Gary Byrd: WBLS is proud to welcome the 110th mayor of New York City and the second mayor of color and the first hip-hop mayor in the city's history. Of course, he is about to join us right now. From 107.5 WBLS, let's welcome our brother Mayor Eric Adams. Good morning.
Mayor Eric Adams: Hey Gary. How are you?
Byrd: I'm good, my brother.
Mayor Adams: You're right, there's a real storm that's going to hit the area, so those who live in low ground or shore front areas should be prepared, and particularly if you live in basement apartments. And so, we really want to just tell people to be on the lookout and pack a to-go bag as well.
But I'm happy to be on this morning and to all of you, happy Hispanic Heritage Month and welcome back to another episode of Hear from the Mayor, I’m your mayor, Eric Adams. And if this is your first time tuning in, the purpose is just to really have a dialogue with you as we share what we are doing in this city and how we can assist you to get the resources that you deserve.
And listeners, you can give me a call and hear directly from me while we move forward in this broadcast. You can also sign up to hear more from me by visiting NewYorkCity.gov/HearfromEric, and you can sign up on our website to text with Eric and talk with me on WhatsApp. And today, if you are listening, you can call at 212-545-1075.
Really happy today because I think one area of the city that has the most impact in the quality of life you're going to live is education, and public schools is a vital part of what we are wanting to accomplish here in the city, and you know, growing up with undiagnosed dyslexia and how I struggled in school, this wasn’t professional, it was really personal. And I wanted to make sure our young people can have a great start.
And you have to pick the right leaders to do that, and I'm just really proud of Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos for what she has done. A teacher, former principal, chief of staff, she has witnessed this system all the way through, and she brings with it our 360 degree mindset of how you educate a child. Because they can’t be academically intelligent and not emotionally intelligent.
Not only that, with all the academics and all of the emotional intelligence, what are we feeding them? Are they having a healthy diet? And are we nourishing their minds with breathing exercises, exposing them to meditation and yoga and exposing them to how to get phones out of the classroom, and I want to ask the chancellor how is that going?
But you know, just her full approach, and she lights up whenever she talks about education, she lives and breathes this, and we have been just really blessed to have her as the chancellor. A Latina herself, and so this is a real celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month. So, chancellor, let me bring you into the conversation. First, about the start up of school, how's it going? Because there's always bumps, you know, when you do these startups.
Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos, Department of Education: Absolutely, well, first of all, thank you, Mr. Mayor, for having me, sir. And yeah, it's been the smoothest opening that we've had, so we're super excited. Our principals, I'm meeting with them on a regular basis, and I'm hearing directly from them, they just feel very supported, and so we're off to a great start.
Mayor Adams: And what's interesting, I haven't heard anything, you know. Normally I'm getting these calls, you know, but I have not heard one thing, but not only did you have to open school, you had to open it with the cell phone ban, how did that go?
Chancellor Aviles-Ramos: Yeah, I think a lot of people anticipated it to be a bigger deal, but as you know, over half of our schools were already implementing some sort of a restriction policy, so it was really focusing on the other half that didn't.
I met with some middle schoolers in the Bronx recently, and they were just going on and on about how excited they are because they're actually making friends in the cafeteria and talking to each other, and I asked one student, like, how many friends did you make in the first week of school this year versus last year, and he said, you know, “I didn't make any new friends last year,” and I thought that that was very telling.
Mayor Adams: That's an indicator, you know, when you think about it. And you know, this journey is not only professional, you hold the capacities and the credentials to do this professionally, but you're a mom, your daughter is a student in our public schools. How does that feel, you know, knowing that what you're laying out is also going to impact your daughter?
Chancellor Aviles-Ramos: Yeah, you know, it's a privilege. I really believe that I sit in the most privileged seat in K-12 education in the country, thanks to that opportunity you gave me, and what I want for my daughter is what I want for, you know, nearly a million of all of our children. And so, there's that accountability piece, that if it's good enough for my daughter, it's good enough for everyone else. And if it's not good enough for my daughter, then it's certainly not good for everyone else.
