The next mayor will have to deal with the educational damage wrought by COVID-19 and the profound problems of quality and equity that challenged the city’s schools even before the pandemic.
‘We need more parents to run so that each CEC’s economic diversity reflects that of the district. Without such diversity, whole swaths of a school district may be voiceless.’
The Brooklyn Beeps chalks the city’s troubles up to dysfunction. Winning the race will require defining that term, and outlining a plan to defeat it.
Brooklyn’s Mark Treyger wants the city to offer more in-person schooling to young and disabled kids who fare especially poorly in remote learning. The temporary shutdown offers a chance to adopt such a plan, he says.
The head of the union that recently voted ‘no confidence’ in Mayor de Blasio’s leadership talks about how the resumption of in-person school is going, and Manhattan BP Gale Brewer discuss what it will take for her borough to mount a comeback.
The mayor’s intense desire to provide in-person learning led the city to underestimate the obstacles to bringing kids back.
The city offer prioritized COVID-19 testing for DOE staff and students at 34 sites across the city. But only for seven days.
‘I have come to see police, surveillance and harsh punitive measures in schools as a way to disproportionately target vulnerable students, primarily Black and Latino, and not to protect and support us as many suggest.’
As politicians quibble over schedules and temperate checks: parents, teachers, principals, custodians and children could learn from the City’s most recent attempt to better use the public space of streets.
‘Delaying school for 10 days without calling for adequate funding so that schools can meet the needs of this moment, it does nothing.’