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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Happy Friday, everybody. We'll start today with another look at a specific issue in the New York City mayoral race. With mail-in voting already underway, primary day is June 24th. There is only a Democratic Party primary for mayor. The Republican nominee will be Curtis Sliwa, as he was in 2021.

Our issue for today, getting shockingly little attention to my eye compared to how central it is to New Yorkers, is the state of education in the city's public schools. We will replay all the answers from the nine candidates in Wednesday night's debate sponsored by NBC TV and Politico. They only got 30 seconds each on the topic, so we can get through these easily enough as ways to launch a conversation. Obviously, they couldn't solve public education in 30 seconds, but it was interesting to me that different candidates were raising different strategies and emphases. Let's discuss.

With us for this is Alex Zimmerman, reporter at the education news website Chalkbeat, who has written about education and the candidates. Alex, thanks so much for coming on for this. Welcome to WNYC.

Alex Zimmerman: Thanks. It's great to be here, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Here's how the moderator, Sally Goldenberg from Politico asked the question.

Sally Goldenberg: The city spends more of its tax dollars on public schools than anything else. After shelling out some $40,000 a year per student, only about half of New York City kids can read or do math at grade level. Only half. Bottom line here, what do you see as the top reason for that dismal return on this $41 billion-a-year investment? How would you turn it around as mayor?

Brian Lehrer: That was the question. Now, we'll play the first three answers that candidates gave from Michael Blake, Zohran Mamdani, and Whitney Tilson. Here's Michael Blake, the former assemblyman from the Bronx, aide to President Obama and former vice chair of the Democratic National Committee.

Michael Blake: We have to address literacy and have a better pedagogy on the front end so that our teachers and our educators and families are able to make sure that we address this critical issue. It's the reason why I led the My Brother's Keeper program. It also means that we have to be clear to be against any anti-blackness that is happening in our schools and something that many people may not realize.

In 2008, Andrew Cuomo said that no candidate should shuck or jive in an election. Clearly, Barack Obama was there. When we talk about education, it's not just about making sure that we're understanding how more kids can read-

Sally Goldenberg: We're at time, Mr. Blake.

Michael Blake: -but making sure we address the anti-blackness in schools.

Sally Goldenberg: We're at time, Mr. Blake.

Brian Lehrer: Michael Blake, as you hear, he used that last thought as a jumping-off point to attack Andrew Cuomo on something else, but he related it to education. Next, Queens Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani.

Zohran Mamdani: All of the challenges that we are facing in our city when it comes to our schools, they are also downstream from the fact that 500,000 of our children are going to sleep hungry every single night. 100,000 of them, for the ninth consecutive year, are now homeless. We need to ensure we have a city where our children can not only have food to eat, a place to call their home, and we also have to have-

Sally Goldenberg: We're at time, Mr. Mamdani.

Zohran Mamdani: -the full implementation of class size reduction.

Sally Goldenberg: We're at time.

Brian Lehrer: Zohran Mamdani. Next, former hedge fund manager Whitney Tilson, who is also on the board of the KIPP Charter School Network. Here we go.

Whitney Tilson: The failure of our public schools is Exhibit A of how city government spends way too much and delivers far too little. Our kids are reading below Mississippi's. Despite spending $40,000 a kid, they're the poorest state in the nation spending $12. If you're a business person, I know, and I am, for 40 years, it's bad management. There are few, if any, rewards for success and few, if any, consequences for failure. I served on the board of KIPP Charter Schools for more than 20 years, and 15% of our public schools, the charter schools, are held accountable. Not surprisingly, they are the best public schools overall in the city, delivering for kids.

Brian Lehrer: Whitney Tilson. Again, our guest on education and the mayoral race is Alex Zimmerman from the education news site Chalkbeat. Listeners, we can take your calls and questions and comments, your texts as well for questions and comments. Parents, teachers, anyone else, what do you think is the number one reason educational outcomes aren't better than they are in New York City? What's the first thing you would do about it, or ask any question of our guests? 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692. Call or text. As we go, we'll play the short answers from each of the other six candidates.

Alex, the premise of the question, that only half the kids in the system do math or read at grade level, is that the stat you would use at Chalkbeat, too?

Alex Zimmerman: Yes. Those stats are based on the state standardized tests that students take every single year in reading and math. The most recent results we have suggest that just over half of students are proficient in math and just under half are proficient in reading. The reading scores have obviously gotten a lot of attention because Mayor Eric Adams has put so much focus on improving literacy outcomes.

