[music]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Coming up later in the program environmentalist Bill McKibben with this week's climate question of the week on the Brian Lehrer Show. It's Ukraine war related actually we would be asking Bill McKibben can we use the oil and natural gas embargo against Russia as an opportunity to move more quickly away from fossil fuels in general? That's coming up.

Right now it's week 11 in our year long series 51 Council Members in 52 Weeks. With a new mayor in New York city and the majority of city council being rookies because of term limits, we figured it's a good year to go district by district through the whole city and talk to every city council member, thereby touching conditions and priorities in every neighborhood of New York City, the city of almost 9 million people.

We've been going in the districts' numerical order. Districts one through 10 are in Manhattan. Last week was Councilmember Carmen De La Rosa from District 10. Today we enter the Bronx. The next eight are in the Bronx with Councilmember Eric Dinowitz from District 11 which includes some or all of Bedford Park, Kingsbridge, Riverdale, Norwood, Van Cortlandt Village, Wakefield and Woodlawn.

Eric Dinowitz, age 36, grew up in the district and was a special education teacher for 13 years and a chapter leader for the United Federation of Teachers. He has been the aging committee chair of Bronx Community Board Eight and, yes, the name is familiar also because his father is the longtime state assemblyman from the area Jeffrey Dinowitz. I read that Eric Dinowitz sings in a Jewish-themed a cappella group sounds like a good thing. Certainly, an effective elected official needs to know how to raise his voice. Let's say who lives in District 11 and what they care about right now and as we're doing with all the members we'll see what Eric Dinowitz brought for show and tell. Councilmember Dinowitz, thanks for joining 51 Council Members in 52 Weeks and welcome to WNYC.

Eric Dinowitz: Good morning, it's great to be here.

Brian Lehrer: Did I get that right about singing in an a cappella group?

Eric Dinowitz: You did get that right. Actually on election day there were handful of people who said to me, "I'm not sure if I'm voting for you because I like your policies or because my daughter likes your music videos, but either way you got my vote." I will correct you on one thing. It's not my singing voice that I use to speak to crowds, it's my teacher voice where I'm able to project and speak over long distances.

Brian Lehrer: There you go. Was your political family growing up also a musical one?

Eric Dinowitz: No, they weren't. It was funny when my sister and I both started doing the musicals in elementary and middle school because my parents are both admittedly tone deaf. Music became a huge part of my life. It was one of my majors in college. As you mentioned I sang professionally with this group. It was a huge part of my professional life as well.

Brian Lehrer: Before we get off this, did you have to suspend during much of the pandemic? Coral singing was one of the first things that we heard two years ago was a risk for spreading the virus, remember?

Eric Dinowitz: Right, I remember the beginning of the pandemic very well. All of our gigs were canceled. They're starting up again. I'm obviously a little busier than I was two years ago but our gigs are starting up again and the guys going all over the country singing, bringing that joy back to Jewish communities all over the country.

Brian Lehrer: You learned to raise your voice as a teacher which probably means you also have eyes in the back of your head as teachers do.

Eric Dinowitz: I have eyes in the back of my head. I wouldn't say raise my voice. I'd say project my voice. We don't like to raise our voices [inaudible 00:04:03]

Brian Lehrer: I didn't mean you were yelling at the kids. You're a politician who grew up with your father as an elected official from the time you were nine years old, if I have my math right. What's a childhood memory of hearing your father talk about Albany politics as he was in the assembly or any specific issue that has stuck with you as you grew into this yourself?

Eric Dinowitz: It's funny a lot of people ask around the dinner table what are the I guess policy discussions that happened, and it's not really like that. I grew up with both a mother and a father who were committed to public service. My father, obviously, in the assembly, even before that he was a Democratic district leader and he was a community activist. My mother served on the board of our building and of the community center and of our synagogue. Both parents really set for me an example of what it means to be a public servant.

It was with that example that was instilled in me from an early age. I'd be going around on Thanksgiving distributing food to the elderly or the homebound or the homeless and doing the parks cleanups. With those values instilled in me, I became a public school special education teacher and I did it right in the neighborhood in which I was raised. It was more about the values than any particular bill that was passed. As an elected official now one of the things that I did see growing up and looking back on was I was often confused with the disdain some people would talk about politicians.

