalkbeat and THE CITY.

A growing chorus of experts, including Banks, have dismissed the approach as ineffective for many young children, but some schools still believe they are getting results with it. Requiring schools to ditch Calkins’ curriculum would represent a dramatic change on many campuses and is likely to spark fierce resistance.

Henry Rubio, the president of the Council of School Supervisors & Administrators, said officials at his union have asked the education department whether they will provide exemptions from the curriculum mandate for schools that have a strong track record. They have not yet received a reply but plan to meet with department officials this week.

The union, which represents principals and other administrators, has also raised concerns about a looming deadline early next month for purchasing materials. Though multiple officials said they expect the education department to pay for new reading curriculum materials, rather than requiring principals to pay for it out of their budgets, some school leaders are not sure whether they’ll be able to continue using their existing curriculums next year and whether they should be preparing to buy materials, Rubio said.

“We believe it may already be too late for many schools to begin the preparation and training necessary to effectively launch new curriculum in the 2023-2024 school year,” union officials wrote in a newsletter to members last week. “CSA continues to escalate principals’ objections about superintendents mandating curriculum to the Chancellor’s team. As instructional leaders, principals know what is best for their school community.”

A spokesperson for the city’s teachers union did not reply to a request for comment.

Details on instructional changes remain scarce

Kevyn Bowles, principal of New Bridges Elementary School in Brooklyn, said his school currently uses the Units of Study curriculum created by Calkins and that elementary schools in his district would be required to transition to Into Reading. Calkins’ curriculum is popular in part because of training that schools can pay for from Teachers College that provides extensive coaching to educators.

“I do want to be fighting for schools to have curricular autonomy,” Bowles said. “Teachers put a lot of work into turning the program into actual plans and practice, and so switching to something new without understanding why is just going to be pretty globally unpopular.”

Other school leaders said a more standardized approach could hold some promise. Matt Brownstein, an assistant principal at P.S. 330 in Queens, said his school already uses Into Reading, which is also the curriculum that the superintendent there plans to mandate.

Although Brownstein acknowledged that the curriculum does not include many texts that reflect the experience of New York City’s diverse student body, he said he appreciates that it includes materials in Spanish, which the school uses in its dual-language program.

Brownstein noted that switching curriculums will be a disruptive process on some campuses, and he can see arguments for schools retaining more flexibility. But teachers are generally not given the resources they need to design quality curriculum materials, and providing a more standardized set of options could yield dividends, he said

“Considering all the variables, is it the right move?” he asked. “Probably.”

An education department spokesperson, Nathaniel Styer, did not respond to questions about the curriculum mandates, including the rationale for them, how many schools would be required to change, or how the city plans to train educators in time for the fall.

“We are currently engaging educators, parents, and advocates on how to address proficiency rates with urgency and best ensure that our students and our educators have what they need to succeed,” Styer wrote in an email. “We will have more to say after our engagement.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney contributed.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

What to know about the upcoming state tests for grades 3-8

2023-03-23T21:50:12+00:00

It’s testing season in New York once again.

Schools across the state will administer standardized reading and math exams for grades 3-8 in April and May, as well as science exams for eighth graders in June.

With the intense attention on the pandemic’s effect on students, some schools might be ramping up their focus on the state tests. Some districts have signed up their schools for computer-based programs for math and reading, according to Nathaniel Styer, a spokesperson for the city education department. It’s part of a learning “acceleration” initiative launched earlier this year by the education department, Gothamist reported.

There might be more attention on this year’s state tests, following the spotlight on last year’s dip in national test scores, which also showed drops in fourth grade math scores in New York City.

But there’s a big caveat with the state tests: This year, the exams are based on new learning standards and can’t be compared to results from the last school year, when nearly half of students passed reading exams and 38% passed math.

Many educators and families argue that testing takes away classroom time and doesn’t tell the full story of how a student is doing — a viewpoint schools Chancellor David Banks has previously echoed. Others believe it is a useful tool.

State officials said the tests are just “one tool” that helps teachers understand their students’ academic needs.

Here are some things you should know about the upcoming exams:

When are the tests and how will they be administered at schools?

Schools will give the state English test over a consecutive, two-day period between April 19-21. If students are absent those days, they can make up the tests between April 24-28.

Two weeks later, students will take math tests from May 2-4 with make-up dates scheduled for May 5-11.

Eighth graders will take a science laboratory exam between May 23 and June 2 and a written exam on June 3. Make-up tests for the lab exam must happen sometime within that testing window, while make-up dates for the written exam take place between June 6-9. There will be no fourth grade science test as the state prepares to transition to a science test for fifth graders, beginning next spring.

Most New York City schools will give the exams on paper. So far, 130 schools plan to use computer-based testing, Styer said — which has sometimes come with technical issues across the state. For computer-based tests, the window for English exams will be April 19-26 and for math will be May 2-9.

While computer-based testing is currently optional, mandated computer-based state testing will begin next spring for grades 5 and 8. All schools will be required to give the exam on computers in the spring of 2026 for all grades.

How will the tests be different this year?

For the first time, this year’s state tests will be based on the “Next Generation Learning Standards,” a set of grade-level learning standards established in 2017 that were revised from the controversial Common Core standards.

The Next Gen standards, as they’re often called, were meant to clarify previously vague language from the Common Core. For example, whereas Common Core geometry standards simply stated that students must be able to “prove theorems about triangles,” Next Gen’s revisions detailed the specific theorems.

When the state’s Board of Regents adopted the new standards, some groups lauded them for not straying too far from Common Core, while other education organizations said the standards were too rigorous for early grades.

What do the new tests mean for scoring them?

New tests also mean that the state will determine new benchmarks of what makes a student proficient in reading, math, and science. This summer, teachers will participate in a process where they will decide what students need to know in order to demonstrate that they’re meeting grade-level standards – otherwise known as being proficient – on state exams. That process will impact scoring for this spring’s tests.

“It’s a matter of judgment to decide, ‘OK, we think a student who’s proficient should be able to answer this question correctly, say, two-thirds of the time,’” said Aaron Pallas, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College, giving an example.

Can we compare scores to last year?

No. Because the tests are new, the results can’t be compared to last year’s scores. Studying scores from year to year is helpful for understanding progress students have made — especially amid the pandemic.

But because state officials have warned against comparing results to previous years whenever the test changes, it’s been impossible to consider trends over the better part of a decade.

In 2016, New York allowed students to have unlimited testing time and cut the number of questions. In 2018 the state went from three testing days to two. The exams were canceled due to the pandemic in 2020, and the following school year, a fraction of students took shortened exams with just a quarter in New York City — far less than 2019.

They advised against comparisons with last year’s scores because looking at a student’s performance in 2022 versus 2019 would “ignore the enormous and, in many cases, grievous impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on students, families, teachers, and entire school communities,” a spokesperson for the state education department said in a statement.

That may be frustrating to some educators, families, and researchers because it makes it impossible to see long-term trends of student performance and growth. These exams, however, are just one indicator of how well students are doing in New York, said Pallas, and should be viewed along with other metrics, such as graduation rates and college acceptance rates.

“The state testing system is just one piece of evidence that has to be put into relation to all the other things that are available,” Pallas said.

How are my child’s scores used?

Schools are federally required to administer these exams, and districts are required to assess 95% of their students.

In New York City, the exams are used to see where students are meeting grade-level expectations “as well as students that need academic intervention in literacy and math,” Styer said.

State officials have said that these scores are just one measure of how a student is doing in school. However, the scores don’t come back until the fall – meaning teachers can’t see them the year that children take the exams.

In New York City, high schools and middle schools that screen students for admission can no longer take state test scores into account.

Can I opt my child out?

Yes. While federal officials require schools to administer these tests, parents can pull their children out. New York City’s education department has previously advised parents to speak with their child’s principal if they’re interested in opting out.

Last year, 10% of students opted out of exams compared with 4% in 2019.

Federal law requires states to give assessments to at least 95% of students. If fewer students participate at a school, it could contribute to the school being labeled as struggling – which state officials define as needing “targeted” or “comprehensive” support. But generally, low test participation may only affect a school’s accountability status if it’s combined with bad results on other measures, such as chronic absenteeism, according to state education officials.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

NYC education panel approves mayor’s proposed $30.7B schools budget after lengthy debate

2023-03-23T04:05:20+00:00

Mayor Eric Adams’ proposed $30.7 billion budget for the education department got the green light Wednesday night from New York City’s Panel for Educational Policy.

The vote by the city’s 23-member board — largely comprised by mayoral appointees — is not the final step for the agency’s budget. Next, the mayor will release an updated version of his budget proposal, and he will then negotiate with City Council over a final plan for the new fiscal year, which starts July 1.

That means that the education department’s budget could change by the time the full city budget is adopted.

The proposed budget for the nation’s largest school system, first shared in January, is close to $340 million, or roughly 1%, less than its operating spending plan this fiscal year. The mayor called for eliminating 390 non-educator vacant positions and diverting $568 million in federal funding originally planned for expanding preschool for 3-year-olds. But Adams tried to soften some of the blows by canceling previously planned cuts to school budgets totaling $80 million.

Nearly two dozen people — mostly educators and parents — spoke out against the proposed plan on Wednesday night, with several people urging the panel to push for reversing all of the cuts to school budgets.

But perhaps the most heated issue of the evening was over what wasn’t reflected in the budget: $90 million more for the Fair Student Funding formula, which is used to distribute money to schools.

In January, Chancellor David Banks and Adams proposed adding $90 million to the formula to cover new ways to calculate how much schools should get for homeless students on their rosters and for schools serving a disproportionate share of students with disabilities, English learners and those living in poverty.

The changes, which grew out of stunning criticism of the formula from the education panel last year, would impact 300 schools. The new formula is expected to come before the panel for a vote in May.

The idea of voting on those changes after the budget did not make sense to some panel members or city Comptroller Brad Lander.

“We haven’t approved the funding formula yet, so if we are talking about using a formula that we have not yet approved for calculating a budget then we are literally putting the funding cart ahead of the budget horse,” said Tom Sheppard, a parent-elected panel member from the Bronx. “I think we need to postpone this vote.”

The mayor’s panel appointees disagreed with those concerns. Several said they trusted that any changes to Fair Student Funding would be included in the final budget.

The panel’s budget vote came early because of a heated lawsuit last summer over how the budget was passed last year. In at least 11 out of the past 13 years, chancellors have bypassed the panel’s vote using an emergency declaration, according to the lawsuit. After the city cut school budgets last year, drawing intense criticism from the public, two parents and two teachers filed a lawsuit seeking to force a new vote over the budget by claiming that Banks improperly used an emergency declaration last year.

