Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Participates in Press Call Urging Albany to Pass Extension of Mayoral Control

June 20, 2017

Aneesa McMillan: Okay. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us in our press call with Mayor Bill de Blasio and former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on mayoral control. We’ll begin with opening remarks from our speakers, and later we’ll take questions from those of you who have joined us. I’ll repeat this later in the call, but, to ask a question, you should press zero and you will be placed in the queue. 

And now, Mayor Bill de Blasio –

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Thank you so much. Well, I want to welcome everyone and I just want to say a couple of words before we turn to Secretary Duncan, who I’m so pleased has joined us today. Look, this is about 1.1 million public school kids. It is not abstract. It’s very personal, it’s very tangible, it’s very real, and we know from painful experience what happened to our children when we had a system where no one was accountable and no one was in charge. We knew there was a tremendous inequality among schools and neighborhoods. Your education actually was determined by your zip code, and that was a bad thing, and there was a tremendous amount of patronage and corruption. That’s what 32 different school districts meant. It also meant 32 different sets of standards. I’ve said very clearly, some of the things we’re most proud of today in New York City, like Pre-K for All, and Computer Science for All, would not exist if 32 different districts were setting their goals and, in many cases, not being effective enough to put together such big, bold new approached. 

Remember, it was just 15 years ago that our school system barely graduated half of our students. I’m proud to say because of the work of Mayor Bloomberg, and now my administration – both believers of mayoral control – we now have the all-time high graduation rate of 72.6 percent. Our dropout rate is under nine percent compared to not so long ago in this city when it was well over 20 percent. It’s undeniable that mayoral control was at the essence of these fundamental changes. Schools are safer and they’re producing much better results for children. They’re also allowing us to create more of an approach based on equity. So, that’s what Pre-K for All is, and 3-K for All will be. That’s what Computer Science for All is. That’s what AP classes in every high school is – something that would have been unimaginable in the past system – to provide the highest quality courses in every kind of high school, again, regardless of zip code. 

So, I’ll just finish by saying there’s literally two days left. I’ve been in constant touch with the different players in Albany. I’m saying the same thing to every one of them. I can’t remember when an issue of this important went this late in the day with so little action. The support for mayoral control is across the ideological spectrum – 105 CEO’s signed a letter the other day. We had a number of the major labor leaders of this city together here at City Hall yesterday. There is a strong consensus that this is the only governance system that works. 

And now to turn to a man who has done a lot to improve education around the country and understands from a national perspective what actual accountability in education means. A tremendous pleasure to welcome not only a secretary of education, but someone who was one of President Obama’s closest advisors and friends, and I want to thank him for weighing in here at this crucial moment. Secretary Arne Duncan, welcome. 

Former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan: Thanks so much for the opportunity. I’m happy to say a couple of things, and the Mayor and I will obviously take any questions you might have. 

If you sort of step back, broader than the New York context, and just look nationally, I can’t say clearly enough that I wish every political leader was accountable for improving student achievement, whether it’s mayors, whether it’s governors, whether it’s congressmen, senators, the President. And [inaudible] almost no political leaders are accountable for educational achievement. They all love photo-ops, they all love to visit schools, they all love to read to kids and kiss babies, but almost no one’s accountable. And, as a result, the United States ranks 28th, 29th, 30th in access to high-quality pre-K – that’s something Mayor de Blasio’s worked very hard to improve on. We are often 10th, 15th, 20th in terms of reading and math scores. K-to-12 – higher education – we’re 12th internationally. So, at no level relative to our international competitors – early-childhood, K-to-12, higher-ed are where we need to be and where we should be. And part of that is structural – almost nowhere are politicians allowed to be held accountable. And part of it, often, candidly, is political lack of courage because education – often K-to-12 education is so difficult, many politicians actually run away from it, to be honest. 

So, here we have in New York a counter-example to that. You have a structure as of today – or, at least, for the next two days – that for the past 15 years where there has been clear accountability. And you have a mayor who actually, rather than running away from that pressure, embraces it. And, for me, this is always about structure in governance, it’s never about this policy or that policy, or this mayor or that mayor. Clearly, the current mayor and the previous mayor in New York agreed on some things and disagreed on many things. But the one thing they both had in common was the courage to put their reputation, their resources, and their political future on the line to fight for kids. And where we have that – that unfortunately is a very unique and rare situation in the United States, and to have it in a place with so many students – as the Mayor said, over a million children who are receiving the benefits of that leadership and that courage and that accountability – to walk away from that makes no sense whatsoever. 

