Committee on Education

There's like open meetings laws. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to today's New York City Council hearing for the Committee on Education. If you would like to testify, you must fill out a witness slip with one of the sergeant-at-arms, even if you signed up already online. Just a reminder, there is no food or beverages allowed in this room, and please turn off all electronic devices.

Chair, we are ready to begin. Just for— I know we haven't started, but for the record, um, she's my twin sister. We, we look identical twin, but no, no, it's fine, it's fine. Thank you, Amoy.

Um, good afternoon everyone. I'm Councilmember Eric Dinowitz, former public school teacher and student and proud chair of the Committee on Education. Welcome to today's oversight hearing on Portrait of a Graduate. I firmly believe the most important element of a school system is a basic question that we talk about with our students. How do you know you're doing a good job?

We have measures of assessment, and I see time and again that whatever gets assessed gets the investment. Whatever you're incentivized to do, you will do. But what gets measured? The Regents Exams. Yet in my time as a high school special education teacher here in our great city, it quickly became painfully clear that the Regents Exam, the measure of whether or not a student graduates, never actually measured what we want our students to do and who we want them to be.

ELA exams that don't actually require you to read a whole book, global studies exams that don't ask our students to conduct their own research and independently find multiple sources to support or refute a claim. The list goes on and on. And to make matters worse, they aren't always rigorous, just sometimes convoluted. Here in the city, we consider 65 passing, yet the Algebra Regents requires the students to earn 35% of the points to get a passing score.

In other words, you can get half the multiple choice questions right, none of the short answer right, and still walk away with a 62, very close to passing, but hardly a measure of whether a student deeply understands the material. 7 years ago, the Board of Regents and the New York State Department of Education, or NYSED, announced a comprehensive review of the state's high school diploma requirements.

The review concluded that the state's graduation measures were not serving all students well, and in particular were not serving students of color, students with disabilities, English language learners, and students from low-income households. I will add that the graduation requirements don't even ask what we want our students to do and be— that same question— students who engage in rigorous educational experience and use their skills to better their communities.

And all the elements that we see in the schools, from journalism to music and arts, photography to debate team, the debate team and math clubs, things that we know involve rigorous education, community-mindedness, civic engagement, they're not meaningfully measured by the department. Yet they are the things we are most proud of in our school system. And when I come visit a school, It's what the teachers and the principals are most proud to share.

In the years that followed NYSED's decision, they gathered stakeholder input, convened a Blue Ribbon Commission on Graduation Measures in 2022, and received the commission's recommendations in November of '23. In July of 2025, the Board of Regents adopted the Portrait of a Graduate, or Portrait, a framework describing what every public school student should know, be able to do and embody by the time they finish high school.

The aim is a system in which students can demonstrate proficiency in more than one way through options that meet the needs of all learners. Under the Portrait, a New York State graduate will expect to be: 1, academically prepared; 2, a creative innovator; 3, critical thinker; 4, an effective communicator; 5, global citizen; and 6, reflective and future-focused. Just one week ago, on September 14th, the Board of Regents authorized NYSA to move forward with the remaining pieces of this transition beginning in the 27-28 school year.

Students graduating in the 27-28 school year or later will earn a single New York State diploma without separate diploma assessment requirements. That means today's high school seniors are the last class who will have to pass the Regents Exam In order to graduate, I see no one upset by this. Regents exams are not disappearing completely. NYSIT has said the exams will remain as measures of achievement in state learnings of state learning standards, and state assessments will continue to be administered to satisfy federal requirements under Every Student Succeeds Act.

What is ending is the requirement that students pass them to earn a diploma. In its place, districts will be expected to assess students according to local-developed strategies. This shift puts a great deal of weight on the New York City Department of Education. NYSED's own transformation timeline schedules the release of Portrait Rubrics and guidance for this school year, and NYSED has committed to releasing additional implementation guidance by summer 2027.

Regulatory amendments to Part 100 of the Commissioner's Regulations are not scheduled to reach the board as a discussion item until February of '27, with adoption anticipated in June of '27. As of last week, advocates were telling the Regents that schools still do not know how they will measure proficiency for students currently in grades 9 through 11, students who will be affected in less than a year.

Implementing this vision across the nation's largest school district will be an enormous undertaking. And New York City will be doing it on a timeline the state has not fully yet defined. In March, Chancellor Samuels signaled that the DOE plans to ramp up its work on Portrait and restructured his cabinet to create a senior position supervising high school leadership.

That division was filled by Dr. Alan Cheng, who previously oversaw Outward Bound Schools, the Internationals Network, serving newcomer immigrant students, and New York Performance Standards Consortium schools, a portfolio that includes some of New York City's most established performance assessment models. Beyond that appointment, the DOE has not publicly announced an implementation plan, professional development program, or guidance to schools on the Portrait.

So today we will ask, how is the city preparing to implement the Portrait Framework across New York City public schools? What is being done now? for students in grades 9 through 11 and beyond? And who will graduate under the new system? Are you expanding work-based learning and other performance-based opportunities in the meantime? What are you learning from consortium schools which have assessed students this way for decades?

And how are you coordinating with NYSED on these issues? The Portrait has the ability to radically transform our school system in a way that will finally allow our schools to fully invest in programs that we know actually benefit students and allow our students to display their vast knowledge and skills in ways unconstrained by poorly written or poorly graded Regents exams.

I do, however, fear that Portrait runs the risk of removing all rigor from our school system by doing what we so often do in the DOE, turn a well-meaning policy into a compliance checklist, and allow the DOE pressures to improve graduation rates and credit accrual at the expense of quality education. The future of our school system, and therefore our city, rests on our ability to properly implement this directive.

I look forward to today's important hearing. And I also want to thank— I want to thank the members of the Education Committee who have joined us today, including Council Members De La Rosa, Gutierrez, Lewis, Narcisse, Lee, Wong, and Joseph. And on Zoom, we have Council Members Farias and Zhuang. I would also like to thank my Chief of Staff Jenna Klaus, my Legislative and Budget Director Theo Solter, and the Education Committee staff including Senior Legislative Counsel Alejandro Carvajal, Senior Legislative Policy Analyst Chloe Rivera, Legislative Policy Analyst Katie Salina, Principal Financial Analyst Angeline Lawless, and Financial Analyst Grace Amato for their work on today's hearing.

I would like to remind everyone who wishes to testify in person today that you must fill out a witness slip which you can find on the desk of the sergeant-at-arms near the entrance of this room. Please fill out the slip even if you have already registered in advance that you will be testifying in person today. I also want to point out that we will not be voting on legislation today.

To allow as many people as possible to testify, testimony will be limited to 2 minutes per person, whether you are testifying in person or on Zoom. I am also going to ask my colleagues to limit their questions and comments to 5 minutes. Please note that generally witnesses who are here in person will testify before those who are here on the Zoom webinar.

As a reminder to all of our witnesses, please state your name prior to your testimony for the record. If anyone here requires an accessible version of a presentation given at today's hearing, please email testimony@council.nyc.gov.

Thank you. Now, in accordance with the rules of the council, I will administer the affirmation to the witnesses from the mayoral administration. I will call on each of you individually for your response. Please raise your right hand. Do you affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth before these committees and to respond honestly to councilmember questions?

The record shows they all said yes. Thank you, and you may begin your testimony.

Thank you so much. Good afternoon, Chair Dinowitz, members of the committee, and distinguished members of City Council. My name is Danielle Junta, and I'm the First Deputy Chancellor of New York City Public Schools. I'm joined today by my colleagues, Dr. Ellen Chang, Supervising Superintendent of High Schools in District 79, Jane Martinez Dowling, Chief of Student Pathways. Cordelia Vevey, Chief of Curriculum and Instruction.

Katie Hanson, Executive Director of Academic Policy and Systems. Sharon Rentscher, Senior Executive Director of State and Federal Education Policy and Planning. And Michael Prayer, our Superintendent of Brooklyn South High School. Thank you for the opportunity to talk about the implementation of New York Inspires and New York State's Portrait of a Graduate framework. This statewide effort started back in 2019 with the New York State Blue Ribbon Commission on Graduation Measures, which brought together educators, students, families, higher education leaders, employers, community representatives, to examine whether New York State's graduation system was preparing students for success in a rapidly changing world.

The resulting recommendations laid the foundation for New York Inspires and Portrait of a Graduate. New York's work is part of a growing national movement, with more than 20 states across the country reexamining graduation requirements to better align with the knowledge, skills, and experiences students need for college, careers, and civic life. While approaches vary by state, a common theme has emerged: maintaining rigorous academic expectations while creating more opportunities for students to demonstrate learning through authentic, real-world experiences and multiple measures of readiness.

New York Inspires, New York's statewide effort, invites us to rethink what it means for a student to graduate from high school prepared for college, career, and civic life. life. We at New York City Public Schools are embracing this opportunity to actualize the mayor and chancellor's vision for how New York City Public Schools can best serve New Yorkers.

In our schools, we believe this work is ultimately about a simple but important question: What should every student know, be able to do, and be prepared for when they leave schools? The world our students are entering is changing rapidly. Advances in technology, new economic demands, and evolving career pathways require students to possess not only strong academic knowledge, but also the ability to think critically, communicate effectively, solve complex problems, work collaboratively, and adapt to change.

These are not new aspirations. They are skills that families, employers, colleges, and educators have long valued. What is new is our opportunity to ensure they are consistently developed and recognized across a student's entire educational journey. The New York State Portrait of a Graduate was adopted by New York City Public Schools in 2025 and provides a shared vision for that future.

It shifts the conversation between what— beyond what students complete and toward what students can demonstrate. It asks us to create learning experiences that help young people become academically prepared, creative innovators, critical thinkers, effective communicators, global citizens, and reflective and future-focused learners. Importantly, this work is not about lowering expectations. It is about raising them. For too long, a single measure has carried outsized weight in determining how readiness is defined.

Under New York Inspire, students will increasingly be asked to demonstrate their learning in authentic and meaningful ways. They will be expected to apply knowledge, explain their thinking, solve authentic problems, and show evidence of growth and achievement over time. This could look like an 8th grader being asked to do an oral defense, rather than just taking a test to demonstrate their academic knowledge, as well as effective communication and critical thinking, 2 of our Portrait of a Graduate attributes.

Our goal is to expand opportunities that, for one, that one, for real-world demonstrations of learning, capstones and portfolios, for instance. Across New York City Public Schools, many schools already provide students with opportunities to demonstrate their learning in these effective ways, and we strive to expand that access. Academic rigor remains essential. As we expand academic foundations to include personal finance and climate education, we are not moving away from robust and rigorous literacy, math, science, social studies, and the arts.

They represent critical disciplinary knowledge and skills that students need to be successful. Furthermore, our work through New York City Reads and New York City SOLVES provides the essential instructional foundation on which we are building our implementation of the Portrait of a Graduate and New York Inspires. Shared research-based curricula that ensure every student engages in grade-level learning coupled with sustained professional learning and support for educators, will remain central to improving student achievement and preparing students to apply their knowledge and skills in meaningful ways.

Moving beyond test scores as the sole measurement for student learning is an opportunity to raise expectations for our students. Even though the Regents are not going away, decoupling them from graduation requirements starting next year is a profound opportunity and major change. It opens the door more widely for students to authentically and in multiple ways demonstrate their learning and readiness to graduate.

We are excited about the opportunity New York Inspires brings for our students in New York City public schools, and we look forward to continuing our partnership with New York State Education Department on the rollout, as well as sharing what we see for the future with our students, educators, and families. We are approaching this work with humility and optimism because we are not starting from scratch.

New York Inspires is a multi-year design and implementation effort. When it is at full implementation in '29-'30, we will have spent years laying the foundation for our students' success. We'll build on the success of Office of Student Pathways innovations such as our STEAM centers, early colleges, P-TECH, and career and technical education schools, and the transformative evidence-based Future Ready New York City.

Which is in over a third of our high schools and has a proven efficacy with substantial impact data. We will continue to scale and sustain student pathways to increase participation in career-connected learning, such as work-based learning programs and apprenticeships, while deepening our investments in industry-aligned pathways with the support of both public sector and industry champions in healthcare, education, building trades, and sustainable green economy.

These examples show us that rigorous, engaging, future-focused learning is already taking place throughout our system. Our responsibility now is to learn from those successes, build on them, and create conditions that allow more students to benefit from similar opportunities. We are approaching this work with a clear commitment. Every student in every neighborhood should have access to high-quality learning experiences that prepare them for the opportunities and challenge of the future.

Equity must remain at the center of this transformation. The promise of New York Inspires is not that a few schools will innovate while others remain unchanged. The promise is that all students will benefit from stronger connections between classroom learning and the knowledge, skills, and experiences they need to thrive beyond graduation. As we move forward, New York City Public Schools is committed to engaging educators, families, students, higher education partners, employers, community organizations, and elected officials in this conversation.

Lasting educational transformation succeeds only when it is grounded in trust, transparency, and shared understanding. Families deserve clear information about what these changes mean for their children. Educators deserve the support necessary to implement new approaches while maintaining high expectations. And students deserve a system that recognizes their strengths and prepares them for their next steps. Our goal is simply not to respond to policy changes at the state level.

We want to take this opportunity for the largest school district in the country to show what's possible when we innovate and bring authentic, real-world learning into our classrooms. Our goal is to ensure that a diploma from New York City Public Schools continues to be a meaningful symbol of achievement and readiness. We want graduates to leave our schools with strong academic foundations, confidence in their abilities, opportunities to pursue their aspirations, and the skills necessary to contribute to their communities and our city.

New York Inspires presents a historic opportunity to align our educational system around a shared vision for student success from the earliest grades through graduation. While this work will take time, we are excited about its potential to better prepare young people for the future they will inherit and help shape. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. We look forward to answering any questions and continuing our partnership to ensure that New York City student graduates are ready to learn, lead, contribute, and succeed.

Thank you. We've also been joined by Council Member Krishnan. So, First Deputy Chancellor— I keep getting that— Chancellor, First Deputy Chancellor. I think you spoke in broad strokes about some of the ideas about Portrait of a Graduate, and so I want to dig into, I guess, what it looks like in practice. I'm going to share some general concerns.