While the lawsuit wasn’t successful in forcing a new budget vote, multiple courts agreed that city officials violated state law. Because of that, the education department’s general counsel Liz Vladeck said the city decided to hold the vote early this year “to err on the side of caution.” Vladeck added that in her interpretation of the court’s decision, the panel needed to pass a budget before the mayor proposed his updated budget, known as the executive budget, in April. That schedule complicated the timing of the panel’s vote.

Lander said it was “irresponsible” to have the panel vote on the budget before a vote over Fair Student Funding, in part because city officials had not yet explained how they would pay for the additional $90 million. He suggested moving the budget vote back to May – leaving enough time for more public comment before the council has to pass a budget by July 1.

Emma Vadehra, the education department’s chief operating officer, noted that even though the budget may change by July 1, the city is bound to implement any changes to Fair Student Funding that the panel approves.

Sheppard put forth two separate motions to delay the vote over the budget until the panel’s April and May meetings, but the panel voted against them.

Multiple panel members said they didn’t have enough details on what the budget looks like for individual schools and districts. Sheree Gibson, a panel appointee for the Queens borough president, said she’s asked for several details about the budget with no clear answers, such as “how this budget impacts Queens … how it impacts our districts,” to no avail.

“In the hood, we call this balling,” said Geneal Chacon, the Bronx borough president’s appointee to the panel. “It seems like we have a bunch of money, and we just throwing it away, and we don’t even know what we spending it on.”

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

David Banks wants to bolster career education in NYC schools. Here’s how.

2023-03-20T10:00:00+00:00

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news organization covering public education in communities across America. Sign up for our free New York newsletter to keep up with NYC’s public schools.

Afua Siaw dreamed of being a pediatrician. So when it came time to pick a high school, she chose the High School for Health Professions & Human Services — a decision based largely on the school’s name.

Siaw didn’t know when she applied five years ago that the Manhattan campus boasted a career and technical education program culminating with a chance to earn a medical assistant certification.

Her experience learning about front-line medical work turned her off to pursuing it as a career. But her school coordinated a virtual internship where she conducted survey research to help find solutions to local health disparities, sparking her interest in career possibilities beyond pediatrics.

“The internship kind of helped me realize there’s other aspects,” Siaw said. Now a Tufts University freshman, the 18-year-old plans to pursue psychology and public health.

Siaw’s experience is one that schools Chancellor David Banks is hoping to replicate across the system: jump-starting students’ exposure to career options well before graduation. Urban school districts across the country have increasingly embraced career and technical education programs, also known as CTE. Banks has described putting students on the path to stable careers as one of the “North Stars” of his administration, on par with improving literacy rates.

Afua Siaw, a former student at High School for Health Professions & Human Services

New York City has long been a leader in offering students a diverse range of CTE programs, with roughly a quarter of high schools offering at least one program, reaching about 60,000 students. Now, city officials are hoping to spread elements of the model to dozens more campuses. They plan to increase coursework focused on career skills, add new concentrations in fields ranging from education to health care, expand opportunities for early college credit, and offer more paid work opportunities before students leave high school.

The emphasis on career education represents a shift from the previous administration’s focus on college. Though college enrollment rates have risen, the share of New York City students staying enrolled for at least two years has not kept up, potentially leading to debt but not a degree. Meanwhile, nearly 18% of the city’s 16- to 24-year-olds are unemployed, more than double the national average. Young men and people of color are disproportionately out of work.

In an interview, Banks emphasized that college may still be the right path for many students. Plus, additional training or education beyond high school is essential for many careers. But he argued that the city’s public schools must better prepare students to transition to the workforce.

“What you’re seeing all across the nation, this idea that everybody’s just promoting college, college, college,” Banks said. “There’s got to be another way and another track and another pathway for kids to be successful.”

He believes career programs can help get students more excited about school and see themselves in professions they might not otherwise be exposed to.

“If this is done well, kids can come out of high school with credentials [and] certifications,” he said. “They can step right into the job market if they like.”

The goal: Paid apprenticeships and new career tracks

The city is banking on two pilot programs to create a stronger pipeline from high school to career opportunities, spending about $6.7 million this year on them.

The first, Career Readiness and Modern Youth Apprenticeship, will provide about 3,000 students at nearly 60 schools with apprenticeships for upperclassmen that pay up to $25 an hour. Ninth and 10th graders at those schools will participate in a curriculum that includes workplace skills such as resume-building, interviewing, and delivering an elevator pitch.

Chancellor David Banks samples the culinary program offerings at John Dewey High School.

The first 500 apprenticeship slots — at companies like Amazon, Accenture, and MasterCard — will launch this fall, with students participating for up to three years, extending even beyond graduation.

The second program, FutureReadyNYC, gives schools resources to launch new career tracks, along with paid work experience, in education, technology, business, or health care. Schools will be expected to offer specialized coursework in at least one of those disciplines, early college credit through City University of New York partnerships, regular advising to help students transition to college or work, and instruction in financial literacy.

Though the program is still in a pilot phase, the education department is already planning to expand FutureReadyNYC beyond its current 66 schools. By next school year, it will include 7,000 students across 90 campuses, with the goal of reaching 40% of all high school students by 2030, said Jade Grieve, the education department’s chief of student pathways.

“We know that there’s more students that want to be in them than what we provide today,” Grieve said.

Principals flock to paid work opportunities for students

The programs are already proving popular with many school leaders who said they have often struggled to strike up relationships with relevant businesses or add courses for early college credit.

Dannielle Darbee, principal of the Brooklyn Academy of Global Finance, described the previous labor-intensive process of staff canvassing nearby businesses, hiring fairs, community board meetings, and other education department events for internship leads.

“We’ve always done it on our own, and that’s why it’s hard to find internships for students,” said Darbee, whose school is eligible for the new apprenticeships.

For the FutureReadyNYC program, schools that already have career programming have had an easier time hitting the ground running, according to several principals involved in the program. Thirty-two of the 66 schools that have been selected for the program already have at least one CTE program, officials said, while others are building from scratch.

At the Urban Assembly School for Emergency Management, the new pilot program is allowing the school to deepen its efforts. In addition to pre-existing placements in the city’s health department and emergency management agency, the city partnered the school with Northwell Health.

The healthcare provider is offering paid internships to more than a dozen of the school’s seniors this spring. A group of 10th graders recently visited Lenox Hill Hospital, where they had a chance to talk with medical staff and observe a robotic hip replacement surgery. And 11th graders are participating in a paid “workplace challenge” where they complete a project over several weeks.

“That industry relationship should not be undervalued — that’s a huge, huge thing,” said Michael Buchney, the schools work-based learning coordinator. “It’s so hard to build those relationships.”

The school is also beefing up its early college offerings. Instead of offering one college course focused on EMT training, the school now plans to offer up to seven college courses through the Borough of Manhattan Community College. The goal is to help students do their prerequisites for a paramedic-focused associate degree, enabling students to earn thousands more than they can with just the EMT certification, school leaders said.

“Kids are really invested in their future because of this,” said Dr. Rasheed Bility, the school’s principal. He added that he’s been impressed with the quality of the partnership with Northwell. “They’re not just doing meaningless work shredding paper at these internships.”

Brooklyn students participate in a roundtable about career and technical education.

Still, many schools’ plans for creating new career tracks have yet to come into focus. In interviews with five principals who are part of FutureReadyNYC, nearly all said they were still figuring out what their new career pathways will look like. Some are still planning and education department officials said schools will have three years to fully launch.

Darbee, the Brooklyn Academy of Global Finance principal, said her school is focused on bolstering its current business CTE program and used some of the pilot program funding to hire a second guidance counselor, with one focusing on ninth and 10th grade students. Schools in the pilot program are expected to provide counseling twice a year to help identify students’ career interests, figure out what credentials are necessary, and map out individual plans.

Other schools that have not previously invested heavily in career training are taking baby steps. At High School for Youth and Community Development in Brooklyn, Principal Marie Prendergast said she had previously been reluctant to embrace CTE programming, worrying it would cannibalize the school’s electives. But the pilot programs are allowing school leaders like Prendergast to adopt some elements of career education slowly, and school leaders said they have a fair amount of leeway.

Prendergast’s school is in the process of launching a technology career pathway. The focus for now is getting all students to take at least one semester of computer science coursework and broadening access to more artistic elements of technology, such as graphic design. She’s not yet sure what other coursework or work experiences will follow.

“There is some building the plane while it’s in the air,” Prendergast said. “That’s the nature of pilots.”

A ‘two-tiered’ CTE system?

Proponents of career and technical education have cheered the city’s emphasis on expanding elements of CTE to a broader array of schools.

But even those boosters acknowledge that scaling up career-related learning opportunities — particularly paid work experiences — won’t be easy. And as the city attempts to stretch some elements of the CTE model to more campuses, questions remain about whether the new programs will be less intensive, with schools using a hodgepodge of approaches.

State-approved CTE schools are widely considered the gold standard. Those programs involve strict requirements, including industry-specific teacher certifications, periodic state reviews of school curriculums, paid work experiences, and offer the chance for a special diploma designation.

Leo Gordon, the vice president for career and technical education for the city’s teachers union, said he supports the pilot programs. But he worries they could amount to a “two-tiered” system of career programs with widely varying standards. He noted, for instance, that official programs require seven CTE credits, while the new pilot schools must only provide four credits related to the career pathway.

“The more students that have access to career and technical education the better,” he said. Still, “We want to make sure all programs are high quality.”

But spinning up official state-approved CTE programs often takes several years and some schools have faced challenges navigating red tape. And state approval does not guarantee every element of the program will be implemented: Many CTE schools have struggled to line up paid work experiences, according to a recent report from New York University’s Research Alliance for New York City Schools.

John Widlund, the education department’s former executive director for career and technical education, emphasized that there are benefits to letting schools adopt a less intensive version of the model.

“The push in the past was more for the full CTE-type model, which was a tremendous commitment of time, energy, effort, and resources,” he said. “With the career pathways, it’s less intensive, but it’s also less costly. And it has the potential to reach more kids.”

For now, it remains to be seen exactly how many students the education department’s current efforts will reach — particularly the most intensive elements involving paid work opportunities.

