Immediate Priorities

 COVID Recovery

While the next Mayor won’t take office till halfway through the next school year, it’s impossible to ignore the massive impact the last year’s crisis has had on our public school system, its teachers, and its students. In collaboration with the UFT and other relevant unions, the City’s first priority should be to safely re-open the school system after teachers and administrators have been vaccinated. This includes CUNY.

• We must have Universal Broadband and wi-fi equipped devices for every student.

• We must restart extra-curricular activities, including sports, with built-in safety measures like frequent COVID testing and having students pledge to not interact with other kids outside of their “pod”.

• We must protect and expand the Summer Youth Employment Program.

• We must fund a substantial increase in mental health and guidance counselors in all schools. Then, we must destigmatize mental illness through the same lens as physical illness. Too often, especially for BIPOC students, the response to mental illness is punitive, rather than looking at the whole student holistically with compassion, understanding, and treatment.

Digital School

With so many students experiencing housing insecurity, homelessness, and other issues, I propose creating an optional, primarily online school in which classmates, faculty, and staff, especially counselors, remain a constant in students’ changing life circumstances.

Student Loans

We can partner with the private sector to create a vehicle to refinance student loans held by NYC residents.

I believe the ultimate goal of education is to equip students with the confidence, skills, and knowledge needed to handle the challenges they will confront in a rapidly changing world.

To do this, we need to cultivate students who:

1. Know their roles and responsibilities in our civic society,

2. Will make a positive contribution to our economy,

3. Have the capabilities needed to support and care for their families, and

4. Understand how to take care of themselves.

To prepare people to thrive in a rapidly changing future, we must invite their curiosity to acquire not only knowledge in core subjects, but in digital literacy, freedom to express and invent, and the ability to work as a team member. Students should leave high school being able to think strategically and understand what it means when a fact is known to be true through the scientific method.

Education is a lifelong process.

• We must support parents, especially mothers, starting at pregnancy

• Success in education means a focus on families, not just students

• Universal Childcare will level the playing for all children starting at infancy

• Not every student develops or experiences life in the same way at the same time (see next)

Individual education plans for every student

Today, NYC public schools are still failing our 1.1 million students and their families, especially BIPOC students and students with special needs. Our school system sadly remains the most racially segregated in the nation, and it is a system of educational disparities in many ways. We must change this now. 

Our schools should meet every student where they are, with individualized learning plans. Children are not all identical drones to be forced through a uniform mold we call “graduating.” And if we expect graduates to make a positive contribution to their families and communities, we should also include within their IEP career counseling and workforce development options.

NYC’s public schools and CUNY should be the vehicle to unlock human potential for every New Yorker. So, how will a system as large as New York City’s be capable of meeting students where they’re at? 

• Pioneer and scale online learning, especially in the high schools and CUNY. This can also be utilized in our effort to desegregate our school system, by allowing students to attend specialized classes at schools across the city.

• For the most advanced students, enable a fluid transition from high school to college, leveraging online resources and CUNY. Why shouldn’t qualified high school students to be able to take college courses at CUNY, for college credit that can ultimately go toward completing their degrees?

• Successfully educating at-risk and special needs students requires the successful integration of multiple city agencies: education, housing, health, probation, and more. These students are often failed by poor coordination within the City government. I will invest heavily in integrated government services to keep these students from falling through the cracks.

Beyond Public School

And education shouldn’t be limited to just children. We can vastly expand adult education to transition to the future of work. When a city makes education a top priority, all aspects of city life improve. We can think about school buildings as community centers:

• Food distribution

• Continuing education for parents starting at GED and extending to professional development

• After-school and weekend programs