Ask the Mayor (And The Schools Chancelor): COVID Safety and Gifted Programs

Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Now, it's time for our Friday, Ask The Mayor call-in, my questions in yours for Mayor Bill de Blasio. As I said before, the news something different for the first half of Ask The Mayor today, as we are also joined by a very special guest the New York City schools' Chancellor Meisha Porter, as they announce the end of Gifted and Talented programs as we've known them for elementary schools and introduced a new structure for accelerated learning for individual kids beginning in third grade, but that won't separate them into special classes.

Listeners, only questions about that right now at 646-435-7280, or tweet a question about that using the #AskTheMayor. Good morning, Mr. Mayor. Welcome back and good morning Chancellor Porter. Welcome to WNYC.

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Thank you so much, Brian. I just want to say this is a really exciting day and the Chancellor and I are so happy that we're going to be ending. Something that I think was a mistake all along, a single test for four-year-olds that determine so much of their future. We're going to reach tens of thousands more kids with accelerated learning. This is a really important day for New York City. We're moving to a much better model for the future. Chancellor, thank you for all you did to make this possible.

Chancellor Meisha Porter: Thank you. Thanks for having me. Good morning.

Brian: Chancellor, I know it goes beyond the test for the four-year-old. Would you start by explaining what was wrong with Gifted and Talented programs in elementary school as you saw them, including how much they were a tool for de facto racial segregation?

Chancellor Porter: As a lifelong educator, what we all know is that no single test should determine any child's future. What we also know and what I know from being a teacher and a leader is that there are so many more students who are gifted, who are talented, who are brilliant, who have special gifts. I think this is a moment about creating opportunities for all students to demonstrate their powerful learning abilities and for teachers to really tap into those gifts.

Mayor de Blasio: Brian, to emphasize that per your question, we're going to have kids learning all together in one classroom, where the kids who do have special abilities are given the extra help, the extra attention to go farther ahead in their studies with help from teachers, with team teaching in some cases, with digital education, the kids who have those special abilities for accelerated learning will be getting a lot of attention and a lot of opportunity to do it, but they'll be learning with all the other kids and the tracking that used to be, I think a huge, huge mistake in American education and that we've been phasing out in a variety of ways, that ends. This is all kids together in a classroom learning together.

Brian: How will that work Chancellor Porter in practice for teachers who have kids learning at a variety of paces and kids going at different paces in the same classroom?

Mayor de Blasio: That's how many, many, many of our classrooms currently operate. I think what is exciting about this moment is that we're adding a component of additional training for teachers to be able to recognize those talents, to provide targeted individualized instruction for young people. It's something many teachers are doing across the city. Now we're saying we're making an investment in training them so that they know how to identify those talents, build on those talents, and provide individualized instruction for students.

Brian: Brock on the lower East Side, you're on WNYC with the mayor and school's Chancellor Meisha Porter. Hello, Brock.

Brock: Oh, hi, Mr. Mayor and Chancellor. Both of my kids were gifted in child program and they tested in every time and we participated in this test prep industry, which I think is just wrong, and we waited years before a seat was finally open. In the meantime, we were even at a progressive school and one of the side effects of all of this is a two-tiered world that I think needs to go.

I couldn't agree more with you and that was bullying. In the progressive school that we were in there was no bullying. It wasn't even on our radar. When we entered the G&T school, there was bullying. A lot of it. It was a constant program and a constant issue. I realized after a while it came from the parents who were putting so much pressure on their kids to perform at an age

Brian: Brock, forgive me, but I'm going to go because we can't take a long speech. It doesn't sound like you have a question for the Chancellor or the mayor, but you do support what they're doing. We'll go to another caller in a minute.