Brian Lehrer: Right. We'll come back to that. How much is that stat, that 50% stat, new or worse since the pandemic? Because people talk so much about pandemic learning loss. How much could a debate moderator have asked the same question in 2019?

Alex Zimmerman: I think these are long-standing trends. Successive mayoral administrations have seen those stats and tried to advance education agendas to address them. Under Mayor de Blasio, we had a big expansion of pre-K and some efforts to turn around struggling schools, and also some literacy efforts in that administration. I think you could look at the stats over the past several years and you would not see an enormous amount of improvement over that time.

Brian Lehrer: Let's talk about those first three answers, then we'll go on to more candidates. Whitney Tilson, who we heard there last, the long-shot candidate, a past hedge fund manager, is actually running centrally on education, with charter schools as the heart of his program. He and Assemblymember Mamdani, who we heard before him, have at least one big specific disagreement, and that's on the issue of the state's class size law. Mamdani, in his answer, called for full implementation of the class size law. Tilson, I have read, is also promising to fight that mandate. Let's start there. Can you explain the class size law?

Alex Zimmerman: Yes. Back in 2022, the state legislature passed a law that requires New York City public schools to sharply reduce class sizes. The new caps require that classrooms have no more than 20 to 25 students in most cases. That's down as many as-- I think it's up to 34 under the current union contract. It's a pretty sharp reduction. In order to meet that mandate, the city is going to have to hire thousands and thousands of new teachers and also have to figure out what to do about school space.

There are hundreds of schools in New York City that basically don't have space to open new classrooms to staff smaller classes. That either requires the city to build a bunch of new classroom space, which, as listeners might imagine, is a long and expensive undertaking, or schools can do other strategies. The city can cap enrollment at popular campuses. That is obviously a controversial move. A lot of parents don't want popular schools to enroll fewer students. It's a really tricky issue that the next mayor is going to have to figure out.

While Mayor Eric Adams has made some efforts to address the class size cap question, including giving schools some additional money in their budgets to hire more teachers, they haven't really yet released a long-term plan that will lay out how every single New York City public school will get below those caps. Another thorny issue that the next mayor is going to have to figure out is whether schools will get exemptions to the law. The law spells out a whole exemption process that requires the stamp of approval from the principal and teachers' unions. That's another thorny issue that the next mayor is going to have to negotiate too.

Brian Lehrer: That's why Mamdani, in his answer, called for full implementation. The city isn't complying fully so far. What's Whitney Tilson's objection? I know you just laid out some of the obstacles, but if he says the public school system has too much money, he could say, "Well, we could spend that money better," or isn't spending its money efficiently, he could say, "Okay, if class size matters, then we could spend the money on really implementing this." Does he not think class size-- I mean, this is mom and apple pie for so many education advocates. Common sense they would argue as a central principle. Each kid gets a lot of attention. What's Tilson's central objection?

Alex Zimmerman: I think broadly, this is an argument that Tilson and others have made about the class size law. I think the main objection is that right now New York City schools are in a situation where enrollment is declining, so there are fewer students. I think some folks are nervous about implementing a law that is going to require a pretty substantial amount of teacher hiring. Just next year alone, the city is planning to hire 3,700 additional teachers on top of the 5,000 or so teachers that hires in a regular year anyway. That is just going to be a really expensive proposition.

I think the other kind of critique of the law is that the city's highest-need schools already tend to have smaller class sizes. There's a fairly progressive funding formula in place in New York City public schools. There's a real concern that the additional teacher hiring is going to be focused disproportionately on lower-need schools, so lower-poverty schools, and that by implementing the law, you run the risk of shortchanging the neediest schools to the benefit of lower-need schools. I think there's a broader equity concern with the law, too.

I think you rightly point out that the Strongman case for the class size law is that it's just something that all students deserve, regardless of the neediness of the school in play. Obviously, in a school system where resources are not unlimited, there are trade-offs of implementing this law. I think that's the heart of what Tilson is objecting to. He's also a critic of, I think, the teachers union more broadly. I think his view is that hiring a bunch of new teachers at a time when enrollment is declining is-- In his word, I think he's framed it as a giveaway to the teachers' unions. I think that's his broader view.