I think in the medical profession they have a basic threshold question of doing no harm. In education, I think we should have that same thing. At a minimum, we should do no harm. And if we were to lose mayoral control in New York for whatever reason, I think it’s unquestionable that harm would be done to children, and that, for me, is untenable. 

So, whatever the political issues are, I count on politicians of goodwill to find a way to resolve them. But to walk away from one of the only places in the United States – obviously such a critically, critically, important city – to walk away structurally from a place where the Mayor can control would be absolutely hurting children and, again, makes no sense to me whatsoever. 

Thanks, and we’ll take any questions you have. 

Mayor: Go ahead. Folks, who’s got a question?

McMillan: Okay. First I want to remind everyone, again, to press zero if you have a question, and also to keep them as brief as possible. We have very limited time with both of our speakers, so try to be as precise as you possibly can. And our first question comes from Will, from the New York Observer. 

Question: Thanks. Can you hear me?

Mayor: Yes.

Question: My question is for Secretary Duncan. What do you make of proposals in Albany to pair the renewal of mayoral control with the extension of charter schools, given that you were a supporter of the expansion of [inaudible] schools, both in the Department of Education and as CEO of the Chicago schools system? Do you think that’s appropriate? 

Secretary Duncan: To be clear, I’m not familiar with all the details of the proposals. And just to be clear, I was always a supporter of good schools. And whether they’re good traditional schools or good charter schools, I do not stick on that. And I was not a supporter of schools where kids weren’t learning. So, where we have high-performing schools, we need to learn form them and replicate them and grow. Where we have low-performing schools, we have to challenge the status quo. So, you know, that, for me, is an issue that – again, there’s got to be some compromise, there’s got to be some middle ground there. But, at the end of the day, those who support charters, or good charters, whatever it might be, to somehow say that removing mayoral control helps kids – that doesn’t make sense. In politics, there’s always some compromise. I hope there’s a compromise there. But, again, I go back to let’s not do harm, and if you want to help some charters, charter kids, or create some for good charter schools, I’m all for that. But I sure don’t want to hurt 1.1 million children to achieve that goal – that doesn’t make sense to me. 

McMillian: Okay, Leslie, from Wall Street Journal, what’s your question?

Question: Thanks for taking this call. I’m just curious, Mr. Duncan, since you are saying that part of the rationale for mayoral control is that the mayor can have a vision for schools and put resources behind him. I’m wondering if you’ve looked at the diversity plan that the Mayor put out this month and whether you think it goes far enough. What are the good parts and what are the parts that may fall short? Can you talk a bit about the –

Secretary Duncan: I don’t know the details and, candidly, that’s not the topic of the conversation today. I appreciate the Mayor’s looking at those hard issues. I think you would not find any city in America where the school system is diverse enough whether it is my hometown in Chicago, or New York, or you know LA, or Denver. It’s something everybody struggles with. And again trying to work on that is, I think, really important. And I’ll just leave it there.

The other thing I’d just quickly add in terms of legislation, from my understanding and I don’t know the details is that previously there were like five, or six, or seven years where mayoral control was guaranteed and more recently it’s been like one or two year renewals. And I don’t know if this is possible, but again for me it’s so important, structure in terms of governance. If they’re going to fix this, to fix it for one year maybe puts a Band-Aid on it but why don’t they fix it for five or six or seven years? Or have the opportunity so that the mayor would be accountable and if the mayor doesn’t do a good job in education they lose their job. And I think that’s exactly how it should be. If they do a good job then they should be rewarded. And so thinking about this longer term rather than year to year and fighting this battle every year in Albany that for me just doesn’t make sense. Structurally this is the right thing regardless of who the current mayor is or who the future mayor is. 

McMillan: David, New York Times, what’s your question?

Question: Several people – oh sorry – several people that I’ve spoken to have said that negotiations have been held in part because you know you have the Assembly that’s drawn a line in the sand around charters, that they’re not going to accept it. And on the Republican side, on the State Senate side, they’re willing to move on mayoral control if there’s some change in the number of charters that come into New York City. And I’m wondering if, Mayor, you’ve spoken to Senator Flanagan at all since yesterday. And then how much have you been talking to Carol Hastie because it seems as if the, you know, the rally that you held yesterday with all of the labor and all that was really more directed at the Assembly folks and not the State Senate to try to get them to move on the charter issue.