Mayor de Blasio: Hey, Brian, can I just say one thing about what Brock said because the point about folks-- that industry he referred to of huge amounts of money being spent to take a single test and then listen to this, 2,500 kids each year in the old system got gifted in talented education out of 65,000. One of the things the Chancellor and I believe is tens of thousands of kids each year have talents, can benefit from accelerated learning. We're going to be taking instead of 2,500 of kids a year, tens of thousands of kids each year will get those accelerated learning opportunities. They don't have to take a test, the parents don't have to shell out money. This is going to be a much, much more inclusive model.

Brian: Chancellor Porter, right now there's a staffing crisis in schools, I think it's fair to say, it's been made more acute by the vaccine mandate, but there are kids without their legally required paraprofessionals, teachers with no special ed training being asked to manage special ed classes, though they don't have the correct licensing. As I understand the G&T plans, they include hiring more teachers to train. In some cases to teach accelerated material. Question is, is that really the best use of how the money could be used or hire more teachers or social workers at this time? That question.

Chancellor Porter: Go ahead. I'm sorry.

Brian: No you go.

Chancellor Porter: We are really proud of having gotten to over 95% of our staff vaccinated. We're not seeing a significant staffing problem out of 23,000 parents across the city, a fraction of them are unvaccinated. Yes, I think that this is a moment of investing in our system, investing in more teachers and social workers because we know that this is an important part of moving our system forward. I would also say if you have listeners who feel like they have a service that's not being supported right now would love for your opportunity to give your information and we would absolutely have a team follow up with them.

Mayor de Blasio: Brian, two quick points, 2,000 more school employees have gotten vaccinated since the Monday deadline. It is a continuity here. More and more people are actually thinking better of it and coming and getting vaccinated, that's beefing up the staff. We're getting the teachers where we need them and the substitutes where we need them. In terms of investment, we have to make those investments, but this investment makes so much sense because we're going to reach in terms of the accelerated learning for tens of thousands of kids.

Think about it for a moment, Brian. If you were a kid and you were really good at math and really good at science, whatever it was, and you didn't get into a Gifted and Talented program right now, that means the tens of thousands of kids who are left out every year don't get that opportunity, then there's nothing for you. We are saying we're going to train teachers and prepare schools to actually reach you as a child and bring out your gifts and abilities that would've been ignored if you were not accepted into one of those very small, very exclusive gift and talented programs previously.

Brian Lehrer: Mr. Mayor, why now? advocates and your previous chancellors have been arguing for something like this for years. The New York Times headline when your previous Chancellor Richard Carranza announced he was leaving in February, was New York City school's chief to resign after clashes over desegregation, why now and not when Chancellor Carranza wanted this type of thing or even his predecessor?

Mayor de Blasio: Brian, I would urge you against taking headlines and stories in any paper, even that August paper, and believing them wholesale. I think the Chancellor's departure was quite abundantly clearly because he was going through a horrifying personal crisis. I'd say about that Chancellor and any chancellor, put together the plan, put it on the table, and we'll act on it. The first Chancellor who ever gave me a plan to fix Gifted and Talented was Meisha Ross Porter and we're moving on it immediately. This is a absolutely coherent full plan. We're going to go out for two months and get input from communities and perfect it and revise it accordingly.

This is the first Chancellor to give me a plan that would actually work on the ground. Guess what? Because of her work, we're going to reach 10 times more kids each year with accelerated learning. That's the kind of plan I was waiting for.

Brian Lehrer: Barbara in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC with the mayor and the schools' Chancellor. Hello, Barbara.

Barbara: Hi. Hello. Good morning, everyone. My question, it's really around schools that are in lower-performing areas. I have a student who-- we live in a lower-performing school district and he tested into Gifted and Talented and was able to go to a school in a different district. He thrived in that school, although there was a lot of emotional problems and issues that went on, but the school was able to wrap services around him so that he was able to maintain in that program. Right now, he attends Mark Twain. My concern is that in some of the lower performing schools, children are not really going to equally thrive as you're stating, if that makes.