Mayor Adams: And you know, even when the former chancellor was here, I often talked about, if ever there's a transition, you were always the one that I knew could fill in, and I was happy to have someone, I didn't have to search, I didn't have to look, I already knew that you understood the system, and you were going to be there to continue the success that we're seeing.
But you know, many students face challenges outside the classroom, everything from housing insecurity, to learning differences like dyslexia. How are we preparing, and how are we looking at those students? Because it's not a one size fits all.
Chancellor Aviles-Ramos: It is not, and you know, I think this is where, you know, our lived experiences, sir, yours and mine, and so many people in this administration, really gives us an added layer of innovation for our young people. We're no stranger to challenge, and we understand the challenges that our young people go through outside of the classroom.
And that's why we've launched things like New York City Public Schools Cares, and Every Child and Family is Known, because we know if we're not supporting the children outside of their homes, whether it's how to support families who are facing housing insecurity and food insecurity, domestic violence situations, you know, those are all things that impact a child in the classroom.
And so that doesn't mean that we have to lower our academic expectations, it means we have to have this multi-layered, this multi-faceted approach to educating children and making families partners.
Mayor Adams: I think well said, because if you were to just approach this work as, I'm going to teach Johnny how to read, and Judy how to add and subtract, and not understanding, by the time these babies get into a classroom, they're divided in so many ways. They could come from a community where there was a shooting, a mass fire, may not even have a meal, that's why it's so important we have access to breakfast programs and lunch programs.
And we knew that we had to have a 360-degree approach to educating our children, because before you could become academically sound, you needed to address those other issues in our community. One area of focus for me are those chronically absent. You know, after COVID, it seemed like those numbers went up. What are we doing for those chronically absent children?
Chancellor Aviles-Ramos: Yeah, and proud to report that during this administration, we've seen a steady decline in chronic absenteeism year after year, so that goes back to this holistic approach of supporting our families and our children.
One of the things that we did differently during my time as chancellor is stop telling parents you're not sending your kids to school, because they know that they're not sending their kids to school. We turned that into a question and asked, why aren't you sending your kids to school? What are the things that are keeping you from doing that?
And that's when we really leaned into this family connectors piece, which is under the leadership of Dr. Cristina Melendez. She and I really dreamed this up together and said, we want to make parents advocates for other parents and support other parents. And so, all of the agencies are training these parent leaders on how to access resources across New York City. And then we position them in the communities to share those with other parents. And that's what's bringing kids back to school.
And even during all the challenges we saw last year with immigration fear and federal government, we still saw a bit of a decrease in our chronic absenteeism and an increase in attendance. And I think that speaks to these holistic approaches.
Mayor Adams: I want to talk about that for a moment because we heard a lot of hoopla around immigration. And what we did by educating 50,000 children, I don't know what the exact number is now, who are part of the migrants and asylum seekers. And ICE was not in our schools. People need to be clear on that. ICE was not in our school conducting raids on our students. We've had some cases where our students were picked up at court and we filed amicus briefs and other support.
But what you did, you and your team, to really embrace and allow these young people to come into the system and get the education they need is really a Herculean task. And we have to thank your entire team for when you see a young person come in not able to speak English. And then a year later, they are not only speaking English, but they are really indoctrinated into our system. That was a huge challenge that the team was able to overcome. What do you think were the key components of that?
Chancellor Aviles-Ramos: I think the key component is remembering that every child who walks into our system is our child. And we don't ask questions. We don't care what walk of life you're from. You're ours now. You're our babies. And I see myself as a school mom to all of our children. I call them my kids. I always have.
And so, making sure that we were coordinated with other agencies to get them the resources that they need to make sure that the curriculum is high quality. And now we just launched our next part of New York City Reads, which is now an ENL pilot. So, putting in high quality materials and curriculum in 80 schools where we know they have English as a New Language program because we want to make sure we're targeting those children as well.