I'll ask a question, but just to share the concerns I'm hearing from principals, they haven't gotten much guidance about what it actually looks like. Though principals say, well, I have these great programs and I think it fits into these categories. Teachers who need to be trained on how to shift their curriculum or include or exclude things that they would have otherwise done don't know where they're going because they don't know how they'll be assessed, how the students will be assessed, what guidance.

And parents often have no idea what we're talking about when we say the Portrait of a Graduate. So when I hear you say families deserve clear information about what these changes mean, Educators deserve. I agree with you, and that's why I think the hearing is important today to, you know, let's really dig down in this information. So what work has the DOE done to date to plan for implementing the Portrait of the Graduate framework?

Thank you for that question. We have— we've been engaging in a lot of work around Portrait of a Graduate. It started with Sharon Rentscher's membership and partnership with the state and the Blue Ribbon Commission on which so many of our folks participated. And then as it came into New York City schools, we worked with Katie's team in the Office of Policy and Evaluation to put together trainings for our superintendents, their deputies, their senior cabinets, and every principal across the system.

Can I pause one second just to, what you said came into the schools, what schools are currently doing Portrait of a Graduate work? All right, let me back out. So let me answer some of the question around what have we been doing to get the system ready for Portrait of a Graduate. That is really what I'm seeking to answer first.

And then to your question, we have, similar to the district that Dr. Chang was leading, lots of robust examples and the work of students' pathways. That's— this work is in our schools. But first, let, let us back out into what the plan is and how we've been approaching it in our schools. So I'll start with Alan Chang talking a little bit about our core team, our steering committee, and then Katie can talk a little bit about the content that we've been making sure our superintendents, their teams, and all of our principals have engaged in.

Good afternoon, Chair. I'm Alan Chang, supervising superintendent for high schools in District 79. I really want to start by thanking you for convening this committee and giving us a chance to be able to answer some of these questions because this is such an important part of the direction that we're going in. I also want to be able to acknowledge that, as you stated, that there's such tremendous work that is already happening in our system.

We have networks of schools that have been deeply committed to career and technical education through Future Ready NYC. We have many members of our affinity partners and schools that have been doing this work. There are so many elements that we are already seeing that are giving us a head start as part of this. New York State has also recognized that this is a multi-year transition.

They do not expect this to be a switch that gets flipped in overnight. We will later talk about sort of each of the years and cohorts and exactly what that means. We're also, of course, committed to working directly with our superintendents our principals, and our teachers through our existing professional development structures to be able to help them deeply grapple with— You have journalism students who believe in a free press.

Please don't cut his mic. Let's use this for now. No, you should be fine. There we go. Great. We're back on. All right, perfect. We're back on. You know, for a while there, you get to your teacher voice or principal voice, and you can do that. So I do want to be able to say that we have many professional learning structures that are going to be really important.

So far in the last 6 months, one of the key things that we can speak to is that we have brought together every one of our superintendents to be able to go deeply into an understanding what this timeline looks like, what are the 6 essential proficiencies that are part of a Portrait of a Graduate, as well as the implications for each of the coming cohorts.

Once we've done that, we then went into our superintendent meetings with our principals. We held 45 meetings, each with each group and district, so community school districts as well as high school districts, presenting to them, here's the basic information that the state has laid out. Let's do some asset mapping around what are the key qualities that your schools already have in place What is the capacity of your district team to be able to support our schools?

And then what are some practices that you want to be able to grow in, and how do we design that? We took that feedback, we gathered that information, and we're also working very closely with the state to be able to design specific citywide professional learnings that we will be opening up to our schools and our teachers. so that they can really help inform what this process will look like moving forward.

So I want to kind of summarize a little bit so far for that question of what it looks like. Asset mapping, you've gone to all your high schools, or are you focused on sort of your PBATs, like your old schools? So what we have done is we've met with every single superintendent, and the superintendents run their principal meetings.

And so this spring we met with every single principal, not just the high schools, not just the high schools in my former district, but really across the system. I want to turn it over to Katie Hanson, who can also speak a little bit more about some additional continued engagement that we've been doing. And I just want to try to, like, be focused.

I want to get away from the timeline. Sure. And I'm communicating to you what teachers, principals, administrators, superintendents have communicated to me, that they've gotten a lot on the timeline. a lot on the broad strokes, but not really a lot on what it looks like in the classroom. Like, what is a rigorous experiential learning, and how does that differ from just like a regular class project that a teacher might do, a 2-day little project?

So if you can incorporate that, I would appreciate that as well. Okay. I think, um, I think I'll transition. You know, this year, uh, we know that personal finance, uh, actually launched in our schools as a part of this, and that world lives within our Office of Student Pathways. And Jane can talk a little bit about how that is getting off the ground so that we can talk more about how this is actually hitting schools, the supports that they've received, um, and what's going on in that first phase in of personal finance.

Thank you, FTC, and it's good to see many of you. Thank you for the time. So, as part of the Phase 2 rollout of New York Inspires, we've adopted— the Board of Regents adopted a K-12 personal finance education requirement, and that's the first one that is going to be effective this fall, the fall of 2026-2027. for grades 5 through 12, and then in the following year for grades K through 4.

Because financial literacy has traditionally sat within our career-connected learning through Future Ready, we took on the task this summer through our summer institute where we see 1,600 educators and we talk to them about what the Portrait of a Graduate will look like in their schools. Really kind of set everyone up to do their personal finance education. It's really important because personal finance helps our students prepare financially.

They— we are coupling it with a lot of the work that we're doing with Save for College, which also lives in our portfolio, and we want to really support the long-term economic mobility as students navigate increasingly complex financial decisions. I couldn't tell you how to run a Robinhood app, but our kids are going to have to know that.

Um, and so we took a proactive system-wide approach ahead of implementation. Each superintendent designated a district point person. Schools received vetted curriculum options and implementation guidance, and personal finance was a major focus, as I said, of our summer institute. Implementation is still in its early stages, but nearly 50% of our middle and high school students have personal finance instruction Scheduled for the fall semester, with additional schools expected to provide instruction during the spring semester based on their scheduling, what their scheduling model looks like.

Can I pause there? Middle and high school students, how many have it scheduled, programmed for their— 50% of middle and high school students have it in their personal finance instruction that's scheduled for the fall. And then— Like this year? This year, yeah, starting in September. Is there a state or city curriculum that is official and being used?

What we did was that we provided schools with a menu of centrally reviewed curriculum resources aligned to the New York State 5 required personal finance learning targets while allowing students the flexibility to select the option that best fits their local context. Okay. Is there— and this is going to conform with like this portfolio-based or project-based learning, like that idea?

Yes, it will fit in within one of the many attributes. And are there sample assignments or specific assignments per the curriculum that students have to complete? Or are you relying on the teachers to come up with those? No, we actually have those because the implementation models that we have used are those that we have been using through the Office of Student Pathways when we've been implementing financial literacy.

So the projects or portfolio, the assignment themselves exist. I assume then that the rubric exists and it's across all of the schools. Why don't— do you want me— I'm happy to tell you what the implementation structure looks like in all of those schools. Sure. From grades 5 through 8 and grades 9 through 12, schools may provide instruction through a designated course, embedded instruction, a CTE pathway, or a combination of approaches.

As a result, implementation may occur during different grades or semester, depending on the school's academic program and scheduling structures. And as students progress through their different grade bands, you know, to make it developmentally appropriate, instruction becomes increasingly sophisticated, helping them build and apply knowledge related to earning, spending, saving, credit, risk, and other financial decisions. We at New York City Public Schools are going to continue supporting schools through professional learning, technical assistance, and borough-based communities of practice throughout the school year.

I think one of the concerns people have about taking away the Regents is, like them or hate them, like, a teacher knows kind of like what they have to teach, and everyone's graded essentially the same way, right? And I think people are looking for the same thing with whatever assignments. And I just want to make sure that this program, the financial literacy, and we'll have other programs, but focus on financial literacy.

The assessments are the same across the board, or they're the same per curriculum. Is the rubric the same across the board per grade level? Like, will every 9th grader be assessed using the same rubric? That way, as an employer, I know that a kid who took the financial literacy at one school has passed the same meaningful assessment as at any other school in the city.

Well, it's going to depend on the model used, right? So we have 5 different models that students can select from. So within that curriculum, let's say Curriculum A, call it whatever you want. EverFi is one. What is it called? EverFi. EverFi? Yeah. Cool. EverFi. EverFi. That's just one of the 5. Okay, EverFi. It's a silly name. I don't know.

But the— I didn't make the brand. It's just, you know what I mean? Ah, but you bought it. Just kidding. What I'm saying is like a kid who goes through EverFi 10th grade in Brooklyn is going to have the same assessment or be assessed on the same standards as a kid in the Bronx? That's a yes? The standards will be the same, but, you know, as Dr.

Chang said, it's going to depend on the model used, and it's going to depend on what schools are using. So a student can be assessed through quizzes, through projects, through performance tasks, through case studies, presentations, or other classroom-based assessments. But what we are doing is we are using models that actually hit all of the standards that the state has told us are important for personal finance.

And how is the DOE ensuring that the rigor remains? And I think this question is similar to any other subject. How is the DOE ensuring, what work has been done to ensure that the rigor remains, that students are graded, whatever the method of assessment is, on some sort of standard so we know it's transferable from school to school?

I mean, I'm happy to say that these are all models that we have used through our own work at the Office of Student Pathways, but I'm happy to turn it over to one of our colleagues. It's still being developed, right? This will be the first year. But what we do know is that all of the 5 that we selected were, one, because of schools and high schools and superintendents and principals that were very interested and had proven efficacy on the models.

And second, that there was an opportunity to really figure out, like, how is— what is the best way to ensure that my students in my schools are learning the competencies? Yeah, Dr. Chang. I think at the core of your question is when we have these standards and expectations, how are we able to hold that level of expectations and that rigor across our schools?

And I think that that's a completely fair question for us to be asking at this point in time. And so I want to be able to highlight that across all of these curriculums, we've made abundantly clear what the state standards are. In the curriculum are tasks, assessment practices, and rubrics in which we are providing ongoing training. In addition to that, we bring together teachers, ensure that what it is that they are grading and assessing are normed and scored.

And so you're familiar with how we do Regents-based scoring on open-ended assessments. There are similar practices that says whether or not this particular task should result in this particular kind of score. That kind of norm referencing is extremely important and to be able to ensure that we're being transparent about the standards that we're asking our students to do.

So in the case of personal finance, we are following what the state has laid out in terms of what the standards— we've ensured that the curriculum layer is fully aligned and we are doing the norming that is necessary across our schools to make sure that what this particular teacher says, this is great work, you've learned the standards, is also true in the next school.

I have to say it because I remember during COVID when we got pressure to pass kids who never show up to class. I remember hearing administrators before COVID I remember one administrator said to a teacher, well, I know they didn't do the final project, but can you pass them? And they promised to do the assignment over the summer.

I know one of those is anecdotal, but one of those was like a systemic sort of directive. And to hear that is good, that the training is happening is good and heartening to hear because that's what rigor looks like and maintaining that and making sure that it is normed and that there are standardized rubrics across the city, I think is really critical to making sure not just personal finance, but if that model is used for other subjects, that's a good start.

I have a ton more questions, but I do want to turn it over to colleagues for their questions.

We'll start with Councilmember Joseph. Thank you, Chair. I know I have 5 minutes, so I'm going to ask a series of questions. Beyond creating the senior supervising superintendent position, does DOE have a written implementation plan, and when will it be released publicly? Thank you. Yes, we have our supervising superintendent here. Some structures that we have stood up centrally is a core team which is widely represented here by the various offices under the Division of the First Deputy Chancellor that are influencing and delivering this work, from Dr.

Chang to Office of Student Pathways It is a very heavily seated academic policy, so we have OPE with us today. Of course, academics and instruction as well. This is a beautiful cross-office partnership. This group has also been leading a steering committee, and that widens the voice. How many people are on the steering committee? How many are on the steering committee?

It's about 20. We have representatives from the teams that First Deputy Chancellor named, Division of Inclusive and Accessible Learning, our communications team, as well as several of our superintendents. And we use that to norm on the updates we're getting from the state, make sure we have a shared understanding of the timeline. And we also use it as a group for thought partnership in developing a strategy around each of these components of the New York Inspires plan.

And students, multilingual learners and students with disabilities usually statewide account for the decline in graduation. What safeguards do you have in place to make sure that local Portrait Assessments are created for these students? I mean, at its core, this opportunity to move away from a single measurement for graduation into multiple measurements is a place that is going to really help our students with disabilities and multilingual learners show and demonstrate their knowledge in new and exciting ways that will honor their knowledge and their— the way that they can express it.

We, to Katie's point, have our DIAL colleagues on the team with us, and as we plan professional learning with them, just like with READS and SOLVES, the DIAL team is with us making sure that the lens of the students that they support are very well represented in how we move forward. And I did want to mention that in addition to The structures that we set up, the professional learning that Dr.

Chang talked about, and some of the early implementation as it relates to personal finance. There is a lot of information widely available on the state's website about this that parents can access, but we are currently getting ready to pull it over to our website in addition to the work and the values that New York City Public Schools Schools has and move into a more New York City engagement around this topic.

Last week's meeting with the state and this week's hearing is certainly helping catapult that aligned timeline to make this really a robust conversation across our city. What specific professional development plan and budget and how many schools have received Portrait-aligned training so far? What are your numbers? I wouldn't say outside of the personal finance work, all of the work that lives under— actually, let me There's a lot because of the work that Jane leads.

And to the point she shared before, reaching over 1,600 educators over the summer institute, which was very strongly aligned to Portrait of a Graduate. You know, I just want to reiterate that we believe that at the foundation of Portrait of a Graduate is our New York City Reads and Solves approach to having high-quality instructional materials in our classrooms.

Making sure we have strong assessments that catch students that might be in need of additional supports and having very clear interventions that align with their needs. And so with that also comes a tremendous amount of professional learning. And then we also have— I shared on the steps earlier, you know, as a superintendent who led one of the city's first Civics for All district partnerships, I think we are at almost— 10. 30-something partner districts at this point.

