Transcript: Mayor de Blasio, Schools Chancellor Carranza Hold Media Availability

September 5, 2018

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Well, Wanda, I know you are proud of your kids, but we are proud of you. We are proud of you and I want to tell you I really appreciate what you said because you know it’s so important what we are providing with Pre-K and 3K, it’s so important in terms of our children and what it means for their future. But we also have to think about the hardworking parents and for you Wanda to be able now to pursue your own education so you can become a medical assistant and improve your family’s life and this another one of the extraordinary positive things that comes with providing early childhood education on a universal basis. So I just want to tell you the Chancellor and I had a great time this morning with you and the Deputy Mayor as, we all had a great time with you and with Willie and Ethan.

And these kids were amazing – I want to tell everyone they were so calm and cool about going to school for the first time. And they were excited but they really kept it all together. It’s not normal to go to school and there’s like 20 cameras in your face but these kids handled it really, really well. And Wanda that’s a testament to you as a parent that you’ve done a great job. Let’s give her a round of applause.

[Applause]

And I got to tell you as we were walking with Ethan and Willie, I had memories flooding back of taking Chiara and Dante to school, to pre-k and I really, I told Wanda, enjoy what you have now. It’s a beautiful moment. It gets a little more complicated later.

[Laughter]

And Richard said yes and there’s also tuition to think about later. The, for me I want to say I had an experience in just the last week, taking Dante back to college for the last time as a senior. Dante turned 21 yesterday, I cannot believe that but it is true. If you walk into a bar and Dante is there, he’s actually legally allowed to be there.

[Laughter]

But it feels literally like only yesterday that I was walking him and walking Chiara to pre-k for the first time. So this is a very beautiful moment and we thank you for sharing it with us. I want to thank everyone, this you know, seeing this moment through the eyes of Wanda and her children helps us to really feel what’s happening all over the city today. And this is a powerful day for parents and for all of us. Everyone loves the first day of school. It’s a moment of renewal, and it’s a moment of possibility, and hope. But for now what makes it so amazing this year is more and more kids getting early childhood education than ever in the history of New York City. And everyone here has been part of that. I want to thank literally everyone at this table. You’ll hear from some of the elected officials in a moment – I want to give them credit, whether they serve at the State level or the City level, they’ve supported Pre-K and 3K. Our colleagues in Labor have supported it, obviously all the leadership at the DOE. This was the ultimate group effort to make something of this magnitude happen. And special thanks to our Deputy Mayor Phil Thompson and his team. Special thanks as well to Commissioner David Hansell of ACS and to everyone at ACS who have been a crucial part of our early childhood efforts and really have a played a major, major role in making sure that everything has come together so well.

We have a new Executive Superintendent for this part of the city, Andre Spencer who has just arrived from Baltimore, welcome and congratulations.

[Applause]

And a new District Superintendent who is a New Yorker from birth and attended our public schools, herself Jennifer Ambert, congratulations to you.

[Applause]

And then to the captain of the ship, our principle Tracey Keane, congratulations.

[Applause]

I told Tracey that she must be doing something good in life because she has got one of the most beautiful in all of New York City.

[Laughter]

One year old right?

[Inaudible]

Alright karma is on your side. That’s what I can tell you.

[Laughter]

So let’s talk about this school. 60, three-year-olds will be here, 60 three-year-olds experiencing 3K, it’s the first time 3K is in District 27. It’s going to be a game changer for these kids and their families. This is one of 187 schools around the city that will have 3K, a lot of them for the first time, and I just want to say really simply – we’ll hear from a lot of people, I’ll keep it quick – the notion of helping kids to reach their potential. This is what this is all about. When kids are three-years-old and four-years-old, they can learn in the way they literally can’t learn later in life. This is this irreplaceable moment. We got to grab it while we have it and give them all the opportunity to learn. Their minds are like sponges and the beautiful thing is more and more kids are going to get that opportunity because of 3-K.

So what used to be the case is that parents – and Wanda spoke about this – parents had to pay a lot of money for early childhood education. And for a lot of families that meant that they just couldn’t do it and the only choice they had is for the child to stay at home or stay with relatives and that’s a good thing on one level, but it wasn’t giving the kids all the opportunity that they needed to learn and to grow. And for other families, because of work or other obligations, they had no choice but to pay the money and a lot of the times that meant they couldn’t afford a lot of other things. Remember for a lot of families in this city, paying for what we provide now for free, in 3-K and Pre-K, would have cost $10,000 or more a year.

So this was a basic matter of equity and fairness, and it really shouldn’t be that a child’s future is determined by their zip code, right? It should not be that a child can’t reach their potential because their family couldn’t afford early childhood education. We wanted to end that once and for all, and make this a universal right. You’ll remember when we started out a lot of the critics and the pundits said it would be impossible. I want to give full credit to everyone who was a part of creating Pre-K in record time and bringing it from 20,000 kids when we walked in the door – getting full day Pre-K – to now almost 70,000 kids each day. Let’s thank all of them for what they did.

