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      New York Schools Are Segregated. Will the Next Mayor Change That?

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyNew York Schools Are Segregated. Will the Next Mayor Change That?By deferring decisions on desegregating schools, Mayor Bill de Blasio has pushed those choices onto his successor — and into the race to replace him.The admissions process for elite schools like Stuyvesant High School has become one of the most fraught political issues in New York City.Credit…Christopher Lee for The New York TimesJan. 29, 2021Updated 8:12 a.m. ETDuring a recent forum on education, a moderator asked the crowded field of Democrats running to be New York City’s next mayor a question they may not have wanted to answer: How would they approach the fraught issue of admissions into the city’s selective schools, where Black and Latino students are starkly underrepresented? A few of the candidates’ eyes widened when they heard the prompt, and some avoided furnishing a direct answer, resorting instead to vague language.“There are a lot of things we need to do in this direction,” said Andrew Yang, the former presidential candidate. Raymond J. McGuire, a Wall Street executive, noted that the issue had “historic significance.” Those halting responses illustrate just how incendiary school integration still is in this proudly liberal city. But with the Democratic primary just five months away, the candidates have little choice but to confront school segregation, which has divided New Yorkers for a half-century. An influential activist movement led by city students is accelerating pressure on the candidates to make clear how integration would fit into their plans to reshape New York’s public school system, the nation’s largest. And a national reckoning over racism has forced the candidates to square the city’s self-image as a progressive bastion with its unequal school system. During the last few weeks alone, the candidates have been asked about their positions on radio and television interviews, in multiple forums, and in a series of New York Times interviews. Together, their responses revealed sharp differences in how they are approaching some of the most contentious integration policies.New York City is home to one of the most segregated school systems in America, in part because of the city’s labyrinth admissions process for selective schools. Housing segregation and school zone lines have produced a divided school system that has been compounded by competitive admissions that separate students by race and class as early as kindergarten.Mayor Bill de Blasio recently announced a sweeping set of changes to how hundreds of racially segregated selective schools admit their students — but left most of the details up to the next administration.Some of the mayoral hopefuls are in favor of addressing the extreme underrepresentation of Black and Latino students in selective schools by overhauling gifted and talented programs and changing admissions for competitive middle schools and elite high schools. Others are offering less sweeping approaches. And several candidates declined to say anything definitive about those proposals, or said they would mostly maintain the existing system.Scott Stringer, the city comptroller, with his son Max. Mr. Stringer had previously avoided integration debates, but has recently moved to the left along with his party.Credit…Kholood Eid for The New York TimesThe most progressive candidates, including Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, and Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive, are hoping to differentiate themselves from the pack by declaring their intentions to push potentially disruptive change that could spur integration.There are subtle differences even within that lane: Maya Wiley, a former de Blasio administration official who has been a leading figure in the pro-integration movement, sometimes gave conspicuously broad answers to direct questions about the policies she would implement as mayor. Mr. Stringer, who had assiduously avoided integration debates even in his own neighborhood, has recently moved to the left along with his party. Shaun Donovan, the former secretary of housing and urban development in the Obama administration, has released the most detailed education policy plan so far, saying he would eliminate most academic prerequisites for middle school admissions and add weighted lotteries to further integrate those schools.More centrist hopefuls like Mr. McGuire, Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, and Kathryn Garcia, a former sanitation commissioner, all promised to expand selective programs and schools, rather than fundamentally change them. That position is shared by Mr. Yang, the former head of a test preparation company, who declined an interview. Some education experts believe that desegregation is one of the few remaining levers available for improving academic outcomes for the city’s vulnerable students, many of whom have had little choice but to enroll in low-performing schools.