And so much of that work comes with professional learning. So what we're doing now is not necessarily like this dedicated Portrait of a Graduate budget and standalone professional learning. We're taking all the things that we do as it aligns into this framework and helping our schools leveraging existing resources. and initiatives. So we're not layering more. We're having people step back and say, here's where the action is.

So I'm running out of time. Do you want another question? I have another question, of course. What is the DOE's public communication plan for students and parents, particularly the class of 2027 and 2028, the first cohort that will be affected? Yes. Well, we are entering into our communications plan now so that we can very clearly lay out exactly— I guess that goes back to Chair Dinowitz's the timeline.

We want to make sure our families know the timeline and the expectations. But the state is clear. Until official, you know, more formal information and structures and directions come out, we are operating under the current graduation measures. Thank you. And as New York City implements the Portrait of a Graduate, how can the city build on sustained investments in existing models like Future Ready, career readiness, Modern youth apprentice, and what students— that give students opportunities to develop, demonstrate these through career-connected learning, paid experience, and apprenticeship?

I mean, I'm going to turn that over to Jane. This is her topic and passion. Yes. Thank you. Higher Education Chair Joseph. Thank you. You have to do the flip back and forth with— Happens all the time. Ted Zunowicz is not offended. So as you know, we've already built a lot of the infrastructure, lead it to scale, our work through work-based learning through Future Ready, CTE, Learning to Work, which is helpful to the population that you were speaking to, our industry commissions, intermediary partners, and as you all know, we have a really strong collaboration with DYCD, DCAS, and then the Office of Talent and Workforce Development.

Thank you. If work-based learning becomes a primary demonstration of proficiency, there are going to be 3 things that are critical. One is that we have clear standards and assessment rubrics so schools, employers, and students have a shared definition of what proficiency looks like and how it's going to be measured. Second is that we have to build capacity for schools through training, tools, and implementation support to ensure consistent assessment of work— of student learning.

And really important to that, schools also have to have employer support. Teachers, work-based learning coordinators, and workplace supervisors need clear tools, examples, training, and proof points, right, to make sure that students are receiving a strong experience and are evaluated fairly. And then the third thing, again, which you spoke to, is just making sure that there's equity, innovation, and sustained investment to ensure that all the students have access to high-quality work-based learning opportunities, including students in every borough, students with learning differences, multilingual learners, and immigrant students.

This fund— this includes funding for paid work-based learning experiences because we really believe that our students really deserve to be paid for the time that they're investing, and for innovative models to help schools and employers expand access while maintaining quality at scale. We do have a really strong foundation to build from with CareerReady SYEP, Work and Learn and Grow, Future Ready NYC, and CTE, which already connect thousands of students to career-connected experience.

We have about 90,000 students who are already receiving work-based learning experiences to provide a platform for future scale. Okay. And like Chair DenWiss would say, how do we measure success? How will— what's the plan to measure success in all of that that you've said? So because we have been working with our work-based learning students and their experiences, we have seen some very strong outcomes around the impact of work-based learning.

It is impacting students going to secondary schools. It's increased the number of College Now— students who are taking College Now courses. We— and really importantly, our kids have earned $85 million over the past 5 years, both in tuition savings and also in, like, direct wages. We believe that those are actually pretty strong impacts. And then the work and the growth that employers are telling us, both in the public sector and the private sector, about how these students, through either apprenticeships or the internships that they're doing have really, really added value to the work that's happening in their places of work.

Thank you, Councilmember Joseph.

I'm going to ask— I just have one question because it was brought up about students with disabilities. With the Regents exams, students with disabilities, students with an IEP, did not necessarily have to pass every Regents. They could do a combination of getting a little lower than a 65, if they made up for it in other tests, the details of which I don't remember, but that's the general sense, right?

There was sort of different standards. Is the intention of the DOE to similarly have different standards for students with disabilities, or will students with disabilities be held to the same rigorous standards as students without an IEP? All of our students need to be held to extremely high standards. That was a good answer. My question— that was a great answer.

My question is, will there be a different rubric for students with disabilities, or will they be held to the same rubric? We can use that language. I think what the rubrics do is they set the expectation. I think what's really important that our schools do and their teachers do is to really lean into this idea that there are multiple forms of assessment and multiple ways for the students to be able to demonstrate what it is that they know.

Right. So you have the standards, you have the rubric that lays out in the plain language. And then we say to students, what are the different ways that we think is crucial for you to be able to demonstrate that? And we have a long history of doing that here in the city. And in fact, when we move away, when we begin to decouple the exams, we begin to say there are many other ways for the students to be able to demonstrate that particular skill.

I just wanna pause, I agree with you, right? It's one of the reasons I love the idea of the portrait, but we have seen on IEPs, you know, a student has to get, you know, 30% of the 3rd, 4th, 5th grade curriculum, often to, I believe, to their detriment, because then they get to the later grades in the high school.

We don't have that. We can't say, or we shouldn't say, they need to only get a 30% on the Regents. What we do have is saying essentially you don't have to get the same scores as your classmates without an IEP. I'm simply asking if it's the intention of the DOE to say, students with disabilities, every other kid has to get, you know, at least 8 out of 10 on this project, you only have to get a 7, or a combination.

Or is the intention to say, the standards are the standards, because it's project-based learning, there's more time to work on this, and the standards are the same with or without an IEP? What's the intention? The intention is the latter part of what you said, which is these are the standards. There are multiple ways of being able to meet that.

For example, if we're thinking about career and technical education, if we're going to train somebody to be an electrician, to be a medical assistant, we want to make sure they are meeting the same bar. And it's incumbent upon us to work with our students, their learning styles, their IEP needs, ensure the proper accommodations are in place But the standards absolutely have to be as high as ever.

Thank you for that answer.

I'm going to turn it over to Councilmember Narcisse. Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Madam Deputy, and all your leadership here with you. One of the things that got me excited as a parent— I had to go through 4 kids, I think, from doctorate, from this and that and the third— I'm so appreciative in the time of AI that our children is not really can solve their own problem, their own disagreement, effective communicators.

I know we don't have that with the journalism here. Where are the young folks? They're gone, probably. Anyways, I'm so happy that we're putting— incorporating all that right now to make sure our kids are successful. Coming to the teaching, to the teachers' training and professional development, I want to know, so how is DOE supporting the curriculum redesign at the school level?

Is that support mandatory or volunteer? So right now there's no reason to necessarily do like a curriculum redesign. We are not bringing in new curriculum. What is exciting for our teachers as they move into the, like, the, what are we in, year 4 of New York City Reads for some of our schools, year 3, or in SOLs, and our social studies and science, all of it, is to think about, here's our core curriculum, here's our high-quality instructional materials, and with our professional learning partners, thinking more about the pedagogy. the delivery of this content.

What opportunities in our curriculum and in the standards our students need, can we deliver this maybe differently so that students have more opportunities to effectively communicate or demonstrate their learning than just even an end-of-unit exam? Mm-hmm. Those are next steps for us to tackle. We have so many professional learning partners in our schools that are both external through Reads and SOLVES, but internal by way of district teams, by our lead teachers, and our masterful principals that we can tap into the knowledge base that exists across New York City to help them rethink how they're delivering.

You know, in Reads alone, the modules are, regardless of the 3 different curricular choices, They are centered around these essential questions. And we want to help our teachers think about how we can bring these units to life more dynamically. That is what New York Inspires and Portrait of a Graduate is giving us permission to do. And that will be some of the ways we think about the supports our teachers need in the delivery and how students are experiencing the curriculum as a next step.

I appreciate that. Now, I'm already hearing from my office from parents and students who doesn't know what's required of them anymore. They sound like they're confused. Something like something, and they tell you they don't know what's going on. What is DOE doing right now to make sure every family knows exactly what their children need to graduate. Yes, thank you so much.

You know, we are seeing too that even the more we talk about things, the more people are taking one piece or understanding one piece. So if you don't mind, I am going to ask if we can give Katie a few minutes to kind of just break it down. If my chair is not going to kill me. Yes.

Break it down. We are a nonviolent city council. There will be no murder here today. You may. Because I think your wish is also our priority is to So let's really very clearly say exactly how this timeline does look so parents know what to expect. And then even some parents that are more in the out years, that more information is coming and that we will be partnering with them to get that out.

But for now, Katie, can you just crystal clear for us, uh, what to expect over the next few years? Sure, thank you. Um, and everything I'm about to go through, we've gone through with all of our school leaders at the spring engagement that Dr. Chang described so that they were crystal clear about what to tell their teachers, families, students.

This year, there's no impact whatsoever on graduation requirements. There's no proposed changes. So, our current seniors are graduating against the 44 credits and generally speaking, the 5 exams to graduate. If the Board of Regents votes to adopt the changes that they've discussed, that were just recently discussed at the September meeting, that will decouple the Regents from graduation for students who graduate starting next year.

So that's our current juniors and below. In addition, there's this move to the one New York State diploma. Right now, we tend to think of it as a 3-level hierarchy: local, which has those exam flexibilities that are primarily used by students with disabilities and some others, Regents diploma, which is sort of the standard 5 assessments with scores of 65 or higher, and the Advanced Regents, which will still continue to be an option.

The Advanced Regents requires students to do a specialized course sequence, some additional Regents exams, quite robust. So that will continue to be an option as an add-on to the one New York State diploma. So that's for students who graduate starting next year, 2027-28. Mm-hmm. The next real milestone after that is the new transcript, which is targeted for implementation in 2029-30.

The state will provide standards about how we will need to go about redesigning our transcript. Our transcript is very, it's very standard. Course credits, grades, assessment scores. But the idea is to show students' proficiency in the standards and in the Portrait of a Graduate and show a much more robust body of evidence. So that's a few years down the line, 2029, '30 for implementation.

Okay. I appreciate you. So I think you already answered how many teachers have been trained. I think it was coming from my chair. The new system counts internship, work-based learning, and service learning— I mean, learning for graduation, right? Will DOE expand its outreach to employers and community partners to create more placement and their money in the budget so that we can be effective?

I'll share, Jane, any expansion, but I think a very public priority of Chancellor and I is to— our children are part of the greatest city on earth. Yes. And leveraging the incredible employment opportunities, expanding internships is a big priority. And we are working through that now. And Jane's work, along even with Dr. Chang's advocacy and working with so many partners across the city that are very invested philosophically and financially in the success of this work, are every day ongoing.

And so as it relates to some of your questions, Jane, if you want to talk a little bit about expansion. Sure. So speaking very specifically to how we are using the community, right, in our bigger ecosystem, we've built a really strong employer and workforce ecosystem through the Pathways Advisory Council, which is a sector-based industry commission, school partnerships, and intermediary organizations that connect employers and students.

And so we have like what we call a 3-legged stool, right? It's going to be a 3-pronged approach. One is supporting students directly with funding, training, and technical assistance to develop local employer partnerships and expand work-based learning opportunities. One of the things that Dr. Chang has really pushed us on is to really consider like what is going on like around the corner from our students' schools.

Where can our students have experiences within community and not just like writ large in larger New York. So we are going to be doing that work. We also partner with intermediaries such as CareerWise New York to scale the opportunities across industry. And just to give you an example, today nearly 800 students are participating in youth apprenticeships, and we have distributed over $45 million in student wages and stipends through the career-connected learning opportunities that we have.

And that's not even including the SYEP wages that we partner with the And then the third piece is just to really create new public sector pathways, including the first-of-its-kind civil service youth apprenticeship law, which was passed last winter, which is launching this fall with over 100 seniors across 20 city agencies. And that work finally is really strengthened through the close collaboration with DYCD, with DCAS, and the Mayor's Office of Talent and Workforce Development.

Through Career Ready SYEP alone, New York City Public Schools and DYCD provided paid summer work experiences to approximately 23,000 students across 230 high schools. We're also really trying to figure out how do we couple that with students maybe even earning credit for the work that they're doing over the summer so that they get ahead before they're going to college.

And then in FY25, while Work Learn and Grow extends those opportunities into the school year. We're working really closely with Commissioner Escamilla to make sure that we are growing those partnerships. So as we look at Portrait of a Graduate, they're learning, they're getting those attributes, but it's also as scaled as we can possibly get it so that every student has it.

Since it's not my hearing, I'm going to stop right there, but I want to say thank you, Omoi. That always been— you have some great folks working, you know, for DOE. So I'm so grateful. And I have my friend, my superintendent here, Michael Pryor, that's in part of close to my district. We share a lot, and I'm a fan of education, you know, whatever you need, whatever I can do.

So thank you for your time. Thank you, Councilmember Knight. And equity along the way. Equity. Equity. Thank you, Councilmember Narcisse. I just have 2 questions, and I'll turn it over to Councilmember Wong, just about Can you clarify the timeline?

Students, I'm a junior now, pretend I'm in high school. I'm at 21 Jump Street going into— no one gets the reference. The old people do, and this one young person does. You're old enough for me to get it. But, um, Google it. Um, the original Johnny Depp— I think that's a younger reference for me, but go ahead.

But I'll pretend I'm a junior. The oldest looking junior in high school you'll ever meet. Next year, the Portrait is being implemented. I took all these Regents. Do I still get to graduate high school or do I now have to start doing capstone projects and portfolios? No, there's— we're not expected next year to stand up a sort of a one-for-one replacement for the Regents exams.

Our understanding, and as you know, these are Proposed, not even yet proposed regulations, but our understanding is what the decoupling means is students must pass their 44 credits to graduate. And within that, of course, there's many ways they're showing their learning in order to earn the credit, but there won't be a separate system of assessments or whatever the case may be that students have to complete to meet graduation requirements.

So you're telling me if I'm a junior right now and my teacher tells me, you got to take the Algebra 2 Regents. I'm going to tell them, no, I don't. I mean, we've been very clear in our messaging to principals. We meet with our point people from the superintendent's teams weekly to reinforce nothing has been even proposed, much less adopted by the Board of Regents.