Because I saw my dad if he wasn't in Albany he was in the community at an event doing work for people. If he wasn't in the community he was in his district office. He was always working to help people to make their lives better. That was the example I saw and I take that example with me to my office. One of the things people know, they saw this during the campaign, they see it now, is I try to be everywhere. I try to do that work for everyone. If I'm not there I'm in City Hall, if I'm not in City Hall I'm in the office because we want to make a better Bronx for our children and our children's children.

Brian Lehrer: You were as you say a special education teacher and if I have my timeline right for 13 years. You're only 36 so that was most of your adult life so far. What special education and where?

Eric Dinowitz: It's very nice of you to say only 36. I appreciate that very much. I started teaching when I was 21 years old in a school that was about a five minute walk from where I grew up. In New York City, it was a high school, the way the special education works is if you have a disability you get some service. They mix in one class students who-- Hi, I sure am, yes, but I'm on the radio right now. Let me give you my card and you can--

Speaker 3: I called your office before.

Eric Dinowitz: Okay, good.

Speaker 3: Nobody called me back.

Eric Dinowitz: I'm so sorry. What's your name?

Speaker 3: My name is [inaudible 00:07:11]

[background conversation]

Brian Lehrer: I love this. Politician at work. Let's keep listening. Notice that he turned away from talking to the thousands of you to talk to one constituent.

Eric Dinowitz: We got a phone, hello.

Brian Lehrer: Are you back?

Eric Dinowitz: City council got it. I'm back. That was a constituent, an unhappy one. It happens. They reached out to my office. There were people who did a FOIL request of the entire city council.

Brian Lehrer: Freedom of Information Law Request, on what?

Eric Dinowitz: Yes, a surety bond and the oath that we took. A lot of these are rooted in, I don't mean to digress from the other part of the conversation, but, a lot of these requests or a lot of the complaints we get are from people who have real problems with vaccines and are anti-vaxxers. A lot of the angry and, honestly in many cases, anti-Semitic emails we get and calls and protests are surrounding the anti-vaxxers and the vaccination rules that we have in our city. Rules that have kept people safe, kept people out of hospitals and rules that we've had for years about all sorts of other vaccines.

I say tongue in cheek, do you remember the polio outbreak of 2009? Do you remember the mumps outbreak of 2010? The answer is no, because we're vaccinated, our children are vaccinated and they're kept safe and so that's why vaccines are so important. I know you're honoring some of the people who are providing vaccines early in the pandemic. You mentioned it one of the previous segments.

Brian Lehrer: Our special tonight at eight o'clock.

Eric Dinowitz: That's wonderful. That was one of my focuses early on when I was sworn in in April, was getting that access to my community. The Bronx was extremely hard hit by the pandemic. We worked very hard early on to provide that vaccine access and now a lot of the work is ensuring we have culturally responsive vaccine outreach because the access is there, but we need to keep pushing with the education to make sure that people know the benefits and how safe and effective these vaccines are.

Brian Lehrer: Let me tie this back to what we were talking about before that constituent came up to you which was special education kids. Where do you think we are now if you can generalize? I realize there are so many kinds of special education students in so many different circumstances. What conditions are some who you would point out in now and what kinds of policies are needed as things, hopefully, keep moving toward normal?

Eric Dinowitz: Well, normal, I'm going to put that in quotation marks. I think if you could focus on one thing whether you're a child with special needs, a family with a child with special needs or a kid without an IEP, I think a lot of our problems center on the assessment that we require our students to take and that the teachers are required to give students and the principals and the schools are judged on.

Let's take high school, for example, just as an example. We are asking every kid, no matter their skill level, no matter their ability and no matter what we actually need them to do for themselves, for their families, and future our city to take these Regents exams, which don't reflect the needs and the abilities of our society at large. When I had self-contained classes, there were some years where I was forced to give students who could barely read these Regents exams. It wasn't measuring what they could or couldn't do. Structuring my lessons around a test was a big waste of time for them. One of the greatest gifts my first principal gave me-- This was a principal who had taught for many years.

She was an assistant principal and she founded the school. One of the greatest gifts she gave me was when she said, "Eric, don't worry about the Regents. You have a self-contained class. Teach them valuable lessons." We went over it. Instead of teaching to a test in my global studies class, for example, I was able to go in deep about different cultures and religions. I believe that that is what we need to do to address hate crimes which are, obviously, on the rise, especially in the Jewish and the Asian communities, but really experiencing those cultures, spending a significant amount of time on that.

