NYC Gazette

William Floyd, Senior Director, Government Affairs, Google: I am William Floyd. I'm the senior director of government affairs and public policy here at Google, and it is my pleasure to welcome you here. Oh, sorry, the mic.

Better? It's my pleasure to welcome you here to Google. Google is proud to serve as the first tech anchor partner for FutureReadyNYC. In 2022, Google launched the Tech Opportunity Fund, a $4 million fund that was anchored on the belief that good paying tech jobs should be within reach of all New Yorkers. To make this belief a reality requires investment, significant investment from the private sector and a partnership with the New York City Public School System and CUNY.

As a FutureReady partner, we are committed to providing meaningful career connected learning opportunities such as career discovery programming, paid work-based internships, and mentorships with tech professionals. In addition, Google is offering its data analytics certificate to help students prepare for in-demand jobs in the tech field, as well as providing teacher training. We believe that these types of interventions, digital skill programming, et cetera, are essential for bridging the digital gap between computer scientists and all New Yorkers. I'd like to thank you again for joining us here today. And now I have the pleasure of introducing someone who really doesn't need any introduction. The only person who would make me put on a suit today, the 110th mayor of the City of New York, Mayor Eric Adams.

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you. Thank you so much. And just really thank you, Google. I think that out of all of the speakers today, I think Faith is the most significant speaker of today. I was telling Faith that's my sister's name, not my favorite sister, but that is my sister's name. But I think Faith’s story, and I'm sure that some of the other scholars that are here is part of the story that you would miss if you don't really go beyond below the surface of this arrangement that the chancellor is talking about of at the heart of what we want to accomplish is exposure. Exposure is so important. Faith, like my story, is from Brownsville. Never run, never will from a challenge. We are up for that challenge. And I'm interested with some of the other scholars up from, but I guarantee you they're coming from communities that historically you did not have access to the technology in a fast moving pace. Not only our city is changing, but really how our country is changing.

The way we are moving and how fast we are moving, by the time our scholars have the opportunity to be introduced to the ever-changing environment, they walk into a place and try to get employed and then we ask the questions, why don't you have the skills? Because we did not build out the infrastructure and the pipeline for them to get the skills. And Google stepped up. They stated that we can't merely say year after year, why aren't we seeing a diversity at the tail end? Let's start building a diversity at the beginning process. And how do we do that? We do something that we historically never did before. We connect it to chancellors. We have a vast system and I remember Kathy Wild from the partnership talked about it.

We had this unbelievable reservoir of talent in CUNY and we've ignored that talent in CUNY. And the chancellors previously stated that once our children graduate, they fall off the cliff and try to figure it out on their own. But we brought two, Chancellor Banks and Rodriguez that are stating, no, this should be a continuous pipeline. So when you add the pipeline of K through 12, with the pipeline of CUNY and our business community, you have the trifecta that allow you to be effective. And how do we start taking these young people and let them participate in the development of our city and solving problems in their communities? That's the beauty of it. Many of these graduates are not going on and leaving the Brownsville, the Jamaica Queens, the South Bronx, they're coming back to these communities and say, I want to solve the problem in my community.

I want to do environmental justice. I want to look at how do we better educate children? How do we become teachers? How do we learn how economic development can grow? How do we build down and use artificial intelligence to answer some of the questions that we are facing? This is an amazing opportunity that you're not going to really see the full understanding until you start to watch the flow of these young people. They've always had the fortitude and the attitude and the motivation and the dedication. They didn't have the opportunity. So coming from Brownsville and South Jamaica, Queens, when you match just the everyday ability to fight through what it takes to succeed and you match it with the CUNY education, you can go from the mailroom to becoming the mayor. Absolutely. That's what it's about, Faith. That's what it's about.

And so that's what we are doing today. And I cannot thank the chancellors enough for seeing what we need to accomplish and to Google. William, we talked about this when I was campaigning. William met with me in the diner in Brooklyn and we had a conversation. I said, "Listen, I need Google. I'm tired of just searching with Google. I need Google to come and help us through this." And you committed to it, brother. 

You stated that we were going to do it, and here we are making it happen. 21st century economy, real opportunities, giving the skills. So today we are proud to announce a new historic partnership with Google, an industry leader, and everyone else needs to join us and follow what they're doing. We're building the pipelines of jobs in the tech sector and Google will serve as our first tech anchor employer, partner with our schools, FutureReady New York City Initiative. FutureReady New York City is a program that prioritizes students' career readiness. It would be in 100 schools across the five boroughs and serve around 7,000 students. We believe in preparing our young people to succeed.

I'll never forget, we were talking about it yesterday, chancellor. I was speaking to a group of superintendents. I put up a picture of the first telephone that Alexander Graham Bell did, and then I put up a picture of a classroom when they made that telephone. And then I put up a picture of the smartphone and I put a picture of the classroom of the day. The classroom of the day is the same when they did Alexander Graham Bell telephone, but the phone has changed leaps and bounds. So we're preparing our teacher for the Alexander Graham Bell economy in some communities and the economy has changed. That's what we're doing today. We're leaving the classroom of the Alexander Graham Bell era and moving into the smartphone era by giving you the smart technology.

Now what's interesting, brother, other communities were getting it already. That's the problem. These guys are saying it should not be just in one part of the city. We have to go into other parts of the city. And that's what we're doing today. I get it. You get it. You know what I'm talking about. We're going to make sure that everyone gets it now. We increased our investments in FutureReadyNYC to $19 million, and this investment will continue to expand.