And we don't want a single student to be impacted by saying, oh, I don't have to take my Regents. But you raise a good point about the transition. Yeah, I think the concern is what I said in my opening, which is, without a replacement of equal or more rigor, it's going to turn into, well, checklist, got my 44 credits, or the DOE or superintendents might say, we're getting pressure to increase graduation rates, so just do whatever you can to pass the kid.

Things that I've seen in the classroom. Just one other comment, just something to be very aware of that principals have brought up to me. If you go to a high school around here, And you mentioned leveraging local community. You're around City Hall. You're around the World Trade Center. In those 2 places alone, there's a lot of industry and government access.

I was at an Outward Bound school last year. You know what's around the corner from them? A safe injection site. I was at another school in the Bronx. You know what's around the corner from them? It's like a single adult men's shelter. Like, that is what is around other schools. So as we use the words equity, I want us to remember that certain neighborhoods don't have the same access to industry and government and everything else that others do.

I want to turn it over to my friend and colleague, Councilmember Wong.

Who keeps track of student attendance? Raise your hand. My first question to the panel. We are. We are too. Good. Okay, it's okay. Good. Here's my question. First question. It's very disturbing for me to see that such high rates of chronic absenteeism, and this concerns me because COVID is over many, many years ago, right? And then we're looking at numbers that, that are, that are far higher than the figures I've seen during COVID And when you say portrait of a student, portrait of a graduate, you know, that's the first thing come to my mind.

You know, did they go? Did they show up for school? What is being done on that? Because I find that we're not doing enough to get kids to go to school. Please answer. Anybody? Yeah, sure. I'll jump in just to say all of this matters the most when we have our children in school with us. for so many reasons.

The Deputy Chancellor Flavia Puelo Perdermo helps lead attendance and addressing chronic absenteeism. All of our districts have attendance leads, and we have in our schools designated folks that help keep a real— real practices, attendance teams, We have now the school avoidance liaisons that started this year. We have many structures in our schools to connect closely with families, to help get at some of the root causes of what's keeping our children out of school, and helping support families to, to the extent possible, remediate any challenges of getting children to school in partnership with them.

So do you have a theory on these high, high Chronic absenteeism figures? I think the theory for our chronic absenteeism is multifaceted. I think it is around just a wide variety of different criteria such as, you know, we have— So it will take a while to analyze the reasons? Well, we have. We have. I just don't have our attendance data with us right now.

I'll follow up with this. Yeah.

I want to expand Chair Dinowitz's question on community engagement regarding this portrait. At the September 14th Regents meeting, the Ed Trust New York testified that schools still do not know how they will measure proficiency in core subjects for current high school students, even though the proposed changes would affect students currently in grades 9 to 11 in less than a year.

Regent Hassani-Pratts asked, what resources exist for parents and students in this purgatory period? So my question for you is, what has DOE communicated to students and families about this transition? So we are exactly at that point where we're going to be doing much broader community engagement. There has been a lot of getting us ready at the central level.

Getting our district teams and leadership ready and our principals. We are counting on our principals and our superintendents. They have started engaging their communities at their local CEC meetings, district— their DPAC meetings. We are talking about it now in our parent leadership structures, but our principals working with their school leadership teams as a great and important entry point into explaining what this policy is going— is shaping up to be.

So who's gonna take the Regents if they're not getting a Regents diploma? Let's say I'm graduating next June. Right, I'm gonna bring in Katie to come back into some of the academic policy aspects of your questions. Yeah, thank you. So the Regents are still gonna be administered, and as I was alluding to before, the Regents are still a component of the Advanced Regents Diploma, which is still an option available to all of our students, and they're also a component of many of our seals or endorsements.

For example, we have a Seal of Civic Readiness, we have a Seal of Biliteracy, and a few others. For those, students have to do a very robust course sequence as well as attain certain proficiency on Regents exams and do other expanded learning experiences, sometimes work-based learning, in order to earn those special designations. The Regents do still serve that purpose.

They're one of many measures that students can use to show what they know and can do. Okay. I have a little time left. I want to move on to career and technical education, CTE. NYSED's timeline calls for redefined seals and endorsements in the 2027-28 school year. And the advanced designation is to become a seal or endorsement rather than a diploma type.

My question is, what does DOE understand would change the CTE students? Will a CTE endorsed diploma become a CTE seal? So we use seal and endorsement as synonyms. It's quite literally a sticker on the diploma, and it would remain— CTE alongside all the others I just named would remain as a seal or sticker that is affixed to students' diplomas.

Okay. Committee staff have learned from school leaders that counselors do not know how to program students towards SEALs under the new structure. So what guidance has DOE issued to school counselors? And when would— when they— when will more be issued? Yeah, so we already have guidance in our academic policy resources and other materials that we provide to participating schools about what those program requirements are for schools who offer those options.

So just to be clear, there's no So per the September Board of Regents update, there's no new seals yet. If the state decides to create new seals, we would then turnkey that guidance to our school leaders, our counselors through citywide guidance. All right, thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Thank you.

We've also been joined by Council Member Brewer. Say hello. I gotta say, you use the phrase like, The principals are sharing with their, I guess, SLTs. I don't know if you use that phrase, but principals are sharing with SLTs. I got to tell you, I've spoken to dozens upon dozens of principals. None of them know what they're doing.

They have ideas. They have, well, we're a CTE school, we have CTE programs, so I think we're well positioned. We offer the Seal of Civic Readiness. I think we have that element, but they don't have information to share. Can you share some of the conversations that you think principals are having or that you know principals are having with what this portrait actually looks like?

I think when we're talking about the work that we've done with our principals has been around what is this, what does this mean, what is the timeline, and really making sure that that is what is getting out. The questions you're asking also go back to your opening statement about, like, practically in the classroom, what has to change right now.

And that is, you know, we are partnering so closely with the state on what their next iteration of resources and guidance will be so that we can make sure that we are in full alignment. In the meantime, we have these great examples across our system from Dr. Chan's Chang's old district, and especially Superintendent Prayer, who sat not only on the Blue Ribbon Commission but is bringing this to life amongst his schools.

I would be surprised if you're hearing from his principals, but I don't want to be naive and say that every single one of our principals has the depth of knowledge of what needs to change or not and when. That is what we're work— we are focused with them right now on socializing what the 4 transformations are, what the 6 attributes are, what they need to know for this year, what, what is up next that will guide where we are going next that they will then need to know.

So there is a space right now that I think there is a little ambiguity because we are watching this process evolve. But we know that where we want to really lean into is around our seals, around our endorsements, around the opportunity to— demonstrate knowledge, especially leaning into the performance-based assessments that Dr. Chang is an expert on. Would you like to add any more color to that?

I can. And Superintendent Brayer, if you'll get ready for the jump seat, we'll get you to sort of be ready to talk a little bit about your own examples. I think, you know, to this question, which is really what is it that schools can and should be doing right now? And what is it that the principals are thinking?

And when you say these principals are saying, I've got this idea, this is what I'm thinking about, I think that is where we want them to be. And schools must be thinking about designing those rigorous learning opportunities. But how do they design them? And I just want to push back. I think there's a lot of ambiguity. I don't think there's a little ambiguity.

How are they supposed to know they can work for a year on a portfolio and the DOE can come back later and say, well, that's not portfolio-based assessment. What is that? I mean, they need some sort of guidance, some sort of structure. And I love that schools are going to have more autonomy and reflect their communities, But to some degree, it goes back to the standards.

There has to be some rubric or something that is standardized so principals have a direction in which they can and should go, and teachers have a direction. We're talking about something that's going to start in a year, and there's, to my knowledge, no professional development on what this looks like and how teachers should be shifting their practice.

That's what we're— I think I want to highlight that the New York State standards themselves are not going anywhere. Many of our courses do not result or culminate in Regents examinations. This idea that our teachers, our principals have practices in place that already involve multiple measures that allows us to be able to say, what are rigorous demonstrations of what that learning looks like.

And sometimes it is through a project, sometimes it's through an oral defense, sometimes it's deeply connected to a college course that they are taking. Those are all different ways that are already in place. And so when principals are saying, hey, look, I've got this idea of how much more I can do, we want to be able to leverage that and continue to be able to work with them.

But I— but you— but I— and I know you know this, the superintendents go into schools. I've been in the schools. They say, show me your ELA Regents, show me your Algebra 1 Regents. That's it. Yeah. I will say that in addition to asking for that information, because that is absolutely crucial and is part of the core foundation of that learning, we're also asking our superintendents to be able to go into the classroom to say, What are other rigorous forms of demonstration of that learning?

Where are students deeply engaged, having an ownership of that particular project, and where is that going? We want to make sure that we have these systems where across superintendencies, they're able to learn from each other and really collaborate across those schools. I'm going to use this chance to be able to give Michael an opportunity to say a little bit more about what does it look like?

Because I really want to be able to push on this notion that Schools have opportunities to learn deeply from each other. Students are informing and guiding this process along the way, which I think is absolutely crucial. And all of this is building towards a higher set of expectations because we know that these multiple measures really are able to have shared expectations, common rubrics and guidelines, the very things that you've talked about. that we need to make sure that we continue to be able to do with schools.

Yeah, which I— and I want to hear from you. I think I'll have to swear you in too, but I want to hear, and I want to hear what it looks like because we can talk about the idea of good assessment, but it's really important that what hasn't been spoken about, I think, to so many of our teachers and principals is just what it looks like.

Any teacher knows they go to the PD, I've gotten the PD on the project-based learning, and all the time they ask, okay, so I still need to get my kids to pass the Regents. How does this relate to the Regents? We're measured on something. Students are measured on something. Schools are measured on something, and we have to know what that something looks like.

And as much as I have my feelings on the Regents, at least we know what it looked like.

So if you could help elucidate that, that would be Great. I'm just gonna— if you raise your right hand, do you affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth before this council? Yes. In your testimony? Yes. Okay, please state your name for the record. Michael Prayer, Superintendent of Brooklyn South High Schools. Thank you.

Okay, so I'm gonna just say welcome to Brooklyn South as I share, uh, what we're doing. All right. So I had the pleasure of sitting on the Blue Ribbon Commission, and there gave me a lot of insight to what we were doing correctly, some gaps, and some things that I needed to improve on in Brooklyn South and take advantage of the opportunity, having sat and heard from a lot of constituents, but mostly students.

Students were able to share exactly what they felt was missing and yet what they desired to have. And hence was the development of a program called HEAT. And HEAT stands for Healthcare, Energy, Education, Agriculture and Technology. It's a place-based learning program. It creates sustained learning experiences connected to rigorous academic work with professional, civic, and historical context. And I do want to say for the record, I want to— they're not here, but Councilmembers Joseph, Narcisse, for helping me find partners like Con Edison, Maimonides Hospital, and a few others.

I just want to put that on the record. So what is HEAT? And I'm going to give you some clear examples of what students are doing. At the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, right around the corner, students travel from Brooklyn to the Federal Reserve Bank. At the bank, students study economics and investigate how markets, government, and individuals shape the flow of money and resources.

They examine a societal issue through an economic lens. work with professional economists, conduct research, produce a well-researched proposal, and defend it before economists and experts. They are there for the whole year. They travel in a cohort between 18 to 25 students. And then after— Sorry to interrupt, this is an individual school? This is a collaboration of schools across Brooklyn South.

Okay, so 18 to 25 kids throughout Brooklyn South. Thank you. Okay. And that's just one. At Cisco is another one. At Cisco, students study cybersecurity and investigate industry-specific cybersecurity challenges. Working with professionals, students analyze evolving challenges, develop solutions within incident response protocols for a particular audience, and present and defend those solutions before technology experts. Students have to understand the content, analyze an authentic problem, design a solution, and defend their reasoning.

At Maimonides Hospital, students explore areas including women's health, surgery for women's health, general surgery, pathology, and radiology. They work with medical professionals, investigate pressing issues, conduct research, develop a proposed solution, and defend their work before medical experts who probe their reasoning. Reasoning. The evidence isn't that the students spent time in a hospital. The evidence is what the students researched, reasoned, produced, communicated, and defended.

Then there's traveling, because we— one of the attributes is global citizenship. And I just want to share a little bit about what students are learning. Students study the Freedom Riders, and if anybody remember the Freedom Riders, they analyze historical documents, primary resources, oral histories, and examine contemporary connections to civic activism. They produce a scholarly research paper, a civic action project addressing a contemporary injustice, and a public presentation that defend before educators, peers, community members, and civic leaders.

We're not simply labeling the student as a global citizen. We're examining what the student actually did and produced. And so those students traced the footsteps of the Freedom Riders and they traveled for 2 weeks across down south. Then I want to talk about Poland. And Poland is very important also. The students studying Poland, they analyze historical documents and survivor testimony, work with Holocaust survivors, and extend the inquiry through place-based learning at Holocaust sites in Poland.

They produce documentaries and civic action projects and present and defend their work. They actually get to interview living survivors and then produce a documentary in this course. Travel is not the product. Learning is the product. Place becomes part of the text. And then lastly, I would just share students studying Barbados and the transatlantic slave trade and its impact on the African diaspora, analyzing primary resources, historical texts, oral histories, cultural narratives, and historical records.

They produced a scholarly research paper and a collaborative civic action project addressing contemporary questions of justice, power, inequality, and defend their work at the civic showcases in June. The experience creates the context, the academic work provides the experience, and those students also travel in a cohort all throughout Brooklyn South for 2 weeks. They study abroad, and that becomes an alignment to Portrait of a Graduate.

Thank you, Superintendent Pryor. I want to highlight that these are things that a given school may not be able to have the resources or the planning to be able to execute on their own. But through the great work of our superintendents, we're beginning to be able to create opportunities, curriculum, and work that we can share across schools.

And that this is happening truly, you know, I would love to be able to have more of our high school superintendents and our community superintendents up here talking about that. Because they have work today. Yeah, we're all working today. But it is also important to be able to highlight that just because a school may be geographically located in one part of our city, you see here the examples where we're able to bring them and leveraging the entire resources of our city, as well as some of the amazing networks and resources across our country and our world.

I appreciate that. I appreciate those examples. Did you develop— now, in terms of assessment, right, maintaining the rigor, one, those are all high schoolers who are doing this? Yes, 11th graders. and 12th graders. 11th graders. And how are the rubrics or the assessment criteria developed? Are those approved by you? Are those approved or reviewed or audited by the DOE central?