“The plainest way to think of integration is that it is a proven and effective school improvement strategy,” said Matt Gonzales, the director of the Integration and Innovation Initiative at New York University’s Metro Center. Decades of research supports that view — not because there is alchemy found in diverse classrooms, but because integration redistributes resources, funding and power across schools. Mr. Gonzales said the candidates’ positions on this issue are not merely a signal of their progressive bona fides, but an essential way of understanding their approach to education. Mr. de Blasio’s education agenda has largely not included desegregation measures, and he has left major decisions related to integration to the next mayor. Dianne Morales, who is running to be the first Afro-Latina mayor, has among the strongest pro-integration positions of any of the candidates.Credit…Jose A. Alvarado Jr. for The New York TimesHe has largely ignored a recommendation, made by a school integration group he convened, that the city should replace gifted and talented programs with magnet schools and enrichment programs. The next administration will likely have to respond. Mr. de Blasio said this month that he would soon scrap the current gifted exam given to 4-year-olds against the advice of many experts, though the city’s educational panel may force him to end the test immediately. But most of the candidates had already committed to changing that test, and will now have to determine whether to alter the program itself. And last month, Mr. de Blasio paused the use of academic prerequisites for middle school admissions for at least a year because of the pandemic. That will leave it up to the next mayor to decide whether to make that policy permanent — or end it. Ms. Wiley, who helped craft that proposal as a leader of the mayor’s integration group, said she would end middle school screening, as did Ms. Morales. Some candidates tried to find a middle ground: Mr. Stringer and Mr. McGuire said they would consider this year a pilot program, and make a permanent decision next year. Ms. Garcia said she would look at changes on a district-by-district basis, and Mr. Yang expressed skepticism about eliminating middle school screening during a recent forum.Gifted education is a third-rail issue because the programs have long been seen as a way to keep white families in public schools, and have been embraced by some middle-class families of color as alternatives to low-performing neighborhood schools. But some experts have argued that gifted schools have created a two-tiered system that caters to families with the resources to navigate it. Roughly 75 percent of students in gifted classes are white or Asian-American. Mr. Stringer said that his own children, who are in gifted programs, had benefited from a flawed system because of their parents’ privilege. “I recognize as a parent, I’m going to do everything I can to do the best for my kid,” he said. “But as mayor, I have to do what’s best for every child.” Mr. Yang offered a starkly different message in a recent forum, arguing that some parents would flee the city without gifted classes. “Families are looking up and saying, ‘Is New York where my kids are going to flourish?’” Mr. Adams and Ms. Garcia said they would create more gifted classes in low-income neighborhoods, the favored policy position of many supporters of gifted programs. Activists have said that expanding gifted would only contribute to an inherently unfair system. Mr. McGuire said he would not “dismantle the programs, but I’d take a close look to make sure it’s fair and achieving its purpose.” Some candidates seemed eager to please all sides on the contentious if narrow issue of the entry exam for eight elite high schools, which is partially controlled by the State Legislature. In 2018, Mr. de Blasio started a campaign to eliminate the test. His effort failed after many low-income Asian-American families, whose children are overrepresented in the schools, mounted a massive effort to oppose the city’s plan. “I support efforts to desegregate the schools,” Raymond McGuire said in an interview. “This is basic equity, and it needs to happen.”Credit…Krista Schlueter for The New York TimesMr. Adams’ record on the issue demonstrates why so many politicians have tried to avoid staking out a position on the test. The borough president had long opposed the exam, and compared the specialized schools to “a Jim Crow school system.” But just a few weeks after he appeared at a news conference to trumpet the mayor’s plan, Mr. Adams reversed course following