One of the most exciting things we're doing, former computer programmer, Cobol, Fortran, Assembly. I know what receiving that tech base means as you move forward. I think that my computer programming is really what's making me such a good mayor. Michael, make sure you get that. Get off your phone. Stay with me.

So now here's the partnership with Google. Google will provide learning opportunities that are stepping stones into technology, including project-based learning and paid, money greenbacks, all of that good stuff. Paid work based learning opportunities that will provide teacher training. As the chancellor said in the beginning, both chancellors stated, we're asking our teachers to prepare our children for technologies of tomorrow. No one prepared the teachers to learn the technology they were teaching. You can't continue to have the gym teacher double as the tech teacher. And so this relationship is now going to give the teachers the skills and tools they need so they can be prepared to teach our children for tomorrow. Google will make a significant financial contribution to support both the DOE and CUNY. Google will also work closely with CUNY to expand tech focused career awareness in their tech equity initiative and increase the number of internships and engage with CUNY students.

This partnership presents a win for our young people, a win for our communities, a win for our city, and a win for innovation. It also marks a continued commitment to develop talent and expand our workforce and partnership with emerging industries DOE and CUNY. Today we released the Pathways to Inclusive Economy Blueprint based on the future of work task force recommendations, something that Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer spearheaded.

And so again, I want to just really thank both our chancellors for coming together to share with me when we were walking up the steps. They meet quarterly and engage in a conversation. They have dismantled the wall that prevented us from having all the seas of opportunity flowing to the river of prosperity for our entire city, particularly our young people who have been ignored for so long. And this is just really one of the most exciting and announcements I am doing as mayor and I cannot thank them enough. And Floyd, if I can, can I just introduce my brother, Chancellor David Banks?.

Chancellor David Banks, Department of Education: Appreciate you, man. Good morning everyone.

Audience: Good morning.

Chancellor Banks: So first of all, I want to thank Google for hosting us here today, but I particularly want to thank the mayor for his vision in ensuring that ultimately we would in fact get here today because long before he became mayor, and many of you know the mayor and I have known each other for many, many years, he talked about this and how do you connect the school system to industry, the things that really matter. And I think that's a big part of the reason why you've heard our theme is bright starts and bold futures. And I said all the time, bright starts and bold futures. So when you heard us recently make our announcement about NYC Reads and ensuring that all of our kids will be able to read by the third grade, that's the bright start.

Screening for dyslexia and ensuring that we can mitigate for all those kinds of issues. That's the bright start. If we can make sure we unlock that potential and put our kids on the right path, that's the bright start and we are fully committed to that. We've made major investments in making sure that that happens. But then ultimately there's the bold futures. And that really comes from this question of why do we send our kids to school in the first place? What do we want them ultimately to know and to be able to do? And far too many schools all across America are engaged in a process that we call schooling, which is very different than educating.

Schooling just talks about the daily routine of going to school and did we bump up the math scores by two points or the ELA scores by a point or two. We're asking the wrong questions because ultimately that's not what it's about. It's about unlocking the promise and the potential of every single child who understands the promise of possibility at the end of this school run.

So if you're a parent, you give me your child at pre-K, and we take them all the way through the 12th grade, at the end of that entire journey, what should we expect? We expect to have young people who are on fire for learning and for opportunities. And a place like Google represents the ultimate in innovation and possibility. And that's what we want for all of our kids. That's what FutureReady really, in fact, represents. Building a better future for young people through meaningful career preparedness is in fact the North Star for this administration. So today we continue on that journey with the help of some key partners in this room. A special thank you to Google, not only for hosting us today, but standing alongside us as our tech anchor partner, as we do this vital work of building equitable pipelines to the tech industry for all of our young people.

And you're going to hear from Faith in just a moment and her experience in this process, and it's not over. She's in the 11th grade and she's heading into the 12th grade. You're going to hear about what those possibilities look like and the exposure for a young lady in the heart of Brownsville, who many of whom could never imagine what it means to be in a place like this. That's what we're trying to do. That's what this represents. I think about the music industry and we're celebrating the 50th year of hip hop and what black and brown folks brought to the music industry through hip hop. Transformed the world. Similarly, I think about these brilliant black and brown children all across New York City, all across America. If given the support and given the opportunity, what they will do for the tech industry. They will bring a level of innovation that the tech industry has not even seen and put their imprint on it.

But somebody has to open the doors to give them those opportunities. That's what Google is doing here today. So this is a major mayoral initiative for us. And our first year we had 34 schools which implemented Future Ready, and we had an additional 33 of those schools that were planning for their implementation year, which we'll start this year. And we've added... How many more have we added for this coming year?

35 more. So we'll be at a hundred schools for this year and that will continue to grow. So the thousands of students who are going to get a great opportunity for paid work-based learning opportunities, early college credits. Thank you, [inaudible]. One-to-one career advising to create strong post-secondary plans. This is a newsflash, every student that goes through Future Ready is not going to be coming to work at Google, but it's about opening up their minds and creating possibilities, giving them a chance to get credentials that will allow them to have lots of other opportunities. So all these strides have been made within the last year.. 

We're really just getting started. I'm energized by the opportunity that students get with this initiative to couple their classroom studies with real world work applications. Far too many kids go to school every day and they ask the fundamental question, "Why are we doing this?" Many of us asked the same thing when we were coming up and all too often we did not get good answers because many of our educators don't know why we are doing what we're doing on a given day. They don't ultimately know where it leads because many of our educators themselves have never been inside the four walls of a place like Google. Yet we have given them the responsibility of preparing the students in their classes for these emerging industries of which many of our educators have no idea what it even looks like. That's why the mayor said the classroom from 100 years ago looks essentially the same as it does today, except there's a smart board in front of the room. We can and we must do better. That's what FutureReady is really all about.