Yes, we do work with academic policy. Also, they're teacher-created. We use the standards, of course. And then the assessments is what they publish, what the students actually do to show that they demonstrated the learning for that. But let's— because now we're talking about, you know, the students in Brooklyn South held to the same rigorous standards as students in the Bronx, Queens, wherever.

And so I just— I want to make sure it's a yes that whatever rubric is being used to assess the rigor of those assignments and experiences, they go through the DOE and are approved by DOE Central? I would say yes because that's what we— Correct. Yeah. Okay. They work closely with us. So, that's great. That's great. So now, I need to ask about scale.

How many students total did you talk about? You talked about 18 to 25 for the first one. Just like in total, how many students engage in these types of projects? So, each year we have about 400 11th graders. Some of those 11th graders, once they go through the program, they become seniors and they become mentors for the new 11th graders.

But let me ask you, every single 11th grader in Brooklyn South goes through this program? You're saying it's about 400? About 400. And how many 11th graders total are there in Brooklyn South? I probably have about, I would say, I have 31,000 students. So 11th grade is maybe about 10,000. Yeah, about 10,000. You have 30— you said 31,000 high schoolers?

I have 31,000 high schoolers. Okay, so probably a little more than— if it's quarter, right, it's probably a little less than 10,000, but fine, whatever it is, like 7,500, whatever it is. So now we have the issue, one of the other issues that came up about scale. I appreciate those examples. I know, Dr. Chang, you have a lot of examples from your portfolio-based assessments.

We have this issue of scale. Great things going on in our school. It's clear, according to your testimony, the rubrics are assessed by something central in the DOE. Now that has to be expanded to about 7,000 more students in your district alone. What is, you know, what is the plan for that? Or how is the DOE going to support in expanding these types of opportunities to every single 11th grader who has to complete a project or an assessment like this?

Well, again, there are other programs that the students are involved in. There's CTE programs they have. There, um, we have the Brooklyn STEAM Center. There are other programs students are involved in. These are students who might not be involved in one of those other programs that have an opportunity to apply and be selected for what we're offering.

So broadly, what is the plan to scale? Maybe some here are CTE, maybe some here are these 400 11th graders. But is every single student currently engaged in a Portrait of the Graduate-esque assignment for each of their classes? I think as part of this multi-year initiative, we are working closely with our superintendents, our principals, to be able to create additional opportunities where they're able to learn from other schools, as well as making sure that the existing opportunities that they have For example, it's the Seal of Civic Readiness, the Seal of Biliteracy, our career and technical education programs, our higher education offerings and partnerships, our summer youth employment, our portfolios and panels.

Right. So there is a wide collection of this work. We want to make sure, one, that every single one of our schools from K all the way through 12 understand deeply what else exists out there. And we know our principals and our teachers are eager to be able to learn. So one part of the scaling is ensuring a greater understanding of the existing strengths and assets that we already have.

A second thing is really making sure that superintendents are providing their leadership to their schools to do an asset mapping of what is it across our network of schools that we can help support. and build out. And then finally, we want to be able to recognize the higher achievements and the rigor by virtue of student report cards and transcripts.

And I think that is an additional way for us to be able to communicate to families, this is the set of expectations that we are providing and how they're able to reach those expectations.

I want to reiterate that if this is starting in the '27-'28 school year, the Portrait, Again, we have a school year that's gonna start in less than a year. Teachers need to be trained, principals need to know what they're doing without this sort of stuff. I'm gonna ask about leveraging your assets, but I do wanna make a plug is that next month we are having a hearing along with the Committee on Higher Education specifically on civics in our schools, including the Seal of Civic Readiness.

More. What's that? We're excited. Okay, you're excited. I'm excited. I know, First Deputy Chancellor, you'll probably be there too. That was— I said we see you every week. And I do want to plug also, or just remind everyone that I think 2 years ago when I was Chair of Higher Ed, we had a hearing on the Seal of Biliteracy.

And after that, CUNY started giving college credit for students who successfully completed the seal and had it on their report card. I say all that, one, to say that this council stands ready to work in partnership with you on these seals, but also, and that we've done it, and I, as a council member and chair, believe in them as what it could bring to the table.

Now that, yeah. Chair, I also want to just use this opportunity to provide some additional clarity for you and for our families out there, which is that this particular transition, I hear you use the year 2027. The state requirement with regards to measuring and monitoring progress towards these Portrait of a Graduate proficiencies do not take effect until the year 2029.

And so we are committed to and want to be ahead of the curve and already have some great examples, but wanted to be able to clarify a little bit of that timeline, which is not that all of a sudden in the year 2027, We would have these new requirements. I think the communication between you guys, the principals, the teachers, the families needs a lot of work.

And the reason I say that is because I have lists of pages and pages of notes from the various groups of principals that I've met with, and they don't know a lot of what seems to be the basic— even though you've gone over the timeline with them, I think the same basic question of what it looks like in practice is not answered.

I want to ask about the assets.

At this point in the year, it seems to me that the asset mapping should have been done. Is your asset mapping of all your schools done, or are you continually— is that ongoing? So what we do have is that we have a robust sense of the landscape of the different kinds of practices that our schools are already doing.

I know you don't want me to repeat all the different ways that this work is already happening. We have our 190 Future Ready NYC schools. We have 150+ schools that are part of one of our affinity partnerships that have been doing this work. We've got our consortium schools that are in our network. So that is one key part of the asset mapping.

I do think we also want to make sure that we're taking into consideration what is the size of the school, what is the teacher capacity, and how we can work with that particular community and that need to be able to help support them. Schools, I know this from the teacher perspective when I was a model teacher and peer collaborative teacher, we got, I think the school got extra money, we got extra money, And part of that program was to do intervisitations.

We'd visit other schools and bring best practices back to the classroom. How many intervisitations have been done between these Regents schools and the portfolio-based, the consortium schools? So that is a practice where we've had in years past, whether it was under a showcase schools, lighthouse schools model, or learning partner, No, I know it's done. I'm sorry. I just want to get really to it, which is, I guess April is when you got the positions.

Is that right? Right. We knew the portrait was coming beforehand. You've said time and again correctly that we have schools doing great things. The superintendent highlighted a number of good things. What is the structure that's in place to get principals and certain teachers from schools that don't do portfolio-based assessments to visit the schools that do? What does that structure look like, and how many intervisitations have been done between those schools?

That's a great question. The program that you were in, I learn something new about you every time. I'll give you one more when we're done here. What about the Regents? We don't have that program currently stood up. It is a structure that we have been talking about, especially as we want to scale up examples and models for our educators to learn from so they can replicate.

I would say in my former role where I was leading the professional learning for superintendents and their teams, even before the transition, we were jumping into the Portrait of a Graduate work. part of our professional learning plan with our superintendents, specifically more so at the high school level, was intervisitations, even as part of the culture of our schools.

So I don't think I would have to go back to our agendas and look at how many schools, but like Superintendent Prayer hosted a visit. All of his— I think almost every high school superintendent over the last few years have been hosting visits and highlighting these. And I think practices in the high school world, especially as it relates to Portrait of a Graduate, with undergirding of like, how are you implementing SOLs?

How are you implementing READs? Right. That's where we have concentrated our community superintendents. But I think even before the transition into these new positions, it was the February superintendent meeting. We were at Lincoln Center. I remember it specifically because Superintendent Preyer, then Superintendent Dr. Chang, and some of our community superintendents did a panel discussion for their colleagues around how they were thinking about what exists in their district and how they're moving it into the conversation of New York Inspires and Portrait of a Graduate.

Yeah, I mean, it seems to me it has to, you know, again, you know, what does it look like? I think it has to look like structural supports from the top. And I don't mean just directives. I mean, schools need funding to do this. Whether it's coverage for teachers, support for professional development, and by the way, support for the consortium schools who are gonna be taking time out of their schedules and conducting, whether it's formal or informal PD, the structural support and the financial support to our schools to dig into this work.

It's work that, so far as I understand, Principals and teachers want to do. They want to be engaged with. They don't want to be left figuring it out for themselves. And we have, as you've pointed to time and again, a wealth of knowledge in our city of how to start approaching this Portrait of a Graduate. And I think you just kind of have to take a leap and do it and commit the resources and the time and the structure to doing it.

I know Councilmember Wong has more questions. I want to turn it back to him if he's ready. Thank you. Sure. Okay. I served in my school board for 4 years, and I still talk to the current CEC members regularly, and also citywide council and high schools. I talk to them regularly, but I don't think anybody there has engaged in this process.

So my question for you is, how are they— how are you approaching them? How are they being engaged in implementing— implementation planning? And then do you have a feedback mechanism exist for the families to weigh in on local implementation decisions? Please answer. Sure. I'm going to welcome Sharon Renter in, who does our state partnerships, to talk about a lot of the outreach to date.

But I do want to acknowledge that that is exactly the moment we're in for our next step, is having more regular conversations at our local CEC meetings, but also, you know, the chancellor and I and the cabinet meet with our CEC presidents. You used to join those also once a month. And really making sure all of our structures, that this is a more prevalent conversation.

That is, uh, that is on tap and ready to go. But there has been a tremendous amount of engagement that Sharon Renteria has been a part of, especially in partnership with the state. So I just want to give her the opportunity to just share a little bit about that. Okay. Thank you, First Deputy Chancellor, and good afternoon, Chair Dynowicz, and of course, Committee Member Wong, and also all of the colleagues who are not here to share this information with.

My name is Sharon Rentscher. I'm Senior Executive Director for State and Federal Education Policy and Planning on the FDC's team. We use FDC, you know, that's First Deputy Chancellor. We like calling her FDC. Thank you. And again, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. So as our FTC has shared, we come before you not only as implementers of a state policy, but as genuine believers in this, in what New York City Inspires can accomplish.

And as we've continued to describe, of course, what NYCPS is going and where we're going with NY Inspires, just to share with you a little bit of what we've done so far, how we've been engaged. With our stakeholders in this process. So as FDC shared, after Commissioner Betty Rosa did initiate this conversation and establish the Blue Ribbon Commission, we did have 10 members who served on the Blue Ribbon Commission, and that included not only our teachers and our parents and our students, community members— there were actually 10 members that actually represented us across After the Blue Ribbon Commission, we did, or as it was established, we held in 2020 and 2021 stakeholder engagement meetings across our city in every borough.

We actually had 2 in every borough, and they were well represented by all of our stakeholders. And of course, we heard from our stakeholders, but particularly from our students. And I'll share with you some of what our students have shared. as well as just talk to you about some of the engagement that happened after that. Both current and high school students and recent graduates— and you probably heard this as well, and we have students who are represented here who probably could share some of their same thoughts.

But they shared very clearly strong opinions with clarity, with passion. They told us that the amount of time devoted to Regents Exam prep during their high school years was excessive, right? They described it as time taken away from learning, from the projects, the internships, the community experiences, the creative and collaborative work that they believed would have actually prepared them for college and for careers.

And the recent graduates were particularly direct about the gap they had experienced. They arrived at their CUNY and SUNY colleges having spent years practicing passing tests and found that college expected something very different from them. They expected independent research, analytical writing across disciplines, collaborative problem-solving, creative and critical thinking across ambiguous, open-ended challenges. These were the skills their professors expected from them from day one, and these were precisely the skills that their high school experiences had given them the least time to develop.

And now New York Inspires will give us the opportunity to support them with those. So not only was New York City Public Schools present in the community engagement process and directly represented on the Blue Ribbon Commission, we then held ambassador stakeholder meetings in every borough to share back. And actually, it were the commission members who— or commission representatives who actually conducted these ambassador stakeholder meetings in every community.

And we did, again, hear from our parents, from our teachers, from our— From our students. School administrators, and our students what they would like us to see and how they would like to be further engaged. And this is now the opportunity for us to actually engage them further. I will share with you that we are very much engaged, continually engaged, in structures across the state, both with the state and with our partners at the Big 5 districts and our BOCES partners across the state. as we're thinking about and strategically planning, and we also have robust stakeholder representative— representation in those conversations.

And that will lead us again to further develop how we're going to engage our stakeholders going forward.

I mean, thank you for that. You mentioned one example of Students entering CUNY, entering college, not prepared with many of the skills. Are you assessing what skills need to be assessed or taught more rigorously? You mentioned research, for example. Obviously, the Regents doesn't test it. And so a teacher's— are schools disincentivized from investing in that sort of education?

Is it the DOE's plan then to ensure that in any of their portfolios there's a significant amount of research done? Because like I said, if you're assessing it, it's going to get that investment of time and money. So I think Superintendent Pritchett shared in the models that he described the amount of research that students were expected to engage in as part of the projects that they were engaged in with the partners.

Yeah, but I just want to make sure it is the DOE's central directive or goal, not the will of a very good superintendent, which I said on the record, sir. I know your first answer. All of our superintendents are good. But after that— Amazing. Amazing. Say the question one more time for me. The fact that certain skills exist as being assessed in these portfolio-based assessments is different than the DOE making a decision that research has to be an integral component in a certain number of the projects.

So my question is, you mentioned research as— I'm using it as an example of one of the elements colleges say many high schoolers are ill-prepared for in college. Is it then the DOE's intention when They are reviewing rubrics to ensure that research is a key component, that that is actually being assessed and measured? Yes. Okay. And I just— that was the easiest answer you ever gave.

And I just want to make sure— certain schools report that in the past, rubrics were submitted to the state for a rigor review. What structure does the DOE anticipate? And at what level? School, superintendent, central? for ensuring the rigor? Is it— I heard you say you review his rubrics for the portfolio-based assessment. Your goal is to review all of the rubrics across the city centrally?

So I think I want to outline sort of the sequence of things and the system that has to be in place. The State Education Department sets out the state standards, and for a long time they've set an exit exam for specific courses. But you know— What we will do here in the city is to be able to work with our Office of Policy and Evaluation.

We lay out really clear academic guidelines. We have our curriculum and teaching team that works with our teachers in our schools to be able to assess the quality of each of the content. And within that, what we're layering on is that as part of this transition, the state has said Across our portrait of our graduate competencies, these are specific proficiencies that are critical for students to be able to find ways of mastering over time.

