NYC NOW - September 24, 2024: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: September 24, 2024

The NYPD says two men are facing murder charges in the death of a Bronx fruit vendor earlier this month. Meanwhile, a new report shows two Brooklyn communities are thriving economically, despite the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Plus, the New York City Department of Education has expanded its Black Studies program, making it part of the Citywide Public School Curriculum this year. WNYC’s Michael Hill speaks with Joe Schmidt and Brian Carlin from the Department of Education to learn more about teaching Black history in the city. Finally, 21 schools in New York, including 16 in the city, are being recognized as National Blue Ribbon Schools for their academic excellence.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in-in-around New York City from WNMIC. I'm Sean Carlson. The NYPD says two men are facing murder charges in connection with the death of a Bronx fruit vendor earlier this month. Police say Romel Jarrett and Terrence Downs allegedly attacked a 56-year-old fruit vendor Leslie Sanchez with a baseball bat. Lawyers for the two men have not yet responded to a request for comment. Under report finds two communities in Brooklyn are booming. economically despite the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. State controller Thomas DeNapoli says the number of jobs in Coney Island and Brighton Beach doubled between 2013 and 2023. It's twice the rate of Brooklyn's overall job growth and more than five times the citywide rate over the same period. The report says health care and social assistance jobs account for most of that growth. Still, according to DeNapoli, poverty rates and housing costs remain high in those areas, with the median household income significantly lower than that in Brooklyn and citywide. The New York City Department of Education has expanded its Black Studies program, making it

part of the citywide public school curriculum this year. Two leaders in the department explain what that means for students after the break. The New York City Department of Education is breaking new ground this school year. A program on Black Studies introduced in 2023 will now be available as part of the citywide public school curriculum. My colleague Michael Hill spoke with Joe Schmidt and Brian Carlin from the New York City Department of Education Social Studies Department to learn more about the past, present, and future of teaching students about black history in the Big Apple. Joe, Brian, welcome. What's different now from how New York City public schools taught students about black studies before?

Well, thank you for having us here. Just and to go back a little bit on some of the history of what we've done in the last 10 years, New York City Department of Education has created its own social studies in-house curriculum. It's called Passport to Social Studies. And part of that is bringing in teachers and educators and administrators and scholars from all over the city and nationally to create what would be a non-traditional textbook curriculum, the focus on units of study. Obviously, a major part of that was teaching the black and African-American experience in not only U.S. history, but global history. But we've also, part of our philosophy about curriculums that were never done, were never finished, or we're always looking to expand. the resources and information and creating multiple resources focused on black history is just

another addition to how we could expand the story, break non-traditional narratives. Part of our mission is for students to see themselves and to see others. So some of the resources that we've created over the last number of years is how to fit these additional resources into teaching the historical narrative so students and teachers can learn how to use these resources. What do you mean by non-traditional? I think one of the important things that Brian noted is that our curriculum is not a textbook-based curriculum. So this is going back to the development of the passport to social studies, and you'll also see that in the Black Studies as the study of the world curricular resources as well, is we're really looking to bring in multiple narratives across all grade levels and really introduce students to the idea of constructing their own narratives. about the past and the present.

And so that means working with a variety of primary sources. That means working with scholars to, in some cases, write new tertiary and secondary sources for us, but really giving students an opportunity to do the history. You know, as you just mentioned, a pretty wide swath of groups like the Association of Black Educators of New York and United Way of New York had hands in this. But as to white educators yourselves, what challenges do you feel? on being tasked with an endeavor like this for a student population that's overwhelmingly black and Latino? So I think, you know, one of the important things is in all of this work, we are not in the driver's seat.

We are working with the experts. So we are, whether that's lessons that are written by students who are in the classroom, who are really making the choices that most impact what the lessons that are then taught, or working, you mentioned some different, organizations that are part of the EAPC, which was involved with the creation of the Black Studies of the Study of the World, working with those organizations so that in the case of the Black Studies of the Study of the World, that it really represented sort of a grassroots expertise that was ultimately creating the curricular materials that were released this year. And I think that's the important part of it not being a textbook curriculum, because a textbook curriculum tends to be a, even if you have multiple editors, it's one voice telling the story, right? So that's the idea of our curricular resources to design as units of studies with then

expanding resources to supplement those units of studies so that we can get multiple perspectives and bring in multiple different ideas and looking at things from different perspectives. This is a district-wide curriculum. What are the different ways that be used to teach students this year? So the thing to note is that all of these materials make connections to the passport to social studies. and the social studies curriculum, but they also allow for opportunities for teachers to, for instance, create an elective course in the high school. And it's a starting point to conversations about the ways in which in this case, black studies are taught. When it comes to the practice of teaching this information to students, is the approach teachers should take any different from how they teach, say, any other subject?

We serve 1,700 schools in New York City. Wow. And every classroom is going to be different. Every teacher is going to be different. So what we've done is we try to create resources that honor the ability for teachers to meet their students where they are, to be responsive to their needs. And I would say one difference, and this is for the Black Studies of the study of the world, but also for our other curricular materials as well, is we really focus not just on the education for the students, but allowing the teachers. teachers to develop their own knowledge. Anytime we have conversations, whether it's talking about black studies or we've developed materials for Asian American and Pacific Islander studies,

anytime we have these conversations with teachers, teachers say, I love this, I want to teach it, but I didn't receive this education myself in K-12 or oftentimes in university as well. So one of the things that we try and do with all of these materials is create that opportunity for the teachers to themselves before going into the classroom and introducing these lessons. And I would say that's a major difference between sort of a traditional curriculum and all of these curricular materials that we've been creating in New York City. How will the city measure successful implementation of this new curriculum? Well, I can't speak to specific metrics, but one of the things that we do is our passport to social studies is used with almost 90% of K-8 schools. Of K-8 schools.

use passport to social studies, and the Black Studies curriculum is aligned to fit in with that curriculum. And schools choose that. It's not mandated. They have a choice of curricula they use. It's recommended. So when we talk about 90%, so if we could see teachers and schools and districts using it, we'll get feedback. We're looking to see improvements in the way the resources are used because a lot of it's not, well, he has a resource. A lot of it's the support that we're providing. and there will be professional development support ongoing all year for teachers throughout the city on how to use these resources. That's my colleague Michael Hill in conversation with Brian Carlin, who direct social studies for the New York City Social Studies and Civics Hub at the DOE, and Joseph Schmidt is a senior instructional specialist.

In other educational news, 21 schools in New York, including 16 in the city, are being recognized as national blue ribbon schools for their academic excellence. The honor is awarded by the Federal Education Department and celebrates schools for top performance and private. progress in closing achievement gaps. Among the honorees is Manhattan's PS-124 Young Wing School, one of 356 schools nationwide to receive the award this year. Other city stintouts include Fordham High School for the Arts in the Bronx and MS-255 Salk School of Science in Manhattan. U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona praised the schools for raising the bar in education and serving as models for the nation. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNYC. Catch us every week Day three times a day. I'm Sean Carlson. We'll be back tomorrow.