Brian Lehrer: Tilson also promoted more charter schools, a perennial debate in the city, and raised the comparison with Mississippi, claiming they spend only $12,000 per year per student and have better outcomes than New York, which spends $40,000. Do you know if those Mississippi stats are true? $12,000 per pupil in the poorest state and better outcomes in New York?

Alex Zimmerman: That's a great question. I don't have that off the top of my head, so I'm reluctant to referee that particular statistical question. I will say, obviously, the cost of living in New York City is much higher. It is more expensive to operate a school system here than it is in Mississippi. You also want to take that into account when you're making those kinds of comparisons. I think you also want to be careful about looking at the neediness of the student population in play.

I know there has been careful research on New York City that suggests that taking costs into account and student need into account, New York City is still not getting the kind of academic outcomes you would expect given the amount of money they're spending. I think it's important to be careful about making just broad cross-state, cross-district comparisons without that context.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, want to weigh in on any of this so far on the class size law, on how much of a priority charter schools should be and expanding their number? 212-433-WNYC. 212-433-9692. Here is Mina in Brooklyn, who says a fourth-year high school math teacher, who wants to talk about class sizes. I think. Hi, Mina. You're on WNYC.

Mina: Hi, how are you doing, Brian?

Brian Lehrer: Good. What you got?

Mina: I'm a fourth-year high school math teacher. I'm a proud member of the UFTE. Not many people know this, but Zohran Mamdani's top donor was DOE teachers. He's the only candidate, like you said, who mentioned class size reduction in the debate. I teach 152 students every single day. It's not fair to them. I can't give them the resources they need. If you care about protecting our schools, I really strongly urge everyone listening to rank Zohran number one and to not rank Cuomo at all.

There's a lot of things you could talk about when it comes to class size reduction, but we know that Cuomo is pro-charter, he's pro-cuts to school funding, and he really doesn't care-- He cares more about his billionaire friends than our students and our families.

Brian Lehrer: All right, Mina, thank you very much. One for Mamdani and for the idea of limiting class sizes. 212-433-WNYC, for anyone else. In Michael Blake's answer, Alex, which we played, he mentioned pedagogy and literacy at the top and his involvement in the My Brother's Keeper program before he started his pivot to attack Cuomo for past comments.

Pedagogy and literacy call up the change the Eric Adams administration has made back to a phonics-based approach to reading. I know you wrote a whole article on Chalkbeat comparing the candidates on this. My impression is that all the candidates support that and would continue that phonics program called New York City Reads. Does it look like that to you?

Alex Zimmerman: Yes, I think it's really interesting. We're in a campaign where the candidates have basically been tripping all over themselves to criticize basically everything Eric Adams has done over the last four years. A major exception to that is his major reading overhaul, which is the biggest education initiative he's done as mayor. For listeners who aren't familiar, all New York City elementary schools have to use one of three reading curriculums, which is a really major change from previous practice, which is that principals used to be able to just pick whatever curriculums they wanted, and they've since expanded that to some middle schools, too.

Yes, you're right. It's really interesting that essentially all of the candidates agree that that curriculum mandate is a good idea. Now, I will say there is a little bit of nuance in some of their responses. For example, Mamdani, I think, has said that he would like teachers to have a little bit more leeway in how they implement the curriculum, which is a concern that I've heard from teachers, too.

I think broad strokes, folks are supportive of the reading curriculum mandate, but there's a little bit that remains to be seen about how they would implement that in future years and whether teachers would have more flexibility. Another thing a couple candidates have brought up in respect to that is that they would like higher-performing schools to have exemptions from the mandate, which is something that the Adams administration signaled early on that they would do, but have really only offered exemptions in a few limited cases.

Brian Lehrer: Alexandria in Manhattan here on WNYC. Hi, Alexandria.

Alexandria: Hi. Thank you so much for taking my call. I wanted to--

Brian Lehrer: Just for relevance, do I see that you're a pediatrician, you told our screener?

Alexandria: Yes, I am a pediatrician in Manhattan. I think it's really great that he brought up not only housing but also food insecurity.

Brian Lehrer: You're talking about Mamdani, right?

Alexandria: Yes, exactly. If you don't know where you're going to sleep at night, if you don't know where you're going to get your next meal, you can't really focus on learning and focus on reading. I think that was a really smart connection that he made, and I will be voting for him.