Mayor de Blasio: Yes, I really appreciate that question. Barbara, I appreciate that question and bluntly, I'm really glad you raised it and I'll certainly have the Chancellor speak as well. This is exactly what I have said to the Department Of Education officials for years, "Show me a plan that recognizes the fact that many of our schools are still not where they need to be. For struggling parents, working-class parents of all backgrounds, they're looking for the very best for their children." What Chancellor Porter has done is come up with a plan where there's real tangible progress, a lot of training of teachers, getting teachers to schools that previously were deprived of the teachers who could help build a Gifted and Talented or accelerated learning program.

This is the first time, again, I've seen a plan that actually responds to the point you're making. We can't pretend a lot of our schools are in a better place than where they are, we have to bring them up. The way to do that is by sending in more quality teachers, more teacher training, building a whole new reality where we bring out the gifts of those kids because every single school in our system has kids, everyone has kids that can benefit from accelerated learning, just a lot of them have been ignored and left out. Chancellor, over to you.

Chancellor Porter: Barbara, I hope to hear your voice in our engagement sessions because you are the parents we want to hear from. This moment is about making sure that you don't have to cross district lines, that you don't have to go outside of the neighborhood, but that your neighborhood schools can actually provide the supports, the services, the type of learning that your child needs.

My commitment and I think the job of our school system is to make sure in every neighborhood, in every community, regardless of socio-economic status, parents have a school that they can walk to, that provides their child with the education that they deserve. That's what we're looking forward to do, that's the teacher core we're looking to build and so I hope to hear you and see you at our engagement session.

Brian: Barbra, thank you. Here's the follow-up, Chancellor, on Twitter about engagement. Listener Remy writes, "Ask the mayor and DOE Chancellor, what is their plan for parent engagement regarding citywide G&T programs and for screen middle school admissions since they did not engage parents at all in developing this newly announced elementary G&T program despite multiple promises to do so?" Chancellor, obviously, there's at least some people out there who think there was not engagement on this.

Chancellor Porter: This is where we're at, this is our blueprint. We want to hear from parents, community leaders, educators, and students. Brilliant NYC is a vision, it's our vision for New York City, but I know like when we get out into communities, they will make it better, they will add more. We're looking forward to engaging citywide and district-based conversations. We're looking forward to covering every all of the 32 community school districts, and really engaging with families over the next two months.

Brian: I'm not sure I understand that, are you saying this is just a blueprint or is this a plan that's going to be implemented?

Chancellor Porter: This is a blueprint for the plan that we intend to implement. Engagement is a critical part of moving this plan forward.

Mayor de Blasio: Brian, I want to square that real quick. You're asking an important question. We know where we want to go and we're going to get this done, but we also understand even with COVID, with everything, it's been very difficult time to do everything we want to do, but what we do know is we're going to bring this plan out to communities, the Chancellor is not going to go out there personally, a lot of the other key DOE officials are going to go out, meet with parents, meet with parent leaders, community education councils, hear their feedback, and then adjust the plan according to what we hear and then that's what we finally implement.

Brian: One more call for the Chancellor before-- I know she has to go, Bob in Manhattan, you're on WNYC, hello.

Bob: Hi, my question is, if any consideration was given or any estimate was done about any parents who will leave the New York City school system or the city entirely because they don't have the Gifted and Talented option available to them?

Mayor De Blasio: Bob, I understand the question, it's a fair question. This is what I say, first of all, we respect the parents who worked hard to get their kids ready for a test that I think was a mistake to begin with those tests, but they did exist. We don't want to take away from people who got something that's why we're phasing it out. All the kids going into first grade through fifth grade next year who are in the existing Gifted and Talented programs, they will continue, they will see them through to completion. For the kids going into kindergarten and beyond in the years ahead, we're going to find the right approach to getting accelerated learning to not just the 2,500 a year.

Bob, I would suggest this, the 2,500 winners per year, we want to take care of those kids, but we also want to reach the tens of thousands or more who have kids with real skills, real ability, who can benefit from accelerated learning and never got the opportunity. That was especially true in many communities in the outer boroughs, in many communities of color. We need to reach a much bigger universe of kids and that's what this plan will do. Parents will be happy that there's a much greater chance their kid now will get the opportunity they deserve.