an outcry from some parents, particularly Asian Americans. Ms. Wiley has been a consistent critic of the exam, which she called discriminatory, but did not say exactly how she would approach the issue as mayor. Ms. Morales, Mr. Stringer and Brooklyn City Councilman Carlos Menchaca said that they would eliminate the exam.Ms. Morales graduated from Stuyvesant High School in the 1980s, and has watched with despair as the number of Black and Latino students at the school has dwindled. She said that going through the admissions process with her own children felt like an “obstacle course of barriers, targeted toward the people who are best positioned to overcome them.”Ms. Garcia, Mr. McGuire, Mr. Adams and Mr. Yang have said they would keep the exam in place, but promised to build additional specialized schools. That strategy was already tried by former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, but has not led to greater diversity. The candidates have mostly not provided specifics for how their approach would differ.That came as no surprise to Christina Greer, a professor of political science at Fordham University, who expects the candidates to remain vague to avoid offending voters. “A lot of liberals like integration in theory, as long as it doesn’t touch their children at all,” she said. “For a lot of politicians, integration is a no-win.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Rivals Mock Andrew Yang: 5 Takeaways From the Mayor’s Race

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }N.Y.C. Mayoral RaceA Look at the RaceAndrew Yang’s Candidacy5 TakeawaysWho’s Running?AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyRivals Mock Andrew Yang: 5 Takeaways From the Mayor’s RaceAndrew Yang’s visit to a “bodega” drew digs from other contenders, and his entry in the New York City’s race seemed to shake up the contest.Andrew Yang’s entry into the mayoral race last week prompted criticism from his rivals.Credit…James Estrin/The New York TimesEmma G. Fitzsimmons and Jan. 18, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETAndrew Yang made a big splash last week as he entered the mayor’s race, adding a jolt of energy to a campaign season that has been relatively staid and polite until now.Other campaigns pounced on Mr. Yang, questioning his authenticity as a New Yorker and his commitment to the city. While their digs highlighted some of his weaknesses, they also illustrated how the candidates view Mr. Yang as a threat.The campaigns also released their fund-raising figures last week, showing which candidates are in the strongest financial position, while a former Wall Street executive known for a #MeToo complaint entered the lesser-known Republican field.Here are some key developments in the race:The knives are out for YangEven before Mr. Yang entered the race, he had already faced social media ridicule for a remark he made to The New York Times explaining his decision to leave New York City for his weekend home in the Hudson Valley early in the pandemic.That was before the bodega incident.A day after Mr. Yang held an in-person campaign launch in Morningside Heights, he posted a video on Twitter about his love for bodegas — a safe stance that few would challenge. But Mr. Yang recorded the video in a spacious, glistening store that few New Yorkers would consider a bodega.The video brought Mr. Yang more ridicule — and 3.7 million views by Sunday afternoon.Rival campaigns took other swipes at him. After Mr. Yang finished a walking tour of the Brownsville neighborhood in Brooklyn, the campaign of Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, said: “Eric doesn’t need a tour of Brownsville. He was born there.”The campaign manager for Maya Wiley, a former counsel for Mayor Bill de Blasio, knocked Mr. Yang’s swerve from the presidential campaign trail to the New York mayor’s race: “Maya is running — not as a backup plan — but because she’s dedicated her entire life to improving, empowering and lifting up New Yorkers.”Mr. Stringer’s campaign spokesman, Tyrone Stevens, also took a dig: “We welcome Andrew Yang to the mayor’s race — and to New York City.”Could Yang’s entry be divinely inspired?The choice of music to accompany a candidate’s official launch or acceptance speech is usually a calculated decision. “Don’t Stop” by Fleetwood Mac was Bill Clinton’s campaign theme song in 1992; Lorde’s “Royals” prefaced Mr. de Blasio’s victory speech in 2013.Mr. Yang arrived at his launch event in Morningside Park in Manhattan dancing to the song “God’s Plan” by Drake, which features the lyrics: “They wishin’ on me/Bad things.”Indeed, Mr. Yang faced a barrage of questions from journalists over why he left the city during the pandemic and why he had not voted in local elections. One key question is whether Mr. Yang views the job as a steppingstone to run for