Brian Lehrer: Alexandria, thank you very much. Just to finish on Michael Blake, on the My Brother's Keeper program that he was a part of, their official website says President Obama launched the My Brother's Keeper program in February 2014 in response to the death of Trayvon Martin. The program sought to address the persistent opportunity gaps boys and young men of color face and to ensure all young people can reach their full potential. Michael Blake, who was an Obama aide, has been involved in that.

Let's go on to the next three clips of candidates on education in the debate. Here is former Governor Cuomo.

Speaker 8: Let's give Mr. Cuomo--

Andrew Cuomo: I'm proud that I raised education to the highest level of any state in the United States. I understand the point about we need to reform the education system. I would start with the DOE. They spend hundreds of million dollars on consultants. We don't know what we get. I want a real analysis of the curriculum, New York City Solves and New York City Reads. We need more paraprofessionals in those schools. One out of eight children are homeless. It's too much for a teacher to do.

Sally Goldenberg: Understood.

Andrew Cuomo: Pay the paraprofessionals. Pay the [crosstalk]

Speaker 8: Thank you, Mr. Cuomo.

Sally Goldenberg: We're at time, Mr. Cuomo. Thank you. I got it.

Brian Lehrer: Andrew Cuomo there. Next up with State Senator Zellnor Myrie of Brooklyn.

State Senator Zellnor Myrie: I wouldn't be standing on this stage if not for our city's public schools. I went to PS 161 - The Crown School and made my way to Cornell Law School with Brooklyn Tech and Fordham in between, only because there were teachers that got up every single day and put their best foot forward so that I can be on a path to success. We also have to think about what is happening after school. We had learning loss over COVID-19. I want to provide universal afterschool to help make up for that learning loss. I wouldn't be here today if I didn't have an afterschool program that taught me karate, even though I was terrible and I was the only one-

Sally Goldenberg: Thank you, Mr. Myrie.

State Senator Zellnor Myrie: -on that team that had the moves to prove it.

Sally Goldenberg: Thank you.

State Senator Zellnor Myrie: I want to give that to every single kid.

Sally Goldenberg: We're at time now.

Brian Lehrer: Zellnor Myrie. State Senator Jessica Ramos of Queens was next.

State Senator Jessica Ramos: Well, now I have to shout out PS 70, IS 10, and the Academy of American Studies in Astoria. I wouldn't be here without them. My children wouldn't be where they are in middle school in Queens if it wasn't for PS 69 in Jackson Heights. Look, it's true that our children suffered some lapses in developmental and social skills throughout the pandemic. I've seen it. I want to make sure that we are delivering on teacher centers so that our teachers have more supports, giving NYC-

Sally Goldenberg: Thank you, Ms. Ramos.

State Senator Jessica Ramos: -more time to really seep in, and really providing our District 75 schools with all of the funding they deserve.

Sally Goldenberg: Okay.

Brian Lehrer: Candidates Cuomo, Myrie, and Ramos in that set. Three more to go as we continue on the education answers and Wednesday night's debate and with our guest Alex Zimmerman, reporter for the education news site Chalkbeat. Alex, Cuomo said New York was the best in the nation when he was governor. Do you know based on what or if that's an accurate claim?

Alex Zimmerman: New York does spend a fair amount of money on education, so I'm not sure exactly what stat he was referring to there, but that may be what he was referring to. I did really think it was interesting that it signaled that one of his main priorities would be to hire more paraprofessionals. Partly because that's been such a huge priority of the UFT this election cycle. They've mounted a whole campaign pointing out that there are a lot of paraprofessional vacancies, which can be a really big problem for students. It was interesting to hear him focus on that particular point in his answer about what his entire education framework is.

Brian Lehrer: He also advocated better pay for paraprofessionals, partly because of the number of homeless kids in the system. For people who don't know, can you explain what a paraprofessional is and does in the city schools?

Alex Zimmerman: Yes. Paraprofessionals are essentially classroom aides who typically work with students with disabilities, and they really perform a wide range of functions. They might work one-on-one with students to help keep them on track in the classroom, make sure that they have access to the curriculum, they might help respond to behavioral concerns and help students regulate their behavior.

A key function they perform for many students with disabilities is riding the school bus with them. Some students require paraprofessionals to be bused to school. One consequence of the paraprofessional shortage that's been going on is some students are actually sitting at home because there's no paraprofessional to help ferry them to school. For some families, getting them to school is just like a really complicated logistical situation without a school bus.