I want to thank Chancellor Rodriguez, we affectionately know him as Felo, for partnering with us in this, and I want to thank the mayor for insisting that these partnerships happen. The mayor has said this from the very beginning, we will not solve the problems that New York City faces by working in silos. It's the reason why I meet with the police commissioner every week. We meet with different agency heads, DYCD, regularly because if you do this work on your own, there's some things that you can do, but you will never be as successful as you can be if you're working together and we align that work.

That's what this mayor has represented for me, the power of what we could do and the success that we could achieve, but it'll only be achieved by working together. Faith, you're getting ready to come up. I want to thank you for getting ready to speak on behalf of all the students who are part of this FutureReady. And I already told you, don't be nervous. Take a deep breath and you're going to be just fine. But I also want to shout out Principal Prendergast, thank you so much for what you're doing in helping to support all of these young people at your schools and you're here today representing all the dozens of principals around the city who are fully engaged in this process, and we're going to together get ready to do some amazing things.

I want to shout out to all the educators. I want to say thank you to all the employer partners, Kathy Wylde. I see you there. I don't know why nobody got a seat for Kathy Wylde, should not be standing up this whole time in the back. All right? But Kathy, thank you for believing in us, thank you for helping us. You've been with us from day one, you really have, and we so appreciate you and your leadership. We don't get to all these industries and all these partnerships without your help and your support. We just really want to say thank you for that.

Then those from the philanthropic community, from Bloomberg and Robinhood and Tiger, thank you to all of them. We are inviting the greater philanthropic community to partner with us on this. This is a place that is worth making a significant investment. It's a place of innovation, it's a place of possibility, and it's a place where the face of the world can see their dreams really come true. Thank you so much everyone.

Floyd: Thank you, Chancellor Banks. As both the mayor and Chancellor Banks mentioned, this is a historic partnership that could not be realized without one critical element, the City University for New York, so allow me to introduce to you the chancellor. We have two chancellors today, so we're very lucky. Chancellor Rodríguez, who I also have the pleasure of calling Felo. We mentioned downstairs while we were preparing to come up that we had actually met a number of years ago when he was the president of Queens College, and I'll allow him to tell you why we met.

Chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez, City University for New York: Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, William, for that great introduction and good morning, bueno dias. I guess if you want to differentiate, he's the chancellor, yo soy El Chancellor, and that will make life a little bit easier.

Thank you Mayor Adams, for your great support and for being such a great example to all our students, being a proud twice CUNY graduate, and thank you for your incredible support. As Chancellor Banks said, also for setting a high bar for our work and making us be intentional about our work and stay focused on the work and the success that we need to have for all our students.

Thanks to Google for hosting us, for being such an incredible, incredible partner in this journey. Chancellor Banks, get a shout out to Kathy Wylde. This announcement is about partnerships and about intentionality, about the right track and the right path and trajectory for our students. Without the employer partners, that would be incredibly difficult, so thank you Kathy. We also have Kiersten Barnet from the CEO Jobs Council. I want to give her a shout out because that's another key partner for both us at CUNY and also for the New York City public schools in this kind of innovative work engaging employers from very early on.

Nothing good happens in large institutions like CUNY without an amazing team and I'm really blessed to have a couple of great colleagues who are joining me here today. Lauren Anderson, who is our associate provost for everything dealing with careers, and because we do believe in that K-16 pipeline that the mayor mentioned, we have an entire division, Andrea Soonachan is the director of our K-16 Initiative, which is working with all this early college, College Now, all those programs that connect the work that the New York City public schools are doing in a seamless pathway with our work at CUNY. We are excited about this partnership. We're excited also about this new venture that we're doing with the support of Google, of Tech Equity, which builds on programs that we've been working on before.

I am really, really proud that in the last five years, CUNY has doubled the number of tech BA degrees that we have awarded. We have deeply increased the job connection and the internship participation, increasing the number of internships, particularly paid internships and apprenticeships that we are developing in our programs. We also doubled the number of women who major in computer science thanks to the partnership of Break Through Tech. Based on what we learned in that program, we decided to reach out to Google for this Tech Equity program to then be able to do that, to have even more women, but also have our Black and Latino students getting computer science majors and tech related majors in larger and larger numbers. That is about early exposure that both the mayor and Chancellor Banks mentioned, that you envisioned yourself even before you set up to come to a CUNY campus that you've been thinking about that. Remember, 80 percent of all those students from New York City public schools are going to be coming our way. They are our students already, so I want them envisioning those possibilities early on and so when they come to the campus, they're ready to take advantage of paid internships, of all the programs that we have. That's part of this Tech Equity initiative.

The other thing that we have to do is that we also have to teach a little bit differently. We all know that they're in this teaching, particularly in the sciences and computer science, a lot of building biases that a time sent messages to women and individuals who've been underrepresented, that maybe you don't belong here. They are at more screeners that as doors that are wide open to be able to bring in talent. We want to try and change that mindset, working with our faculty, changing the curriculum. That is one reason why their partnering with industry is key. We need to be bringing the experts who are out in the field with the things that are changing every day to bring that into our curriculum so that it continues to be a cycle of innovation and opportunity. When you do that organically, things begin to occur.

When you have, and we've been through 2X CUNY, we've been bringing a number of experts from many, many fields to come teach on our campuses. They teach part-time, they teach a class or they teach two classes, but when they do that, A, the students have somebody in front of them who can talk about what's happening in the classroom, the opportunities for internships for jobs become organic because you have an email or a text to send to someone and they already know what the talent is on the campus so they connect organically with their recruiters back in all their companies. They're talking to the faculty about revising curriculum and new opportunities that emerge, so those are virtual cycles that we need to encourage every day, and we are committed to doing that in tech. We're also doing it in other sectors that are needing the community in finance, in business, in other areas we're doing that work too, but we want to double down because we know that demand is there.

