Education

The Right to an Equitable Education

We have to take the window for change that COVID has opened, as an opportunity to make meaningful, long-lasting, targeted changes that holistically benefit each of our individual students, teachers, and parents. And we have to communicate and work with them every step of the way to ensure their well-being and success.

It’s no secret that our education system is not working for all of our students, teachers, and parents. This fact became even more evident through the effect of COVID-19 on our everyday lives. Once it became clear that in-person learning was no longer possible for all students in New York back in March of 2019, there was a very quick transition to remote learning. Since then our teachers have been working nonstop, on the frontlines of this pandemic, with ever-changing guidance and regulations from all levels of government, and many are burning out. We have to recognize and support them in this battle. Our students, in both K-12 and higher education, are under constant stress, and New York City parents from all walks of life are doing the best they can to simultaneously be working adults and caretakers. This is all on top of the inequitable education system that socioeconomically disadvantaged students have been dealing with since before the pandemic exacerbated the gaps. 

We are going to work to change all of that. We have been diligently developing policy and program solutions for the issues that face our city, and when we enter the city council chambers on day 1:

1. We will work with the Mayor’s Office to expand access for our students to broadband and digital devices.

2. We will work with the School Construction Authority (SCA) and the Mayor’s Office to make sure we prioritize the construction of new schools to alleviate overcrowding.

3. We will work alongside our students, teachers, and parents, as well as with the city’s Department of Education and teacher’s unions, to accurately determine and address the academic and mental health impact of the pandemic on each of our students. Some of our initiatives include expanding the community school model to more schools throughout the city; this wraparound model could be the key to ensuring each of our students receive the right help they need to address the effect of the pandemic on their overall well-being. We are also looking at ways of alleviating the pressure on teachers to make sure their students are catching up academically.

4. We will work with the state’s Board of Regents and the state Department of Education at-large to revive the proposal to reevaluate the necessity and value of the regents and propose that we phase out this exam in favor of the Consortium school Performance-Based Assessment Tasks model. 

We want to ensure that we use this time as a reflection and transitional period, to expand upon the practices that have worked well for our students, teachers, and parents, and to develop and adopt new strategies to address what has, and continues not to, work well in our education system.