national office again — like Mr. de Blasio who received criticism for his lackluster bid for president in 2019 and several trips to Iowa.Asked by The New York Times if he would commit to not running for president while serving as mayor, Mr. Yang declined to do so. But he said being mayor of New York would be the job of a lifetime.Mr. Yang’s family attended the announcement of his candidacy. He has acknowledged spending much of the pandemic out of New York.Credit…James Estrin/The New York Times“New Yorkers have nothing to worry about,” he said.Mr. Yang made a suggestion: The city should take control of the subway away from the state. There’s only one obstacle: Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who has seized near total control of the transit agency and is not known for ceding power.“Who knows? Maybe he’ll be happy to have the city take it off his hands,” Mr. Yang told reporters gathered on a subway platform, who laughed incredulously at the thought.He spent his first day on the campaign trail crossing four of the city’s five boroughs (sorry, Staten Island). On NY1’s “Inside City Hall” that evening, Mr. Yang disappointed some by saying the city might not be able to close the jail at Rikers Island by the year 2027.“Rikers Island should be closed, but we need to be flexible on the timeline,” he said.A rising star’s endorsement stirs resentmentMr. Yang touted a key endorsement as he hit the trail: Representative Ritchie Torres of the Bronx, a rising star in the Democratic Party who helped to counter criticism that Mr. Yang was out of touch with the city.Mr. Torres and Mondaire Jones are the first openly gay Black men to serve in Congress, and Mr. Torres was being courted by several campaigns. He had met or had conversations with Ms. Wiley, Mr. Adams, Mr. Stringer, Raymond J. McGuire and Shaun Donovan, a former housing secretary under President Barack Obama.Mr. Torres said he gave the losing campaigns a heads-up about his decision even while he was engrossed with the vote to impeach President Trump.“No mayoral candidate endorsed me in my race,” Mr. Torres said. “I did not owe anyone anything.”Mr. Torres said Mr. Yang’s endorsement of a universal basic income would be a victory for the South Bronx district he represents, one of the poorest in the nation. He said that he also likes the fact that Mr. Yang is not a part of the city’s political establishment.The endorsement allows Mr. Torres to align himself with a fellow moderate progressive. If Mr. Yang wins, it would boost Mr. Torres’s standing while giving him a powerful ally in City Hall.Asked about the response to his decision, Mr. Torres said: “Eric Adams was gracious, most were disappointed and one campaign in particular was hostile.”Mr, Yang and Congressman Richie Torres, who has endorsed him, rode the subway to a campaign stop. Credit…James Estrin/The New York TimesSeveral people who were familiar with the discussions said that the McGuire campaign was the one that responded with hostility. Mr. Torres met with Mr. McGuire, a former Wall Street executive, at an event in the Hamptons over the summer, and his campaign believed it had the inside track.Mr. McGuire’s campaign denied being upset about the snub.“Ray is not a politician and doesn’t hold grudges,” his spokeswoman, Lupé Todd-Medina, said. “He looks forward to working with the congressman when he is mayor.”Kathryn Garcia has fans but is short on fundsMany officials who have worked in and around city government think highly of Kathryn Garcia, the city’s former sanitation commissioner, who is running as a proven manager capable of leading the city’s recovery from the pandemic. But she is falling behind in the money race.Ms. Garcia has raised about $300,000 and failed to qualify for public matching funds.Still, the recent filings revealed that Ms. Garcia received campaign donations from a number of high-powered New Yorkers, including Joseph J. Lhota, the former head of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority who ran as Republican against Mr. de Blasio in 2013; Polly Trottenberg, the city’s former transportation commissioner; and Kathryn Wylde, the leader of a prominent business group. Ms. Wylde also donated to Mr. McGuire, who is a favorite among Wall Street donors.Monika Hansen, Ms. Garcia’s campaign manager, said that many city employees back her bid.