Mayor: No, I disagree – David that’s a misread of that rally in a big way. That rally was directed at everyone equally, the four key forces in Albany. Let me tell you – and this is the fact that’s so important here, you know we have – the current authorization for charter schools in New York City allows for a 27 percent growth over the next two years. So right now we have almost 100,000 kids in charter schools. There’s ample room for additional charter schools over the next two years. There’s also natural growth occurring in the schools we have now. So when I say around 100,000 kids that’s going to keep growing organically, and you could see a substantial number of new charters under the cap. And as I said yesterday, any new charter, what we’re going to be doing is if they apply for space that we can provide we’re going to do that. Or if we can’t provide the space they go through a process and they get funding for leases. And we’ve worked cooperatively on that, we don’t challenge charters getting that lease money.

So I think if you really look at the day to day life in our school system and you see all the growth of charters and the potential for more growth one would say this is not something where Albany needs to intervene. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. There’s not a need on a numerical level to do anything for certainly the next year.

I have continually been in touch with the different leaders in Albany. I’m scheduled to talk to Senator Flanagan this afternoon again, and we’re going to be seeking a way forward. But no, it’s not, it’s not, the problem is not that there is a feeling right now that’s holding back that growth of charters.

McMillan: Matt from Newsday, what’s your question?

Question: Hi Mr. Duncan, I had a question for you. What is your understanding of what Senator Flanagan wants in exchange for the extension?

Secretary Duncan: Again, I honestly don’t know the details and these are all, I’m sure, very smart and thoughtful politicians and there’s always room for compromise. But, I just keep – I’m repeating myself but I think a premise of any politician, of any leader to have any moral authority is to not do harm, and to have this kind of harm done after 15 years of progress would be crazy.

I used to go to the Mayor’s conference every year, I loved working with mayors. Republican, Democratic, I didn’t care. And the number of mayors who had mayoral control you could count on one hand. And to have mayors with the courage to own that. I feel – I don’t want to speak for Mayor de Blasio, I bet he would sleep easier if he had less work, if he gave up control. But he wouldn’t feel good about what he was doing for the kids in the city he loves. And I think to have mayors willing to embrace that, to walk away from that doesn’t make sense. So again, politicians from different parties can compromise, can work together that’s how politician systems should work, but let’s not harm kids in that process.

McMillan: Okay Sarah, what’s your question? Sarah from 1010WINS, sorry.

Question: Hi there, this question is for both of you. It’s a two part question. The first part, I know at yesterday’s event UFT reps were not present. Where do they stand on this issue? Do you have the support? Is it mixed? Also the second part of my question is there any possibility despite what the Assembly Speaker said about not convening any special session if the matter wasn’t settled by tomorrow. Any indication that that may not stand if it’s not resolved by tomorrow?

Mayor: Sarah the history is very instructive here. Everyone knows that the law continues until midnight on June 30, and so there’s definitely time for the legislature to act after tomorrow. Tomorrow obviously is only the 21st. Now the history also shows that we have had times when the legislature continued its session, like they were planning on leaving on the 21st let’s say and stayed until the 22nd, stayed until the 23rd. That’s an option. We’ve had times in that past where the legislature went home and came back before the end of June. So all of these options exist and are available to the leadership of the legislature.

As for the UFT, talk to them if you want their position. They do not have a formal position here that I know of, but again, the bottom line is we’ve worked with all the people who do the work in our schools. We’ve worked with them and their unions to keep improving our schools.
I’ve never heard anyone doubt these numbers, the increase in graduation rates over the last three years, the increase in test scores, the decrease in the dropout rates, the success of pre-K.

We’ve done that with the folks who do the work and with their union representatives. But on this issue, where they stand philosophically, you’ll have to ask them directly.

McMillan: Jillian with the Daily News?

Question: Hi Mayor, I guess this is for you and Mr. Duncan. You’ve rolled of plenty of experts to talk about the importance of mayoral control, you’ve brought a large constituency from across the political spectrum, and it hasn’t seemed to move the needle in Albany. So I guess I’m just wondering what you think it’ll accomplish strategically with the legislature in Albany to have an expert like Mr. Duncan weighing in. I mean isn’t there already kind of no doubt among the people in Albany that this is the system to go with?