[Applause]

And now, we will have 3-K as of this morning in six districts around the city, we will be in 32 districts by 2021. That’s going to be a game changer for the kids of this city. So I want to just remind parents, this is the perfect day to remind them, I want to ask all of our colleagues in the media, please get the word out. There are Pre-K seats available all over the city, for any parents who have not yet signed up, there are also some 3-K seats left, they are going very fast, but there are some 3-K seats left, still around the city.

So if you want your child to be in 3-K or Pre-K, call 3-1-1. Make that call today or go on the city website, do it immediately because there are still seats available but there will not be there for too much longer. Also want to say this is part of the broader Equity and Excellence vision. It’s all about early childhood education, but also about getting kids on reading level by third grade, teaching them algebra when they are in middle school, teaching them computer science throughout their whole curriculum, getting them ready for college if that’s the path that makes sense for them. This is all part of the Equity and Excellence vision, but this is the foundation. Nothing works – I’ve always felt this – nothing works if you don’t get Pre-K right and now 3-K, this is the foundation that we build on for everything else. Let me just say a quick few words in Spanish.

[Mayor de Blasio speaks in Spanish]

And this is part of how we truly become the fairest city in the country, giving every child the start they deserve. I also want to say this is a momentous day for New York City, because even though it’s not the Chancellor’s first day on the job, it is his first opening day of school. He was grinning this morning when I saw him, this is someone who really loves what he does, but we all feel it especially on the first day of school, so Chancellor congratulations on this great moment and to my pleasure to introduce our Chancellor, Richard Carranza.

[Applause]

Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza: Thank you sir. So we’re going to give you both a thumbs up on that Spanish, it’s like – remarkable.

Mayor: No, I need more – I need those lessons again, you promised lessons.

Chancellor Carranza: Okay, we’ll work on those lessons, but we’re are just thrilled, I am thrilled, you know, even after almost 30 years as an educator, the first day of school is always a momentous occasion. This is our Superbowl, this is our World Series, this our U.S. Open, all rolled into one—

Mayor: [Laughter]

Chancellor Carranza: and it all kicks off today, so we’re thrilled that students are back in session, that teachers are back. Parents are also probably pretty happy as well, kids are with us, but you have a role as well. You know, Mr. Mayor, today, like many cities across America, school systems have had their first day of school. This is not uncommon. But what is very uncommon, is the fact that there are no other cities across America that have provided the access, the universal access, to Pre-K for all like the City of New York has done. There are no cities in America that have a footprint around 3K and a promise to increase that footprint like New York City does. So Mr. Mayor, today, you need to take a bow for your leadership in setting a vision and everyone that has helped us to make that vision a reality, what you are experiencing here today, and I can tell you because I’ve lived in, now, five cities and worked in five school systems, is uncommon. We should be very proud as New Yorkers at what’s happening today. And I am thrilled to be here for the first day of 3K right here in Queens, absolutely!

[Applause]

I’ve made many stops this morning, I started this morning with our bus driver, some of our bus drivers in Queens, and had a chance to thank them and salute them for the work they do and they fully realize that in many cases, in fact in all cases; they are the first adult face that our children see every morning.

Mayor: Yep.

Chancellor Carranza: And I can judge by the smiles on their faces this morning; they’re ready to go.

Mayor: Amen.

Chancellor Carranza: But talking about 3K, the research is clear, there isn’t even a controversy. The foundation of our students’ success in Pre-K, and then kindergarten and beyond, all starts with Pre-K and in New York City we don’t stop at Pre-K; we start with 3K. I’m so excited that we’ll have three times more of our students in 3K this Fall, a total of 5,000, and including our first ever 3K right here in Queens and in Manhattan. As you mentioned, for parents out there, there are still some limited seats in Pre-K and 3K, call 311 and get them enrolled. We know that 3K is the beginning of our students’ education and the beginning of the foundational vision for New York City’s public schools. The Mayor has talked about Equity and Excellence and one of the beacons of light which brought me to New York City, and I know Dr. Spencer as well, when we talked about him coming to New York City, was our Equity and Excellence for all agenda. The fact that this is provided ubiquitously to our families, the fact that we have, as we speak sir, as part of our Equity and Excellence agenda, the highest graduation rates we’ve ever had, the increasing academic achievement in our schools, the greater number of students going to college, and career, are all indicators that investments in this community are not expenses; they are true investments in the very future of New York City. So, our Equity and Excellence agenda is strong, it’s robust, and we’re ready to build upon that.