An education department spokesperson said the city has secured “hundreds” of internships and work-based learning experiences for FutureReadyNYC, but did not provide a specific number. Even including the 500 apprenticeship opportunities that will launch in the fall, eventually scaling up to 3,000 within three years, the total represents a fraction of the students enrolled at the pilot schools. City officials say they eventually want to provide all students with opportunities to explore careers before graduation, though they have not laid out a blueprint for accomplishing that goal.

James Kemple, executive director of NYU’s Research Alliance, said it makes sense for the city to start with a smaller subset of schools to iron out any kinks before a broader expansion.

The city’s ambitions to scale up career-oriented learning opportunities, including paid experiences, may be “one of the largest undertakings ever in the history of career and technical education given the size of New York City,” Kemple said.

“Whether they’re going to pull that off eventually at the kind of scale they’re talking about,” he added, “is another question.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

School safety agent numbers dropped during the pandemic. NYC doesn’t plan to staff back up.

2023-03-14T22:25:41+00:00

The number of school safety agents stationed in New York City public schools plummeted more than 20% during the pandemic, a decline that Mayor Eric Adams is not planning to reverse, according to a report released Tuesday.

Before the pandemic hit, there were roughly 5,000 safety agents assigned to schools. As of late last month, that number had plunged to 3,900, which the report from the Independent Budget Office, or IBO, attributed to attrition and pandemic hiring restrictions. The agents are employed by the police department, unarmed, and primarily responsible for keeping an eye on building entrances, responding to student behavioral issues, and operating metal detectors at dozens of campuses.

Adams’ preliminary budget proposal for the next fiscal year calls for eliminating 282 vacant safety agent positions on top of 550 that were nixed last year. The move is part of a broader effort to wring savings out of the city’s budget: In 2019, the city spent $395 million on safety agents, and the mayor’s proposal for next year allocates $359 million.

Nick Martin, an education budget expert at the IBO, said there was no indication the city plans to significantly expand the safety division to pre-pandemic levels over the next four years. “Just based on the budget for the remaining years of the financial plan, there’s no scaling back up,” he said. “It seems to indicate that the headcount is going to continue closer to this current level.”

The city’s school safety division has long been the subject of intense debate. Critics worry stationing police department employees in school buildings can criminalize student misbehavior. They believe resources should instead be redirected toward mental health services. Supporters counter that the safety agents are essential for maintaining order. Students, parents, and educators generally report on annual school surveys that the agents help keep schools safe and respectful, though children at predominantly Black schools are somewhat less likely to agree.

Eliminating hundreds of school safety agent vacancies came as a surprise to some observers. Adams, a former police officer, and schools Chancellor David Banks, who once served as a school safety agent, have raised grave concerns about student well-being and support measures to beef up school security.

At a press conference in September, Banks specifically touted efforts to hire more safety agents. In January, he declared a “state of emergency” over neighborhood youth violence, pointing to shootings — sometimes occurring just after school and near campuses — that have led to serious injuries and deaths. Schools have also dealt with an uptick in students bringing weapons to school, often for self-defense during their commutes.

Spokespeople for Adams and Banks did not respond to questions about whether the decision against filling 832 safety agent vacancies represents a change in safety strategy or if the city is unable to find enough new recruits to take the jobs, which offer a starting salary just shy of $35,000. Officials previously announced a suite of other school-safety strategies, including plans to coordinate weekly meetings between school leaders and police department precincts, pairing 138 schools with violence interrupters and mentors, and locking building entrances during the day.

Amaris Cockfield, a City Hall spokesperson, said there are currently over 4,100 school safety agents. She noted that a new crop of 250 agents will begin in April, though she did not suggest the city is planning to return to pre-pandemic staffing levels.

“We will continue to build on the productive steps we have taken thus far and invest in a holistic vision of public safety that keeps our youngest safe,” she wrote in an email.

Mixed reactions over reducing ranks of school safety agents

Some educators and union officials, including those representing school administrators and safety agents, said they were frustrated by the reduction in school safety staff.

One school administrator in the Bronx, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said her school building consistently has two or three agents, down from four or five before the pandemic.

That has led to situations where staff, including a paraprofessional, have been pulled away from working with children to monitor the front desk while the safety agents attend to situations elsewhere in the building. Recently, a fight broke out in the school’s gym that proved so overwhelming to the limited school safety staff that school administrators called outside police officers to break it up.

“There’s a lot more stuff happening in school still,” said the administrator, noting that students are using drugs and vaping more, and many are struggling with social emotional issues that can spiral into outbursts. “It’s crazy that they would eliminate those positions especially when safety is an issue.”

The police department did not share information about safety agent staffing levels in specific regions, according to the IBO report, making it difficult to know how the reduction in headcount is affecting individual campuses.

Hank Sheinkopf, a spokesperson for Teamsters Local 237 which represents school safety staff, criticized the mayor’s budget proposal. He said retaining agents is a major challenge given the low pay.

“This has got to be a priority,” he said. “What is more important than protecting school children?”

Still, advocates who have long supported reducing the police department’s footprint in schools said the mayor’s budget represented a step in the right direction.

Jasmine Gripper, executive director of the Alliance for Quality Education, noted the previous size of the school safety division by itself represented one of the largest police forces in the country.

“I would hope that they have come to realize that this is an area where they’re overspending,” she said, “and instead could redirect these resources to mental health programs and restorative justice.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

With greater access to devices, NYC teachers are folding more tech into instruction

2023-03-13T18:49:10+00:00

Before the pandemic, U.S. history teacher Travis Malekpour hesitated assigning his students work in the classroom that required a computer. He knew not every student had a laptop or tablet.

Three years later, Malekpour, who teaches in Queens, doesn’t think twice about assigning and grading in-class work that requires a device.

After COVID shuttered campuses in March 2020, forcing schools to pivot to remote learning, the city spent more than $360 million to buy 725,000 iPads and Chromebooks. That seismic shift made devices more accessible to students than ever before — and has now pushed some teachers to fold technology more often into their lesson plans.

“Having students who now have tablets and laptops they bring to school definitely changes the game a little bit,” Malekpour said.

The city’s education department has embraced some virtual education models, including a hybrid high school program that mixes virtual instruction with in-person activities. They’ve also used federal relief dollars to fund virtual courses for students at small schools that can’t provide such classes. More recently, schools began using computer programs to prepare students for upcoming state English and math tests, angering some educators and families who want children to be interacting directly with instructors, Gothamist reported.

But there appears to be little official guidance from the department for schools navigating a post-remote learning world. A spokesperson said they encourage using “21st century teaching practices” and provide students with “personalized, flexible learning.”

Officials also offer professional learning for teachers on teaching in remote or hybrid environments.

Some students find reliance on technology frustrating

There is some evidence that older students prefer instruction that doesn’t lean on technology. Sixty-five percent of American teens ages 13-17 said they preferred returning to full in-person instruction after the pandemic, while 18% preferred a mix between in-person and online, according to a survey last year from Pew Research Centers.

Most of those surveyed didn’t seem to struggle profoundly when required to use technology: Of the 22% of teens who said they sometimes had to complete homework on their phones, just 1 in 5 said it made finishing assignments “a lot harder.”

But for some children, technology can make learning frustrating.

About half of Eva Lang’s classes at a Manhattan high school require using laptops daily. The 15-year-old said she finds it distracting when her classmates are playing video games instead of doing the assignment.

Submitting assignments online can be convenient, Eva said. However, when her teachers post homework to Google Classroom without first discussing it in class, she sometimes has to ask questions via email, which can go unanswered. Some teachers make online assignments due the night before the next class — meaning she can’t complete it on the way to school if she wanted to focus on more complicated homework the night before.

Other times, the due date is a Friday night.

“It’s never, like, a really long assignment, but you know Friday nights are when you’re done from school or [ready] for the weekend, and you don’t want to be worrying about homework,” Eva said.

Many parents, too, have expressed concerns about increased screen time during the pandemic. One 2021 study of more than 5,400 children, which looked at screen use during the pandemic, saw a link between more screen time and worsening mental health, including feelings of stress. U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy noted in 2021 that while some studies have found that online platforms can lead to worsened mental health, there is not enough robust research to make a conclusion.

Some teachers find creative uses for technology

With more devices in students’ hands, Malekpour, the Queens teacher, feels comfortable asking them to complete online assignments for a grade while in class, such as answering a sample U.S. History Regents exam question using Google Form or typing up a short essay response to a prompt.

But if he’s teaching about political cartoons, he’d have them draw their own examples on paper.

Even before the pandemic, one Brooklyn science teacher knew of free, interactive lab activities available online that seemed useful when the school couldn’t afford materials for hands-on experiments, or for understanding more dangerous concepts, such as radioactivity.

But the teacher, who requested anonymity because she was not free to talk to the press, couldn’t always use those virtual labs because not all students had a laptop or a phone.

Now, for the first time in her two decades of teaching, she has a laptop cart in her classroom, meaning her students can do virtual labs in addition to hands-on experiments, she said. This week her students used a virtual lab to study different states of matter. With the click of a button, they could change matter from gas to liquid to solid by controlling the temperature.

“Before, you would just teach it,” she said. “This way, they find out for themselves — rather than just being told, they explore.”

Tom Liam Lynch, vice president of education at the United Way of NYC and a former education technology professor, said a “fundamental conversation” that needs to happen around the role of technology in schools must start with what high-quality instruction looks and feels like for students.

Frustrations like Eva’s, the Manhattan student, represent a situation where it might not be working well, Lynch said.

“In those moments [the teacher’s] focus is on getting an assignment up and getting into the classroom, and they’ve lost touch around the fundamental question of, ‘Why am I doing this in the first place? How is this going to make a child feel?’” he said.

For some teachers, remote learning didn’t impact how they teach now. Despite the education department’s investment in technology, there are still students who don’t have access to devices or the internet. The city is currently attempting to count up all devices that schools have in their possession.

Not every student has access to a laptop during the school day at the Bronx high school where Steve Swieciki teaches social studies. His use of computers in class has, in part, relied on whether he’s in a room with a laptop cart during that period.

When he does use computers, it’s for simpler work, such as reading a news article in class. He may toggle between having students read and discuss an excerpt from a textbook or providing that excerpt in Google Classroom and requiring students to answer questions about it as homework.

But that’s how he taught even before COVID.

He shared a recent example of how he lightly folds technology into a lesson: For an intro-to-law class, Swieciki recently had students use laptops to read two news articles about artificial intelligence. To pique their interest, he first had them read a New York Times story that detailed a conversation between a reporter and a Bing chatbot, who told the reporter it was in love with him — shocking and hooking the students to the topic.

