NYC NOW - Evening Roundup: NYC Cracks Down on Obscured License Plates, New Jersey Towns Appeal Affordable Housing Law, and Kids with Dyslexia Continue to Leave NYC Public Schools

Episode Date: January 7, 2025

New York City is cracking down on drivers who cover or obscure their license plates to evade tolls. Plus, the future of New Jersey’s affordable housing law is uncertain. And finally, WNYC’s Michael Hill and Jessica Gould discuss Mayor Eric Adams’ top educational priority: supporting kids with dyslexia in New York City Public Schools.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. I'm Jenae Pierre. New York City plans to crack down on drivers who cover or obscure their license plates to evade tolls, including the MTA's new congestion pricing charges. City Department of Transportation officials say any license plate covered in dirt, rust, glass, or plastic can result in a fine. The DMV also has the power to revoke a car owner's vehicle registration if they're a repeat offender. The rules are expected to take effect later in the winter.

In New Jersey, 26 towns have filed an emergency appeal to overturn the state's affordable housing law. The move creates more uncertainty over the law's future. WMYC's Mike Hayes has more. Just days after Mercer County Superior Court judge told them, public interest in building new affordable housing outweighed their concerns with overdevelopment. 26 New Jersey towns are now asking the state appellate division to overturn the lower court's ruling and put the state's affordable housing law on hold. The towns are looking for the appeals court to act before the end of the month, when all New Jersey towns must either accept an assigned number of

housing units to build over the next 10 years or propose a new number of homes for the state. to approve. Kids with dyslexia are still leaving New York City public schools, despite the mayor's pledge to improve support. More on that after the break. New York City Mayor Eric Adams has made improving support for students with dyslexia a top educational priority, but how much progress has been made three years into his administration? My colleague Michael Hill talked with WMYC's education reporter, Jessica Gould, to find out. Jessica, you've told us how painful learning to read can be for students with dyslexia, as well as all the changes underway.

Big picture, how's it going? Well, I am hearing glimmers of hope from a mix of experts, parents, and attorneys, but I'm also hearing from families that too many kids with dyslexia are still not getting the support that they need. So many families are still trying to leave the public school system for extremely expensive specialized private schools, schools that cost upwards of $75,000 a year in tuition, where parents often have to run the tuition and then sue the city under federal disability law for reimbursement. And that's a very long process. It's a huge amount of time and money and stress. Jessica, let's take a step back and talk about the reality that existed as the Adams administration took office. Sure. So historically, the city of public schools haven't been equipped to teach kids with dyslexia how to read, which is a staggering thing because experts estimate as many as one in five kids have some degree of dyslexia.

So extrapolate that out to a school system of more than 900,000 students, and that's over 180,000 kids. And what's developed as a result is this deeply dysfunctional system that's, you know, largely divided along class lines where wealthier families often enrolled kids in private schools with, you know, specialized reading instruction, paying those tuition costs up front, hiring lawyers to sue the education department for reimbursement. While middle class and poorer families with less flexibility in time and cash, they often stayed in the public school. watching their kids fall further and further behind. And that's the system that Adam said he wanted to change. So what steps has the administration been taking? On Adam's Watch, there have been these new pilot programs that have launched at a few public schools. And in those programs, teachers are trained in the kinds of methods and instruction that's

proven to be most successful for kids with dyslexia. These schools also offer kids extra time and resources to practice and for coaching, and that is similar to what they'd get in some of the private schools. Parents who have had their kids in these programs have said to me that it's been life-changing. So I spoke with someone named Carrie Fleming. She said her son dreaded going to school and was years behind in reading before he started at one of these pilot programs, the South Bronx Literacy Academy. He started there in September. He's not woken up crying, stress, mad, angry, nothing. I see him reading, you know, his confidence is bad.

But these new programs serve just a tiny fraction of the overall school population. So the administration has been trying to improve reading across all schools. Right. We've talked about that before. How is literacy changing in the public schools? The administration first required all schools to bring back an emphasis on phonics. Then they started requiring new vetted reading curriculum, and that's been rolling out to all elementary schools over the past two years. And they've championed dyslexia screenings or, you know, screenings that show if you're at risk for reading challenges. And officials said these changes should give many more dyslexic students the support they need to stay in their schools. But the reviews I'm hearing so far from parents and teachers are mixed. So there was a recent study that found a majority of teachers found the new reading lessons to be somewhat positive or positive, but said they need help making it work for kids with disabilities.

And over the summer, we reported that test scores actually dipped a little bit. And then meanwhile, I've talked to almost a dozen parents who have either pulled their dyslexic kids from public schools over the last year or. plan to do so. Jessica, what were those parents' reasons for withdrawing their kids from public schools? I talked to a couple of families who said that the schools didn't offer their kids the supports that they asked for in reading. But more often what I heard is that the schools were trying to help and gave the kids the full menu of services that they can, like speech therapy and occupational therapy, maybe a couple extra reading periods, but they need way more than that. I talked to a mom named Adrian Clark, she said her son is in second grade, but at a pre-K level for reading. And she said she needs

him to have intensive reading instruction from teachers who are specifically trained to work with kids with dyslexia. He's struggling. He doesn't like school. I just feel really sick to my stomach because I can't just tell him like another one would be better. It feels like the school for him, not out there. So you can, she, you can hear she gets emotional there. And she's actually a DOE special education teacher, and she's considering suing the department, her employer, for private school tuition reimbursement, which she says isn't what she ever wanted to do. The experts I talked to said that there will always be a subset of kids who have such severe dyslexia that they'll need more help than the traditional schools can provide, but that many more could be supported in-house with stronger instruction and more.

more reading intervention and support. So they're calling for those additional supports, investments in those things. And then they're also encouraging all of us to be patient for these reforms to take root. But, of course, when your kid is struggling, parents don't feel like they have time to wait. That's WMYC's Jessica Gould, talking with my colleague Michael Hill. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. Catch us every weekday, three times a day. I'm Jene Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.