Brian: I hear what you're saying about the individual accelerated learning programs hopefully reaching more kids who might not have been included in the past. Chancellor, the caller reflects a concern that this change that eliminates G&T classes per se, could drive more of mostly white, mostly more affluent families to choose private schools, and that'll wind up with an even more segregated system. Do you want to talk to some of those parents before you leave to try to talk them out of leaving the system?

Chancellor Porter: The mayor started us off in the most important place. Those were 2,500 seats. This is making our entire system better for all children. Those families that were vying for 2,500 seats don't have to do that anymore because we're building the schools that our students and families deserve. I think it's important to lean into that number because that is not representative of the vast majority of really brilliant New York City public school students.

Mayor De Blasio: Brian, I bet you a lot of parents are not going to look at this plan and say, "This is a reason to stay," because there's a much greater chance their kid will get the opportunities they deserve and the ability to do accelerated learning in every grade in elementary school, not just either, make a cut on arbitrary tests or not in or out. Every child with gifts, every child with the ability for accelerated learning is going to get that chance. If I'm a parent, I'm like, "That's a reason to stay in our schools."

Brian: Chancellor Porter thank you very much for joining us with the mayor today we really appreciate it.

Chancellor Porter: Awesome, thank you, have a great day.

Brian: Mr. Mayor, before we pivot, is this fair to the next mayor to make such a policy change with less than three months left in your term, rather than allow your successor and their Chancellor to determine whether to have such a major change in policy?

Mayor De Blasio: Of course, it is and I'll tell you why. This is something we've been working on for years, there's been a big public debate around it, we're now going to have a two-month engagement process. I think this is something that's going to be embraced by the people of this city as a more fair, more inclusive system and we got to get going with it. Of course, the next mayor and future mayors, future Chancellors will make adjustments, that's always the case on any policy. This is something we've got to do, it's the right thing to do. We finally got a plan that works. I'm moving forward with it and we are going to take that input from communities over the next couple of months, make whatever revisions, and then get it done.

Brian: Listeners, we're going to clear some lines so we don't only have G&T calls for the rest of the mayor's time and our Ask The Mayor lines are open again at 646-435-7280. We apologize to some of you who are going to bump now and since the open lines will still be a little scarcer than usual. Also, do use Twitter to submit a question as an alternative, use the #AskTheMayor.

While some additional calls are coming in, Mr. Mayor, I have to ask you about the Department of Investigation report that came out yesterday saying that you misused your NYPD security detail for personal benefits ranging from helping your daughter Chiara move to driving your son Dante back and forth to college at Yale multiple times to incurring $320,000 taxpayer dollars of expenses on security during your presidential run. I'm going to play a clip of the investigation's Commissioner Margaret Garnett, appointed by you. She was on NY1 last night and was asked if it's really a big deal or anything she could call corruption if the mayor's kids get police protection. Here's what she said.

Margaret Garnett: I might agree and the city often recognizes in ethics roles that something that's incidental, deminimize, occasional, doesn't necessarily amount to corruption. I think this whole arrangement is what in Catholicism we call a near occasion of sin, when you see a pattern of conduct and a culture that public resources are available for your personal benefit, that's incredibly destabilizing to good government, it's not a good use of the public's money. I think things can often snowball. You reset a baseline of what is unacceptable barrier between personal and official and it just can lead to even worse things. I might agree that one time the child was dropped off. I don't think we'd be sitting here if that was what was going on.

Brian: Commissioner Margaret Garnett with Errol Lewis on NY1. Mr. Mayor your response to her conclusion that there was an unusual pattern here that sets a bad precedent?