Brian Lehrer: Since Cuomo was advocating better pay for paraprofessionals, are they poorly paid to the extent that that's why there are so many openings? People aren't even applying for those jobs?

Alex Zimmerman: Yes. That's certainly part of the union's argument. The starting salary for paraprofessionals is, I believe, under $32,000 a year. It is not a high-paid job. The city's teachers union has actually mounted a whole legislative push in City Council to try to legislate that paraprofessionals be paid more. That has not really gone anywhere in City Council, and it's a little bit of an unusual maneuver. That kind of thing is usually negotiated during the collective bargaining process. It is, again, interesting that Cuomo was highlighting that as one of his key priorities.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take our next caller. Lisa in Manhattan wants to go back to the charter school question. Lisa, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Lisa: Hi, thank you. I love this topic. I was a principal for 17 years at a charter school in Queens, Our World Neighborhood Charter School. Fantastic place. This idea that we should continue to have this anti-charter school rhetoric needs to end. Parents to choose. I can go here, there or wherever. If I have a lot of money, I can go to Fieldston or I can go here. I can go wherever I want.

There's enough studies, though, that show their charter schools are doing about the same as a general public school. That's the first thing that I wanted to say. The other thing, small class size, yes. 35 children in the class, way too high. However, the quality of the teacher is more important than a smaller class size. Studies show that as well. Cuomo, he wants to look at the curriculum. I say to Cuomo, let the professionals who have gone to school, gotten their masters plus 30 and all of these PDs that they have to go to look at the curriculum. My vote for Cuomo is a no.

Paras, yes. More paras, pay them more. However, unhoused children don't need paraprofessionals. They need a place to sleep, they need to eat, they need to be understood. If I have to get up at five o'clock every morning to get on a bus to go to a school and I'm expected to stay awake and then I'm expected to get a 304 on my state exam, you're asking too much of me. What I need is a place to live where I can sleep, where I can feel safe. Maybe what we need to think about is having affordable housing, low-income housing, not affordable housing, because a studio for $2,000 a month is not affordable. We need low-income housing for these babies.

Brian Lehrer: Let me go back to one thing you said at the beginning of your comment to follow up on being pro-charter schools. I think you said charter schools in the studies do about as well as the regular public schools. If they're only doing about as well, then why have these, that opponents of too many charter schools, say, cherry-picks kids who might come from the families with the parents who are the most organized to even apply to a charter school? Better to keep those kids in the pool with everybody else. What would you say to that critique?

Lisa: I'd say, first of all, charter school law says you cannot cherry-pick. It's like a lottery. Everybody's name goes into like a big hat, and the names of--

Brian Lehrer: They have to even enter the lottery, right? That's the question.

Lisa: Yes, but it's not that challenging. Granted, there's some not-so-great charter schools and not-so-great traditional public schools. We know that, but what we can no longer continue to do is lump all of these bad schools together. If you have a terrible charter school, you can't then bastardize charter schools that are doing great, like Our World Charter School, like Renaissance Charter School, like Growing Up Green. It's unfair.

It's the same thing with general public schools. You can't say that every public school is terrible. It's just not. PS 87, fantastic job. Shout out to Brooklyn Tech, wonderful. Yes, there are some schools that are not doing well. If we're going to have a conversation about what's working and what's not, let's be factual and let's be clear. The anti-charter school-- I'm sorry.

Brian Lehrer: No, no, I was just going to say we need to move on. You want to finish that thought? You can wrap it up. The anti-charter school movement. Go ahead.

Lisa: I was going to say the sentiment is so painful that when I would go to professional developments, I stopped saying where I worked because people would treat me like crap.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting.

Lisa: Let's give the kids what they need to be successful. Let them win. Let them choose.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much for your call. We really appreciate it. I guess thinking about all these education answers from the nine candidates, Alex, Tilson, who used to be on the board of the KIPP Charter School Network, promoted more charter schools. I don't think I heard any candidate oppose that. They didn't promote it either, but it was like it was not top of mind for them. I wonder how you heard that for you as an education reporter.

Alex Zimmerman: Yes, I think that's right. I think that the charter wars have cooled to an extent. I think partly that's because they've just fallen out of favor with lots of Democrats, both nationally and in New York City. I think that we have a cap on the number of charter schools that can open in New York City. Expanding the charter sector would involve action at the state level. Kathy Hochul, the current governor, has made some moves that have allowed more charter schools to open.