And again, the family piece, partnering with families and centering dignity. Just because you are in temporary housing, just because you are new to this country does not mean that we need to strip you of your dignity. We need to make sure that everything we're doing, so if we're handing out food, it is with dignity. We are setting things up that they look like bodegas and they look like shops. People can actually go in and shop because that's important.
People want to come here and they want to realize the American dream. Who are we to take their dignity away from them? Because we want to feel good about ourselves for helping. That's not what it is. This isn't a savior situation. This is community building together.
Mayor Adams: I love that. I love that. At your State of the Schools, I was really impressed when you talked about the AI framework for public schools. We have to really embrace AI. It's going to be here. And if we don't embrace it, our children won't be able to lead from the front. Give us some of your thoughts around artificial intelligence.
Chancellor Aviles-Ramos: Yeah, that framework was really born out of listening to panels of the panel members from the panel for educational policy and our parent leaders and our educators. And it's a four part component. And two of the main parts are centering safety, because we want to make sure that the tools, the suite of tools we're using, that they're protecting our children's privacy and that they're also responsive. They're mitigating bias in the community because we don't want our kids using tools that are going to perpetuate some of the stereotypes and biases that minoritized families and children have been exposed to.
And the other part of it is making sure that we're creating strong pathways for children to be producers of technology, not just consumers, and that they're actually ready to embark on these competitive careers in AI and technology upon graduating.
And the last piece is really making sure that we're leveraging the right tools to boost productivity and efficiency in our classrooms, because our teachers do a lot. And AI and technology is in no way meant to replace teachers. But how fabulous would it be if teachers actually had the right tools to help them be more productive in the classroom?
Mayor Adams: Well said. I often think about how many hours a teacher uses to go over paperwork and other stuff. If AI can show us how to do that, they're freed up to now just focus on taking care of that child and giving them the information they need.
Excited about New York City Reads and New York City Solves. The numbers came in. We are moving in the right direction. Tell me about that.
Chancellor Aviles-Ramos: Yeah, well, we were excited, as were you, when we saw those test scores go up. 7.2 percentage points in ELA and 3.5 in math. And I think what's even more historic is we talk about learning loss in the pandemic, and we beat pre-pandemic numbers. These are the highest scores we've seen since 2012. They are also the highest scores we've seen in our Black and brown children. Our Black students showed the most growth of any student population, and our Latine students were right behind.
And so, in districts, parts of Brooklyn, parts of the Bronx, we saw double-digit gains. Districts where people, you know, they think that our kids can't perform, and they think there's an achievement gap. What we proved is this isn't an achievement gap. This is an opportunity gap. When we give teachers and parents and kids the right tools, our kids show up and they say, “Let me show you what I can do.”
Mayor Adams: So, when we break it down, New York City Reads is showing we looked at a different way of teaching reading, and New York City Solves showed a different way of teaching math. You know, people hear those terminologies, but I want them to really understand that we took a bold new approach for teaching reading and math. And we're seeing the results of taking that bold new approach.
Now, we also have impressive internship programs for our young people and other opportunities outside of the school. What is the internship program looking like?
Chancellor Aviles-Ramos: Well, the Pathways Division, when we launched FutureReadyNYC and we started expanding our career in technical education. Future Ready was built upon the foundations of career and technical education, but both still very much exist in the system.
And what I'm so proud of is that kids like you and me, sir, we weren't necessarily able to take advantage of some of those opportunities because maybe we need to work a couple of extra jobs to support the household. But now kids are earning dollars, over $10 million, you know, have gone back into the pockets of young people while they're interning and doing apprenticeships in these careers that will provide upward mobility upon graduating from high school.
Mayor Adams: Good stuff, good stuff. So we're going to take a break and we're going to be back with our amazing chancellor of the New York City public schools and we'll fill your calls when we come back.