We also know that the industry is demanding a workforce that looks more like New Yorkers and the tech sector is very, very challenged in that perspective so this is something that goes to the root of that problem because you are not going to be able to change the composition of any workforce, but much less a tech workforce in New York City, unless you have intentional efforts that combine the New York City Public Schools and CUNY. That is where the diverse talent that comes from our communities like Faith is, and we need to tap it early and engage it early.

Those of you who have suffered through being with me know that I want to go down as a patron saint of paid internships for other CUNY students. Why? Because I know that paid internships, we have the data that it shows students who participate in that, they graduate faster, they have that why. They have a sense as to why they're doing all the things that they're doing. They can see the finish line. They can see what's happening after.

They make money. Two key reasons why students dropout of college, the first one is financial. If you're in a paid internship and you're making couple of thousand dollars a year, if you're on financial aid, that's your money for transportation, for food security, for some of the other things that we know affect our students. If you're paying out of pocket, that's part of the money that helps your tuition, and we are so affordable that a paid internship that gives you a couple of thousand dollars a semester when you add it for the year, can actually pay for the entire year of somebody in a community college or a four year degree. You're getting a bit of financial aid plus the ROI of the social capital, of the experience of the workplace.

This is what this announcement is all about. We are committed. I'm excited for the FutureReady. One of the first sites that is going to expand is the work at Lehman College in the Bronx, going back what the mayor said about being in communities that have been excluded from the benefits of tech hiring. What we're doing is we are innovating, but we're using things that have worked. College Now, it's been our program for years in which many, many students take classes in the high schools that count for college credit. The data shows that the students who participate in that come to college and graduate faster. What we're doing with New City Public Schools is being more intentional about that curriculum. We're already doing that. Let's do it in areas where there's demand. Let's be innovative, let's inject work experience, apprenticeship to those things so the students come ready before they come to CUNY.

I am honored to be able to partner with a chancellor that cares so deeply about the faith of every student in the system. I am delighted that we get to work together. We meet quarterly with our teams to be able to push this agenda forward. I'm so grateful to our industry partners because I need to encourage you to even do more, to continue to do more. Just somebody asked me, "If you wanted to give every CUNY student an internship, you can't. There's not enough in New York City. Look at the data." We need the employers to expand those opportunities. It's good business for you, you save money in your talent recruitment cycle, so we need those partners to continue to mentor, to hire, and thank you, mayor, for setting the bar high for creating the environment of collaboration, not just between CUNY and the New York City Public Schools, but also with the private sector.

Faith, I know you have big decisions to make, but should you want to come to a CUNY school, the doors are wide open, and if you don't, I just hope they give you damn good financial aid in the other place. Thank you so much.

Floyd: Thank you, Chancellor. A critical part of all of this, not only is it the curricula and the students obviously, but it's also creating the connections between academia, your student life, and the employers and creating those strong pathways is really the only way that we're going to create a robust talent pipeline for all New Yorkers. To talk a little bit about that, we have Jade Grieve, the chief of, oh, actually we're going to go ... We're going to the center of the entire event today. Sorry about that, Jade. But we're going to actually hear from Faith Davenport, who we've been mentioning throughout the morning to talk a little bit about her experience.

Faith Davenport, Student: Good morning.

Audience: Good morning.

Davenport: Hi, my name is Faith Davenport. I'm an 11th grader at New York City Public High School for Youth and Community Development at Erasmus and I'm here to tell you today about my FutureReady experience participating in a workplace challenge at Google.

The Workplace Challenge is a six week workplace program experience where my classmate and I, with the guidance of our teacher, worked with Google in groups to identify the digital literacy gap in our communities and broadcast solutions to fix it. While doing that, we was tasked to help those find ways to start businesses and ways to encourage them to start businesses. The Google staff and our teachers taught us strategies like using surveys, researching our competitors, and finding places where they fall short, direct interviews, and in a creative fashion, marketing.

My team and I created a mockup company that directly funnels the proper information to those affected by the digital literacy gap across all generations. A life lessons that I keep seeing in everyday life, and especially in the Google Challenge, is that our voice matters. We were given a prompt that was not only relevant, but allowed us to have complete creative freedom. Every team from my school that presented had a unique presentation, but we all had the same core values of supporting those around us, so being given such a broad prompt was a wonderful thing to have. It allowed many of us to play on one another's strengths and still submit work we were all satisfied with.

The input we received from not only the staff at Google, but also our peers and our teachers influenced a lot of my problem solving process now. It cemented the idea that if one person is struggling, then there's more people facing the same issue so now I'm looking for solutions that would not only help one, but build a great foundation to help the next. The thought of working for Google never crossed my mind until I started being introduced to a work-based challenge and so even if I don't ever work for Google, they most definitely set high standards for the type of work environment and community I'm expecting from my future employer.

The workplace learning experience was an eventful thing that happened to me. It taught me valuable concepts and it helped me deepen the relationship between me and my teammates. And to those who have the opportunity to do anything similar like a workplace challenge, I recommend that you do it. It gives you the first hand perspective of what working is and it can shape your standards and your career choices. My major takeaway is to just do it, especially if it's an idea that helps not only you, but so many other people, do it.