I was able to bring my science class, myself contained science class, to the garden and really address skills that would benefit them both in the job market and in their lives. I had students who were planting seeds and transplanting plants, putting them in the ground, growing fruit, eating that fruit. As a result, a number of students changed their diets. Any teacher will tell you this, how many students they have coming in with Doritos and soda for breakfast. Well, some of those kids change their diets as a result of having experienced getting their hands dirty, putting the seeds in the ground.

Brian Lehrer: Now you have our vegan mayor's attention too.

Eric Dinowitz: I guess so. We talk about food justice. We talk about health and yet in our schools, we're just asking our kids to take a test that is no relationship to what our students really need. Going back to the question, whether you're a kid with special needs, whether or not we really have to focus on what it is we want our kids to do what is going to better their lives and what is going to better the lives of everyone here in our city.

Brian Lehrer: This is WNYC, FM, HD and AM New York, WNJT FM 88.1 Trenton, WNJP 88.5 Sussex, WNJY 89.3 Netcon, and WNJO 90.3 Toms River. We are in New York and New Jersey public radio and live streaming at wnyc.org. Few minutes left with city council District 11 Councilmember Eric Dinowitz from the Bronx as we are in week 11 of our year-long citywide series 51 Council Members in 52 Weeks.

We'll squeeze in a couple of phone calls for Councilmember Dinowitz. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 or tweet a question @BrianLehrer. I want to ask you, your district is very diverse. Riverdale is whiter and more affluent than the other neighborhoods you represent. Some are all of Bedford Park, Kingsbridge, Norwood, Van Cortlandt Village, Lakeville, Woodlawn. What's your rough demographic breakdown?

Eric Dinowitz: It's about a 39%, 40% as of last census Hispanic, about a third white. It's a little under 20% Black, and then a mix of other things making out the rest.

Brian Lehrer: What would you say are the top concerns in your district and how much do they differ demographically within?

Eric Dinowitz: It's really interesting. Especially whether it's in the campaign knocking on those doors, I set up tables in every corner of the district to do office hours everywhere in the district to make sure I'm physically present everywhere. I think a lot of people try to distinguish between race and ethnicity, and there are unique aspects to each ethnicity and beautiful things about that. Most people, there's a lot of things that unite us. Most people want a really good quality of life. Most people want to be safe and they want a good education for their kids and for their grandkids. That is something that I've focused on as a Councilmember. It's something I focused on in the campaign, things that really unite and I am working to address those issues.

Brian Lehrer: What's one of your top education policies coming out of being 13 years a teacher, as well as a leader of your local UFT branch?

Eric Dinowitz: I think one of my top priorities, I spoke a little bit about it, is what we're asking our kids to do, how we are assessing our kids and what we are incentivizing our students and schools to do. I think I mentioned this earlier, but right now we're really just incentivizing our kids to get a good score on the test. That's how the schools are judged. They're judged on credit accrual, but we have real needs for our children and the future of our city. Mental health is something that everyone's started talking about now, which is good. It's something anyone who's a teacher or a parent probably was speaking about before the pandemic, but it's really come to light since the beginning of the pandemic.

We are not testing on it. Teachers have no incentive to teach it. The principals have no incentive invest in it. I would say, despite that we still have so many teachers and schools leaning into the social-emotional learning, leaning into that mental health education, integrating it into the curriculum, but unless the incentives, whether it's for credits, whether it's school grade, whether it's a test score, unless the incentives are there, you're not really going to have systemic change in terms of integrating and supporting mental health.

Brian Lehrer: Do you think that David Banks, the new school's chancellor who laid out a vision for the schools recently is on the same page as you?

Eric Dinowitz: I think so. I like the vision. The question is always, how are we going to get it done? I have spoken with Chancellor Banks about some of my priorities, some of his priorities. The question is how are you going to get this done? That's always the question. I'm looking forward to that work to make sure that our kids get what they need, that our families get what they need so those students can provide for their kids and for their whole community.

Brian Lehrer: Our time is go going by so quickly. Let me get one phone call in here for you. I know we got a little squeezed because we went so long with Colonel Vinman with the breaking news from Ukraine and the Congress. Karen in the Bronx, you're on WNYC with Councilmember Eric Dinowitz. Hello.

Karen: Hi. Nice to meet you.

Eric Dinowitz: Karen, hi. Nice to meet you.

Karen: Yes. Hi. Now I just had a question about the gifted and talented program and I know the last cycle, it was a lottery. Then under the last mayor, they said that it was going to be individualized per student. I just wanted to know what's the latest update and if we could possibly go back to the old program.