[Commercial break.]
Mayor Adams: Thank you, thank you so much, Gary. And we're in the studio or Gracie Mansion with our chancellor. So if you have a question for the chancellor or you want to raise one with me, please dial 212-545-1075, 212-545-1075. Caller, you're in the air.
Question: Mr. Mayor, hi, this is [Joyce] from Queens. I just want to thank–
Mayor Adams: Yes, how are you?
Question: Hi, I'm doing fine. I just want to thank you for your, I don't know what to call it, how you dress down the media. I think it was yesterday. Because it was necessary, it was needed from day one. I have always felt that if we had a fair and balanced media, there would be no kind of, I'm trying to think of the right words to say.
You have been the best mayor, in my opinion, I think many of us, you've been the best mayor we've ever had. We looked at, I've looked at the internet many times and I see that based on your accomplishments, based on how you have decreased crime and everything else, you have been the best mayor.
However, I'm sorry, I'm just going to say it, there's a racial problem in the city and I think that that's had a lot to do with it, or has a lot to do with it, because you have been great. You have been a wonderful mayor. There is nothing negative I could ever say about what you have done for the city.
I'm going to let you go. However, let me just say this, I am so grateful that you said what you had to say. Did you drop the mic or did you say if you had a mic, you would drop it? But that was necessary. No, because, listen, the media in this city have treated you so badly and I think everyone is aware of it.
But don't worry about it. My mother always taught me that God don't like ugly. Your mother, I was in the church with her, would be so very proud of you and just keep your head, walk tall and do what you need to do for the balance of whatever time you have left on this earth, because you were a great mayor. I don't care what anyone else says, you were a great mayor. That's all I have to say.
Mayor Adams: Thank you for that. That's really kind of you. It's so funny you said that, I was at a gathering the other day with some folks, professional folks, many of them of color. When I came in, there was this chilliness in the air and because they said, “We don't think you have done enough for people and particularly Black and brown people, Eric.” I started listing our accomplishments and it was almost that the whole room went silent.
They were like, “Wait a minute, we didn't know this. We didn't know that you took away the income tax for low-income New Yorkers, that we're outpacing the state in reading and math, that we build more housing than any mayor in recorded history and we zoned the city for more housing, 426,000 units, more than 12 years of Bloomberg, eight years of de Blasio combined.”
Who needs safety with violence in a Black and brown community? Removing almost 24,000 illegal guns off the street, historic levels of shootings and homicides, free high-speed broadband for NYCHA, dropped the cost of childcare by $200 a month, a universal after-school program, dropped unemployment in the Black and brown community by over 20 percent, $19 billion in procurement to Black and brown and women businesses.
And so, they all went silent because they realized they didn't know our story. And so, as the sister stated, I don't blame Black and brown folks for being angry and feeling as though the mayor didn't produce for us because they hijacked our story. They never reported.
Let's be clear. Being a mayor, you're gonna get two fingers. One, a thumbs up to say, “I love you.” Another is the middle finger. And all they reported on was the middle finger. They should have reported on the thumbs up also.
This was a well-coordinated effort of saying “We're gonna start from day one to make sure this mayor's story is never told.” I didn't fit the mold. I was a bald-headed, Black, earring-wearing mayor that was comfortable in hanging out on Wall Street as hanging out on any other street in Brownsville. Never fit the mold.
And all I'm gonna say to my people, read, read. You don't have to be in DOE to have the New York City Reads to read. Just read. Go look online and look at what we have done. There's never been a mayor in the history of this city that has done more for Black and brown people and working-class people than I have. And history is going to be kind with me. And all I'm gonna say to everybody, you are going to miss me when I'm gone. Trust me.
But listen, thank you. We had the amazing chancellor. Thank all of you for calling in. And I look forward to the next level of what God has planned for me. Thank you so much.
Byrd: That's a second mic drop, brother, you know.
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