Even if it takes a while to develop, no idea is a bad idea. And so I want to thank our Google partners. My teacher, Mr. Herkovitz, he worked with us through the program. Mr. Hamilton, our career advisor, and Ms. P and her wonderful staff at Erasmus. My school has not only given me these opportunities to make my dreams a reality, but they support me in every step that I take towards my goals. And our Google partners provided us with unconditional support throughout the project. Through this, you've all taught me valuable lessons and expectations I will hold onto to share with others.

Floyd: Really well done. Another round of applause. Thank you everyone. This concludes the formal portion of the program. I think we're going to move to Q&A…

Questions: Hi.

Mayor Adams: How are you?

Question: I'm good.

Mayor Adams: Good, good.

Question: How are you? I have two questions. I wanted to know what Google's financial contribution is going to be for this partnership and then can you also talk more about the teacher training that Google will be providing as part of FutureReadyNYC?

Floyd: Definitely can talk to you about the first part. Maybe to Felix, you can fill in on the second part about the teacher training. But our commitment to the overall program is $4 million, $2 million of that goes to CUNY. And I think a large part of that is for, at least in part, the tech equity initiative as well as some teacher training happening at the K12 and also at higher ed.

Question: The other $2 million?

Floyd: The other $2 million goes to…

Chancellor Felix Rodriguez: David Banks.

Chancellor Banks: Just to speak a little bit about the teacher training, this is Jade Grieve who leads all of this work for us.

Floyd: Who I, in error, introduced early.

Jade Grieve, Chief of Student Pathways, Department of Education: Oh, you introduced me early, so that's perfect. Thank you. I was right on time. Thanks for the question. The other really exciting part to your question about the teacher training. Teachers get the opportunity to come here to this building. I've seen some of this happen. They're getting experience actually doing the credential themselves. So you heard a little bit about the program. Students get the chance to do early college credit, they're getting work experience. There's a chance to get industry relevant credentials with Google.

That's the Grow With Google Data Analytics certification, and teachers are getting the chance to get training on that. They're hearing from Googlers here about the industry, about the different kinds of jobs, all the things that we heard from both the mayor and the chancellor. So, that's a really important part of the program and the partnership.

Question: Hi, how are you? So, how does the $19 million get distributed across the 100 schools and is going to be equally distributed? And also with the teacher trainings, how does that work? Can teachers apply? Will there be a cap? How many will be eligible?

Grieve: Thank you. The $19 million that the mayor referenced is funding going directly to schools to support the implementation of the program. Schools are either fully implementing, so things are happening across the nine to the 12th grade or they're implementing what we call first year implementation, so they're getting started with the ninth and the 10th grade. And so the funding that schools are getting is differentiated based on their kind of implementation, how many classes they're offering. How many students? So, it is differentiated. It's between kind of 160,000 and I think to 470. Depends on what they're offering. And sorry, the second question?

Question: On the teacher trainings, is there a cap on how many teachers can I suppose go through the trainings and how many be eligible?

Grieve: There's two parts of the training that's happening for teachers. One, we're running training through our office and with other partners for all teachers that are participating in the program. And so we'll actually get started with some training over summer. And then there are for schools that are partnering with different business partners like Google, that will be relevant to the size of the school and the teachers that are implementing the program.

Question: There's no set number as of now?

Grieve: No, not for that thing.

Question: This is a question for both the chancellor and the mayor. I know, chancellor, when you were talking, you talked about your Bright Starts program and how you want to continue to go through Bright Starts to this program that you're launching today. But there were a disturbing report today that the reading and math scores of 13 year olds in the country have fallen to the largest level in decades. I'm wondering how that affects New York City School students and how that would affect them in terms of this program being ready to do this kind of a program, given the fact that there's been so many challenges in math and reading that predate, by the way, the pandemic.

Mayor Adams: And I'm going to let the chancellor respond. The pandemic aggravated the problem that we were seeing. And that's why these partnerships are important. Historically, we have not went to our industry leaders outside of the bubble of the educational systems. We have not asked our industry leaders, "How can you help us analyze what is happening to keep our children around education, around technology?"

That is the wall that we need to dismantle because the answers don't stay in the fishbowl. And so what the chancellor has been doing with his team, acknowledging what has happened previously, reaching out to those cities who have figured out how to deal with some of the learning loss and saying, "What are you doing?" But it's a combination. We all have to be part of solving this problem of decreasing math, reading and other areas. Let me let the chancellor respond and then you could follow up on what you wanted to ask.

Chancellor Banks: Yeah, just to say, you're referring to the NAEP scores, which are Kennedy's national scores. It is not surprising at all that these scores continue to drop, but the scores have been bad for a long time and I believe they're fundamentally connected to the fact of where our reading history has been. We have not taught our kids to read. You have to understand that connection. If kids don't learn to read well by the third grade, it connects to everything else. All these reports that come out are just, they're just reaffirming what we could have already predicted. If I don't teach you to read by the third grade and I give you another reading exam in the fifth grade and the eighth grade, guess what? The scores are not going to be good.

That's not a news flash. That's the reason why we have made such a significant investment in NYC Reads. Our big bet that we are placing is that together with the work that we're doing with dyslexia and the greater approach to the renewed way of teaching kids how to read and how to read well, we will see over time, you won't see it overnight, but over time is when we will begin to see all of these scores and these reports begin to shift and to change. Now, the NYC Reads work is very focused on kind of closing the gap at the earliest grades, but we are still doing other work as well for our older students.

We are playing significant catch up here and we're working hand in hand with the UFT as well as the CSA. One thing I have learned is that it's not that our teachers don't care, because I think there's been a public narrative almost as though the teachers are just lazy and they don't care. That is not what I have witnessed. I think they were given a flawed playbook. We're giving them a new playbook and we think over time is when you'll begin to see an increase in all of these scores. The NAEP is just one of many kinds of reports that are going to be coming out, standardized exams.