Then, he had them pull up an Axios article about how lawmakers are seeking to regulate artificial intelligence.

Students spent the next class participating in a Socratic seminar, where they debated the role of government in regulating artificial intelligence.

The lesson went so well that Swieciki pivoted from what he had planned to teach in his following lesson.

“I’m actually putting off what I initially had planned for tomorrow and extending the discussion another day,” he said.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City public schools. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Mental health safety net for youth: Adams outlines vision to catch kids in crisis

2023-03-02T22:07:21+00:00

If you or someone you know is considering self-harm, please dial 988 for the national Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

As New York City continues to grapple with youth mental health challenges, Mayor Eric Adams laid out a sweeping vision on Thursday to help schools better recognize student mental health needs and create a safety net for kids in crisis.

The needs are high: About a fifth of children ages 3 to 13 had one or more mental, emotional, developmental or behavioral problems in 2021, according to health department data provided in the mayor’s new plan, called Care, Community, Action: A Mental Health Plan for New York City.

Rates of suicidal ideation jumped to nearly 16% from about 12% over the past decade, with more than 9% of the city’s high school students reporting they attempted suicide over the course of 2021.

“We’ve all seen the isolation and trauma that children have experienced over the past several years, along with the results: disappearing into screens, behavioral issues, and even suicide,” Adams said while revealing the plan.

Addressing the mental health needs of young people and their families was one of the three major focal points of Adams’ blueprint. The plan calls for several things, including opening more school-based mental health clinics, creating suicide prevention trainings for educators, and assessing the impacts of social media as possible “toxic exposure.”

Though most of the ideas lacked details in terms of timeline and cost, the mayor did add a price tag of $12 million for a previously announced telehealth hotline for high school students, which the city says will be the largest of its kind in the nation.

City officials said they will track certain data points to determine whether the plan is working, including the number of contacts made by or on behalf of youth through NYC Well (the city’s free, confidential support, crisis intervention, and information and referral service), and the percent of young people reporting feelings of sadness and hopelessness.

Here are four highlights from the plan that relates to youth and schools:

City taps telehealth to fill treatment gaps

The mayor initially announced in January that the city would launch a telehealth program for high schoolers, though has not said when the program will launch and how students can access it.

Officials said Thursday they are still working out details.

“Telehealth can improve access to care for young people and their families who cannot easily get around or meet the strict time or expenses of traveling to in-person appointments, especially when mental health provider locations might be far away from the child’s home,” the mayor’s plan stated. “In addition, many youth feel more comfortable using technology to connect, and technology offers new ways to stay connected outside of traditional therapy sessions.”

Other cities are leaning on telehealth for young people, as well, including Los Angeles.

Experts previously shared cautious optimism with Chalkbeat about the plan when Adams first announced it, while also raising questions about how it would work, including whether school staff will be monitoring sessions and get involved if a student’s needs are more serious.

School-based mental health clinics to expand

As of the 2020-21 school year, 162 schools had on-site mental health clinics, while another 238 had health clinics that offered some mental health services, according to a 2022 report from New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

The mayor’s plan calls on expanding mental health clinics that exist inside of school buildings through a partnership with the city’s education department, health department, the state’s Office of Mental Health and community providers.

Asked how many more clinics the city wants to open and an estimated cost, a health department spokesperson said these “are active and ongoing discussions.”

Creating school-based mental health clinics, however, can be complicated, said Kevin Dahill-Fuchel, executive director of Counseling in Schools, which partners with schools to offer counseling services. It involves getting approvals from the state, finding space inside of schools that would be eligible for such clinics, and setting up a financial structure to get reimbursed by Medicaid for the services, he said.

An easier lift, he suggested, might be to get more community organizations like his to offer services in schools. Those groups often operate with grants, thus cutting out complicated funding issues.

A push to train school staffers on suicide prevention

Adams wants schools staff to be trained on suicide prevention so that they can “respond appropriately to the needs of students,” the plan said.

Dahill-Fuchel praised such training, noting they could potentially help more students realize they need help.

“I think one of the things that is really gonna be useful is this idea of a public health approach to suicide prevention, which at its core really means demystifying it,” Dahill-Fuchel said. “It tends to be a word that, around children, people don’t like to use and that becomes part of the problem.”

City officials also plan to launch a program, called “Caring Transitions,” that would focus on preventing youth ages 5-17 in the Queens and Bronx who have been to the hospital for a suicide attempt from re-entering. Teams would be responsible for connecting these young people to follow-up services in their neighborhoods as well as “additional supports” for up to three months after they leave the hospital.

The plan also says it will launch a suicide prevention pilot program for young people of color ages 5 to 24. The goal is to bolster interventions that more effectively meet the needs of Black, Asian American, and Latino youth who face suicide-related risk “that includes or is intensified by racial inequities,” the plan said. The plan did not specify what those interventions might look like.

An attempt to address cyberbullying

Concerned with social media’s impact on youth mental health, the Adams administration plans to create a task force to study the issue and develop a public health approach to reduce exposure to harmful online content.

The plan noted that “there are few rules or regulations” on how social media companies interact with young people.

“We’re also going to examine the potential risks of social media to our children’s mental health and work to make sure tech companies are required to keep online spaces safe for our kids,” Adams said during his speech.

The group would include youth and families, according to the plan. It didn’t specify when the group would launch.

Federal officials have called for more rigorous research on how social media impacts youth mental health. In a 2021 advisory released by the U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, officials note that while several studies have linked worsening mental health to online platforms, other researchers have argued that there is no clear relation between the two.

Seattle Public Schools recently filed a lawsuit against leading social media companies, alleging that students and schools were harmed by worsened mental health that stemmed from social media.

The surgeon general’s advisory also called for technology companies to make sure they were fostering “safe digital environments” for their youngest users.

Some of the pressure seems to be working: Tik Tok announced earlier this week it will set the default screen time limit to 60 minutes for users under 18, though kids can continue using the app with a passcode.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City schools with a focus on state policy and English language learners. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

NYC principals to meet weekly with NYPD in latest effort to address rash of youth violence

2023-02-15T00:02:36+00:00

To address the growing problem of youth violence, principals from New York City’s 1,600 public schools will soon begin having virtual meetings each week with their local police precinct commanders, education department officials said Tuesday.

Schools Chancellor David Banks has been raising the alarm about the recent spate of killings and shootings involving young people, calling it a “state of emergency” that requires more intervention.

Many of the recent incidents have taken place right outside of schools, after dismissal — a critical time of day when students from multiple schools often spill out into small areas and conflicts can bubble up. The weekly meetings, which Banks announced on a call with school leaders Tuesday morning, are meant to bring together school leaders with the NYPD to discuss safe passage programs, how the police can support schools at after-school events, or how to respond when incidents occur, among other topics, according to an education department spokesperson.

“We’re not having cops running into schools to do some hostile takeover,” Banks said earlier this week on WBAI’s City Watch, discussing the new NYPD initiative. “What we are saying is that 30 minutes or so after school as kids are transitioning from the school building into the neighborhood, we need all hands on deck.”

Banks encouraged school leaders to swap cell phone numbers with their NYPD liaisons, according to principals who were on the call. An NYPD spokesperson said the precinct commanding officer or executive officer will meet weekly with principals to discuss “issues of note,” but declined to share more details.

One principal, who spoke anonymously, applauded the effort to increase and standardize communication between NYPD and schools, but added that there were few “specific details” about how the city planned to keep kids safe. Banks also floated the idea of bringing in parents to help monitor dismissal, a proposal the principal called “highly unlikely. Parents are working, and it’s not parents’ job.”

City officials have made other attempts to respond to the crisis, including a $9 million initiative called “project pivot,” which is sending violence interrupters and other mentors to 138 schools across the city. Banks said that initiative has just gotten underway about a month and a half ago, and is tapping “credible messengers” from the community to work with kids.

The city also recently said it was expanding its number of youth coordination officers — a teen-focused NYPD initiative started under the de Blasio administration — from 350 officers to more than 460, according to reports.

Meanwhile, the number of school safety agents — unarmed NYPD officers stationed full time in schools — decreased by 22%, from around 5,300 in June 2020 to roughly 4,130 last August, according to the state comptroller. Banks has said he wants to reverse that downward trend.

“There’s no one answer,” Banks said. “It takes all of us ensuring that the safety of all of our children is paramount to everything we’re trying to do. You can’t teach them if they’re afraid of being shot every day.”

Scores of public school students have been killed or injured by teen violence this year. Last year, 153 kids were shot in the city, up from 72 in 2017, according to recent NYPD testimony at the City Council.

Just last week, there were two separate shootings in Williamsburg where students were injured outside of school hours.

Seventeen-year-old Nyheem Wright, a student at Coney Island’s Liberation Diploma Plus High School, was fatally stabbed in January shortly after dismissal during a fight, and a 13-year-old has been charged in the murder. The night before, Josue Lopez-Ortega, 15, was fatally shot in the head when leaving the Police Athletic League’s South Bronx Center. Also last month, Bronx 16-year-old Jeremy Eusebio was stabbed and critically injured, allegedly in a feud over a girl, after he got out of his high school, the International School for Liberal Arts.

At the start of the school year, 15-year-old Unique Smith, a student at the Brooklyn Laboratory Charter Schools, was fatally shot after his first day of school in a nearby Downtown Brooklyn park. Violence in that area spurred the local city councilperson to arrange for students to meet regularly with local police.

“This has been a very bad situation. It breaks my heart as I see this happening every day,” Banks said Sunday on WBAI.

City schools have also been dealing with a surge of students showing up with weapons —often for self-protection on their commutes. The number of weapons and other “dangerous items” found on students at school, which can include pepper spray and tasers, more than doubled in the first months of this school year compared to last school year, according to NYPD numbers.

“We have not had a serious uptick of violence in our schools… Our schools are the safe havens,” Banks said. “But what we have had is a major uptick in weapons that have been brought to schools, and when we talk to young people across the city, they’re bringing these weapons, not to do harm to their classmates in school but to protect themselves from what’s going on in the streets after school is over.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

Hundreds of NYC elementary schools used a Teachers College reading curriculum Banks said ‘has not worked’

2023-02-14T10:00:00+00:00

This is part of an ongoing collaborative series between Chalkbeat and THE CITY investigating learning differences, special education and other education challenges in city schools. Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s daily newsletter and THE CITY’S Daily Scoop newsletter to keep up with our reporting.