Mayor: Well it’s an excellent question Jillian because I think you just said a mouthful. I think –
in fact I have not met anyone in a leadership position in Albany who made the argument there is a better system of governance or that we should go back to 32 separate school boards with all the chaos and corruption that came with them. But if they don’t act by June 30 that’s exactly what will start to happen.

Why is this important? Secretary Duncan is highly respected and he is respected across the ideological spectrum. There are plenty of people up in Albany who may not agree with me on every issue but are going to respect that fact that someone who has national perspective, was responsible for education all over the United States of America is saying this is actually the system that works and this should be above the fray, that we need this kind of system in the biggest school system in the country.

And why is that important Jillian? I think that when our elected leaders are not acting on a timely basis outside pressure does affect them. I think they are feeling the effects of so many voices coming forward and it is helping to create urgency. And you know and I know that we’ve got a day and a half left, and in Albany terms that is a substantial amount of time because they don’t tend to deal with things until the very last moment, sadly. But this pressure is felt. When leading experts weigh in it registers in Albany. And I know Secretary Duncan can only stay for one more question, and it’s from –

McMillan: From [inaudible] from NBC radio.

Question: Ethan Harp from NBC radio, and for the Secretary I’m wondering would be willing to be an ambassador of sorts to sit down in the room with Senator Flanagan? And Mayor would you like that kind of help in the room right now?

Mayor: Well I’ll start and pass it back to the Secretary. I welcome the Secretary’s involvement in any way that would help. I’ve said clearly on my own behalf to all of the leaders in Albany that I’ll talk to them anytime, anywhere. I’ll meet with them anytime, anywhere. I’ll go to Albany if that helps. And if they want to talk about any of the underlying issues beyond this immediate vote on how we continue to improve our schools, I would have that conversation anytime, anywhere, and I’ve always said that, and that has not been the focus honestly. But I would say Secretary Duncan, because again he is highly respected even though he has a schedule, I would welcome his voice as we try to get everyone on the same page here. Over to you, Secretary.

Secretary Duncan: No, I’m happy to help in any way possible. This is that important to me, and the part that I’m just sort of confused on is there are many legitimate issues that are like 51-49 or 55-45 where there’s lots of pros and cons on both sides. This issue is just like crystal clear to folks. I haven’t heard anyone articulate why it would be better for children in New York for the next 15 years – not just now but for the next 10 or 15 years – to not have the mayor accountable. I don’t think anyone’s making that case, so let’s get this done. We can work on other hard issues, and get those through together, but this one intellectually is not difficult. I get the difficulty of the politics. Again, there’s some room for – obviously has to be room for compromise on any issue – but this is one where mayoral control is so important for stability. It’s so important for children. It’s so important to have someone willing to hold themselves accountable. I want to keep repeating that – to hold themselves accountable, and I would feel this strongly if it was a city of 10,000 students. The fact is that the city is 1.1 million students, this is the really big deal. So to answer your question succinctly, I’m happy to do whatever I can to help. I am perplexed and puzzled why something that seems so obvious is coming down to the last minute.

Mayor: Well, Secretary I want to thank you very, very much for your support for mayoral control and giving us this time today to our members of the media. I’ll stick around if there’s any more questions, but Secretary Duncan thank you very much and look forward to talking to you soon.

Secretary Duncan: Great, let’s get this one done. Thanks.

McMillan: Again, if you have any questions for the mayor just press zero.

Mayor: Last call, going once. Wait – technology is telling us there may be one more. Goodman’s back. Okay, Goodman, go ahead.

[Pause]

Or is Goodman not back? David Goodman, are you out there?

[Pause]

He was back. He’s not back. We’ll give it one more second. Going once. Going twice.

This is getting boring for everyone.

[Laughter]

Okay, last call, David Goodman can you hear me?

Question: I can, yes, sorry. Mayor I just wanted to press on what I was asking before, which is that some people who are watching this and involved in negotiations have said to me that, you know, so Flannagan has his issues, but really it’s been Heastie that’s been more intransigent. That he sort of he passed his bill and said he’s going to go home. You have more influence with that side obviously. Folks have been focusing a lot on what Flannagan’s going to do, but what are you doing to get Heastie to maybe be more flexible in the negotiations?