Eric Dinowitz: Got it. Thank you. The latest update, I haven't heard a very recent update from the mayor. I will tell you that I value the gifted and talented programs. I don't love the single high-stakes test for a four-year-old. I think we can do a little better than that. I think we could do a lot better than a lottery. I think we have to recognize that different students have different needs at different ages. I see everything positive about providing different students with different challenges and it's not just academic.

Like I mentioned, just in the context of things like the specialized high school exam, because I think that's something that people are a little more familiar with. You have people attacking a single exam, instead of saying, how can we diversify our teaching? How can we diversify our assessments to provide more opportunities to students and not just pretend that every single child is the same, not pretend that every single child has the same needs.

Brian Lehrer: Let's do a quick lightning round to finish up.

Eric Dinowitz: A lightning round? Okay.

Brian Lehrer: First, before we get to the lightning round, we invited every council member, including yourself to bring a show and tell item, a virtual one, for the radio, of course, from your district. What did you bring us for show and tell? As a teacher you should have experience with this, at least on the receiving end.

Eric Dinowitz: We didn't do much show-and-tell in high school, but that was the age of the students I taught. There's so many parts of my district, but I did want to show off Van Cortlandt. Can we call it show off and tell?

Brian Lehrer: Sure, show off and tell.

Eric Dinowitz: I wanted to show off and tell about.

Brian Lehrer: Boast and tell.

Eric Dinowitz: Thank you. Sure, boast and tell. You got to call it that moving forward. Boast and tell, I got Van Cortlandt Park. Besides being the third largest in the city, I know Central Park gets tons of attention, but Van Cortland Park really is the best. We got the Putnam trail. We have nature trails. We have tracks. We have two different playgrounds. We have the spray showers. We have a baseball field, a football field. We have horseback riding there. We got everything there. I invite everyone from all over the city to come up to Van Cortlandt Park. We even have golf. Do you play golf? Whatever, come up.

Brian Lehrer: I love Van Cortlandt Park too. I live not all that far from there, near the upper tip of Manhattan. I love going to Van Cortlandt Park for all those things. You have crickets and you have cricket. Lightning round. Quick questions, quick answers.

Eric Dinowitz: Sure.

Brian Lehrer: What's the number one thing constituents have contacted your office about since you became a council member a year ago next week?

Eric Dinowitz: Sanitation stuff and DOT.

Brian Lehrer: What's one area of policy where you've seen actual progress during your lifetime in the city?

Eric Dinowitz: During my whole lifetime? That's a long way off. That's a long way. Look, I have seen some progress in some of the rhetoric around education, around talking about incorporating mental health, social, emotional learning, and being inclusive of children with special needs. It's time our policy matched that rhetoric.

Brian Lehrer: Do you have a favorite sport as a fan or follow sports at all?

Eric Dinowitz: I'm a father of twins. They're seven years old, so it's mostly them wrestling in the house. That's probably the closest thing to a sport I'm going to get.

Brian Lehrer: Do you want the city to lift its vaccine mandate for in-person employees so the Yankees can play in the Bronx, Aaron Judge and others who aren't vaccinated? Or do you want to put the pressure on the players?

Eric Dinowitz: Do not lift the vaccine mandates. They work. They keep people safe and out of the hospital.

Brian Lehrer: What's your least and most favorite thing about living in New York?

Eric Dinowitz: The least? Nothing. I love it. I think the most favorite thing is certainly the people, especially in my district. We have so many small community groups who are so dedicated to beautifying their neighborhood, making their neighborhood better. In fact, I'm just across the street from some construction and I see some neighbors and community board members looking at this building that's going up to really make their voice heard. Every building, every tree pit matters to the people of New York. I love seeing that.

Brian Lehrer: Lastly, what's one food from your family tradition or anything else that other people might like to try?

Eric Dinowitz: I'm not going to say a food. I'm going to say an experience. The experience is a Passover Seder. Passover's coming up. I really encourage everyone to try to find themselves a Seder because it really is an experience, not just about food, but about storytelling and experiences, and a lot of shared values and shared history, actually.

Brian Lehrer: I'll leave my apartment door open for Elijah and for you.

Eric Dinowitz: There you go.

Brian Lehrer: This is City Councilmember Eric Dinowitz, who represents District 11 in the Northwest Bronx. Thanks for joining our 51 Council Members in 52 Weeks series.

Eric: Thank you for having me.

 

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