Our elementary support that we’re getting to schools in reading instruction through universal literacy is taking on a whole new level of urgency this year. We’ve hired more coaches; they are in our schools ready to support our teachers. Every middle school is able to take college campus visits and we are offering high schools SAT school day, CUNY free waivers – fee waivers, and new AP courses across the system. Our investment in our students is strong as part of our Equity and Excellence for all. We want to continue to build on that and as we focus this year we want to focus on four big areas this year. We want to accelerate learning and instruction; that is the cornerstone of any great school system and absolutely the cornerstone of our school system. We are going power, empower, and partner with communities and empower our families in a level that has not been seen. We also want to make sure that we’re developing our people and cultivating a learning culture in our school system. Where in many places across America people start with the accountability conversation, and use that as a hammer, we’ve said no in New York City. With our partners, and I’m very, very proud to have with us here our president of UFT, Michael Mulgrew, thank you for being here, and president of CSA, Mr. Mark Habanero – Cannizzaro—

Mayor: Cannizzaro, we’ve got to work on your Italian.

[Laughter]

Chancellor Carranza: A little Spanish flair there. We’ve said very strongly that we’re going to build capacity to instruct, capacity to meet the needs of our students, and as we build that strong capacity as a foundation, the accountability will come. So we’re not going to beat people over the head with accountability, we’re going to arm our educators with resources, we’re going to arm our educators with support, we’re going to arm our educators with great instruction and great resources to do the job that we’ve asked them to do every single day. And undergirding all of that work is going to be our focus on equity; making sure that every student, every family in New York City has great options, has great opportunities, and has no barriers to experiencing the wonderful things that we have to offer here in the City of New York. So this is a great day for us, it’s a great start of school. For those of you that are keeping up we have now been to Queens, we’ve got four more boroughs to go, stick with us, we’ll see who’s alive at the end. With us.

[Laughter]

[Schools Chancellor Carranza speaks in Spanish]

Mayor: Alright thank you Chancellor.

[Applause]

We’re going to hear from some elected officials but I want to just say we’ve got some unsung heroes who we need to shout out, if you look in the back the folks in the Pre-K for all t-shirts, who are the folks who went out in communities all over the city and helped parents to sign up their children and find a Pre-K and a 3K that worked for them, and this is one of the reasons this has been such a great success. Let’s give them all a round of applause.

[Applause]

Excellent, now representing this school, this beautiful, beautiful school, I want to give a chance to our elected officials to talk about what this day means to them.

[…]

Mayor: Thank you.

[Applause]

That was beautiful, Mark. Thank you. Thank you. I agree [inaudible] these kids are going to say that not too long from now. Congratulations.

Okay, let’s take questions on opening day and education and then we’ll take a few on other topics as well. Anything about the opening of school. Marcia?

Question: Chancellor, this is a question for you. Actually I have two questions for you. I wonder, first of all, since this is your first day of school. You’ve been here a few months. What was your biggest surprise in coming to the school system?

Chancellor Carranza: Great question. So my biggest surprise is what a well-oiled machine the first day is in New York City. When you think about 1,800 schools, when you think about 79,000 teachers, 140,000 employees, if you think about – I just found out this morning that we have the largest bus fleet second only to London. When you think about all of those bodies being moved every day, and I’ve got to tell you it’s a well-oiled machine for such a large system. That was exceptionally impressive to me this morning. I will also say that a year ago on opening day of school I was battling a hurricane and it sure is great to have sunshine, smiling faces, and no flooding.

Mayor: Amen.

Question: Chancellor, my second question has to do with desegregation – your thoughts about desegregation and whether you would consider busing as a way to make schools more equitable.

Chancellor Carranza: I think – what I’m really proud of is the fact that these conversations are happening in districts, community school districts, all across our city. And as I’ve gone across all five boroughs, I can tell you that people are excited, they’re enthusiastic, they’re very passionate about these conversations, and that gives me great hope that New Yorkers are the New Yorkers that I always imagine New Yorkers to be – passionate and wanting to do the right thing.

And when you think about New York City, the most diverse city not only in America but probably the world, our schools should also reflect what New York City looks like. I will tell you that the Equity and Excellence agenda is a powerful, powerful vision for our city. And the investments that our city is making not only in our earliest learners but at the end of continuum – our students about to go onto the secondary level or the post-secondary level – and then everything in between that we’re doing to empower communities. We’re growing programmatically in our communities. I don’t see their having to be a need for that kind of an intervention. I don’t think it’s the kind of thing that we want in our city.

What we do want to do is continue to double down on the Equity and Excellence investments. We want to implement it with fidelity and as we empower our communities to have their voices come to the table, I think you’re going to see some innovative programming happening in schools – in community school districts all across the city.

Question: So, I’m clear – you’re saying you don’t see busing as an option?

Chancellor Carranza: I don’t.