Shortly after taking office, schools Chancellor David Banks took aim at one of the most popular reading programs in New York City public schools, one that had been long embraced by his predecessors. The curriculum, created by Lucy Calkins at Columbia’s Teachers College, “has not worked,” he declared. “There’s a very different approach that we’re going to be looking to take.”

Banks, along with Mayor Eric Adams, has vowed to reshape the way elementary schools teach children to read. Backed by a growing chorus of literacy experts, city officials argue the Teachers College approach hinges too heavily on independent reading without enough explicit instruction on the relationship between sounds and letters, known as phonics, leaving many students floundering.

Data obtained by THE CITY and Chalkbeat reveal for the first time how deeply enmeshed the curriculum has become in classrooms serving the city’s youngest students — and how difficult it could be to unwind.

Of nearly 600 public elementary schools that responded to a 2019 curriculum survey, 48% said they were using the Teachers College reading program alone or in conjunction with other curriculums, according to figures obtained through a public records request that took the city’s education department nearly three years to fulfill. It was by far the most popular reading program at the time.

Officials have begun to address what they see as some of the curriculum’s biggest shortcomings. Beginning this school year, the education department mandated that every school select a supplemental phonics program in grades K-2 on top of their existing reading curriculum. They’re also rolling out training to school leaders about how children learn to read and best practices for literacy instruction.

But the city has not formally requested that schools abandon Teachers College or some of the most questionable practices associated with it, such as prompting students to use pictures to guess what words mean instead of sounding the letters out, often referred to as three-cueing. A department spokesperson declined to answer questions about how the city is monitoring whether schools are making changes in their classroom practice.

“Even with the phonics mandate, there are still schools not doing what Banks has asked them to do, and it’s unclear what the accountability situation is,” said one education department employee with knowledge of the city’s literacy efforts who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Since school leaders have near complete freedom to pick their own curriculums, and many teachers have received training directly from Teachers College, observers say classroom practice will likely be slow to change. Although some schools have moved away from Teachers College on their own since the survey was conducted, others continue to use it.

“Can you imagine if someone told you that everything you’ve been taught in school and everything you’ve been doing for the past 20 years is flawed?” said Monica Covington-Cradle, the senior manager of literacy and implementation at the AIM Institute for Learning & Research, an organization that helps schools understand the research and improve instruction. “This is not easy work, and this is not fast work.”

Teachers College curriculum widely used

At the heart of the Teachers College method is the idea that children can learn to read by being exposed to literature and having plenty of time to practice independently. Teachers typically deliver about 10 minutes or less of a mini-lesson such as how to find a text’s main idea.

They then send students to fan out, often curled on the classroom rug, to choose books at their own reading level. Educators shuttle between children to check their progress, either individually or in small groups.

A significant chunk of students, particularly those who have support for reading at home, have no trouble learning to read under the Teachers College model, and multiple educators said they appreciated that the program treats students as thinkers who should be encouraged to develop a love of literature. But research shows that reading is generally not a natural process that children can pick up independently and that explicit lessons to help students sound out words are essential.

Those phonics lessons were absent from the Teachers College curriculum, said Timothy Shanahan, a professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago, who co-authored an influential critique of the curriculum in 2020.

“It’s really inadequate and that would be one of the reasons kids wouldn’t be doing as well as they could be,” he said.

Although many schools use outside phonics curriculums in addition to the Teachers College program, those weren’t necessarily well-integrated with the rest of a school’s reading curriculum, and many schools did not emphasize it. Shanahan said the lack of explicit phonics disadvantages students with disabilities and those in high-poverty schools whose families may not have the time or resources to plug gaps at home or with outside tutoring. “That’s terrific if you can afford that and have the time, but it doesn’t work for a lot of families.”

The Teachers College model, often defined as “balanced literacy,” was the approach schools across the city were pushed to adopt in 2003. The schools chancellor at the time, Joel Klein, later said it was one of his biggest regrets. Calkins, author of the Units of Study curriculum that is supported by Teachers College, has also acknowledged some of its flaws and rolled out updates. The approach’s shortcomings have been gaining more widespread attention through the “Sold a Story” podcast.

Banks argues that balanced literacy programs have contributed to poor reading outcomes. Roughly half of students in grades 3-8 are proficient in reading, according to state tests. But there are large gaps between racial groups: More than two-thirds of white and Asian American students are considered proficient, but fewer than 37% of Black and Latino children are.

The data obtained by THE CITY and Chalkbeat show that schools in virtually every corner of the city were using the Teachers College curriculum in 2019.

An analysis of the survey data did not find any correlation between the share of low-income students at a school and its reading curriculum. Still, Teachers College was more prevalent in some districts than others, including wealthier districts such as District 2 in Manhattan and District 26 in Queens, but also in high-poverty ones like District 12 in The Bronx and District 4 in East Harlem.

The figures come with some caveats: The curriculum survey only included schools that were part of the previous administration’s Universal Literacy program, meaning about 200 elementary schools weren’t surveyed, nor were charter schools and schools in special education District 75. An education official familiar with the city’s literacy efforts said it’s probable that those 200 schools were even more likely to use Teachers College, meaning the survey figures may understate the percentage of schools across the city that were using it.

Also, of the 280 schools that reported using Teachers College for reading instruction, 63 reported also using at least one other curriculum, making it difficult to know how widely Teachers College was deployed on those campuses.

Because schools have so much control of their own curriculums, education department officials often lack a systematic grasp of what materials schools are using, which can also vary classroom to classroom. The city has not conducted a new survey of school curriculums since 2019, department spokesperson Nathaniel Styer acknowledged.

City officials claimed that the number of schools using Teachers College has fallen significantly based on purchasing data. But Styer declined to share a list of schools still using Teachers College materials. He also noted the purchasing data does not distinguish between what specific materials schools bought from Teachers College, which can include curriculums other than reading.

A Teachers College spokesperson wrote in an email that the number of New York City public schools that pay for more intensive training on the curriculum has remained steady over the past five years at roughly 150 schools. (Principals may still use the curriculum without committing to a formal training program with Teachers College.)

Teachers College rolled out a new version of the curriculum for students in grades K-2 in late 2022 that includes a heavier emphasis on phonics along with “decodable books” that are meant to give students practice with words they have been practicing in their phonics lessons, according to a Teachers College spokesperson.

The curriculum’s publisher, Heinemann, declined to say how many New York City schools have purchased updated Teachers College materials, which cost $425 per classroom kit. (City education department officials said the Teachers College phonics program is “not based in research” and was not on the city’s approved list of phonics programs schools are expected to select from.)

Chalkbeat and THE CITY reached out multiple times to each of the 280 schools that were using the Teachers College reading curriculum in 2019 in an attempt to confirm whether they’re still using it. Only 19 responded. Of those, 16 said they have since moved on to a different curriculum.

A switch to phonics: ‘It really works’

Some school leaders began moving away from the Teachers College curriculum years before the education department’s leadership began casting doubt on it.

“We realized it was taking our kids much longer to get the basics down, and that’s because the program was designed — it seemed to work for the kids that had a subset of skills coming in,” said Melessa Avery, principal of P.S. 273 in East New York, which began transitioning away from Teachers College five years ago. “The rest of them struggled for so long, and we needed to see faster progress.”

At Avery’s school, which sits at the corner of two public housing developments and two low-to-middle-income apartment complexes, many of the kids enter the school system behind on their learning, she said. Three years ago, her school added a phonics program called Fundations, which the education department has been encouraging schools to use, alongside another reading program.

“It really works. It’s really scripted. It takes the kids from the very early sounds through the blending, the sounding out of the words,” said Avery. “It’s like a prescription for teaching the kids how to read.”

Other schools began transitioning away from Teachers College more recently.

Spurred by media attention to the problems with balanced literacy and an education department training focused on how students learn to read, Principal Darlene Cameron began moving her school away from the Teachers College curriculum.

“Over the past year I’ve realized I need to focus and make my teachers focus on phonics,” Cameron said, noting that nearly every other school leader she knew used Teachers College or some form of balanced literacy. Students at Cameron’s East Village elementary school now receive at least 30 minutes of phonics in the early grades, up from about 10-15 minutes.

P.S. 63 Principal Darlene Cameron, pictured last year, has moved her school away from the Teachers College reading program.

Still, there are elements of the Teachers College program that the school has been reluctant to give up, including time for independent reading, which teachers sneak in when students are eating breakfast or at the end of class periods. “The idea that you could choose your own books and read independently at length — our kids loved that,” Cameron said.

And it isn’t always easy to nudge teachers to give up practices they’ve been using for years. The school previously invested tens of thousands of dollars a year in Teachers College training that encouraged strategies such as word guessing that Cameron said are no longer appropriate. “Like many things, people have to hear something more than once for it to sink in,” she said. “I have been going through my own journey for a year and a half now.”

But other veteran principals have been reluctant to give up Teachers College, arguing that they’ve seen the pendulum swing back and forth with different approaches to reading and are not convinced sweeping change is needed.

“In education, what seems to happen is people throw the baby out with the bathwater,” said a Bronx principal who spoke on condition of anonymity. “There’s no one program or curriculum that solves all.”

The principal said her school has embraced the new Teachers College materials that place a greater emphasis on phonics, including the new “decodable” books that include words students should already be able to sound out. “They’re being thoughtful at [Teachers College] about this research and where those gaps are,” she said.

Still, the principal acknowledged that the curriculum continues to encourage students to look at pictures to understand what words mean, a practice that many experts argue is counter-productive.

Multiple principals said they continue to use the Teachers College program in part because of the intensive training that they can purchase, which is popular with many teachers. They also argue it’s more comprehensive and hands-on than what’s offered by other curriculum vendors or even the education department.

“They come on site, they do data dives with teachers, they help rework lessons for students with disabilities,” the Bronx principal said of the Teachers College training. “The staff development makes the curriculum come alive.”

Bigger instructional changes on the horizon

Despite Banks’ criticism of balanced literacy and Teachers College, there has not been a top-down effort to move schools away from it — something that many observers said would be difficult to pull off given the autonomy principals expect over curriculum in their schools.

In District 4, which covers East Harlem, and where a majority of elementary schools surveyed said they were using Teachers College in 2019, Superintendent Kristy De La Cruz said she is wary of pushing schools toward a specific program and noted community buy-in is crucial.

“I do try to encourage [schools] to use curricula that’s meeting the needs of their young people, but I also am hesitant to endorse any curriculum,” De La Cruz said. “I want to make very clear that it’s not like I’m saying [Teachers College] is good or bad. It’s like, how are we using it? And how are we supplementing? Do we have a phonics component?”