And so what we're excited about doing is to be able to work collaboratively with our schools to be able to say, once that language that the state is able to put out, and then we can then begin to backwards map and say, well, what is the progression? for us to be able to get there. We know that this does not only occur in high school.

We need to be able to develop research skills in elementary schools as well as middle school. That then results in a set of standards and progressions that is tailored to each of our grade bands. From there, we will work collectively with our schools to provide the necessary training and norming around what are the different ways that students can use to be able to demonstrate mastery of that particular skill over time.

The DOE is the largest school district in the country. What I'm hearing from that answer is, well, let's wait and see what the state tells us. Yeah, I think that may be a perception that may be out there, and I want to use the opportunity to really clarify As you've heard me say, there are tremendous positive examples of a head start that New York City already has in place.

For example, and you've heard, and I want to make sure we put on record that the New York State Performance Standards Consortium has over 30 schools for over 20 years have had a state-recognized set of rubrics and guidelines that are accepted as just as good, oftentimes better examples of what a high-quality bar is that has backed by evidence that is accepted by universities such as CUNY and SUNY system.

And through that process, there is alignment, validation, norming, and scoring that is in place. So I do think that the— So I know they exist, but I think, I think as we've discussed, one element is taking the lead internally and saying, look, we know these things are good, setting up those structures to communicate and to ensure that internally that principals are communicating with one another.

Again, with support, the structural support and the finances. But also as the largest school district, I think it's okay to say, hey, we're New York City, we're doing it right. Dear New York State, this is what it should look like. And it just, it just, you know, when I hear like we're waiting for the guidance, you should be really a lot more vocal in what the guidance should look like.

I mean, give— like today alone, we have these youth journalism students who are here. You know, we're fine. I know all the work you're doing in the DOE. We're funding in the council. Like, that's what it could look like. Like, why not elevate these students and say, dear state, it should look like youth journalism. Sincerely, the largest school district in the country.

And so, and that's where I think we kind of like, we shouldn't be waiting and hearing. We should be elevating these things. Let me make it very clear. We are not saying we're not doing anything and we're simply waiting. We are very much taking the leadership. In fact, much of what the state guidance and their hearings and their feedback processes leveraged the existing strengths that we have.

I also think, as the First Deputy Chancellor said, this is the right opportunity for us to be able to provide bold leadership with regards to what we believe is possible. And a lot of this will be a commitment to communicating, to be able to help people see those possibilities by virtue of intervisitations. But it is also leveraging our students, our student journalists, and others to be able to say, this is what we care deeply about.

These are the ways in which, through civic engagement, we can help shape the future of what is being expected of a New York City public school student. And I know I've spoken a lot about principals and the support for principals and the teachers. I don't want it to go unsaid, the incredible amount of professional development that's going to need to be put into this, professional development that has to be from you guys financially supported or created or administered by the DOE.

When a teacher spends their college, sorry, their grad school and the first years, 10, 20 years of their career teaching for one purpose, which would be great education at the end of the year to test, There's a lot of teaching that needs to go into and a lot of development that needs to go into changing that assessment structure.

And I hope the DOE is prepared to do that. I also want to note, I know it's not budget season, but we're always in budget. It feels like we're always in budget season. Last school year, or last budget cycle, the affinity contract was under consideration to be cut. Like, it was something that we had to, like, fight for, uh, to get it restored.

And I also noticed in your testimony you uplifted Affinity as one of these networks that supports this type of learning. And so can we just commit to not putting the Affinity contract on the table for being cut if that is one of the networks that's supporting this very type of learning that is the future of our school system?

You know, I think last year when we were looking for cost savings across the agency, there was a lot of conversations. I think what really ended up being at the forefront of the conversation was not necessarily the full affinity contract. We were looking at all sorts of aspects. So we are not in that season yet. But I will take your feedback, and I will take your comment also as feedback.

And we are very, very grateful for our affinity partners and the work that they're doing. And we look forward to partnering with them in the scaling of this work because they have a real strength and blueprint of how this can look and the kinds of support our schools will need that aren't directly working with them. I want to amend what you said.

I wouldn't call it my feedback. I would call it a supplement to your feedback. A supplement to your feedback. And on the topic of the budget, the issue of cost savings, one of the things we're looking at in this council are certain contracts. A lot of the contracts go to the private companies. And I would just tell you, as you've noted numerous times during this hearing and in our private conversations outside of these hearings, we have a wealth of knowledge in our city.

We have the Affinity Network, we have the consortium schools, the internationals, all of these schools, these teachers, these administrators, uh, together. We have a U of T Teacher Center. Um, we don't really need to go outside to private vendors and pay them exorbitant fees to teach teachers and principals things we probably already know Internally. And so what I don't want to see is, as these years come up, find, you know, a $100 million contract for some private company when we could do it much more efficiently, much less money, and much higher quality by leaning on our educators that we have currently in the system.

I'm going to turn over to Councilmember Wong after— Councilmember Wong. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Okay.

Thank you, Chair. I have a question concerning the personal finance on the Phase 2 of New York Inspires that was adopted by Board of Regents. There's a K-12 personal finance education requirement effective on the 2026-27 school year for grades 5 to 12. And then for 2027-28 school year for grades K to 4, how has the rollout gone so far?

And then please talk about it. Oh, great. Thank you. We had Jane speak a little bit before about personal finance, so I'm going to turn it over to her. And I would say I'm not sure if we need Delia teed up, if she wants to jump in and complement. Delia leads our curriculum and instruction work. Jane, if you can— part 2 to that is like math teachers teaching it or social studies or somebody else teaching this?

Thank you. Sure, Councilmember Wong. We talked a little bit about it at the beginning. And we did spend a lot of time really teeing up, making sure that our school districts and our superintendents and particularly our teachers were really set up to execute starting this fall for the grade bands that you spoke to during our summer institute session where we had 1,600 of our teachers and district champions help to execute.

What I spoke to earlier is that we have selected 5— the implementation right now for grades 5 through 12 is that we— our schools can provide instruction through a designated course, embedded instruction, a CTE pathway, or a combination of approaches. And as a result, the implementation may occur during different grades or semesters during the school's academic program, or even, you know, depending on what their scheduling structure looks like.

And as students progress through the grade bands, the instruction is going to become increasingly more, you know, difficult and complex, right? You don't— what you're teaching a 5th grader is going to be different than what you're teaching an 11th grader who's applying to college. And we have selected several programs that we have worked with. I mentioned EverFi before.

Another one is NextGen Financial Generation, which is one of the ones that are— I knew that one you would know. But what we did was really making sure that we took in the feedback from our schools and our— because we have been doing financial literacy through the Future Ready program. So are these finance teachers like math teachers, social studies, or they're specialized?

It depends on how the school— our schools want to actually implement the work. It could be a social studies teacher, it could be a CTE teacher, it could be a math teacher. So we are not designating that. We just really want to make sure, as Chair Dunowitz and I talked about earlier, that the programs that we are using are meeting the standards that the state has set up.

Thank you. Okay, I have one follow-up. Yeah. On March of this year, the Board of Regents adopted what's called a climate education requirement effective in the 2027-28 school year for grades 5 to 12 and for 2028-29 school year for grades K to 4. My question is, has DOE begun planning for the climate education rollout and what subject areas and license areas will carry that?

Katie and Sharon? Anybody answer that? Yeah. I think I can take that. Delia Veve here, Chief of Curriculum and Instruction. So I think very similarly to the personal finance rollout, what we're doing is we're taking what the state has said, they've given us clarity around what are those standards for climate education, and then mapping that into curriculum that we already have.

And so what happened for personal finance was they took the finance education that they were already using in CTE and Pathways. What we're looking at now for the climate education is looking at our science curriculum so that we can very clearly say to schools, right, to speaking to consistency, we can say, here's where that lives in the curriculum that you're already using.

As you make instructional decisions, make sure that you are leaning into these particular units because we know that those hit the climate education standards that the state has set forth for us. Can I pause for one second? Don't think we swore you in. You didn't. I raised my hand earlier though. I'm just gonna do it now. Do you affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, uh, before this committee and to respond honestly to councilmember questions?

Now I do. Now you do, which means Councilmember Wong, I think you better watch out. Everything she said before that, maybe not true. Okay. Just to follow up, any lessons learned from the personal finance rollout and what that— how would that apply here for the climate education? So I think that we can't learn fully from personal finance rollout, right?

We just started. But I do think what we have learned from our large-scale implementation of New York City Reads and New York City Solves is we need clarity and guidance from central, and then we also need to create the guidance and guardrails for local decisions to be made, whether those decisions are made at the district level or those are made at the school level, and then in some instances also at the classroom level.

And so clarity and guidance from central is really important, making sure that we have the materials that are useful, we have the models that we are putting forward, and then we provide the space for people to iterate. And I just want to say one more thing. We've spoken about, like, consistency. I think, Chair Denowitz, that's what you've really been hammering on.

Consistency is about the materials, but it's also about the ways in which we work together. And so we're really thinking about what is the role that central plays in collaborating with districts to make sure they have the guidance, and then what happens at the district level to to make sure that the district is creating the space for schools to work together so that they are learning, they're using shared materials, and they're able to take what works in one school and transfer and translate it to another school.

Okay, thank you. Thank you, Chair. No, I have no more. Just, uh, let me just write it down. Clarity and guidance from central. I think you said it twice. Okay, thank you. Thank you.

Look, there's certainly a lot more on this topic to discuss for sure. This is, you know, the biggest, the biggest change I think to, you know, high schools and graduation requirements that I've ever seen. And we have here the opportunity to turn it into something very special, very rigorous, very meaningful. for our students, or we can go down the road of failing.

And if there's one place we shouldn't fail, it's our kids, especially in a system that has so much good experience doing this under your leadership, Dr. Chang, right? And through all the people on the panel. We've discussed a number of things today, clearly increased communication, increased guidance, clarity and guidance, from Central, you know, support for the teachers and the principals.

A lot of work that still needs to go into it. I'm going to, you know, continue to stand ready to work with you and also, as always, hold the DOE accountable because we are again talking about the future of our city. We're talking about our kids, and there's nothing that's more important to me than that. So with increased communication, really creating a structure around best practices, providing the teachers and principals actual supports and structures for sharing best practices, figuring out scaling to scale this to the largest school district in the system and lean on the expertise within our system, I think this really can be something truly transformative for our children and for our city.

And I want to once again thank you all for coming. I encourage you to stay to hear from our students, a lot of youth journalism students here who've patiently waited, but who are also going to highlight some of the incredible work that they do. So thank you. And thank you, thank you so much for the opportunity to add some clarity, have a more public conversation about it, and also know, like, we need to get better at being very clear about what we're doing now and next.

And that is a promise that is on our checklist. But it really is wonderful to have the conversation today. So thank you for it. Thank you.

All right. First panel. Public testimony. If I don't read my script, Just so you know, I feel like it's the meeting becomes illegal. We have to do the whole thing over again. I now open the hearing for public testimony. I remind members of the public that this is a government proceeding and that decorum shall be observed at all times.

As such, members of the public shall remain silent at all times. The witness table is reserved for people who wish to testify. No video recording or photography. Is allowed from the witness table. Further, members of the public may not present audio or video recordings as testimony, but may submit transcripts of such recordings to the sergeant-at-arms for inclusion in the hearing record.

If you wish to speak at today's hearing, please fill out an appearance slip with the sergeant-at-arms and wait to be recognized. If someone could please close the door in the back, I'd appreciate it. When recognized, you will have 2 minutes to speak on today's oversight topic. If you are a student, please write student prominently near the top of your appearance slip.

We will do our best to accommodate you and allow you to provide your testimony as quickly as possible. If you have a written statement or additional written testimony you wish to submit to the record, please provide a copy of that testimony to the sergeant-at-arms. You may also email written testimony to testimony@council.msc.gov within 72 hours of this hearing.

Audio and video recordings will not be accepted. I will now call the first panel. Are you excited? Are you excited? Seems a little nervous. No one wants to be the first panel. You want to be the first panel, sir. Are you a student, sir? Students are going first, sir. It's fine. As long as you fill out a slip, you'll be testifying.

Okay, uh, and, and as always, if I mispronounce your name, I apologize. Just correct it when, uh, when you speak, say your name for the record. Okay, uh, Damaris Amane, Summer J, you have a great book recommendation, Annelise Caraballo Cruz, Madison James, Olivia Wright. Do you have an order in which you've decided you're speaking? You what? Okay, I will let you all determine the order in which you speak.

And just say your name for the record, make sure the microphone's on. State your name for the record. My name is Madison James. Great, and then you may begin your testimony.

Good afternoon. Again, my name is Madison James, and I'm a junior at Edward R. Murrow High School in Brooklyn, represented by Councilmember Farah Lewis. Thank you for hearing our stories today. As a student journalist for 5 years and now editor-in-training at the Murrow Network, I've used journalism to understand my community, ask questions that matter, and give people a platform to be heard.

Our journalism program has existed since 1974, and I inherited decades of students and teachers who built a culture where student voices matter. Last year, I was able to report how statewide policies are affecting my school, including the class size mandate and new curriculum. I spoke with teachers and students living with those decisions, researching complicated information, listening, listening to different perspectives, communicating accurately.

Investigating those policies also introduced me to an interest in pursuing public policy I might never have discovered otherwise. That is critical thinking. That is effective communication. That is civic engagement. And journalism makes students practice those skills for a real purpose, not just for another grade on a transcript. Journalism also gives students space to critically examine the media they consume, recognize bias, and understand how information shapes public life.

That is why journalism fits so naturally into Portrait of a Graduate. The POG calls for students to become critical thinkers, effective communicators, innovators, global citizens, and future-focused learners. Journalists question information and evaluate evidence. We interview people whose experiences differ from our own. We find creative ways to tell stories, adapt to new information, and communicate them clearly. We think about how our reporting affects the communities we cover and what we would do better next time.