Mayor: Other questions – education related, opening day related? Yes?

Question: Thank you. And happy first day of school. I think, Chancellor, you said something like you didn’t want to use accountability to [inaudible] anybody, some kind of phrase like that. Can you explain in a little more detail how you use accountability measures like testing to make sure that schools are actually getting better?

Chancellor Carranza: Yes, so, I think that the conversation myopically just around testing is the wrong conversation. We’ve seen so many schools, when you walk into the school and you see the magic that happens in the school, you see where you have students that are immigrant – children of immigrant families, children who are learning English, yet are actively involved and actively engaged. I can tell you about a school that I walked into where we had immigrant families from seven different countries – it was during the summer – and students were doing a science lesson and they were all learning English but they were absolutely, every single one of them, using the term hypothesis to prove their ideas and the problem that they were working on.

There is magic that happens in a school that is way beyond just a metric. I don’t think any school or any child is the sum total of one score. That being said, we also believe that it’s fundamental to education that students should be able to read and write and know history and be able to do science but when you use accountability as the metric or the lens, what you do then is you narrow the curriculum, what you do then is you put an inordinate burden on students, families, and educators to look at one lens of what a good education looks like.

And quite frankly, I think we’re better than that in New York City. I think we want to educate the whole child. So while the child should be able to read, write, and do arithmetic students should also have experience in the arts, students should be able to dance, students should be able to sing. They should be able to go outside and look at flora and fauna and connect that to the content and the State standards that they’re looking at.

So, for us, our approach is always going to be building capacity and making sure that our teachers and our administrators and our communities have the resources, they have the support, they have the training that they need to meet the needs of the community that’s coming through those doors.

And as we get better at doing that and we get much more strategic about doing that, the accountability will come. So, it’s a matter of where you put your emphasis and we’re going to really emphasize capacity building and really double down on our Equity and Excellence agenda.

Mayor: Okay, other questions on education or opening day. Yes?

Question: Two questions. The first – I just wanted to get an update going into the new school year of how you’re thinking about the specialized high school plan or [inaudible] Albany. I know mayoral control [inaudible] a little bit far away. There’s been a fair amount of opposition – some people who are allied to the plan are no longer. I just sort wondering the status –

Mayor: I appreciate the question. I would – and I think it’s worth analyzing real quickly – I would say the plan makes sense because it addressed absolutely unacceptable inequality in our specialized high schools. So, first of all I can tell you a really simple thing – the status quo is unacceptable. It has to change.

This plan will achieve the change. Yeah, there’s been some opposition but I think there’s been a whole lot more support, and I think a very important conversation has started. I was actually very pleasantly surprised, after we put forward the proposal, how much of a dialogue it sparked in the city. It’s actually one of the best examples I’ve seen in recent years of people really thinking about the issues and offering different perspectives.

And also the conversation became not just about how we achieve equality but what we think about testing. And I’ll tell you a central value I bring to this is I don’t think any child’s future should be determined by a single test. It doesn’t make sense anymore. It’s actually – we’re one of the only places in the whole country that does that and that’s why it – you know I really appreciate what Michael said earlier about all the progress New York City schools have made but we’re backwards in one area in particular that we’re still relying on a single test to decide something so important.

And the day we announced it I said something that I want to ring in people’s ears. Call up the admissions office at Harvard or Yale and ask them if they make their decisions based on a single test. They’ll tell you, of course not. So, why are some of the finest high schools in the city and this whole country making a decision that way.

Bottom line is our proposal is balanced. It’s going to be a lot more fair. It’s going to look at the students a lot more comprehensively. It’s got a lot of support. So there will be a big debate in Albany but I like our chances right now.

Question: [Inaudible] knowing as much as you do about District 15 in particular, how you observe the process around this potential middle school desegregation [inaudible] –

Mayor: Sure, it has not been finalized and we’ll have more to say in the course of this month for sure. But, you know as a proud parent from District 15 where my kids went to elementary school and middle school – and I want to shout out P.S. 327 and M.S. 51 because they did an amazing job with my kids, and I was a school board member for several years there – I think it’s been a really healthy process. There’s still details to work through but the idea it’s been – we do not want a reality that is fixable to continue, that people understand there’s an opportunity to diversify classrooms in a positive constructive way that everyone benefits from.

Again, we’ll have more to say in the course of the month but I think it’s been a very healthy process and a lot of engagement on the ground. It’s also been a good discussion. It’s good to surface these things and to have the discussion, and I think the folks in District 15 have done that really well.

Question: Can I give you a speed camera question?

Mayor: Sure we can.

Question: You had mentioned that there’s more speed cameras that are going to be coming. Can you elaborate a little bit? When are they going to be coming? Are they going to be moving around like the others? Are they going to be stationary?