Mayor de Blasio: I think with all due respect to the commissioner and DOI, this report is so inaccurate, so unmindful of security realities and of how every mayor has been treated for decades. Just consistently inaccurate. Stunningly, Brian, consistently ignorant of the reality of security so much so that when I told the commissioner team, the ultimate voice on all matters of security is a deputy commissioner for Intelligence and Counter Terrorism, John Miller at the NYPD, they scrupulously managed to never interview him and never include his decisions and his understanding of the threat environment.

Yesterday morning, he explained the number of threats directed, not just at me, not just at the first lady, but both of my kids. Why he directed that security be provided consistently, including for the kids as is done clearly at the federal level, has has been done for previous mayors and their children. This is just unbelievably inaccurate and unfair. Everything was answered yesterday. I'm just stunned that instead of saying the truth and she knows the truth. There's nothing that was violated here, there's no written guidance that was violated.

There's, in fact, potentially a much clear need for written guidance great let's go do that, but it was nothing done wrong. In fact, I very consistently put the public interest first and did what was appropriate and every effort to explain that and document that and to encourage DOI to talk to the people in charge of security, they ignored.

Brian: She apparently feels that the effort to document things was the opposite of that, that things were obscured. I'm going to play one more clip of Commissioner Garnett on NY1. Her report criticized those coordinating your security detail for what she saw as an extreme lack of transparency because they routinely deleted records about how they made these decisions. She calls it a lack of retention of records in this clip.

Margaret: There's no retention universe in which it's appropriate to have regular routine, constant deletion of all records of the executive protection, your [unintelligible 00:23:03] business. We found evidence which we discussed in the report that it was actually discussed among members of the detail, that, "We have to delete things, we have to use city hall phones because our NYPD phones can be imaged by the department at any time. We have to use this encrypted app instead of this one."

It's not just that, "Oh, they happen to delete and they didn't get training about retention," but really a active culture that no records of our business should be retained for any purpose, which is just not consistent with any retention regime that I'm aware of after 16 years in public life.

Brian: Mr. Mayor, an active culture that no records be retained, inconsistent with anything she's aware of in public life, your response to that alleged lack of transparency?

Mayor de Blasio: Alleged. The entire report is ridden with inaccuracies, there's hearsay throughout it, there's not comprehensive research. They didn't talk to the people in charge. Just look across this report and you see so many things that were not included that should have been. So many facts that were left out, allegations without proof. It's very sad to me because I have a lot of respect for the Commissioner. In fact, when she came out with a very extensive comprehensive well-documented thoughtful report last year on the events of 2020, the protests in the spring of 2020, including some very tough criticisms for City Hall and the police department, I accepted it.

I said, "These are fair criticisms, fair recommendations." Didn't agree with every last thing, but I thought it was a really thoughtful fair balanced report. Unfortunately, this one is polar opposite and it's stunning to me. It is not even a professional report because they didn't talk to the people who had the greatest knowledge. They ignored the entire history of threats directed at me and my family, they ignored the entire history of how security has been provided to mayors. Remember previous mayors, Ed Koch ran for governor in New York state, Rudy Giuliani ran for US Senate, John Lindsay ran for president.

They all were treated in one way during those experiences. Other mayors had children who had security, they were all treated one way. My experience was the same as all my predecessors and yet this DOI suddenly decides that there's something wrong. I think that's patently unfair. If we want to have a conversation about how to improve things going forward or set new policies, that's absolutely a smart and worthy conversation, but this report was shockingly inaccurate.

Brian: Will you pay if you accept this premise the city back the $320,000 for the presidential campaign security out of your campaign accounts or something?

Mayor de Blasio: It's a democracy and so we exercise the right to appeal and sent a letter, which is public to the Conflict of Interest Board and said, "All previous mayors had security covered in all circumstances." Some mayors traveled the world, some mayors took vacations all the time including overseas. Mayors, again, ran for Governor, Senator, President. In all instances by everything we've seen, their security was provided and covered.