“Kathryn has the support of the doers in New York City government at every rank,” she said.A lesser-known candidate, Zachary Iscol, a nonprofit leader and former Marine, has raised nearly $750,000 and said he expects to qualify for matching funds soon.Another candidate who worked in Mr. de Blasio’s administration is struggling: Loree Sutton, a former veteran affairs commissioner who has $398 on hand and $6,000 in outstanding liabilities. She said her campaign has experienced some bumps but that she is reorganizing and “is in this race and in it to win it.”A former Wall Street executive joins as a RepublicanThe Democratic primary in June is expected to decide the mayor’s race, with registered Democrats far outnumbering Republicans in New York City. But there is also a Republican primary in June, and a new candidate entered the race last week: Sara Tirschwell, a former Wall Street executive who once filed a #MeToo complaint against her boss.In an interview, Ms. Tirschwell touted her experience as a single mother and a moderate Republican with liberal social views. She highlighted her “managerial competence” as a rare woman who rose to high positions at financial firms.“I think there is a need for a moderate in this race, and it’s not clear that a moderate is going to survive a Democratic primary in New York City,” she said.Ms. Tirschwell, who grew up in Texas, echoed the complaints of many Republicans — and some Democrats — that “Bill de Blasio is probably the worst mayor in our lifetime.” But she did not want to discuss the recent violence in Washington or Mr. Trump’s impeachment.“This race is about New York, and it’s about New Yorkers and the crisis that this city faces, and that is what my campaign is focused on,” she said.Other names that have been floated in the Republican primary: John Catsimatidis, the billionaire owner of the Gristedes grocery store chain; Fernando Mateo, an advocate for livery cabdrivers who was linked to a scandal over Mr. de Blasio’s fund-raising; and Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Yang Presses Forward, Wiley Is Sidelined: Highlights From Mayor’s Race

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyYang Presses Forward, Wiley Is Sidelined: Highlights From Mayor’s RaceAndrew Yang met with the Rev. Al Sharpton, and Maya Wiley is in quarantine. Yet another candidate joined those seeking to become New York City’s next mayor.Andrew Yang met last week with the Rev. Al Sharpton, discussing his vision for New York City and the problems he thought were most pressing.Credit…Pete Marovich for The New York TimesDec. 28, 2020Updated 4:32 a.m. ETFew elected officials seem more eager than Mayor Bill de Blasio to put, as he phrased it, this “God-forsaken” year behind him. But 2020 was not without its lessons for this mayor and for those seeking to succeed him.On Wednesday, Mr. de Blasio said this year had taught him the importance of self-care, and he recommended that whoever succeeds him bear that lesson in mind.“One thing I’ll tell you that I’ve learned — this is something Chirlane used to lecture me on all the time — that sleep really matters,” said the mayor, referring to his wife, Chirlane McCray. “And I’ve not been someone who has traditionally gotten enough sleep.”No one disputes the value of sleep. Yet it seemed bizarre for the mayor — whose sometimes somnolent approach to schedule-keeping prompted The New York Post to give him an alarm clock in 2014 — to focus on his sleeping habits.Sure enough, his comments provoked ridicule on social media, another Post front-page headline — “Bedtime for Blasio”— and an opportunity for several mayoral hopefuls to offer their own lessons that they learned this year.Here’s what you need to know about the week that was in the mayor’s race.The path to City Hall still goes through HarlemBefore actually running for mayor of New York City, many candidates follow an informal task list: Quietly consult with New York political hands; register a campaign committee but insist it is merely exploratory in nature; and then, after a dutiful amount of time has passed, declare.And somewhere in the middle of all that, meet with the Rev. Al Sharpton.Representative Max Rose of Staten Island is most of the way through that process. He met with Mr. Sharpton in November and filed for his campaign committee in early December but has yet to formally announce he’s running.He’s now in lock step with Andrew Yang.Mr. Yang met with Mr. Sharpton on Tuesday, and on Wednesday, he formally opened a mayoral campaign committee with the New York City Campaign Finance Board. Per the script, someone close to his formative campaign insisted the move was merely procedural — that Mr. Yang registered so that if and when he decides to run, no bureaucratic hurdles will stand in his way.In an interview, Mr. Sharpton said Mr. Yang was better prepared than he had expected him to be. Mr. Yang, who ran for president on the promise of creating universal basic income, talked about alleviating poverty, improving broadband access, food deserts and bringing “the fizzle” back to New York City, Mr. Sharpton said.The meeting came about because Mr. Yang asked for it. That’s no surprise, according to the reverend.Mr. Sharpton runs a prominent civil rights organization, hosts his own radio and television shows and holds weekly rallies simulcast on the radio. He says more than 60,000 people tune in.