Mayor: So the legislation that the Council passed, I want to thank the Council again for that, and I was honored to sign yesterday allows us to keep adding to the speed camera program. The first thing of course we’re going to do is today getting all of the cameras up and running in the schools that already had them. We had those 20 mobile cameras – that’s an important part of what we do as well.

But then we want to build out from there. First, aligning to what the Assembly passed which was a doubling of the number of cameras and going where we think the priority is greatest. That will be determined by the Department of Transportation and the NYPD – where we think the safety needs are most urgent, that’s where we’ll put the cameras.

And then we’ll continue from there. We’re going to work closely with the Council for sure but you know yesterday was very moving to me that we had leaders of the city including leaders of labor all together saying we look forward to the day where there’s a speed camera in front of every school that needs it. That’s a very powerful concept. And even though we’re very disappointed, present company excluded from the State Senate, we’re very disappointed what the majority in the State Senate failed to do.
It led to an important action here at the local level that’s actually going to allow us to keep a lot more kids safe. So, that’s the game plan.

Question: Do you know when they might –

Mayor: No, this is literally – this all happened very quickly as you know. I could just tell you the next phase will be to achieve that doubling and we’ll come back to you with a timeline on that.

Question: Chancellor Carranza recently said that the city’s public school system is one of the most segregated school systems ever seen. What do you make of that sentiment –

Mayor: He’s speaking from his experience and I’ll obviously let him speak for himself of the four or five places that he’s been. But the bottom line is we’re unified that we’re going to be making a series of changes. And I think this is what’s happened. I think there’s again been a healthy dialogue in this city but the dialogue has changed the dynamics in favor of diversification efforts. And I’m very happy about that.

When we started out, we did not have the tools we have now because there had to be a certain amount of experimentation to figure out what worked. You may remember the whole – there was a big public issue over P.S. 8 in Downtown Brooklyn. That wasn’t very long ago and that seemed like a struggle just to achieve change in one school. They ultimately did it, I think, in a very successful way. And then there was a whole big discussion in District 3 in the West Side of Manhattan which went on for quite a while and was very heated as you’ll remember.

I was proud to support the CEC in District 3 with the changes they made and that provided another important model. Then District 1 – now, what’s happening in District 15. The world’s changed and we now have models that I think can be used citywide and are going to allow us to do much different and better things to change what’s happening in our schools.

So, I feel like we’re in a moment that’s really ripe for change and there’s a growing consensus in this city that it’s necessary. At the same time what we have to always put first is the Equity and Excellence vision. So, we’re going to make sure that all schools are improving academically while we’re diversifying it at the same time.

Question: I think it’s safe to assume that the top of the parents’ concern is the safety and the DOE has touted a general crime [inaudible] for the past few years and it seems to continue. But there are a couple of exceptions to that general trend, that’s weapons confiscations and instances of sexual misconduct. So you have these sort of – counterintuitively you have these two particular categories that are on the incline. So, I’m just curious, going into this year how do you reverse those?

Mayor: This is absolutely the most important thing for parents. It’s the safety of their children. So, you’re right that crime continues to go down in our schools and that’s been going on now for several years. We’re going to drive it down more. And I want to thank the NYPD and School Safety for the extraordinary efforts that they’ve done.

How we’re going to drive down crime more is through a neighborhood policing approach in our schools, rally focusing on the relationship between school safety and the local precincts with parents, with teachers, with kids. That’s going to, we think, lead to a lot more trust, a lot more communication, a lot more information we need to keep driving down crime.

But you’re right, there are two areas of real concern. The weapons always – yes, they are getting confiscated but we don’t want them to be there to begin with and we’ve got to do more not just at the school level, at the precinct level, to get those weapons out of circulation.

And then second on the sexual crimes, that’s a very big concern. We are working closely, all of us – DOE, NYPD – to come up with new measures to stop that from every growing. And some of that is going to be more presence in schools by School Safety – meaning if we need to add additional officers we’ll do that. There’s other measures we’re talking about. But that’s not an acceptable reality. We have to turn that around.

Question: Mayor, what’s your vision for Renewal – we’re heading into the fourth year of a three-year program. I don’t [inaudible] expensive. What’s going to happen?

Mayor: Let me have the chancellor speak to some of the specifics but I’ll just say broadly, what was the right thing to do was to stop a very bad policy of closing schools without a serious effort to turn them around. And now we’ve seen that roughly half of the schools that we started with have found a resolution whether it is that they graduated out of the Renewal program or they were consolidated with another school because they were school or in some cases closed, of course.

So, I feel good about the fact that we gave schools a chance. We put in serious resources and support and for a number of schools that has lead to serious improvement. There are still as you know up to 50 schools that still need a final resolution of course this year, and that’s the plan, by the end of this year to resolve what we’re going to do. But I’ll let the Chancellor to speak to any of the other details.

