Testimony submitted to the New York City Council Committee on Education
The United Federation of Teachers wishes to thank Chairman Danny Dromm and the members of the Education Committee for the opportunity to share our views on supporting sex education for the city’s children, challenging the system to address our learning standards from a culturally sensitive perspective and promoting greater equity for the gifted and talented program.
We particularly wish to thank Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito for the vision that she laid out in her State of the City message, underscoring the importance of addressing the social-emotional educational needs for our students together with their need to achieve at high levels academically.
Int. 1028-2015: Creating a Sex Education Task Force
We support Int. 1028-2015 sponsored by Councilmember Laurie Cumbo recommending creating a sexual education task force to review and recommend sexual health curriculum in New York City public schools. While the Department of Education requires sex education as part of its comprehensive health education standards for students in grades 6 through 12, sex education is just one segment of this curriculum. We believe there’s a real opportunity to provide more in-depth curricula, address a growing range of education issues concerning sexuality and healthy relationships and to expand developmentally appropriate lessons at earlier ages.
As a union of professionals, we would like the task force to review the staffing gap. By its own reporting, the DOE has only 153 licensed health educators; this number falls far short of the staffing needed to meet current health and sex education requirements and makes it impossible to expand to students in younger grades. Sex education doesn’t register on the radar in Comprehensive Education Plan for most schools — effectively, it’s not a priority. From an implementation standpoint, it’s unrealistic to expect school leaders to include staffing lines for more licensed health educators, without raising the priority or providing incentives. In the union’s current issue of the New York Teacher, our vice president of academic high schools, Janella Hinds, pressed the issue of consent education as a follow up to our December 2016 Delegate Assembly, where the governing body passed a resolution seeking to expand this aspect of sex education.
Our collective bargaining agreement supports including educator voice with respect to education policy and programs that impact our members and students. We agree with the diversity of voices recommended in the proposed bill, but would certainly be open to more teachers at the table.
Int. No. 1028-A: Distributing Gifted and Talented Information in Pre-K Materials
The UFT has long been a proponent of equity and access to a high-quality public education. Gifted and talented programs in our city’s schools have an equity problem. So, we’re pleased that Councilmember Robert Cornegy has focused a spotlight on this issue by sponsoring Int. No. 1028-A requiring the DOE distribute gifted and talented information to parents with its pre-K materials. While this goes a long way to mitigating the lack of access to information to underserved families, we remain concerned that the information provided to parents is centered on testing. The union has gone on record with this committee on several occasions expressing our objection to high stakes tests, particularly for students in pre-K through the second grade.
As reported this past March in Chalkbeat, “New York City’s gifted programs are starkly segregated by race and class. A majority of city students are black or Hispanic. But those students make up only 27 percent of gifted enrollment. And while 77 percent of students citywide are poor, the poverty rate in gifted programs is about 43 percent.” 1High achieving Black and Latino students are not identified for these opportunities at the same rate as their white and Asian peers and are therefore are significantly underrepresented in city gifted programs. Borough Presidents Eric Adams and Rubén Diaz formed a task force to address the gifted and talented equity issue in their respective boroughs.
Over the last 20 years, as many school districts across the nation have focused on raising standards for all students, there was an over-emphasis on testing. Admission into the city’s gifted and talented programs relies heavily on the scores youngsters receive on two tests. Our early elementary teachers agree with the experts, that there are better ways to identify exceptionally bright students.
The New York Times in its article, “Why talented Black and Hispanic students can go undiscovered,” reported on Florida’s Broward County and how it shifted its gifted admissions policies to include children who scored relatively high on the district’s standardized test, but had missed the cut score. It noted that Black and Hispanic students who were subsequently added particularly benefited, resulting in significantly higher proficiency in reading and math.2 As we’ve previously published in our New York Teacher publication, citing alternatives to test-based admission, gifted students “need challenging, inquiry-based, accelerated instruction to help them reach their potential.” 3
As a city, we finally got it right that providing families with access to universal, high-quality, full-day pre-K is among the most important things we can do to help prepare young children for school and beyond, especially for those living in poor communities. We have the opportunity to take this to the next level and let all, not just some, parents know how to navigate the gifted and talented landscape.
Resolution 1415-2017 – Assessing Cultural Sensitivity in State Learning Standards
Ensuring that our state learning standards provide our children with what they need to achieve and exceed academic proficiency across all required curricula is important to our members. We also believe, however, that our approach to delivering instruction and in engaging with parents and guardians should acknowledge students’ diverse perspectives and cultures. We support Councilmember Annabel Palma in her Resolution 1415-2017 calling upon the New York State Education Department to convene a task force to assess the cultural relevance of state learning standards across subject areas in elementary, middle, and high school. Additionally, to explore the grounding of standards in core content that challenges racism, ableism, and sexism, and is LGB and TGNC-affirming.
This resolution aligns with the union’s anti-bullying BRAVE initiative: Building Respect, Acceptance and Voice through Education. BRAVE has brought a wealth of information to our school communities about the importance of cultural sensitivity and the social-emotional damage that can undermine our students’ ability to grow, develop and learn when we don’t take these issues seriously. Our parents and students come from an ever expanding group of nations and cultures. Engaging them in ways that promote understanding will deepen their connection to their academic instruction and to their school communities.
Advancing a culturally-sensitive approach in all curricula and communications just makes sense. The language we use in our instruction, our documents and any corrective measures can all be tempered through enhanced cultural competence on the part of the Department of Education.
Closing Thoughts
These proposed bills and the resolution can play a role in laying the foundation for a child’s social, emotional and intellectual development, including critical thinking, responsible decision-making and feeling like a valued and respected member of the school community. Our children and young adults deserve to be healthy and safe. We need to do all we can to reduce the pressures that take away students’ voice, respect and dignity.
If we are serious about helping our students to become college- and career-ready, we must support a more holistic, equitable approach to their education.
Notes
1 “Parents and city officials hope to tackle inequity in gifted education/specialized high schools,” Chalkbeat, March 14, 2017
2 “Why talented Black and Hispanic students can go undiscovered,” New York Times, April 10, 2016
3 “Another kind of special education,” New York Teacher, Dec. 3, 2015