"Woke" Politics Over Progress in New York Schools
City Journal Audio
Manhattan Institute
4.7 • 657 Ratings
🗓️ 10 July 2019
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ray Domanico joins City Journal associate editor Seth Barron to discuss New York City Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza's controversial and divisive leadership of the nation's largest public school system. Domanico details Carranza's emphasis on ridding schools of purported racial bias in his recent essay for City Journal, "Richard Carranza's Deflections."
Over the past four decades, with varying levels of success, Carranza's predecessors in the chancellor's job have launched numerous policies and programs aimed at better serving students. By contrast, Carranza has put forth no substantive plan for improving the schools, instead charging that the system is overrun by racial prejudice.
"This appeal to racial resentment is cynical and misguided," writes Domanico. Carranza seems to believe that reforming New York's public schools will require intensive racial-bias training and large budget increases. Instead, the chancellor and his team need to focus on the hard work of improving the schools academically.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the Ten Blocks podcast. This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal. New York |
| 0:05.9 | City Public Schools are the largest school system in the country. The district teaches more |
| 0:11.4 | than one million students at nearly 2,000 separate schools throughout the city. Public schools in New |
| 0:17.5 | York have improved since reforms under Mayor Bloomberg in the early 2000s. |
| 0:22.6 | But over the last year or so, all of the news surrounding the schools is about Mayor de Blasio's pick for Chancellor Richard Caranza. |
| 0:30.6 | Since he was appointed to the job in March of last year, Mr. Carranza has transformed the city's Department of Education into a model for social |
| 0:39.0 | justice advocacy. He speaks openly about racial issues. He's ordered employees to undergo |
| 0:45.2 | racial sensitivity training, and he's a vocal opponent of the specialized high school admissions |
| 0:50.2 | test for the city's elite schools saying that they're racist. |
| 1:00.6 | Grenz's rhetoric consistently makes front-page news in the city's tabloids, and nine members of the city council signed a letter last month to condemn his leadership. |
| 1:05.2 | To talk about what's going on with the controversies in New York's public schools, our |
| 1:10.0 | associate editor Seth Barron, |
| 1:11.6 | will talk with Ray DeMonico. |
| 1:13.9 | Ray is the director of education policy at the Manhattan Institute, and he's a lot of experience |
| 1:19.7 | in city schools. |
| 1:21.5 | That's it for me. |
| 1:22.6 | The conversation between Seth Barron and Ray DeMonico begins after this. |
| 1:27.1 | Thank you. between Seth Barron and Ray DeMonico begins after this. |
| 1:46.1 | Welcome back to Ten Blocks, the podcast of City Journal. This is Seth Bear, an associate editor for City Journal. |
| 1:51.6 | Richard Carranza has been running New York City's schools for the last 15 months, |
| 1:53.8 | and he's certainly generated a lot of heat. |
| 1:57.0 | But some would argue, not too much light. |
... |
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