WHAT COVID-19 IS REVEALING ABOUT NYC SCHOOLS: ARE WE LEARNING OUR LESSONS?

• Author: Miller, Benita R.

Introduction 521 I. Education Inequity in New York City 522 A. Inequities Exacerbated by the Pandemic 525 B. The City's Response Was Inadequate 529 II. The Harlem Children's Zone: A Promising Model 532 A. HCZ's Response to the Pandemic 533 i. The Miller Family 535 ii. The Rivera Family 536 iii. The Morgan Family 537 III. Lessons and Recommendations for the Future 538 Conclusion 542 INTRODUCTION

By early March 2020, the impact of COVID-19 changed the way New Yorkers navigated the bustling city with such speed that the ever-changing narrative and safety precautions caused anxiety, distrust, and finger pointing among public officials. The City's vast school system, which serves more than 1.1 million students, (1) became a focus of concern for parents, teachers, and the general public as more districts across the nation moved to remote learning platforms or ended the school year early.

Initially, pundits and government officials alike, including New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo, referred to COVID-19 as "the great equalizer." (2) But this could not be further from the truth. The spread of COVID-19 has revealed extensive inequities in our country. The data confirms what many have suspected. While COVID-19 is attacking all of us at our core, it still has a disparate impact on Black and Brown communities in our country. The impact has been most notable at the intersections of class and education equity. (3)

This Essay takes a critical look at what stakeholders had to endure once the Mayor and the Chancellor decided to switch to remote learning. It sheds some light on how the most vulnerable communities, families, and students fared during this time. Part I discusses the inequities in New York public schools before the pandemic, which made for a very fragile safety net for some students. It also describes how the pandemic has had a disparate impact on many Black and Latinx families and is pushing them further into crisis by exacerbating existing health and economic inequalities. This Essay argues that the City's response was inadequate and, in some cases, made matters worse and will have a long-term, negative impact on students. In Part II, this Essay highlights a resilient school community that worked to ensure that its families were safe and children continued to be educated. Part III offers clear recommendations for leaders as we make our way through the pandemic with no real end in sight.

1. EDUCATION INEQUITY IN NEW YORK CITY

   Across our nation, education and children advocates have opined that a high-quality education helps lift children out of poverty by providing them with the tools and resources to compete with their more affluent peers. (4) Unfortunately, even before the numerous challenges the pandemic laid bare, New York City children have been situated in classrooms where their families' economic resources and social capital dictate their access to a sound education in a racially and ethnically diverse setting. (5) More than 400,000 New York City children live in households below the federal poverty guidelines, many in single-parent households, and most concentrated in certain Bronx and Brooklyn neighborhoods. (6) "Across the public school system, the number of students in temporary housing has reached a crisis level, and school segregation along racial [and] ethnic lines is widespread." (7)

   Meanwhile, New York City screens children for admission to its public schools more than any school district in the country. (8) Screened schools admit students based on criteria such as test scores, interviews, attendance records, and grades, (9) and more elite schools in the system base admission solely on the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT). (10) The consequence of this system is that highly resourced selective schools are difficult to access, (11) for many of the system's children do not come from households resourced in ways that would open up opportunities to them. For instance, when it comes to screened schools, if one was looking solely at attendance, but a student lived in temporary housing and experienced higher tardiness rates than a peer living in more stable housing, then they would not be accepted. In 2019, only 4% of offers to Specialized High Schools (SHS) went to Black students and 6.6% went to Hispanic students, (12) even though Black and Hispanic students make up almost 70% of enrollment citywide. (13) By contrast, a majority of offers to the SHS went to white (25.1%) and Asian students (54%). (14)

   A recent New York Times podcast "Nice White Parents" (15) explored the influence of the minority white families that are part of the school system yet have an outsized impact on the system's directional aim. This influence is not limited to just the SHS but is even more pervasive in the lower grades, especially in terms of accessing gifted and talented programs as well as screened middle schools. (16)

   Prior to the pandemic, New York City Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza promoted efforts to increase Black and Latinx students' access to the education system's elite programs but received insurmountable community pushback and lukewarm support from the administration. (17) Namely, Carranza attempted to provide greater access to the elite pockets of the system to low-income Black and Latinx children, but no significant pipelines to these opportunities have since opened up. (18) More importantly, the overall system has not made new inroads to better serve these children.

   1. Inequities Exacerbated by the Pandemic

      When COVID-19 first reached New York City, despite public calls to shift the system to a remote platform in order to curb the spread of the virus, Mayor Bill de Blasio resisted, arguing that essential workers, such as healthcare providers, needed a place for their children to be during the workday. (19) The Mayor also raised concerns about lowincome children going without their free or reduced-price school meals. (20)

      As public outcry and pressure grew, de Blasio eventually relented and, in what Carranza called a "sobering moment," moved the system to remote learning, in which students shifted to online learning platforms. (21) But the ability for families to shift to such platforms largely depended on their access to technology and teachers having the capacity to translate curriculum online. (22) Because of this inequality, remote education efforts have taken a variety of forms across the district. (23)

      During the press conference announcing the closure, the Mayor shared the City's intent to partner with several technology firms to get devices into the hands of families that lacked access to technology. (24)

      Reportedly, the distribution of devices and access to broadband has been spotty and, in some instances, non-existent--especially for students living in temporary housing or in need of special education services. (25)

      The challenges are perplexing given that early in 2014, during de Blasio's first term, he appointed Minerva Tantoco as the City's first-ever Chief Technology Officer (CTO). (26) Tantoco "direct[ed] the Mayor's Office of Technology and Innovation... with responsibility for the development and implementation of a... citywide strategy on technology and innovation." (27) Current CTO John Paul Farmer was noticeably absent from the discussion on remote learning and equitable access to technology. (28)

      The stress and pressure on low-income families during the pandemic has come from numerous sources. (29) Experts could have expected that a pandemic would disrupt the economic security of low-wage earners, that keeping children out of school for an extended period of time would cause some learning loss, and that experiencing a racial reckoning in the United States after the brutal murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis would elicit anger and pain for many. However, they could not have anticipated that all of this would be happening at the same time. The combined impacts of the pandemic and the struggle for racial justice on many low-income families in New York City were compounded by the deaths of friends and family due to COVID-19. (30) "The pandemic is exacerbating the existing health and economic inequalities for Black families and is subsequently worsening the future outlook for Black children...." (31) Nationwide, "32 percent of Black children live in poverty, compared with 11 percent of white children and 26 percent of... [Latinx] children." (32) An analysis by the Center of Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University found that "working-age adults, children[,] and Black Americans will fall below the poverty line at the highest rates as a result of the coronavirus pandemic's economic effects." (33) It is estimated that over 1.7 million Black women are currently unemployed due to the pandemic. (34) This is particularly relevant because the vast majority of Black mothers are the primary breadwinners for their household--more than twice as likely as white mothers and more than 50% more likely than Latinx mothers to be either the sole providers in a single-parent household or married and bringing in the same amount or more than their partners. (35) Black families tend to have one-tenth the wealth of white families, which becomes particularly relevant during a pandemic when families do not have access to emergency funds. (36) Families have also suffered from food scarcity. "Black and Hispanic people are much more likely to reside in food deserts than their white counterparts, even after controlling for factors such as poverty." (37) Research also shows that in some communities, multiple family members are being affected by COVID-19, which leaves children and families in more traumatic situations; a recent study revealed how many Black and Latinx children in New York State have lost a parent or will slip into poverty as a result of the pandemic. (38)

      "Children living in low-income,... overcrowded, or less-safe neighborhoods are more likely to experience...