Question: I wanted to ask the question is that I know that when students graduate from New York City schools and go on to some of the community colleges and CUNY colleges, many times they're forced to take remedial reading and math courses because they're not ready.

Chancellor Banks: Right.

Question: So, the question is, what can you do to make them ready so that they can fully participate in these kinds of programs that you want all the businesses in New York City to begin offering, especially if they have this reading deficit, this math deficit, that you seem to think is not... It predates the pandemic.

Chancellor Banks: Sure.

Question: So what should we be doing?

Chancellor Banks: Yeah. No, no. We are working very closely. We have a team that is fully focused on this work now. The first thing was we were focusing on how do you close this gap from the very beginning. That's why you get to solve this at the earliest ages. But we also now have a new body of work focused on our older students as well. You'll be hearing more about that, but there are a number of steps that are being taken, but we really spent the bulk of our time focusing on how to close the damn in the beginning.

Question: Are you troubled by the NAEP scores?

Chancellor Banks: Of course I'm troubled. Yeah. That's the reason why we're doing all of this work. And it's not just the NAEP scores. There are other scores as well, which trouble us, which is part of the reason why we're doing all of this work.

Mayor Adams: I don't think we could underemphasize what the chancellor has been stating. The first way to fix this problem is to acknowledge we have a problem. We have denied this problem for so long. I personally believe that the denial of the problem is because who's greatly impacted. All of our children are hurting, but Black and brown children are disproportionately impacted by this. I just fail to believe if the outcome that Black and brown children are receiving across the country was similar across all ethnic backgrounds, we wouldn't have a national emergency. I just think that people think Black and brown children are dispensable. If we saw in Rikers Island 40 percent of the children being dyslexic, and I think the demographics were different, we would see a national call for action.

I just refuse to ignore the fact that far too many people have a low expectation for inner city youth. I have a high expectation, and we need a plan that is going to deal with those who are coming in the system, those who are in the system currently, and those who have been failed by the system. Because I need to tell those students who have been failed by the system, that's a bend in the road. It's not the end of the road because your mayor took remedial classes in New York City College of Technology. He took a remedial math, he took a remedial reading. If I can go from that remedial level to become the mayor, then all of those children can at the same time. We need to reinstall hope in people who have been betrayed by the system. That's the problem.

Question: Yes. Good morning.

Mayor Adams: How are you?

Question: How are schools selected to participate and how were your students selected?

Mayor Adams: Yes. Why don't you just hang out with me with your… Brooklyn accent. [Laughter.]

Grieve: I've once been told it was a Staten Island accent, actually. Schools have been selected through a competitive application process that we ran earlier this year. We're going into our second year next school year. We've had a tremendous amount of interest from schools. So, we've had the good problem of having to select amongst more applications than we had places. But we've been selecting against things like readiness, kind of alignment to the program and commitment to equity. All of the things that you've heard from the mayor and chancellor.

Question: And that the principal prepares that?

Grieve: Yeah, so the principal, we have one here who can talk to that too later if you like. And also school teams. This is really about corralling the resources across the school to support students in these kinds of programs. So, we are looking for schools to tell us about how they'll implement the program, what supports they need, and what leadership team they're going to organize across their school too.

Question: Hi, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Adams: How are you?

Question: Can I ask about the status of Summer Rising? There was a report about…

Mayor Adams: Go ahead. I like that creativity. Working in groups, thinking differently. I like that. Since we are in Google, we're into that here. But go ahead, go ahead.

Question: I was thinking about whether programs like this could be integrated into Summer Rising. There reports that there are not enough slots, that there's huge demand for that program. What do you think? What is your response going to that? Can the city add more slots? Can the city integrate program like this into the summer as well?

Mayor Adams: Yes. And kudos to the chancellor. I'd say the fact that we filled up so rapidly, I remember on the campaign trail, I believe in school all year round. I don't know why we still on this calendar with two months off. No one is picking grain anymore. It's time to think about a continuous education. It doesn't have to be in the classroom, but the educational process should take place all year round. In communities of opportunities, they do that. They have very structured environment for the children. They know where they're going. We tell our children at the end of the school year, "Go figure it out."

That's what Summer Rising was about. Placing our children in structural environments so you don't have what's called the learning loss at the end of the school year, that they now have to catch up to where they are. And so we looking to expand this. That is our goal. We need philanthropic interests to help us here. We've made some great partnerships with Kathy and others. This is the time for all of our industries that are asking for the talent to be able to fill the jobs, to be part of building out the pipeline.

We would love to see this expand into Summer Rising. What the chancellor's doing and the Brooklyn STEAM Center, something I started when I was ball president. We want to expand that. Certifications, licenses. There's so much these young people can do without going to college and being able to have a good job after they do so. Yes, we would like to see the expansion of it. We're going to need help. That's what it comes down to.

Chancellor Rodriguez: The tech equity program that we're partnering with actually has a pre-enrollment program, particularly for students so that before they even start their first year, and the pilot will be at BMCC, they get some of that exposure too, so consistent, what the mayor said.

Mayor Adams: Many of you missed that handoff of the mic. I feel like the Black Phil Donahue.

Question: Question for the mayor.. I'm wondering, you about [inaudible] third grade, but I'm saying for students who are now of age to participate in this program. Are there remedial efforts to help them get the skills they need to even participate in this level of program? And then secondly, finding jobs for those people who even complete programs like this has always been an issue. I'm wondering, is there efforts to expand the number of available jobs? 'Cause as you said, not everyone's going to end up [inaudible].