Yet only a quarter of New York City public high schools can provide students with that critical experience, limiting whose voices get the opportunity to be heard. If a Portrait of a Graduate is preparing students to learn, grow, work, and contribute. Journalism gives a place to practice all 4. I'm asking the DOE to make journalism education accessible for every New York City public high school student through the Porterville Graduate Implementation Plan.

I've had a microphone since 6th grade. Every student deserves the chance to find their voice and know that someone will listen. Thank you.

I'm sorry, Councilperson. Good afternoon. Her interpreter. Thank you. Okay. Good afternoon to everyone. My name is Damaris Manay, and I'm a student at Brooklyn Emerging Leaders Academy, also known as Bella. I'm a junior and I'm part of my school's journalism program at Bella. Journalism gives students space to share stories. Ask questions, and talk about things that matter to our community.

One of the things that has made journalism meaningful to me is being able to write in both Spanish and English. My parents have always encouraged me to learn English because they know how important it is for my future, school, and everyday life. As I learned English, I sometimes felt like I had to choose between using English and holding on to Spanish.

Journalism helped me see things differently. I realized that I do not have to choose one language. I can use both. I can write in English and communicate with a wider audience, but I can also write in Spanish and connect with people who share my language and culture. Being bilingual is celebrated in journalism, and that means a lot to me.

My languages are part of my identity. Journalism has helped me become more confident in my own voice. I'm not just learning how to write an article. I am learning that my experience, my culture, my language, and my perspective are worth sharing. For me, journalism is not only about reporting stories. It is also about making people feel seen and heard.

Being able to use both of my languages reminds me that I do not have To leave one part of myself behind to find my voice. Council, I'm here for any questions that you might have for her. No tengo preguntas. Tus palabras fueron bonita. They're beautiful. En inglés o español. Es claro que este programa es importante por tu aprendiendo inglés.

And I am estoy emocionado que está aquí a hablar y también la gente del Departamento de Educación está aquí también. Entonces. Sabe cómo importante este programa. Yes. Okay. Did I did I did I say it right? Okay. Well, we say perfecto. But thank you. Thank you for that. Okay. Thank you.

Oh, okay. Good afternoon. My name is Summer Jara. I'm a current junior at Bella. short for Brooklyn Emerging Leaders Academy, which is the only full IB school and all-girl charter high school located in the Bed-Stuy area. To understand how our school system meets the requirements of Portrait of a Graduate with journalism, one must first understand the International Baccalaureate program.

The International Baccalaureate program consists of 10 learner profiles, 5 of which already align with the 6 key attributes of POG, Portrait of a Graduate, those being critical thinkers, knowledgeable communicator, open-minded, and reflective. Now you may be wondering, where does journalism play into this? Journalism is the main component here. Students and learners gain the key attributes of POG through journalism.

Last year, I wrote an article for my school newsroom, The Hive, that mentioned political stances and the ongoing situation involving ICE. When writing this article, I acquired the effective communicator attribute, critical thinker attribute, global citizen attribute, and academically prepared attribute— 4 attributes from Portrait of a Graduate through journalism. When pitching this idea to Ms. Lauren, my journalism teacher, I went through various stages of reporting that included analyzing data, researching, and interviewing.

Being an effective communicator happened when publishing this article and speaking against the injustices towards my community. Being a global citizen was enabled when interviewing the people who were impacted by ICE and even the people who had their own opinions. All these students and staff who have decided to come here and participate are here because they are passionate about including journalism in all schools for education.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Hi, my name is Olivia Wright, and I'm a senior at Metropolitan Expeditionary Learning School, also known as MELS, and I'm a student advisor for NYC Outward Bound Schools. When I think about having this type of When I'm in a tough conversation, I think about my best friend. She's a special person and has my back no matter what.

I have friends like her because I go to a special school like Mills. Mills is a place where to graduate, I have to have both took my Regents, passed them, and demonstrate my learning through projects. Because of the projects we did, it gave me a way to collaborate with other students and helped me learn through a perspective that wasn't just my teachers.

It also gave me a way to make friends not just outside of school. school. I know everyone is having mixed feelings about the Regents no longer being a graduation requirement because they're concerned it's going to affect our success in the future and won't be a challenge for us. But I don't think that's the truth. As someone who has taken all of her Regents and does projects to show my learning, I can say that the projects have given me skills to be successful in the future and have also helped me pass the Regents.

For example, Taking the history region was easier for me because I've— I have a love for history, and the projects I made along the way helped me understand and retain the content I was learning easier. In my history class last year, for our final product, we had to get into groups of 3 to 4 and put on a performance about a historical figure in the founding area— in the founding era.

The project was not only fun, but it also gave me and my peers a chance to build teamworking skills Team-building skills, and public speaking skills, and time management skills. Those are skills that I need for work. I think while assessing everyone the same way, like with Regents, is a good thing, schools can begin to take away from what really can help us students be successful when its main focus is just passing a test.

In my opinion, what can help students be successful is teaching us how to learn, collaborate, and be social. Math, science, English, and history are important, But can we really express this knowledge without having these skills? These skills can start to develop through the project-based learning. Thank you so much.

Just raise your hand if you've taken the English Regents. Tomaste el Regents and ELA. Yeah. So how does— can you, if anyone, like a quick 10 seconds, like how does the work Done. How does the work compare, like for journalism, to the preparation for the Regents? ¿Cómo se comparó el trabajo por journalism, la preparación para periodismo con los Regents?

Sí, muchas gracias. Bueno, pienso que Pienso que el periodismo me ayuda mucho con los regions, ya que al ser un habla sobre como un artículo, son textos simplemente. Journalism, I feel, helps me with the regions because it's text, an article, for example. Y eso me ayuda. Sé que con el periodismo y los textos tienen una conexión. There is a connection between the journalism and the texts.

Lo que me ayuda a poder yo poder escribir, which helps me or allows me to write, o poder entender el texto que yo estoy haciendo, or understand the text that I'm doing. Okay, I know you. I know you already spoke about it. Muchas gracias. Thank you very much for your testimony. Por tu testimonio. Okay.

This panel is dismissed, and I'm going to call up the next panel. Thank you so much. Sarah Vasquez Layton, Chiara Capurso, CJ Sanchez, and Sophie Mode. Chair Denowitz, would you be open to our entire student panel coming up? How many are there? Um, it's 6 students, then me and Sophie. That's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

Pull up another chair. Okay. Thank you. Is it Ezin Nwankwo? Is that the panel? Ezin Nwankwo, Charlotte Arzuian, Kamani Mitchell, Julius Marinov. You may begin. Please, in your test, state your name for the record and begin.

Hello, Charlotte Arzouyan. Hello, I'm Charlotte Arzouyan, a junior at Bard High School Early College Manhattan. Thank you all for the opportunity to speak today. This summer, I interned for the Youth Journalism Coalition investigating Portrait of a Graduate. Sitting next to me are 5 New York City public school students and 2 YJC representatives from across the city. Today, we are going to show you why journalism education is a key to building the skills and scholarly habits central to Portrait of a Graduate.

I go to a school that doesn't teach to the Regents. We do take the required number of Regents exams, but our learning is focused elsewhere. We take accredited college classes in which we read texts, share our interpretations, and probe those of our classmates. Those conversations are meaningful because they help me develop my voice and my thinking and teach me how to explore open-ended questions where there is not one correct answer.

In other words, I resonate with the potential of Portrait of a Graduate and because I've benefited from the style of learning in my classes. When I joined my student newspaper, the Bardvark, I realized student journalism is a natural extension to this learning. Like seminars, reporting taught me to approach an issue from multiple angles and sparked a curiosity about the history of my community that got us to where we are.

When the phone policy at my school first came out, I had questions about how the policy would be implemented. I was able to ask these questions while reporting and writing on the story. I also researched state law and interviewed administrators, giving me the tools to clarify the policy for the student body and to approach the issue from multiple angles.

Being a journalist not only enabled me to ask these questions, but helped me build communication and critical thinking skills, in this case serving as an important act of civic responsibility. Portrait of a Graduate is a commitment to prepare graduates to think critically and participate in their community. This is a noble commitment I stand for, and I think involving as many high school students in journalism as possible would be a highly effective way for the city to do this.

With the launch of Journalism for All in 30 schools and a summer internship pipeline built through the Summer Youth Employment Program, the infrastructure already exists to make equitable youth journalism a reality in Portrait of a Graduate. YJC is ready to work with both the DOE and City Council to help integrate this framework citywide. Before every interview, I'm still a little nervous but excited at the opportunity to learn more.

I know that now more than ever, we need journalists, students who have a duty to report on the truth, craft it as a team, and share it with others. I'm lucky that I'm at a school with a great newspaper for which I now serve as opinions editor, but everyone deserves this opportunity. Please help give students in all 500 high schools the resources to engage in an important pillar of our democracy.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Charlotte. You may begin.

Apologies. Is this working? All right. Good afternoon. My name is Julius Marinov. I am a senior at the High School for Environmental Studies in the Upper West Side, District 2. When it comes to our student-led journalism club, the Eagle Eye, it has always struggled. The lack of funding and attention has left our program to fend for itself.

With these concerns, I'm uncertain if the club will continue after my graduation. I joined the Youth Journalism Coalition as a student leader to gain more citywide support for journalism education. My time in the coalition has provided me with multiple insights. First, the issues of our journalism club are not a strife that we face alone, and it's not a lack of student interest issue.

There's a deeper systematic issue at hand. Access to journalism education across all schools in New York City is deeply stratified. In 2022, Baruch College research found that 73% of our city's public high schools lack a journalism program. We don't know where this number stands today, as the New York City Department of Education has failed to provide reliable statistics, even though they're mandated to report on this.

However, There is a way where not only existing journalism education programs can improve, but the potential to expand to the 73% of schools that lack them. With the release of Portrait of a Graduate standards, one can't help but notice that journalism already does what the Portrait of a Graduate demands. Last year, I covered the political situation in Burkina Faso in my school's newspaper.

I had to synthesize geography, history, and international relations to write one coherent article. This emanates the standards for academic preparedness and global citizenship, not as concepts on a rubric, but as requirements of the work. Journalism education further tests students on their competency in the digital age. I spent time discerning fact or fabrication during my research. This trained my critical thinking skills more than any standardized test.

With attention to limit AI usage and encourage media literacy in schools, I believe journalism education can serve as a place where both of these issues can be addressed. Yet what I see in journalism education that shines as the perfect analog for the Portrait of a Graduate is upon the completion of a piece. When I finished my article, I made events that seemed so far away relevant to my peers, so much so that I recall students mentioning the figures highlighted in the article months after its publishing.

That's the beauty of what a Portrait of a Graduate is asking for. not a paragraph at the end of an essay, but an introspection on the purpose of my words and how they matter, why they matter. If the Department of Education builds journalism into its plan for the Portrait of a Graduate, programs like mine won't have to rely solely on student survival tactics to stay afloat.

We will finally have the institutional support to become permanent fixtures in our schools. I want the journalism program that I worked diligently upon to continue. not to be in a list of clubs made by former students that are now just memories. We're trying to practice the skills that the Portrait of a Graduate demands, but we need your help to keep doing it.

If it hasn't been demonstrated enough today, the students of New York City want journalism, and the city wants education to change. And I suggest a solution for both of those wants. Thank you. Thank you for— Thank you for taking so much time. Thank you for your testimony. Yeah, I don't have intention of cutting students off. If you have a little more to say, it's fine.

Do keep in mind that we are trying to keep it to two minutes, and the purpose of that is also to ensure that other people have the opportunity to testify.

I do want to shout out really quickly. You know, you mentioned, you know, the the journalism program struggling at your school to get the funding. I want to highlight two elements, and one is, as the Youth Journalism Coalition knows, for the first time this year, we are creating a brand new. initiative called Journalism for All, which is receiving an over $280,000 investment from the city council to invest in schools like yours to make sure we have these robust programs.

I think it also speaks to what I think what we all, if we don't articulate, we know that if it's not measured, it doesn't always get the investment. And once we, and I love that you're talking about measuring this as part of the Portrait of a Graduate, because once we start measuring it, teachers and principals have more incentive to actually invest.

The Department of Education has the incentive to invest in it. Even, may I say, private partners have incentives to invest in these programs. So it's critical that you're here testifying about the importance of including this in the Portrait. And of course, again, want to highlight the Council's contribution to this initiative. Thank you. All right, Kamani, you're up.

Hello everyone, my name is Kamani Mitchell and I attend the Brooklyn Institute of Liberal Arts. My school didn't have a class for journalism, just a small after-school club run by my wonderful teacher, Ms. Rohan. My school was supposed to start a class last year because of student and teacher interest, but our admin chose not to dedicate a teacher to it because they couldn't prioritize it over academic needs.

Because of the citywide demand for journalism opportunities outside of school, it is very competitive. YGC did a survey of after-school journalism— wait, yeah. YGC did a survey of after-school journalism opportunities and found there's only 14% acceptance rate because it's impossible to meet the student demands created by the lack of in-school programs. I feel very lucky that I'm with YJC.

I've developed some exposure and have been connected to programs like the Bell Summer Youth Podcast Academy. Practicing journalism has changed me in ways that I could never see myself changing. Before, I couldn't talk to people outside my own class. With journalism, I've gained the confidence to not only talk to people who aren't in my immediate group, group, but allow me to talk to y'all today.

Not Not only that, I've been more involved in my community, not just my school, but New York City as a whole. I'm grateful that I've had the opportunity to pursue journalism, but not many kids are offered the same opportunities. Kids in the traditional system learn how to read and write paragraphs, but aren't, but aren't taught that they could use their skills to make a change, let alone use their voice to speak out.

Today, the DOE have the opportunity to change that. If the DOE includes Journalism in a Portrait of a Graduate Framework, it affirms the values of teaching journalism so principals like mine will finally have a reason to prioritize it. You can make journalism accessible to all and allow students to— allow students the platform and resources to make a difference.

Thank you.

Thank you. Good afternoon, City Council. My name is Sarah Vasquez-Leighton. I'm an 11th grader at Urban Assembly School for Media Studies. I am here today to talk about my education and access to it. I developed my passion for journalism in 7th grade at a private school when I was put in the elective by accident. I immediately fell in love with it.