Chancellor Carranza: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, absolutely. So, there were some important lessons learned through the Renewal process and obviously the RISE process as well. So, we’ve taken those components and we’ve now embedded them in our new structure. So, whereas you might have seen just one particular group or person, we now have nine incredible executive superintendents all of whom in their interview process in their vetting process have demonstrated experience in turning around schools and supporting academic growth in schools.

Our superintendents are much more focused than they have ever been around taking those components and lessons learned around the Renewal process and embedding those into our school plans and our school improvement processes.

We also as part of the Equity and Excellence agenda have invested in community schools as one of the components of empowering school communities to get better. So, where there’s been talk about – it’s an expensive program and you’ve invested stuff and when does that go away?

Where not talking about it going away. If you invested those kinds of resources in building a community school network and approach around a school, then as a school gets better why in the world would you ever pull that away? That’s part of the ingredient. Somebody called it the secret sauce. It’s one of the pieces of the secret sauce. It helps communities grow and be empowered.

So, we’re actually embedding those lessons learned across the system and within the way we approach school improvement. And then the third thing [inaudible] comments about leading with capacity building. One of the big components of the Renewal program was an [inaudible] coaching, was an investment in time for collaboration for educators, and was a real investment in terms of materials that educators had to educate students. We’re going to double – we’re doubling down on those investments as we go forward as well. But where we’ve had again – the big takeaway is as the Mayor mentioned, where we may have had an approach to get it started, with the lessons learned from that approach, it’s now informing the entire system. So I think that’s really the point of any kind of an intervention approach. Take it system-wide.

Mayor: Let’s see if there’s other on education and then we’ll do a few other questions on other topics. Marcia?

Question: Mr. Mayor, I wonder if you agreed with the Chancellor that busing will not be necessary –

Mayor: I do agree with the Chancellor on that. Absolutely. Because I don’t think it’s the right way to achieve the goal and I don’t think it helps us achieve that other central goal which is improving all schools for our children. If Equity and Excellence reaches its goal, we will be improving schools across the board regardless of ZIP code, regardless of district. The goal is to make every school work for parents. And then we can achieve, I think as well, a low more diversity in our schools – not perfectly. I don’t ever want to say to people we can create, you know, some perfect numerical model in every district but we can achieve a lot more diversity.

But busing to me creates a whole host of problems and also suggests that we’re not in the work of trying to improve every school. It literally cuts against the goal.

Question: What did you mean by at the end of this year there will be some sort of [inaudible] –

Mayor: Just because as you remember the original goal we set was for the end of last school year to resolve the schools. As I said, about half of them now have been resolved but the remaining we gave an extra year because we thought it was worth it. We thought the additional investment would make a big difference for a lot of them. We expect a lot of those schools to graduate out of the Renewal program but ultimately this is the year to decide what happens with all of them.

Last call on education questions.

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: I’m surprised I haven’t heard on yet. Okay, go.

Question: We’ve central costs going up a lot in the last few years and I just wanted to ask what the plan was for that. Is that something that is going to continue to rise or is that something that you’re looking at just in the last year? It went from $470 million to $508 million.

Mayor: Lindsey, the – I want to start and the Chancellor may certainly want to add. Lindsey, the whole idea there was to add to frontline services for our teachers and our kids. It was not, Lord knows, to add to the Tweed bureaucracy – with all due respect to everyone who works at Tweed. This is about the kinds of supports that we provide that really make a difference at the school level. Obviously, everything we’re doing on literacy is an example. And that’s one of the most important things we’re doing in the whole school system. It’s trying to get all our kids, or as close as possible to all our kids, reading on grade level by third grade.

The work we’re doing on implicit bias which we know is an important part of the discussion now in our society for good reason. That work has to be done at the school level. It is led out of Tweed and it’s under the Tweed budget. So, I don’t want to see a growing central apparatus. I want to see the money to get out to the schools. But this money is for training and other initiatives that do reach the schools directly.

Chancellor Carranza: The only thing I would – the additional – very well said, Mr. Mayor. What I would add is depending on how you look at a budget determines what’s administrative costs or not. So, for example, we just reported to the state on spending and what was aggregated in that report is not what people would usually consider to be part of a centralized budget. For example, transportation gets rolled up into that kind of a calculation. We know that transportation is important. We know that we can run a school without it yet it’s not necessarily usually reported as a central administration budget.

It’s usually a transportation budget. I’ll give you another example – the very fact that we’re here right now growing 3-K, all of the great people wearing the 3-K shirts and the Pre-K for All shirts, we would call them incredibly important parts of getting that information out, registering families, walking families through the process. Congratulations, you’re all part of the administrative budget. 