Chancellor Banks: We're very engaged in some of these other remedial efforts and catching up with our older learners, if you will, who are already behind. That work is absolutely going on, but that's not a prerequisite for participating in this program. We're not giving them a specific reading test to say, "Do you reach a certain cutoff? Otherwise, you don't get a chance to participate here with Google or any of our other industry partners."

And in fact, it is the connection to some of these new opportunities that are the kinds of things that excite and ignite kids onto to higher levels of academic performance when they get a chance to come here and see how their schoolwork is actually relevant and connects to the real world. Because when you come to a place like Google, they don't sit in rows. There's no teacher standing at the front giving a lecture. They are given a problem, and they have to work collaboratively with a team in terms of solving problems. And it connects math and science and research and technology. And that is how we ultimately want to reinvent our entire school system so that it is fully preparing kids for the real world. So a lot of steps that we have to take, and we're on that trajectory.

Mayor Adams: And to the point that the chancellor's raising, our school system is not in alignment in what the real world is. We're looking for people who can communicate, working group, critical thinking. How do you sit in emotional intelligence? How are you deep listener so you can seek to understand, so you could be understood? Those skills, when I speak with my employers, they're stating that by the time these children and young people come to us to fill out their jobs and fill those jobs, those skills are missing.

So if all we are teaching is this robotic thinking of sitting in rows, waiting to raise your hand, that is just not what the work environment is like anymore. So we have to redefine this Alexander Graham Bell system into a smartphone system. And I said, these are bold steps, and I know it's difficult for people to really comprehend. We only been here for 18 months. We got work to do. We inherited a mess, and we got to try to fix it in our 18th month. And in 18 months we're doing a damn good job in moving us on the right pathway of where we need to go.

Question: So, Chancellor Banks is talking about reinventing the way the school system works and teaching. And this corporate partnership seems that's a parcel of it. Can you talk about some other corporate partnerships that are in the works or are already existing, and how they work maybe consistently or differently from this one to work towards that…

Chancellor Banks: Sure. And why don't you, Jade, because… Jade, with her Staten Island accent, we actually recruited her from Bloomberg where she was working. And she's traveled all around the world and looking at how various governments and school systems connect the dots between school and the world of work. And so, there are a number of partners that we've already engaged with. Jade, why don't you just talk a little bit about some of whom we're already working with.

Grieve: Yeah, sure. Thank you, chancellor.

Chancellor Banks: Mentorship program.

Grieve: We do. We have a number of partnerships with employers across the city that are supporting programs like this. Last August, we announced a big new youth apprenticeship program with the New York CEO Jobs Council and many of their members like JPMorgan, EY, Accenture, who were providing career readiness and apprenticeship programs and opportunities for students in our schools.

And then we have other partners who are doing what Google's doing, but in different industries. So another industry of future-ready that we're focused on because there's lots of good job opportunities and lots of different pathways for students to get into them is in healthcare. And so Northwell Health is an anchor partner for us in the healthcare system, and they've been a really important partner to us. Also, Pfizer have been supporting other programs, including Summer Rising. So we have other partnerships, but as the mayor and chancellor have said, we are looking for more. We want to keep expanding those partnerships, but we do have some strong partnerships to keep growing from.

Mayor Adams: And the welcoming was not there previously. From day one, when I sat in the office and sat down with Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Kathy Wylde, they just didn't feel welcome. And we were intentional about day one saying, "We need you. We're in this together." We have to get our employees ready, and how do we do that? And there's just a whole new energy between our corporate entities and government. We are ready for government to be a partner with us. Okay, why don't we do some off topics. 

All right, thank you. Thank you all. We're going to do a few, a few, off topics. Few. F-E-W.

Question: Mayor Adams, I wanted to know if I could get your thoughts on rank choice voting as we're seeing early voting begin in the primaries. Would you encourage New Yorkers to rank multiple choices when they're at the voting booth?

Mayor Adams: I think the system is in place, it's the law of the land. And I think voters should determine if they want to rank or if they don't want to rank. It's up to the voters. That's one of the most democratic aspects of our lives. When you go inside that polling place, that relationship with you and how you choose to do so.

For me to tell people to rank, if you don't think other people are worthy of your ranking, I don't think that's the right thing to do. Whatever way they want to vote, if they see five people that fit and rank them, I'm all good with that. They only see one, I'm all good with that. I really don't see any role that when I run why anyone should do more than one because I think I'm a good choice.

Question: Did you rank anybody below you when you went in?

Mayor Adams: Didn't I say that was a private relationship?

Question: Yeah, Mr. Mayor, do you have a timetable for selecting the next police commissioner, and would you be looking outside the department?

Mayor Adams: No, we're going to make sure we do the transition as quickly as possible. We want to continue our success around public safety. That's the prerequisite to prosperity. And as soon as the notification is ready, we will do so. But right now, I have a police commissioner, one that I like. And until she's out the door and going on with her career is going to be, she's still running the department. And we're still communicating about the incidents that we're facing. Good arrest she made yesterday, by the way.

Question: Would you [inaudible] to include outside the department?

Mayor Adams: We'll make the notification when it's time to make it.

Question: We're expecting some pushback in that the Council is having a hearing today on the migrant situation, what your administration has pushed more in the court to change the right to shelter, to alter that. For people who've criticized that move, what would you say is your rationale for it? How would you defend it to them? They're saying that this is a rash move on your part.