The letter says to the Conflict of Interest Board, "Please consider all these facts and please consider the threat environment and a variety of other things. We want to appeal the original thinking and see where you want us to go." I respect the law, I believe the Conflict of Interest Board will have a thorough, thoughtful, careful process. I will follow the law, of course, but I think it's really important to look at the facts and the history and to listen to the security experts before they make a final decision.

Brian: Here's another call on the elimination of the elementary school, Gifted and Talented programs. Lynell, now in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hello, Lynell

Lynell: Hi, Brian. Hi, Mayor. My question I guess is I was in what was called the Eagle Program, which was what was the Gifted and Talented program back in the 80s, at the time that program had no test, you had to be referred into it. My understanding is it didn't really have a test, you had to be referred into it by your teacher. My understanding was when they started with the Gifted and Talented test, the point was to eliminate inherent biases amongst some of the teachers that would prevent them from referring their minority students to the Gifted and Talented program or not recognizing that the minority students they had in the class who may be long in the Gifted and Talented program.

Now that you're eliminating the test, I understand there were disparities with the test too, how are you going to then ensure that there aren't teachers who are not focusing on their minority students and recognizing when they should have extra work or when they should be pushed forward? Because now you're putting it back on the teachers to be professional enough to and whatever inherent biases they have that they're not going to project them onto their students and perhaps hold some of them back needlessly.

Brian: Great question Lynell. Thank you.

Mayor de Blasio: That's a really great question. Lynell, thank you. Profound question, in fact. Of course, let's start with our Chancellor Meish Ross Porter, who is in very forceful fashion because she, in fact, was in New York City public school child, who was told by teachers that she was not cut out for a professional career. She's told her story, they said, "Maybe you should go into one of the trades like plumbing." There's nothing wrong with going into plumbing, but here's a brilliant public leader, she literally just got her PhD and she was ignored because she was a young woman of color.

Now, what we're going to do is in addition to teaching anti-bias training to all of our educators, we're going to put the responsibility on principals and make clear to all schools, the superintendents of the different districts that every child has to be reached. In fact, we're going to be now providing accelerated learning in districts that never had a single, Brian, listen to this, never had a single Gifted and Talented classroom. There are a number of districts in Brooklyn and The Bronx and Queens, primarily communities of color, not only did they not have the Gifted and Talented at school, they didn't have a single Gifted and Talented classroom under the old system.

We're wiping all that away by this proposal and saying every school will have the ability to provide accelerated learning because we're going to train teachers intensively and that's going to take resources, but it's going to be worth it. Then require of superintendents and principals that they make sure that the gifts and the abilities of each child are recognized. Some it might be in one subject area alone, that's great, but that it must be every school, every classroom in the elementary school level because I know in every grade year, there are tens of thousands of kids with special ability. Most of them have been ignored up to now, this will allow us to finally let those kids reach their full potential.

Brian: I know you got to go. Let me sneak in one last one. It's kind of a yes or no question because multiple sources are telling us that the city is planning to implement a full vaccine mandate for the NYPD, in other words, you're thinking about eliminating the option to submit to weekly testing. Are these plans happening?

Mayor de Blasio: Brian, I appreciate your audacity because I've been asked the question all week. I'm certainly not going to do a yes or no, I'm going to answer very simply. We're looking at all options. We've put a number of mandates in place and other tools. In the coming days, I'll speak about additional steps for different parts of the city, our workforce, and beyond, we're going to be looking at different things that we're going to be doing, but that's still several days away because we're doing a very meticulous analysis of what is the next step that makes sense.

Brian: You're not ruling out this for the NYPD you're still considering it?

Mayor de Blasio: I'm not ruling it out for any city agency. I'm not ruling out additional mandates beyond. We're looking at a variety of tools. So far I like a lot how the mandates are going. They're driving up vaccinations, they're driving down COVID. There's a lot of other tools we have, and we'll be talking about them in the next few days.

Brian: Thanks as always, Mr. Mayor. Talk to you next week.

Mayor de Blasio: Thank you, Brian.

 

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