Some parents whose schools have used Teachers College said they were disappointed the city wasn’t moving more quickly to push schools toward alternatives and worry that students will receive subpar instruction.

“Why would you keep something that was proven to not work?” said Jessica Simmons, a Brooklyn mom and former principal who shelled out over $4,000 for literacy tutoring as her son struggled at a school that was using the Teachers College program. “It’s hard to think we’re all participating in a system that is not using the most up-to-date research on how kids read.”

Top education department officials have hinted that they might take more steps to encourage schools to adopt different approaches to reading instruction. Asked during a recent state hearing whether the city planned to outright ban certain practices such as teaching students to guess what words mean based on pictures, Banks said “that’s where we’re going.”

Still, he acknowledged that not all schools will necessarily go along with changes.

“I do get some pushback from some schools, who have been using this as an approach and it feels like it works for them,” he said. “So I have not tried to simply have a one-size-fits-all.”

“We’re going to continue to drive this until we reach a point where every single student in New York City has the benefit of the right approach to the teaching of reading,” Banks added. “If they do not, nothing else that we do even matters.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

Adams creates new City Hall office for child care, early childhood education

2023-02-10T22:19:43+00:00

This story has been updated to reflect Robin Hood’s involvement.

As New York City’s early childhood sector faces upheaval, Mayor Eric Adams announced Friday the creation of a new office to oversee child care and early childhood education.

The new office, which will be housed within City Hall, was months in the making. It’s charged with overseeing strategy and planning with city agencies that touch early childhood education, including the education department and the Administration for Children’s Services, officials said.

The office’s creation comes as the education department’s own early childhood office has faced intense scrutiny over the past several months under Adams’ leadership.

The city has failed to pay preschool providers on time, leading some to shutter, while Adams has shelved plans to further expand preschool for 3-year-olds as some programs have gone unfilled while others are oversubscribed. The shift spurred City Council hearings and backlash from elected officials and education advocates who had supported the push for universal pre-K for 3-year-olds.

Additionally, Chancellor David Banks’ plan last fall to move hundreds of early childhood workers into new positions — which has so far been paused — resulted in chaos and confusion across the division.

At the same time, the city recently announced an ambitious effort to provide preschool seats for every student with a disability, an issue that former Mayor Bill de Blasio was unable to solve.

The new office is meant to help child care providers cut through so-called red tape, according to a statement from Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright.

It will be led by Michelle Paige, who was chief program and equity officer for University Settlement, which focuses on creating programs, including daycares and preschools, aimed at fighting poverty and inequality on the Lower East Side and Brooklyn. Paige has also worked for Children’s Aid and was an early childhood teacher at the start of her career, according to city officials.

Asked how many people will work under Paige, a City Hall spokesperson said officials are still developing the office’s structure.

The plan to create this new office was nestled into Adams’ “blueprint” for early childhood education published in June. At the time, officials wrote that the office would create “responsive systems that are centered on parent choice, supporting providers, and delivering high-quality options for families” with support from Robin Hood, an anti-poverty nonprofit organization.

Last April, Robin Hood provided a 21-month, $847,000 grant that is supposed to help hire staff and cover other costs for this project, according to a spokesperson with the organization.

Early childhood education organizations applauded the decision to hire Paige and create a new office to oversee the sector.

“With this new office, we hope to see the long-waited-for thoughtful and effective coordination of New York City’s child care sector, ensuring responsive access and support for the city’s families and child care programs,” said Ramon Peguero, president and CEO of The Committee for Hispanic Children and Families, in a statement.

The idea to create the office is “very much needed,” according to a former staffer of the education department’s early childhood division. It’s important for city agencies to coordinate with each other to pull off successful early childhood education programs, since they intersect with multiple offices, said the ex-staffer, who requested anonymity.

Still, details remained murky.

“Obviously, all of us have read the blueprint, but I dont think it’s super clear,” the former staffer said. “What does ‘reaffirming New York City’s commitment to families’ mean? What does it mean for child care, what does it mean for universal child care?”

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City schools with a focus on state policy and English language learners. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

NYC schools want to boost enrollment. It might prove a major challenge.

2023-02-09T05:01:00+00:00

New York City schools Chancellor David Banks wants to win students back.

The nation’s largest school district has hemorrhaged students since the start of the pandemic, with enrollment down about 11% to 813,000 students in grades K-12 since then.

Earlier this week, Banks even tweeted: “Increasing enrollment and boosting opportunity for all of our students is our North Star.”

But such an effort might not be so simple, according to a new analysis by The Associated Press, Stanford University’s Big Local News project, and Stanford education professor Thomas Dee.

Across 21 states, about 230,000 of the students who left the public school rolls from 2019 to 2021 cannot be explained by rising private school or homeschool enrollment or population changes, according to the analysis. A quarter of those children — roughly 60,000 — were in New York.

These students could have fallen off school rosters for various reasons, Dee noted, such as being homeschooled without registering with the state or skipping kindergarten. Other students might have disengaged during remote learning or amid mental health struggles.

But there could be other factors that complicate the chancellor’s goals of rebuilding enrollment. Besides a declining birth rate, immigration to New York City has slowed, and families are leaving New York for places like New Jersey and Florida — often in search of cheaper housing. Together, demographic change could account for at least 40% of New York state’s public school enrollment decline, according to the analysis.

“There’s growing evidence for how much domestic migration happened during the pandemic,” Dee said. That likely reflects “underlying structural factors,” he said, “such as the enduring nature of work-from-home arrangements that have allowed people to relocate, as well as the push-pressure from things like rising housing costs.”

He added, “On some level, that reduction in public school enrollment wasn’t just a flight for public schools. It was a flight from these communities.”

Enrollment losses mount in NYC

New York City school enrollment has been declining every year since 2016, due in part to declining birth rates.

Between the 2018-19 and the 2019-20 school years, for example, the city saw enrollment fall by 5,000 students. But the decline has accelerated. Three years later, there are 99,000 fewer kids in the city’s district schools, even as additional classrooms for 3-year-olds have been added to the system, according to preliminary education department enrollment data from October.

Where did they go? The picture is not entirely clear. During this time, the number of homeschooled students in New York state has gone up, though it still represents comparatively few children. The number of private school students statewide, however, dropped.

At the same time, the school-age population statewide fell by more than 60,000 children, according to census estimates.

After accounting for the non-public school increase and the population loss, that leaves just over 59,000 students whose exit from the state’s public schools isn’t explained. At least in theory, those students are missing.

But the census estimates used for the analysis have shortcomings, especially when it comes to counting children. The New York state census estimates, in particular, have been known to be off-base compared to the official 10-year estimates. Dee’s analysis notes that the enrollment data and census data are collected over different time periods, which could understate the role of population change.

Demographic experts warned against using a specific number for the state’s students missing from school rosters.

“The population estimates may not be the best basis for comparison in this case,” said Steven Romalewski, director of the CUNY Mapping Service at the CUNY Graduate Center’s Center for Urban Research. “You may be able to generally determine the direction of the gap,” he added, but cautioned against “calculating seemingly precise population counts representing the ‘gap.’”

Because of these limitations, Dee ran a similar analysis for pre-pandemic years in New York, which found a much smaller number of unaccounted-for students, pointing to something “out of the ordinary” during the pandemic, he said.

“Over the pandemic, we’ve seen this historically unprecedented exodus from public schools,” Dee said.

City officials said they have accounted for students who left the system, sharing a breakdown earlier this school year detailing the numbers of children who went to different parts of the state, the country, or left the U.S., as well as those who dropped out or transferred to charter or private schools.

“Like districts and schools across the county, our enrollment has been impacted by fluctuations resulting from the pandemic as well as long-term trends in birth rates,” Deputy Chancellor Dan Weisberg previously said in a statement.

The enrollment drop has real world consequences for schools. As students leave the system, the city is bracing for a dramatically smaller budget once COVID relief dollars dry up since schools funds are based on enrollment.

Grappling with students who left, and who are frequently absent

Banks, in prepared remarks for Wednesday’s Albany budget hearing, acknowledged that families left New York City public schools for various reasons, and he showed optimism for winning some back.

“The answer to declining enrollment is clear: we have to give our students and families the opportunities and experiences they want in the classroom,” he said, “and we must do a better job of showing them how our schools are giving students the skills and knowledge that will drive success in their lives after school.”

He added: “My administration is focused on rebuilding trust with our families and bringing families back to our schools.”

To that end, the city continues to open new schools. Two that include remote learning opened this year, along with a school focused on robotics. A school focused on design and social justice is expected to open next year. But it also remains to be seen whether the city will soon propose a rash of school closures or mergers. There are a couple of proposed mergers on upcoming agendas for the city’s Panel for Educational Policy.

David Bloomfield, a professor of educational leadership, law and policy at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center, cautioned about using the big-picture “rough” data to make “finely tuned” policy decisions that affect individual students.

“It doesn’t get to the granular level of individual kids’ needs,” he said. “We know they’re not missing in a real sense. They’re just not on anyone’s radar. It’s the radar screens’ fault, not the kids’ fault.”

He compared the issue to the debate around learning loss, saying it’s “valid and important” to research the phenomenon, but that there are also so many variables and unknowns that are difficult to parse out.

“I think it’s much less important for the macro than the micro: For a given kid who’s not in school, it’s much more important,” he said.

Bloomfield remained more concerned about the larger number of New York City students who are chronically absent and might be enrolled but “alienated” from their schools. More than 30% of students this year are on track to have missed more than 18 days, or about a month, of school, city officials have said.

“The other piece is the in-school situation,” Bloomfield said, “The kids who can be found but are not being served.”

Correction: Due to an update to one state’s enrollment figures, this story has been corrected to change the estimated number of missing students in all states from 240,000 to 230,000.

This article is based on data collected by The Associated Press and Stanford University’s Big Local News project. Data was compiled by Sharon Lurye of the AP, Thomas Dee of Stanford’s Graduate School of Education, and Justin Mayo of Big Local News.

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org.

Anticipating challenges to NYC class size law, Banks will launch ‘working group’

2023-02-08T21:55:36+00:00

Chancellor David Banks plans to launch a “working group” of parents, school leaders, and others to share their opinions and concerns about a new state law that sets stricter limits on class size in New York City public schools.

Banks revealed the plan Wednesday while testifying during a state budget hearing focused on education. He outlined the potential financial costs facing the system in meeting the law’s requirements — an additional $1 billion — and suggested there are many New Yorkers whose concerns “were not heard on this as this law was developed” last year.