Mayor Adams: Well, I don't think that people who, as you say, criticize what we're doing is really rooted in reality. We're dealing with a crisis. Over 70,000 people are in our city seeking the American dream. And you know what I said before, my beginning point is to ask, have you been to Washington? And I would love to do an analysis of how many of our council members that are saying what we doing is right or wrong, how many of our council members that are saying don't bring a HERRC or shelter here, that are saying we need to do X, Y, and Z. Did they go to Washington? 

This problem is a Washington problem that has been dropped in the lap of New York City residents. It is unfair to New York City residents, who happen to be their residents. And so, as they do this analysis of what we did that's unlike any other municipality, no one's families are not sleeping on the streets. We are providing education to children, food, clean clothing, mental health care. No other municipality is doing what we're doing.

So as they do an analysis of it, they should start with the first question, did you go to Washington to advocate on behalf of your constituents? And I would venture to say 90 percent of them did not. 90 percent of them did... The number one issue facing our city and the individuals who are responsible for it lies in Washington, D.C., and I bet you 90 percent of them did not go to Washington. Think about that number.

Question: Did you do an analysis to get this 90 percent…

Mayor Adams: I said I'm making a guess. I don't know the exact science. Some citywide leaders never went to Washington. 

Question: So, during your on topic questions, I asked you about the [inaudible] scores were 13-year olds nationally, and you said that you thought that the education system had betrayed children of color, Black and brown students. And that my question to you is, do you think that New York City also betrayed Black and brown students in a way that predates the pandemic, and that we were never as a system addressing their needs appropriately? And after you answer that, do you think that you're now turning it around by changing the way you teach people [inaudible]?

Mayor Adams: Okay. I said children in general, specifically Black and brown. Children in general, what we've done to children across the country I think is a betrayal. But specifically when I sit down in my moments of reading and I zero in across the country where inner city youth are, we're getting the same results. That can't be an accident. A light bulb needs to go off in our heads. Why are we looking across the country in inner cities that Black and brown children are failing?

To me, that's a betrayal. To me, why didn't we have a national call to address this issue year after year after year after year? And then, Marsha, then you do the parallel. This is what really, when I started campaigning, I started to look at. When I was sitting down speaking to gang members and when I shared with them I was dyslexic, the number of them said, "I have ADD." "I have dyslexia." And then when you learn that 40 percent of the inmates in our jail system are dyslexic and other learning disabilities, and then you see that it's across the country, something is wrong.

And we have to acknowledge the fact that, okay, here's a body of children of our country that are predominantly Black and brown, and we see this happening to them year after year after year. Yet we are spending major dollars on our educational system and we still getting the failing results. All the money we send just about every municipality, their largest budget, one of their largest budgets lies in the Department of Education, yet we are spending the money producing an inferior product and we keep spending the money. Then who's eating off all that money we're spending if we get an inferior product that we're doing? And so, I refuse to acknowledge that something is wrong. We betrayed Black and brown children. If you don't educate, you will incarcerate. And that's who we are incarcerating.

Question: Do you think that the change in the reading program that you and the chancellor have embarked on will make a significant difference in the reading scores going forward so that people who are all students in New York City will rise up?

Mayor Adams: Listen, that's our goal. We are going to try. We are going to try. Our goal is, as I stated, we need to look at the children who are coming in. That's why we're doing a dyslexia screening. We need to look at the children who are in. That's why we're changing the reading program. And we need to look at the children who have been betrayed.

So I can't say that, okay, let's just start with the children who are coming in. No, I have to look at who's in the system and who is out of the system and the byproduct of that. That's why we want to just do dyslexia screening on Rikers Island. That's why we have BlocPower to help justice involved young people. That's why we doing what we doing on probation. I have to look at the full spectrum of how the city educational system, it has betrayed and failed, just as it failed me.

I had undiagnosed dyslexia until I got into college. So I went through the whole educational system thinking I was dumb. How many other children are going through the whole system thinking they're dumb? That's the role that we have to play.

Question: Just quick follow up on the council question. You endorsed in the Harlem race. Wondering if you're going to endorse any of the other races around the city. And then, on Sunday, you said you felt it was a coordinated effort to keep you from a second term. I'm wondering, who do you think, is there anyone particular who you think is coordinating that…

Mayor Adams: Well, first of all, I'll make the determination if I'm going to endorse in another race. I think Inez is amazing. Harlem needed some adult leadership there with some real challenges that we are finding.

I think the coordinated effort and my belief is that, listen, there's a body of people who were pleased with 30 years without having a mayor that looked like me. Listen, I upset a lot of people with my appointments, with my initiatives, with my challenges and just who I am. We can't pretend as though to some in this city I don't fit the mode of what a mayor should be in the largest big city in America. And then they're shocked to see the results. AA bond rating by Fitch, bringing down crime. People didn't think I was going to do so. Changing the dynamics of what the government looks like. Our first woman commissioner, first woman fire commissioner, first African American to be first deputy mayor, first Korean to be in charge of Small Business Services, first Latino to run the Department of Correction, first Indian American to be a deputy mayor, first Filipino American to be a deputy mayor.

When you start to look at what I'm doing, there's some discomfort of people who thought that people that look like Deputy Mayor Meera Joshi did not have the intellect to be a deputy mayor. I'm a disruptor. And anytime you disrupt something, there are those who sit back and say, "This guy's messing with our stuff." And then they make it so bad, people can say what they want, there are those in society that still long to see me stop saying Kunta Kinte and they want me to say Toby. And it's uncomfortable for them. So you can whip me as much as you want. But when you take off my shirt, you'll see the scars are already dying. I have gotten beaten enough that I can't be beaten again. I can into government saying, Kunta Kinte. I'm leaving government saying, Kunta Kinte. And if you don't know who he is, go see Roots.

Original source can be found here.