The other dynamic with the charter sector right now and really public education in New York City more broadly is that there are fewer students to go around. Enrollment is declining. Opening new charter schools creates tricky trade-offs even for the charter sector. If charter schools are competing for students with other charter schools, opening a bunch of new charter schools is going to mean other schools may have to close. That could be a traditional public school or it could be another charter school. I thiink-

Brian Lehrer: Interesting.

Alex Zimmerman: -there's some complicated dynamics right now, both politically, but also in terms of just where the sector is at that make it not top of mind.

Brian Lehrer: Back to that second set of clips. Jessica Ramos brought up teacher centers and District 75 schools, which are the special ed schools. What are teacher centers?

Alex Zimmerman: Those are essentially hubs where teachers can get support and training and coaching. My understanding is that many of them are embedded in schools themselves. I think that this is a partnership between the UFT and the city and state education departments. My sense of why she brought that up, obviously, she didn't have a lot of time to explain it, but her answer then transitioned back into New York City Reads.

My sense of why she was talking about teacher training in that context, a concern I've heard from a lot of educators, is that they were asked to implement this new curriculum mandate in some cases without an enormous amount of runway to learn it or support from the city. I think the city has, to its credit, invested in a lot of teacher training. I think, especially at the beginning, some of those efforts were pretty uneven. I think you're hearing some of that in Senator Ramos' answer.

Brian Lehrer: What would you say about the District 75 schools, which she was the only one who mentioned them? I know the preference is to mainstream kids with special needs, keep them with other kids as much as possible. Who's in District 75 schools? Do you know what Ramos had in mind to help them more?

Alex Zimmerman: Yes. District 75 is a network of specialized public schools that serve students with more complicated disabilities. Often, students who have autism or more significant behavioral challenges or just other disabilities that require more intensive support. Those schools are actually funded through a completely different mechanism than the rest of the city schools. There have been long-standing concerns about District 75 and whether those schools are being adequately supported, whether students are getting the support that they need. I imagine that's what she's thinking about, but it's a little hard to know because she didn't go into a lot of detail in her answer.

Brian Lehrer: We had two callers earlier promoting small class size. Actually, we had three, because Lisa, the former principal who was advocating charter schools, also said small class size. One listener writes, with another point of view, "There is very little research on class size." Dr. Achilles out of Seton Hall University really had the only deep research on this topic. His research called for a drastic cut in class size, 14 students to 1 teacher, not 28 students to 2 teachers. That does not work. The field ignored this research. That's another-- It's not anti-small class size but a particular point.

When we come back from a break, we'll play our final set of three candidates on education from Wednesday night's debate. In the 30 seconds, they each got on the topic. Take more of your calls and texts and continue with Alex Zimmerman from Chalkbeat. Stay with us.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we continue with the latest issue in our series of issue-specific conversations around the New York City mayoral race and the New Jersey gubernatorial race. We're focusing on the education answers that each of the nine candidates in Wednesday night's WNBC and Politico debate gave on education and trying to dive a little deeper than 30 seconds. It's hard to run those debates, folks, with so many candidates on the stage.

As it turned out, they each gave 30-second answers on education, and we're trying to explore those answers a little bit more, for those of you who consider that a central issue. As I said at the top of the show, I'm kind of amazed, as important as education is to all the families in New York City, how little attention it's getting in this race. Now, our final set of three candidates on education from Wednesday night's debate in those 30 seconds, beginning with City Comptroller Brad Lander.

City Comptroller Brad Lander: Both our kids, also pre-K to 12 in New York City Public Schools, shout out PS 107. 30 seconds is hard. I've got a detailed plan. I'm the only candidate in the race with a detailed plan on my website for education. How I'll measure what matters, what metrics I'm looking at, how I'll recruit, retain and support teachers, including a teacher center in every school, and how I'll deal with the growth we've seen in mental health crises, in homelessness, and in chronic absenteeism by making every school a community school so it can support all our students.

Brian Lehrer: Brad Lander there. Next was City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams.

City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams: Prior to becoming an elected official, I was the education chair for my local community board. Education has always been a priority for me. It always will be. We raised four children in the public school system. Again, I am that everyday New Yorker that knows what this feels like. We know that the DOE has the highest budget of all city agencies. What I would do would be to redeploy resources. I have seen, as council speaker, how difficult it is to maneuver through the DOE agency and the barriers of bureaucracy. As mayor, I will have full view in order to help all of our children get through the bureaucracy and get our children taught-

Sally Goldenberg: Thank you, Ms. Adams.