“But they’re going to hear from me, and they will absolutely be at the table alongside me as we figure out the best way to implement this,” Banks said.

The working group would have “parents, school leaders, and other interested parties,” Banks said.

Banks did not share more details about the group or what its goal would be. Nathaniel Styer, a spokesperson for the city’s education department, said, “We’ll have more to say soon.”

Last spring, state legislators overwhelmingly passed the class size law, which requires New York City to cap classes at 20 students in kindergarten through third grade, 23 students for grades 4-8, and 25 students for high school. The cap must not exceed 40 students for physical education and classes for “performing groups.” City schools must gradually meet these requirements by September 2028.

Officials are required to form a plan by this September, alongside the city’s educator unions. But the city’s teachers union has already criticized city officials for dragging their feet on the planning process.

In a podcast in December, union president Michael Mulgrew said he’s met with the city twice on the matter but no actual planning has started, and the city has not yet set a formal meeting to do so. (Late last month, an education department spokesperson told Chalkbeat that the city has been regularly updating the union on its progress.)

During Wednesday’s hearing, Banks said the city doesn’t anticipate any issues for meeting class size requirements during the first two years of the five-year timeline. The average class size this school year is about 24 students, according to the education department.

But Banks expects challenges later on, as class size requirements become more stringent and could lead to hard decisions, such as having to forgo hiring an art teacher because a school needs to create a new class when it’s “two students over” the limit. Budget cuts at most schools this school year led many to cut teachers, programs and services, sometimes resulting in larger class sizes.

While many schools may not have an issue meeting the requirements, other overcrowded and popular buildings may mean the city has to either limit enrollment at those schools or must build more seats.

The education department anticipates the need to hire 7,000 new teachers to comply with the law, according to Banks.

“In doing that, there are going to be other decisions that are going to have to be made by school leaders,” Banks said.

Queens Democratic Sen. John Liu, who oversees the Senate’s New York City education committee, took issue with the chancellor’s comments, emphasizing that the city should be working closely with schools in helping them comply with the state law, and that the city should be able to cover costs with the increase in Foundation Aid.

In the union podcast, class size advocate Leonie Haimson said she was pushing for a task force with parents, advocates, experts, and both teachers and principals unions to “work together toward a reasonable, rational, equitable, effective” plan.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City schools with a focus on state policy and English language learners. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

COVID vaccine mandate dropped for city employees, visitors to NYC public schools

2023-02-06T19:29:10+00:00

Chalkbeat New York is a nonprofit newsroom covering New York City’s public schools. Subscribe to our free newsletter to follow our reporting: ckbe.at/subscribe-ny

Visitors to New York City’s public schools will no longer have to be vaccinated, ending a year-and-a-half-old rule that had kept some parents out of school functions, Mayor Eric Adams announced Monday.

Adams also announced that COVID vaccines will no longer be required of city workers. That means that more than 1,700 employees who were fired for not complying with vaccine mandates can apply for open positions. As of last March, about 900 education department employees had been fired; a spokesperson did not provide a more recent figure.

That rule had invited various legal challenges and pressure from unions, including the United Federation of Teachers. Judges in several of these cases have sided with those who argued that the city’s rule was unlawful.

Vaccine requirements will also be lifted for private schools, early childhood programs, and daycare staff.

The changes will go into effect Feb. 10, after a vote from the city’s Board of Health, which is expected to approve the changes.

“With more than 96 percent of city workers and more than 80 percent of New Yorkers having received their primary COVID-19 series and more tools readily available to keep us healthy, this is the right moment for this decision,” Adams said in a statement. “I continue to urge every New Yorker to get vaccinated, get boosted, and take the necessary steps to protect themselves and those around them from COVID-19.”

Monday’s announcement represents the Adams administration’s gradual unpeeling of COVID-related rules established under former Mayor Bill de Blasio. And for schools, it marks the end of any major remaining COVID mitigations. Prior to this, Adams had ended masking rules, vaccine mandates for student athletes and prom attendees, daily health screenings and in-school COVID testing for students and staff, and had disbanded the city’s so-called Situation Room, which informed school communities of positive COVID cases.

Many parents have petitioned the city to end its vaccine requirement for school visitors. One parent previously told Chalkbeat that the inability to attend her child’s school was one of several factors that drove her family out of New York City.

NeQuan McLean, president of Brooklyn’s District 16 parent council, said he supports COVID shots, noting that he and his family members are fully vaccinated. But he felt the mandate made it hard for schools to “really engage with families like they needed to,” for parents and guardians who chose not to get their vaccines.

“This is really a move back to real, authentic parent engagement because you can’t really engage over a computer,” McLean said.

Earlier this school year, officials said parent-teacher conferences would happen virtually, but parents could request in-person meetings (though those had to happen during teachers’ contractual work days). Nathaniel Styer, a spokesperson for the education department, said conferences will continue to be virtual by default “for the time being.”

Last month, Chancellor David Banks signaled that based on the advice of health officials, he could support lifting the requirement for school building visitors, such as parents, to be vaccinated.

Some are already criticizing the move. Dr. Jay Varma, an advisor for de Blasio during the pandemic, wrote that he was “shocked” at the news. He argued that as new people enter the workforce and unvaccinated teenagers get older, this change will mean more “illness, deaths, and costs,” since vaccination helps stem severe and fatal illness, as well as hospitalization.

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City schools with a focus on state policy and English language learners. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

Deep breaths: NYC to roll out breathing exercises for all students, Banks says

2023-01-21T00:11:04+00:00

As schools across the city grapple with the mental health fallout of the pandemic, Chancellor David Banks indicated this week that the education department is in the process of introducing breathing exercises for all students.

“We are looking at rolling out two to three minutes of breathing technique[s] for every student in New York City schools as we go into next school year,” Banks said during a panel discussion this week hosted by Educators for Excellence, a teacher advocacy group.

“The pandemic was not the first challenge that a lot of our kids are gonna face and it won’t be the last,” Banks added, responding to a teacher’s question about his vision for social-emotional learning. “We have to teach them the life skills that they need, to know that in the face of trauma and challenge, how to center yourself.”

Education officials did not respond to questions about how the breathing program would be implemented, if it would involve using a specific curriculum, and how much the effort will cost. Banks noted that he’s hoping to build on techniques that are already in place at some schools and suggested the breathing lessons will begin “mid year.”

Addressing student mental health is a growing concern, as many students experienced trauma during the pandemic including the loss of loved ones. Social bonds frayed during long periods of remote instruction and students were more disconnected from their peers and teachers. Changes in behavior have been clear since students returned to school buildings full time, some educators said, including age-appropriate behaviors, struggling to make it to school at all, or even getting high during the school day to cope with anxiety.

Teachers offered mixed reactions to Banks’ suggestion that the city will institute breathing exercises across the school system.

Eli Levine, who teaches gym, health, and wellness at P.S. 91 in the Bronx, said he regularly incorporates breathing exercises in his instruction. It can help make students feel ready to learn, decrease anxiety, or even help educators figure out what’s going on with a student who has erupted in tears.

“I’ve done it so many times over the years when kids are crying or really upset and you’re trying to figure out why,” Levine said. “I have them do deep breathing until they are able to verbalize what’s bothering them.”

Still, Levine said he also sees possible downsides to rolling it out across the city, especially if teachers see it as an intrusive mandate into their already busy schedules and don’t explain to students why it might be helpful.

“If it’s sort of a Pledge of Allegiance where they get on the intercom and say, ‘we’re going to do two minutes of breathing’ — I’m not sure it’s the best way to do it for kids,” he said.

Other teachers said they were frustrated that Banks hasn’t sketched out a more detailed vision of what he thinks social-emotional learning should look like.

Liz Haela, a middle school teacher at the Urban Institute of Mathematics in the Bronx who attended the panel discussion, said she didn’t have a problem with breathing exercises, but wanted to hear more about how the city plans to address students’ emotional needs, especially those who come from low-income families or are homeless.

Breathing exercises are a “lackluster, inefficient way to really address social-emotional needs,” she said, noting that she wished for a more comprehensive approach to student wellbeing. She said her school has struggled, for instance, with an uptick in bullying this year around students’ sexuality, appearance, and family background.

Banks has not yet offered a detailed set of proposals for tackling student wellbeing and has instead largely focused on efforts to improve early literacy instruction and expanding students’ exposure to career paths before they graduate. And some of the education department’s previous efforts to measure and address student mental health have earned mixed reviews from educators, including a required social-emotional screener that officials later made optional.

Still, city officials have taken some steps in recent years to address student mental health, guaranteeing every school access to a social worker or on-site mental health clinic, and expanding the number of schools that partner with nonprofits to provide a range of social services. (A substantial chunk of those programs are funded with one-time federal relief dollars, raising questions about their long-term sustainability.)

Banks seemed to anticipate that some educators might want a deeper vision about how he plans to approach student mental health and wellbeing beyond breathing exercises.

“We just got one year under our belt as a new administration,” he said. “There’s so many more things that we are working on that will be coming out and that’s just one.”

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.

NYC’s education panel grows with new mayoral appointees and elected members

2023-01-20T14:50:39+00:00

Mayor Eric Adams unveiled on Thursday his newly appointed members to New York City’s Panel for Educational Policy, which has grown significantly in response to an updated state law.

Adams appointed six new people to the newly expanded panel that signs off on major education department contracts and school closures or co-locations. State lawmakers last year required the panel’s expansion from 15 to 23 members when they granted Adams another two years of controlling the nation’s largest school system, in hopes of bringing more parent voice to the body.

Those state-level changes called for the panel to grow from nine to 13 mayoral appointees. Four of these members must be public school parents, with at least one parent of a child with a disability, one with a child who is in a bilingual or English as a new language program, and one parent with a child in a District 75 school, which serves students with disabilities that require intensive support.

The new law also required the presidents of the city’s 32 parent councils to elect five members representing each borough — four more than currently serve. The city’s borough presidents continued to have their previously allotted number of five appointees.

One of the mayor’s new picks already raised eyebrows: Khari Edwards was ousted from his role as a governor’s aide in 2009 after the state found him “immature and irresponsible,” and accused him of lying in testimony for an inspector general investigation, according to the Daily News.

A City Hall spokesperson defended Edwards, calling him “not only a dedicated public servant, but, more importantly, a caring parent of three, who has continued to demonstrate his commitment to New Yorkers since these allegations surfaced over a decade ago.”

Edwards, who has since launched One Brooklyn Health and It Starts Here as the vice president of external affairs at Brookdale University Hospital, “has a strong track record of serving his community,” the spokesperson said in a statement after this story initially published.