[Laughter]

So, as we grow our 3-K and our Pre-K –

Mayor: Turn around, Lindsey. There – look at them –

[Laughter]

Chancellor Carranza: So, it’s really important that we have a nuanced conversation about what is administrative budget and not. But I feel very – in my five months here on the job so far, I will tell you that compared to other school systems that I’ve worked in, the overhead that we have in the DOE is far less than in other places that I’ve worked. I’m almost on a daily basis astonished by how low the overheard is and how much we’re actually providing o the community in terms of return on investment. So, let’s have a nuanced conversation about what that looks like, but I’m really excited about what we’re doing to empower our communities. 

Mayor: Other questions on education? Yes?

Question: Yesterday in the Long Island Newsday, the superintendent of [inaudible] Nassau County, Dr. Robert Dylan had an article with regard to technical training. Now, with 3-K for All and Pre-K for All, and many elected official pushing college for all, free in New York State – not all students necessarily want to go to college, they want to get technical training because they have an interest in that. What is being done in the New York City public schools to address that?

Mayor: I’ll start very quickly and pass it not only to the Chancellor, but I think Mike Mulgrew might have something to say because he taught a lot of kids who are exactly in the group you’re talking about. I think this is really important – around much of the world, there is respect given, equally, to those who are pursuing higher education and those who are pursuing a skill trade, and they both matter, and they’re both valuable, and they’re both ways to support your family, and they both should be honored in our society. I remember when I was going to high school, at that point in my town where I was growing up in Massachusetts, there was a technicalized schools and an academic high school, and they were combined into one. Everyone was upset and everyone was stereotyping. And, you know, one of the big conversations it sparked is why do we have these horrible societal stereotypes that are denigrating to working people and that only suggest there’s one kind of path in life when, if you have eyes to see, you can see that lots of people pursue lots of different trades and they’re all valuable and they’re all deserving of honor. Our career in technical education, we’ve actually expanded career and technical education substantially in the last five years. We believe in it. I’ll give you a great example – you know, Computer Science for All. I mean, lord knows we’re in a city with 350,000 jobs in the technology field – endless need, endless demand. We’re doing a lot more to prepare our kids. Some can go right out of high school or maybe just after an associated degree right into those jobs. So, we value it a lot and it’s something that we’re going to making more of a focus, going forward. 

Chancellor?

Chancellor Carranza: Maybe – Mr. President say a few words and [inaudible] wrap it?

President Michael Mulgrew, UFT: We have expanded these programs actually quite a bit over these last seven years. We don’t have a traditional BOCES model here in New York City. We have one traditional BOCES school only in New York City. But we have complete career and technical education schools, as well as standalone programs in many of our high schools. We serve over 100,000 students. And I want to – the whole stereotyping is what drives me nuts. These programs are extremely difficult. We’ve had them analyzed. They’re at graduate level work, almost every one of them, and our children are going above and beyond what is required of a regular high school student to get a diploma. So, we understand this, but the politics around it and the stereotyping is what’s frustrating. I think the rest of the State could learn differently from moving from a traditional BOCES model to a more integrated model, I think it should be combined as a hybrid. But the most important piece to us is that the children who are part of career and technical education programs graduate at a higher rate than any students in our public school system, they go to college at a higher rate than any students in our public school system because it’s an engagement program, it’s not just about a skillset to get a job. They’re highly complicated. So, most of these students – the misnomer here is, most of these students actually go to college and they go to college because they’re now prepared at a learning level – that a lot of students don’t have that experience. So, I’m very, very proud of the CTE programs here in New York City and I am looking forward to continuing to expand them. 

Chancellor Carranza: I like [inaudible] I’m very proud of the programs. I’ll give you three just very, very quick points on this. One of the first schools that I visited right here in Queens was Aviation High School were I saw an incredible science and technology, and I saw every stripe of the rainbow represented in that student body. I saw young women that were up there with a propeller and could tell me exactly what the proportions were and how that related to the science. And then I found out that those students graduate with a certificate and they can walk into any airport with that FAA certification and start making close to six figures. They stay an extra year, they’re going to make six figures with a second certification. [Inaudible] technical education program, but it’s so much more. And those students go to college, many of them want to become air or nautical engineers. So, that’s number one – it’s not the vocational ed of our grandparents. The second thing that I would add is that as someone who in high school learned how to do geometry not in my geometry class – I was a very poor student in geometry – but actually working with my journeyman sheet metal father actually bending metal and making those angels, and having to have those angles fit so you could create the [inaudible]. That’s where I learned geometry, working with my hands. So, I think students do have multiple ways of looking at working with their hands. And then the third thing, apropos to what’s been said here, it’s about the vision students have post high school. So, if we can connect what they want to do with what they’re learning in school and create a pathway that they can visualize for themselves, they will be successful. But that being said, it’s important to know that when I was in high school, because my dad was a journeyman sheet metal worker, there were people in my high school that said you don’t – why are you going to take chemistry to go to college? You’re going to go into journeyman sheet metal work, you’re going to get in the union and become a journeyman sheet metal worker. So, this issue of implicit bias training that we’re talking about and that we’re doing, this issue about our stereotypes is also a real one. But it’s not something that we can’t overcome. So, I think it’s being really clear about every student with their plan, and it doesn’t matter if they want to go to college or they want to go into a career, or a technical skillset, or in a CTE program and make more money than I make, it’s really important that we connect them with a vision post-secondary – that’s really what we’re talking about. 