“Some of the right-wing media says, ‘Oh, they’re kissing Sharpton’s ring,’” Mr. Sharpton said. “No, they’re using my platform to talk to prime voters.”Another one joins the scrumArt Chang, a former JPMorgan Chase managing director, is not the first mayoral candidate to position himself as an outsider — someone who is not beholden to special interests or burdened by decades of political baggage.But no other outsider shares his back story: a Korean-American resident of Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, with a degree from Yale in women’s studies and a childhood spent with an abusive father.On Dec. 21, Mr. Chang, 57, announced he was running for mayor, and on Thursday he released his first campaign video.He says his heart is “on the far left,” but it’s also important to be able to get things done.Comparing himself to his competitors, he said, “I don’t think I’m like any of them, and I will put myself in a lane which is very, very different from any of them, because of what I’ve done and what I’ve been through in my life.”Mr. Chang was born in Atlanta, grew up in a white school district in Akron, Ohio, and lived with an abusive father and a strong mother, he said. He has worked in and around city and state government since the 1990s, including at the corporation counsel’s office and at the agency now known as Empire State Development. He has also worked in venture capital and has served on the boards of the Brooklyn Public Library, Safe Horizon and the Campaign Finance Board.Should he become mayor, he would institute universal day care for all children from the age of 1 to serve “a city of people who primarily live on the edge.”“These communities need leadership now more than ever,” Mr. Chang said.They’re just like usMaya Wiley announced that she was quarantining for 14 days after being in contact with someone who has tested positive for Covid-19. Credit…Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesAs it turns out, being a mayoral candidate in the year 2020 is not all that different from being any other sort of New Yorker in the year 2020: You spend a lot of time at home.Forced off the hustings by the threat of contagion, the mayoral candidates have been severely constrained in their ability to glad-hand parishioners at Brooklyn churches or kibitz with nursing home residents.Asked to reflect on the lessons they’ve learned about themselves, they will say, like so many of us, that 2020 has reminded them of what they truly value — time with family, small acts of kindness, the release that comes from a walk in the park.“The pandemic has brought us back to the family dinner table, reminding us that we like sitting together,” Maya Wiley, the mayor’s former counsel, said. “But I’ve learned that listening to each other, hearing about our days and what’s on our minds is also a matter of emotional survival.”Joycelyn Taylor, who owns a general contracting firm, said this upside-down world has reminded her of the importance of flexibility. “The expression, ‘We make plans and God laughs,’ comes to mind,” she said.As the father of two young children, Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, faced another challenge.“I also had to learn how to do third-grade math,” he said. “It’s a humbling experience, especially when you’re essentially the chief accountant of the City of New York. In my defense, they changed math.”As for sleep?“I already knew the value of sleep,” said Kathryn Garcia, the mayor’s former sanitation commissioner who is now running for mayor herself. “I’ve done a few emergencies in my time.”No one is immuneThe virus has profoundly changed the mayoral race, dominating the issues and affecting the way candidates raise money and gather attention. It has also hit some candidates more directly.Shaun Donovan, a former Obama administration housing secretary now running for mayor, caught a mild case of the virus earlier this year. Mr. Stringer’s mother died of Covid-19, and now Ms. Wiley is in quarantine following a possible exposure.“I’ve been in contact with someone who has tested positive for Covid,” she wrote on Twitter last Tuesday. “So quarantining for 14 days and awaiting my Covid-19 test results.”The well-wishes poured in, including from Mr. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, who said he hoped to see her back on the campaign trail soon.Ms. Wiley is the first major candidate to be sidelined from a race that — like much of life these days — is largely being conducted from the sidelines, anyway.After Mr. Stringer’s mother died, he mourned with those who loved her, remotely.“I didn’t know you could have a shiva over text,” he said. “But that’s 2020 for you — we all learned that you don’t need to be together to feel close.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More