Adams made a previous misstep with a panel appointment: last year he tapped Staten Island pastor Kathlyn Barrett-Layne but quickly withdrew the choice after the Daily News reported she had a history of anti-gay comments.

Two of Adams’ previous appointees, Kyle Kimball and Karina Taveras, were not reappointed, according to a spokesperson for City Hall, who declined to say why.

Additionally, the council presidents only elected four members instead of the required five. The Staten Island seat “remained vacant” during the election process, according to a City Hall spokesperson. Typically, such vacancies must be filled within 60 days by another vote from parent council presidents in that specific borough, according to the chancellor’s regulations.

In this case, there is only one parent council in Staten Island, so its president will appoint someone to the position. (Parents can nominate themselves by sending their information to the education department’s Office of Family and Community Engagement, which will forward eligible applications to the council president.)

With the expansion, the mayor’s appointees still make up a majority of the panel, which is often seen as a “rubber stamp” of the administration’s policies since mayoral appointees typically vote in favor of the administration’s proposals. Last year, dissenting voices were typically from the borough president appointees, as well as the panel’s elected member, Tom Sheppard, who has been reelected to the panel. One such vote — which was in part the result of the mayor failing to appoint enough of his members in time — was the panel’s rejection of the city’s funding formula.

Under this new configuration, it’s possible the public will see more disagreement among members. For instance, members elected by the parent councils and borough president appointees could potentially band together against certain policy proposals, such as school closures or co-locations. But their votes would still fall short of the mayor’s majority.

Also as part of the state’s changes last year, the panel must consider changes to school utilization, including co-locations and closures, in the borough of that school. That may lead to more frequent panel meetings. The panel, which typically meets once a month, has scheduled two meetings each in January and February.

Below is a list of the new panel. Those in bold are new:

The mayor’s appointees

Phoebe-Sade Arnold, director of community affairs at Columbia University
Lily Chan, parent of two English language learners and a brand manager for Revlon
Khari Edwards, head of corporate relations at Ayr Wellness and parent of three students
Anita Garcia, retired principal of Coney Island’s P.S. 329
Anthony Giordano, founder and managing partner at marketing firm Legacy Partners USA
Michelle Joseph, parent of a public school student who previously worked in District 79
Alan Ong, previous president of the District 26 parent council
Angela Green, chair of the panel and retired principal of Richard S. Grossley Middle School in Jamaica
Gladys Ward, executive assistant to the CEO of The Ministers and Missionaries Benefits Board
Gregory Faulkner, former chief of staff for New York City council member
Maisha Sapp, led program development for an organization called Blossom For Girls
Marjorie Dienstag, mother of two children who have graduated and a third child who attends a District 75 school
Maria Kenley, mother of a child with a disability

Newly elected members from the city’s parent councils

Naveed Hasan, parent of a public school student, who served several years on District 3’s parent council
Jessamyn Lee, parent of two public school students and a former teacher who worked with students learning English as a new language
Thomas Sheppard, the panel’s first elected member, parent of three public school students and former member of several parent groups, including District 11’s parent council
Ephraim Zakry, parent of two public school students and has served on the Citywide Council for High Schools

Borough president appointees

Queens representative Sheree Gibson, owner of a consulting firm and member of several parent boards, including former co-chair of the Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Committee
Bronx representative Geneal Chacon, parent of three public school students and PTA president at P.S. 277
Brooklyn representative Tazin Azad, mother of three public school students and member of several parent groups, including former vice-chair of District 22’s parent council
Manhattan representative Kaliris Salas-Ramirez, medical lecturer at CUNY School of Medicine and former president of District 4’s parent council
Staten Island representative Aaron Bogad, parent of a public school student and member of several parent-led groups, including president of District 31’s parent council

Reema Amin is a reporter covering New York City schools with a focus on state policy and English language learners. Contact Reema at ramin@chalkbeat.org.

LISTEN: NYC Chancellor David Banks talks about diversity and integration on ‘School Colors’ podcast

2023-01-13T21:02:59+00:00

To make the second season of School Colors — the critically acclaimed podcast examining race, class, and power in New York City schools — creators Max Freedman and Mark Winston Griffith spoke with more than 120 parents, educators and policy experts about a contentious effort to diversify schools in one corner of Queens.

One person they didn’t get to talk to was schools Chancellor David Banks.

That changed on a rainy Thursday night in December, when Freedman and Winston Griffith sat down with Banks as part of a special event at the Queens Public Library in Jamaica, co-sponsored by Chalkbeat and THE CITY. They asked him about his vision for supporting school diversity in one of the nation’s most segregated public school systems.

A wide-ranging conversation followed, touching on the definition of diversity in a multiracial and multiethnic school system, the balance between improving local schools versus moving students to schools farther away, and how to incorporate the views of parents when their opinions and platforms vary so widely.

The city’s hopes to create a diversity plan for District 28 middle schools fizzled during the pandemic, when the public health crisis took center stage. But the process faced an uphill battle regardless, as the podcast showed, with some of the deeply embedded hurdles in a district separated by a “Mason-Dixon Line,” with Forest Hills on one end and Jamaica at the other.

Banks said he supported districts that wanted to create integration plans, but citywide he preferred to develop “excellent schools” in neighborhoods where kids already live.

And for now, after one year in office, he has other priorities.

“The entire system that we’re seeking to integrate is fundamentally flawed,” Banks said. “Whether you get a chance to sit next to Latino kids, White kids, Black kids, Asian kids - that’s actually less of a priority to me than what is a quality school experience in the first place?”

Banks also shared some of his own experiences as a student growing up in Southeast Queens and getting bused out of his neighborhood to a higher-performing school.

That discussion is now a bonus episode of School Colors that you can find here.

After the interview with Banks wrapped up, Chalkbeat reporter Reema Amin spoke with Freedman and Winston Griffith about their reflections on the chancellor’s remarks, and how they put together the second season of School Colors.

Winston Griffith pointed out that how one frames the purpose of integration often shapes the outcome of the conversation. “If you talk about what it means to be a global citizen and what it’s going to take for everyone to have access to the same kind of quality education, there are not many roads that don’t lead through integration in some form or fashion,” he said.

Reflecting on Banks’s views, Winston Griffith added, “I think what you heard is a fatigue that is generations-long of having this conversation, and integration being lifted as the answer and the solution, and having to, what it feels like, is sort of beg white people to sit next to them.”

That conversation is also a bonus episode that you can find here.

The panelists agreed that the astute and diverse questions and comments from audience members — including suggestions about including more student voices —were a highlight of the evening.

“Us talking to ourselves doesn’t do anything,” said Winston Griffith. “The fact you’re listening and you took the time out on a rainy day to be here and participate in this, it means so much to us.”

Michael Elsen-Rooney is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Michael at melsen-rooney@chalkbeat.org.

NYC schools still require visitors to be vaccinated. Could that soon change?

2023-01-12T22:50:20+00:00

Though parents and other visitors to New York City school buildings still must show proof of vaccination to enter, schools Chancellor David Banks signaled that he might support relaxing the rule.

On Thursday, a Staten Island mom who sits on the Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Council asked the schools chief if the city would consider dropping the vaccine requirement, perhaps requiring a negative test instead. Banks responded that it was an “interesting point, and it’s one that we should be considering instead of being so, so final.”

The decision ultimately rests with Mayor Eric Adams and health officials, the chancellor said. But Banks vowed to set up a meeting with the city’s health commissioner to discuss it.

“Let’s raise this issue and see if there’s a middle ground,” he said.

The requirement that caregivers and other school visitors show proof of at least one vaccine dose to visit school buildings is one of a dwindling set of virus mitigation measures that officials have kept in place. Although school staff still must be vaccinated, the city has dropped mask mandates, no longer requires student athletes or prom attendees to be vaccinated, and does not conduct daily health screenings for students and staff entering school buildings.

The current rule prevents unvaccinated caregivers from entering school buildings to meet with teachers or attend school events. (Some schools appear to enforce the rule more vigorously than others.) It may also complicate participation in a variety of parent councils and public meetings, which are increasingly being held in person. By contrast, parent teacher conferences remain virtual this year.

New York City appears to be an outlier in requiring school visitors to show proof of vaccination.

Dennis Roche, the co-founder of Burbio, a company that compiled data on school health policies, said vaccine requirements for students and staff have largely disappeared, though the organization did not track vaccine policies for visitors. The organization recently stopped tabulating school COVID measures because few districts have mitigation policies in place at this point, Roche said.

The vast majority of adult New York City residents have already received at least one vaccine dose, according to city statistics, though disparities exist by race and neighborhood. Roughly three-quarters of Black adults have at least one vaccine dose, followed by 78% for white adults. Over 97% of Hispanic and Asian adults have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine, according to city data.

Meanwhile, 53% of public school students ages 5 and up are fully vaccinated, while 59% have received one dose, according to city data from November, the most recent figures that have been publicly released.

NeQuan McLean, a parent and president of Community Education Council 16 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, said he’s glad that Banks is open to reconsidering the vaccination policy.

“We have parents who weren’t able to go to Christmas shows or Thanksgiving feasts or can’t see their kids perform because they’re not vaccinated,” he said, though some schools have taken steps to stream events online so unvaccinated community members can participate.

McLean said he’s worried some unvaccinated members of his community education council won’t be able to participate in their meeting later this month at a school building, the first time the group is meeting face-to-face in nearly three years.

“We want to make it so that everyone is protected but that we’re not excluding folks,” he said.

Some public health experts said nixing the vaccine requirement for visitors would be unlikely to cause harm to school communities. Since a single dose of the vaccine is not likely to prevent transmission, the benefit is largely to prevent serious illness or hospitalization rather than protecting the wider school community from infection.

If the goal is to prevent infections, “it would be better having [unvaccinated visitors] mask — or have them do a negative rapid test before they come in,” said Susan Hassig, assistant professor of epidemiology at Tulane University.

The other benefit of the vaccine requirement is to spur people to get vaccinated who might not otherwise consider it, though public health experts said the impact on vaccine uptake was not likely to be substantial.

Patrick Gallahue, a spokesperson for the city’s health department, did not explain the city’s rationale for the vaccine mandate for school visitors. But he indicated that the city may consider a change to the policy.

“As we’ve said many times before, we will always follow the science,” Gallahue wrote in an email. “We’re reviewing all options, and we will share any updates.”

Patrick Wall contributed.

Alex Zimmerman is a reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.