Mayor: Councilman? You wanted to add something quick?

Council Member Donovan Richards: I wanted to add, there’s a school not too far away from here – Far Rockaway High School – where we have a school in the [inaudible] and I was just amazed. We built the million-dollar lab there, but the kids are learning Cisco. Cisco is the network that you use for your Time Warner box – I guess it’s not Time Warner now, Charter, or whatever it is now. But the point is, those kids are leaving with a certification and then the school is also offering the parents to come in after hours to learn this particular program and they could be certified. So, I agree, we need more programs like that. These are good, middle class jobs that we’re paving a way for kids in the community that, you know, would be most likely considered underserved. So, it’s a game changer. 

Question: Mr. Mulgrew –

President Mulgrew: Yes?

Mayor: He’s ready. 

[Laughter]

Question: You’re a member of the Central Labor Council, and there are many unions in New York and the surrounding areas that would love to get their teeth in training their future employees. Has anything been done in that respect?

President Mulgrew: We have construction trades [inaudible] which was one of the programs that many of the construction unions worked with, the New York City public school system. So, we already have that system in place. Apropos to what Councilman Richards just said, I just want to put this in context – Cisco, you would need three years of college to get a Cisco certification. That’s three years of tuition. These children are graduating our schools system with the same certificate without any student debt. They can walk into a school, they don’t need to take those classes. If they want to go to higher ed, it’s all there for them. So, that is what we’re taking about. We are supplying our students with access to programs that will save them, and if they went to an individual school just for Cicsco, it would cost them $40,000 to get that certificate. That is what Equity and Excellence is about. We are supplying that. And it’s really not a very well-known story here in New York City. It’s not sexy, but it’s something we’re continuing to do and expand. 

Mayor: Yeah, in the vein of news you can use, tell that story, because that’s the kind of thing parents would want to hear. Parents and students alike would like to get that kind of certificate debt free. 

State Senator Leroy Comrie: Mr. Mayor?

Mayor: Yes, please?

Senator Comrie: My son also graduated from Thomas Edison High School with a second-level Cisco certificate. He got offered four jobs, but he elected to keep going to school. But Thomas Edison High School, an excellent school in training kids for computer degrees. So, there’s a lot of programs going on that parents are not aware of and maybe we need to do a better job about advertising those options, but there are a lot of options out there. 

Mayor: Amen.

Assembly Member David Weprin: I agree. I’m a big supporter of Thomas Edison High School, which is also in my district. 

Mayor: Alright, everyone’s part of the success. Last call on education questions and we’ll take a few others, but last call on education – yeah, go ahead?

Question: I have an off-topic –

Mayor: Alright, we are transferring and you are up. 

Question: This just happened, but I’m just getting word that a plane landed at JKF with 100 sick passengers. I don’t know if you have been trying –

Mayor: Yeah, we’re getting very initial word on that. There appears to be – we do know the plane in from Dubai. Centers for Disease Control is on the site, addressing the situation. Apparently there are as many as 100 passengers on board the plan who are sick. It’s a very large plane. I’m being told there’s as many as 500 people on the plane, it’s obviously one of the biggest planes there is. It appears – the early information – this is not confirmed, so I want to just say this very preliminarily, it’s some kind of flu situation, but we don’t have enough information. But it is being addressed by federal authorities as well as obviously everyone at the airport. 

Okay, yes?

Question: Hi, last Friday Borough President Eric Adams was talking about an FDNY EMT who has repeatedly been arrested for impersonating a police officer, ignoring 9-1-1 calls, [inaudible] suspect in a robbery, and he said he was going to speak to you that day. Did you guys talk about that?

Mayor: We actually did not, but I heard what he said and I actually do not have the updated status. I mean, it’s very serious charges, obviously, and there will be a full investigation and appropriate discipline but I’ve got to get the details on that. I’ll be happy to get those for you.

Okay, last call on any other questions? Marcia? 

Question: [Inaudible] 

Mayor: Everybody, keep it down, we’re still going. Go ahead –

Question: [Inaudible] are your City Health Department officials also involved in –

Mayor: We’ll certainly get involved but when Centers for Disease Control is there, they’re obviously the lead. 

Last call? Okay. Thanks, everyone.