City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams: -the right way.

Brian Lehrer: Adrienne Adams there. Finally, former comptroller Scott Stringer.

Scott Stringer: My sons Max and Miles are going through public middle school as we speak. The challenge for them as COVID kids is very real. There's a lot of kids out there that need help and they need it now. They need mental health services, they need extra tutoring, and we're not providing that with this $40 billion budget. I know that because I audited the Department of Education more than any comptroller in history. Found missing computers, missing iPads at the height of COVID.

Here's what we have to do. Childcare, baseline pre-K, 3-K. We need an afterschool program that focuses on tutoring and giving kids that don't have parental resources financially the help they need. It doesn't matter how you start the race. It matters how you finish the race.

Sally Goldenberg: Thank you, Mr. Stringer.

Brian Lehrer: With Scott Stringer's answer, we now have replayed all nine candidates' answers on improving the New York City public schools from the Wednesday night debate as we continue to spotlight issues on this show and not just personalities and who's attacking who. We're discussing this one with Alex Zimmerman, reporter for the education website Chalkbeat, and with your calls and texts to 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692.

We had heard Jessica Ramos bring teacher centers into the conversation in her answer. Alex, now we heard Lander say a teacher center in every school and every community school. What does he mean by community school?

Alex Zimmerman: Community schools are schools that have a non-profit partner embedded directly into the campus. The goal of community schools is to provide a whole suite of wraparound social services to students in the school building. Those nonprofit partners typically do everything from setting up food pantries to helping staff mental health supports and dental clinics and just some do attendance outreach activities to try to catch students who are chronically absent. There's just a really wide range of things that those nonprofits do.

The idea of community schools is basically that like if you don't have those basic needs met, then it's really hard to learn. If you're hungry or have a toothache or don't have the correct glasses, these are all things that these organizations can help with to make sure that students have what they need to learn. The number of community schools has actually expanded really dramatically over the past decade. There used to be a few dozen of them, and now there are over 400. There are 1,600 schools total. Making that universal would be a really dramatic increase and would also be really expensive.

It is an interesting theory about how to do school improvement. It's not exactly like an academic intervention to do school turnaround. It is more built on the idea that students need these social service supports to be successful in school.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take another caller. Here's Julie in Brooklyn who says she's a school neuropsychologist. Julie, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Julia: Thank you for taking my call. Can you hear me clearly?

Brian Lehrer: I can, very clearly.

Julia: Thank you. I'm Dr. Julia Osborn. I am a school neuropsychologist. I specialize in evaluating and treating students who have reading difficulties. In that role, I've spent many hours in school classrooms observing the teaching of reading. I want to hone in on this one area of weakness in the New York City public schools.

Now, Joel Klein, a former chancellor in the Department of Education, has said that the decision he most regretted was the decision to purchase and mandate a reading instructional curriculum that had no science behind it. The city spent between $20 and $30 million on the Lucy Calkins program, Units of Study, and teachers were trained in the use of that program. All the subsequent research has shown that it does not teach children how to read very well, even though it's on computer.

Brian Lehrer: On that point, they all basically agree now. They've moved on from that curriculum back to something that's more phonics-based. All the candidates, as we discussed earlier, seem to support that.

Julia: The issue is that the implementation has been poor across New York City. In Mississippi, it took years of teacher retraining and buy-in for teachers to use a science-based program. That is what caused the reading scores to go up in Mississippi. It's not a quick fix. It's not six hours of professional development. It's really a multi-year effort. The only candidate that I have heard speak about how long an effort this has to be was Brad Lander, talking about having resources within each school, and also having in each borough a school specifically dedicated to teaching dyslexic students. This is not going to be a quick fix.

Brian Lehrer: Dr. Osborn, thank you very much for your call. We really appreciate it. Finishing up on the final two candidates, in Adrienne Adams' answer, she only talked about things from her experience to my ear, Alex, heading a local community board, she said. She didn't state any proposals for improving the schools. Do you know if she has one, or if, as City Council speaker, she has presided over significant education policymaking?