Mayor: I look at it a little bit differently as a construct, David. Carl Heastie is saying there needs to be parity and consistency, which I think is a commendable position. That just like we extend taxing authority in the city or in the upstate counties, we should regard mayoral control of education as just as essential, just as important, just as automatic that we would extend it. He’s taking a very, very important philosophical position that we should not continue to go through, in Albany, the horse trading and the variability year-to-year, but we should formalize the notion that at minimum we’re treating mayoral control the same way that we should a tax extender. So I think that is structurally the right way to look at it. I think the point is that the other players have to figure out a solution with him that responds to his core concern because his core concern, again, it’s fundamental, and it’s philosophical.

It’s not even about what we are – you know, speaking from an Albany perspective – what are they trading today or this year? He’s saying we should get out of that paradigm entirely and get passed that and put mayoral control above the fray. So I want to commend him for that position. The Assembly has always been the strongest voice for mayoral control of education in the four years I’ve been here. They’ve been the first to vote for it every time. They put out the highest goals. I think it is for the other players now to figure out, based on that paradigm, what gets the job done, and I think there are a lot of different ways to do it because you’re talking about any other issues in the state could be looked at in this discussion to get it done, and it’s time for people to be creative and to step up. And there’s still time on the clock, and David, it’s not like they have a lot of other competing other concerns to deal with. They’ve all been quite blunt about that. They’re not running a heavy agenda right now, so everyone get in the room and try different formulations until they get one that works.

McMillan: Our next question is from Gloria from Politico.

Question: Mr. Mayor, we had a story earlier this week about the Bushwick Development Corporation that got another $2 million contract to keep operating a homeless shelter. There’s several problems with that operator that we know about that have been reported. I just wanted to follow up and ask why the city is still willing to give them a contract given the issues that they’ve had?

Mayor: Gloria, I appreciate the question. Look, we have limited the amount of work that we’ll be doing with that, and there is a corrective action plan in place for them. We still – it’s not going to surprise you – there’s not a massive surplus of organizations that do homeless services. We have to keep providing the support for homeless folks, and we have to do it in a way that we believe keeps continuity with the number of people that we have to serve. But in this case we’ve put some real limits on what we’re willing to do with that organization and again a corrective action plan that we’re going to require them to follow if they’re going to have any kind of involvement with us going forward.

McMillan: The last question comes from Matt with Newsday.

Question: Mr. Mayor, Mr. Duncan said again and again that there was room for compromise. Would you be willing to compromise on raising the charter cap or are you intransigent on that?

Mayor: Again, I don’t sit in the room with the four men and do the negotiations. What I think is being missed, and it gets back to David Goodman’s question, is the speaker has laid out a structural position which I agree with fundamentally – that we should stop doing this year after year. We should stop taking such an important issue and making it political football. This should actually be considered a core governance issue, just like the extension of the taxation authority for counties and for New York City is. That I think is a very, very important reform and evolution. If we don’t break out of this pattern, we’re going to continue to have the instability of one year votes all the time, and horse trading that may or may not be good ideas to get something done that is unquestionably a good idea. I think this is where this transcends other types of policy considerations. How many issues can you describe where we could have 105 CEOs signing a letter and the most important leaders of the New York City labor movement agreeing to this same position simultaneously? This one rises above the fray.

Now what I would say is there are plenty of other issue beyond education that can be put together to get everyone to a satisfactory outcome, and we’ll encourage that process in every way. But I don’t sit in the room. And bluntly it’s not my responsibility to sit in the room. My responsibility is to run the school system, provide the information on what is being achieved and show constant progress. Again, I’ve got no one doubting the process. This is the other frustrating reality. I’ve got no one saying there’s a better governance system, and I’ve got no one saying ‘well no, you actually didn’t improve your graduation rate or your test scores.’ This is surreal that we’re having a discussion on something where the facts are so constituent and clear, and there’s no ideological opposing viewpoint. There’s literally no other model being put on the table. So that’s why this is not business as usual. So I have been pushing all four of them to get to a resolution by the end of Wednesday. I have told all of them that it will reflect badly on everyone if this is not resolved. I have suggested that any and all items be looked at to find that balance point that could be comfortable for everyone. And I certainly have encouraged the broad concept of compromise, but I’m not going to do the negotiating in the middle of the four of them. They have to do that. And I would argue it’s like the classic thing that happens in labor negotiations – lock yourselves in the room until you get there. I mean we’ve seen all types of thorny collective bargaining situations where people were ready to strangle each other, and they were told you’ve got a deadline. No one is leaving until this is done, and they found a way. I think it’s time for the four men in the room to do the same.

Thank you, everyone.