Alex Zimmerman: Yes, that's a really great question. My sense is that she is leaning really heavily on her work as City Council speaker, sort of fighting to restore funding for pre-K and 3-K programs that Mayor Eric Adams has tried to cut over the years and is really kind of leaning on those sorts of moves as like, "I will be a champion of all of these education programs that I've defended as City Council speaker." I have not heard a really clear affirmative agenda from her on how she wants to reshape the city school system and how she would manage it if she were mayor.

Brian Lehrer: Finally, Scott Stringer in that clip said, after COVID, kids need tutoring and mental health programs and we're not providing it. He also mentioned pre-K and 3-K and afterschool. Both he and Zellnor Myrie, whose clip we played before, emphasized afterschool to make up for COVID losses. Do you know what kind of tutoring or extra mental health support or, for that matter, extra afterschool, if any, the system has provided since COVID?

Alex Zimmerman: Yes, it's a really good question. When the city got several billion dollars worth of stimulus money, a lot of that money was actually earmarked toward academic recovery. A bunch of schools did Saturday academies or high-dosage tutoring efforts, which are more frequent and in smaller groups. I think it is really noteworthy that both Stringer and Myrie are focusing on those afterschool hours. I think that's part of this broader focus on affordability that has dominated the campaign.

Stringer's idea is basically to extend the school day to 4:30 PM, and Myrie's idea is to essentially have universal afterschool programs from 3-K through 12th grade. My understanding is that his idea is that those would run until 6:00. That would be a really big deal. There have been some expansions to afterschool programming in the past. Mayor Bill de Blasio expanded for middle schools pretty significantly, but there's still lots of students and lots of schools that don't have free afterschool programming. That really is a pain point for working families who have to figure out childcare in those hours.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, even though we're ending the segment, I want to throw in a little breaking New York City mayoral primary news. Alex, since you're a beat reporter on education in particular, not a general politics reporter, I don't know if you're going to have anything to say about this, but a little bit shocking here. New York Times headline, Jessica Ramos will endorse Andrew Cuomo for New York City mayor. It says the decision by Ms. Ramos, State Senator from Queens, is at odds with some of her past criticism of Mr. Cuomo, including comments questioning his "mental acuity."

That's pretty interesting. Jessica Ramos is one of the five that the Working Families Party, which is doing everything it can to defeat Cuomo, ranked. They ranked five candidates with Mamdani at the top and Jessica Ramos number five in an effort to prevent Andrew Cuomo from becoming governor. Now, State Senator Ramos, who says she's going to keep her name on the ballot officially still stay in the race. Probably too late to take her name off the ballot, but is going to appear at a Cuomo event today.

Let's see if I can get this. She said she's "staying in the race," but her endorsement of Mr. Cuomo is effectively an acknowledgement that she cannot win. She said she was supporting Mr. Cuomo because "he's the one best positioned right now to protect this city with Trump threatening to bulldoze New York." Any quick thought on that, Alex? You want to put on a politics reporter hat here for just a sec?

Alex Zimmerman: Yes, I can put on a little bit of politics-- I thought it was interesting watching the debate. All the candidates were asked who they would rank number two, and basically all of them--

Brian Lehrer: Nobody answered.

Alex Zimmerman: No one answered the question. I think in this final stretch of the campaign, there's going to be some pressure for candidates to signal who they want to be in coalition with. That's partly because of this ranked-choice voting system that we have where voters can pick up to five candidates. Someone smarter on the politics side than me will have to get into the weeds of what it means for Ramos to signal her support of Cuomo in that way. I do think we are likely to see some of this kind of thing happening in the final stretch, especially as there's been a pretty big push on more progressive circles to come up with a strategy to build coalitions among the left-leaning candidates.

Brian Lehrer: In particular, Mamdani, who is another state representative from Queens, who one might have thought was fairly allied with the progressive Jessica Ramos. Very interesting. Obviously, we'll follow up on that in future segments and in our newscast today.

We leave it there. Another issue in the mayoral primary. As a program note, WNYC, New York One, and the news organization The City will be hosting the next and final mayoral debate. I'll be one of the moderators. That'll be next Thursday night at 7:00 here on the station and on TV on New York One. We'll see how we follow up on the question of improving the city schools. For today, we thank Alex Zimmerman, reporter for the education news site Chalkbeat. Alex, thanks a lot.

Alex Zimmerman: Thanks, Brian, and really appreciate your focus on education.

 

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