Now I'm at a public high school that has a journalism elective but is treated as an afterthought. My admin and teachers have even asked me to help promote the elective myself. Because the school doesn't have the resources to do so. Meanwhile, I picked my school because of its name, Media Studies, but I haven't been able to participate in the journalism program because I was forced into other classes to meet testing and graduation requirements.

Finally, this semester I am in the elective, but I didn't just wait until now to grow in journalism. I took matters into my own hands. Like Imani, I had to look outside of my school, so I joined YJC. With this opportunity came many others, like this summer I was able to attend the School of the New York Times and study scientific journalism.

So when I finally entered my journalism class on Friday the 11th, it felt wrong, not because I didn't want to be in it, but because the class is in its beginning stages and it doesn't have the resources to support me. I realized that it could have started in that classroom over a year ago. But classes like journalism are constantly pushed aside because our current system prioritizes standardized testing over everything else.

Regents exams force us to dismiss information that doesn't seem relevant to a test. I have experienced having to skip half a textbook just to prepare for an exam 6 months away. valuing test scores over actual meaningful learning. I am glad the state is taking action through the Portrait of a Graduate. But I need you to take another thing with you on this journey of changing education.

Acknowledge that the change that has happened in our history has been because of journalists. We need people to speak the truth, ask hard questions, and be our messengers. Journalism teaches us how to Good afternoon.

My name is Ezinne Wonkwa, and I'm a current 11th grade student at Medgar Evers College Preparatory School. Thank you for the opportunity to speak here. I have decided to be here on a school day to emphasize the importance of incorporating and expanding journalism programs in more schools. I currently attend a school that doesn't have an active journalism program.

We did have a newspaper and journalism club at a point, which died off over time. Through my experience with journalism in YJC as a student leader, I can confidently say that the lack of journalism opportunities puts us at a disadvantage. Journalism, which started off as a slight interest for me, has become something that has helped me further develop, develop many important skills such as effective communication and understanding of different perspectives.

It's also really important towards critical thinking and writing skills, which are crucial for students. The exposure to multiple perspectives and knowing what's going on around them. The reason I have been able to further develop these skills with journalism is because I've sought it outside of my school. Meanwhile, I recognize that not every student has the same access to those experiences.

Oftentimes when I bring up journalism, I am met with it being viewed as a niche interest and some simply not having enough exposure to know what it has to offer. Creating journalism as a core part of students' educational experience is possible through Portrait of a Graduate. Through journalism, students can learn more and display the civic and critical thinking skills learned over the year, making it a perfect fit. fit.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Kiara Caperso, and I'm a junior at the Bronx High School of Science. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. When I first became involved in journalism, I thought I was learning to write articles. I quickly realized I was learning much more than just that. At Bronx Science, I've had access to a journalism program with the resources to let students do real reporting.

Through my school newspaper, I've interviewed people, reported on issues I care about, learned how to edit, and publish stories for an audience far beyond my classroom. I've had teachers and editors who pushed me to ask better questions and look more closely at what I was reporting. I have been given opportunities to make mistakes, learn from them, and try again.

These opportunities have changed the way I see myself as a journalist. Journalism has taught me to be curious about what I might have missed. It has taught me how to listen to perspectives different from my own. Most importantly, it has given me the confidence to believe that my questions and my voice are worth pursuing. But I also recognize that my experience is not universal.

I attend a school where journalism has the resources to support and grow. There are students across New York City who are just as. Curious, motivated, and interested in telling stories, but their schools might lack a journalism class, a publication, an advisor, or the resources to support one. A student should not have to attend a specialized high school or live in a certain zip code to have the opportunity to discover what journalism can do for them.

I know how much students stand to gain from that opportunity because I have experienced it myself. As New York moves towards the Portrait of a Graduate, we are asking what skills students actually need when they leave high school. Journalism answers that question. It teaches students to think critically, evaluate evidence, communicate effectively, collaborate with others, and engage with the world around them.

Those are, those are not skills students learn by memorizing information for a test. They develop them by asking questions, researching, and reporting. That is why I believe believe the question should not be whether journalism education is valuable. Charlotte, Julius, Kamani, Sarah, and Ezinne have already proven that it is. The question is whether we are willing to give schools the resources to make that education meaningful.

I've seen what a well-resourced journalism program has given me. More New York City students deserve that same opportunity regardless of what school they attend. Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Sophie Mode, and I work with the NYC Youth Journalism Coalition. I'm also a New York City public school graduate, class of 2021. This summer, I had the privilege of overseeing Journalism for All's newsroom internship program, which placed 36 students in paid internships across 11 local newsrooms. For 6 weeks, they were hard at work covering local stories through interviews with community members, written articles, photojournalism, video projects, and creating social media content.

The program established the first journalism pathway in the Department of Youth and Community Development's Summer Youth Employment Program, connecting classroom learning with the professional news industry, and is set to expand for next year. Every day this summer, I was endlessly inspired by these student journalists, the questions they asked, the stories they pitched, and the nearly 50 stories they published across their outlets.

They're brilliant journalists and incredible contributors to our city. Above all, I watched them grow. One student shared that when she started, she was socially closed off and terrified. By the end, she had made new friends and presented her work in front of a large crowd. Her principal even noticed a difference in how she carries herself in the hallways.

During the first week, many students struggled with punctuality, communication, and professionalism. By the final week, those issues had completely vanished. From the quality of the emails they sent me to the questions they asked guests speakers, I watched the progression of these students every week. The data reflects this impact. 77% of participants said the program influenced their career aspirations, and 90% said they would recommend it to a classmate.

I witnessed firsthand not just the ways in which journalist— journalism prepares students to be strong graduates, but for what comes next. And that is the true portrait of a graduate, that they're ready to start their futures after being New York City public school students, having explored their interests built technical skills, and with the confidence and readiness to take on college and a professional workplace.

Isn't this ultimately what we want for every graduate, that they build critical skills and habits and a passion for learning, but above all, the value of being engaged, thoughtful citizens who feel a responsibility to inform their communities about the things that matter to them? Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Perfect timing. Good afternoon. My name is CJ Sanchez, and I have the honor of serving as the director of the New York City Youth Journalism Coalition. I want to begin by thanking the City Council on the record for delivering on years of collaboration with our coalition. We have moved in lockstep since our first J-Day in 2024 with Council Member Joseph, and with today's historic public investment in the Journalism for All initiative, it is profoundly heartening to see the follow-through and leadership of Chair Dinowitz and other council leadership.

With the rollout of Portrait of a Graduate, our city has a real opportunity to transform our public education system and confront the segregated access to high-quality schooling that divides our communities. But to actually fulfill this vision, schools need practical methods to meet these new standards without undermining quality, burning out educators, or leaving out students and families trying to navigate a new system.

Journalism for All was built for this, and by supporting this initiative, the council is backing a scalable framework for schools to begin implementing Portrait of a Graduate. As we've discussed, for the DOE to successfully implement and scale these new graduation requirements, they must accurately track school offerings across the city. Last year, this council passed Local Law 27 to track journalism access in our high schools, yet the reports released last year and earlier this month are incomplete.

It omits clubs and publications, it's missing specific course names, and it misidentifies which schools actually offer courses, which we know because we've reached out to every school that was reported to have a course in 2025. So as we all look out toward the rollout of Portrait of a Graduate, we encourage the DOE to refine their reporting methodology, empowering middle schoolers and their families to make informed decisions about their high school applications and allowing the city and partners like us to direct resources where they're needed.

This work requires dedicated leadership, and we trust Supervising Superintendent Alan Chang's expertise and commitment to meaningful, student-centered, future-focused learning. We look forward to deeper collaboration with his team because ultimately this is about much more than just fulfilling graduation requirements. I envision a city where every young person has the tools to think critically, communicate effectively, and actively participate in our democracy, a reality made possible by ensuring high-quality journalism education is accessible and thriving in every public high school.

Thank you for your time and for listening to the students today and every day. Thank you so much.

I have 2 questions. Perfect timing also. I think you saw the time going, you started speeding up. Kiara, who's your teacher for journalism? Mr. Thorpe. First Deputy Chancellor, you want to hear something? Another thing? That guy was my senior high school English teacher. Alexander Thor. Just saying it's funny. You see, you're learning something new about me every time you're here.

And second, maybe just from one or two of you, just really quick, can you just describe in 15 seconds, has there ever been a time where you felt, you felt you felt very strongly about an issue, and then through your work in journalism, Through researching it, interviewing people, you kind of, you know, thought differently about the issue afterwards, maybe even changed your position.

Sarah, do you want to share a little bit, just, you know, 15-second story so everyone can hear about it? This year, my native country, Colombia, gained a new president, and I had initially stuck with the political party for quite a while. Until I actually got information from a lot of my family and friends who saw a different insight.

So I started investigating and looking different news and like the facts and everything you could see around it, and I changed my point of view. And I stuck with the one who's now president, Abelardo Espirella, and he actually has a lot of different point of. views as the one that I was following before. Yeah, I think especially given this time in our country, that's what we want all of our— not just students, but all of the residents of this country to do, is like critically think about the positions and beliefs that they have, second-guess themselves, and then do research.

And I think, Sarah, you just explained really well that journalism brings that to our country. And I know the First Deputy Chancellor cares very deeply about civics education. And your story highlights, I think, how deeply interconnected journalism is to civics education.

I want to thank this panel for testifying today, and I will call up the next panel. Ervin Guatto, Melissa Michelle, Angel Tejada, Jose Jimenez. Eduardo and Antonetti. I'm not sure. I think we hang on to it for now. We can maybe give it to them along the way out. Okay. Jose, why don't you sit here? You want to go last or— It's so cold.

Okay, thank you. We'll start with you.

Would you state your name for the record, please? My name is Melissa. Okay, I'm sorry, in the microphone. Yeah, for your testimony. Okay, whenever you're ready. Good afternoon, my name is Melissa Michelle and I'm from Haiti. I've lived in the United States for 3 years. I'm a 12th grade student at International High School at Prospect Heights. I love everything about my school.

At my school, there is no bullying. We get help when we need it from our advisor, and teachers always help us with our work and push us to do more. Also, our counselor helps us apply for jobs and internships. My school has many clubs. I'm in soccer, softball, French, Asian clubs, dance, and there are more. To graduate, For my high school, we have to pass 6 PBATs: native language, English, science, social studies, and personal statement.

The PBAT I enjoyed doing was social studies. As a newcomer to New York, I think it is important to know about its history. The focus of my research was on the Lenape Native American people of New York and why we no longer speak Lenape. In my research thesis, I argued that the forced removal had the biggest impact on the Lenape people.

I wrote this research paper. It was graded by all the teachers, and after I passed the paper, I was allowed to present it to a panel of teachers and students. It was challenging because they had to ask me questions about what I learned. I had to pass my panel so I could graduate. Doing PBATs helped me develop my writing, research, and presentation skills.

Another thing that is special about my school is that we work in group in class. This helps me prepare for the future because listening to different opinions is very important. In my class, I have students that speak different language. There's always a debate going on, and that's make the subject interesting. Working in groups makes you open-minded and more social.

It teaches you to solve— to problem solve and to be prepared and organized. Another highlight of my school is the partnership they have. In 9th and 12th and 10th grade, I was an apprentice with the Beam Center, and I've learned a lot of things that will help me with my future. They trusted me to be a group leader and a project and group manager.

Being in a position like this made me love myself more. And motivated me to become a businesswoman. As a leader, I learned how to behave so that people trust me, have a voice, and share their opinions. Before the experiences offered at my school, it was hard for me to talk in public or in groups. I've always been very shy to new people.

Now I feel comfortable. When I graduate, I plan to go to college. I'm interested in studying nursing at Business. I'm grateful to be at International High School at Prospect Heights because they made me confident to express myself. I think all students in New York City should have the chance to present their work like we do with PIBAS and have opportunities inside and outside school to prepare them for college and life.

Thank you. Merci. De rien. Ask Spanish to if you. Oh, muy bien. Nice.

So, first of things, my name is Angel Tejada. I'll be presenting my statement. So, there are many things in life that can open many more new doors, and my school is one of these things. My name is Angel Alexander Tejada Grullón. I am 18 years old, and I was born and raised in the Dominican Republic. I came to the United States less than 2 years ago with my family, full of hopes and dreams to be achieved.

Adjusting to this country was challenging, but I was more focused on continuing my education. I was lucky to find the best school in my life, International Community High School. As a school with many immigrant students, I felt understood and supported. We have counselors and internship coordinators who help us gain the experience and opportunities to plan our next steps after high school and more.

After graduation, I plan to study in a 4-year college on a STEM major. The number one major I want to study is electrical engineering. Followed by mechanical engineering and physics. I related majors to what I desire to be in the future, an aerospace engineer. I feel more confident about my future thanks to the opportunities ICHS has offered me.

My 10th grade internship helped me improve my communications and public speaking skills. Then in 11th grade, from the connections I made in my internship, I found— I was accepted into the Summer High School Academic Program for Engineers, SHAPE, at Columbia University, where I studied electrical engineering for 5 weeks and learned how solar energy and electricity work. I also learned coding with Python and how to solve health disparities using technologies.

This has increased my interest not only in studying more electrical engineering, But also in ways that knowledge can be used for humanity. Thanks to the experiences I dreamed studying electrical engineering in a highly selective Ivy League program, I wish more students had the opportunity I have at International Community High School. Thank you. Gracias. Hablas como fuiste. Nacida aquí?

No. Pero es hablas hablo parece que hablas sí pero pero tu inglés es muy bien. Eso hace dos años estaba ya muy bien. Yo estudié estudié mucho dentro de mi país el inglés en un instituto pequeño. Es claro. Que que hace mucho trabajo aprender inglés. También es claro que tiene un buen programa en tu escuela a ayudar y apoyar tu idioma.

Definitivamente. Thank you.

You may begin. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Erwin. I'm 18 years old. I'm from Ecuador, and I have lived in the United States for 2 years. I go to Pan American International High School at Monroe. What I like most about my school is the way the teachers help us learn. They support us and make sure we understand our work.

I also like that my school prepares us for or future. They help us think about college and what we want to do after high school. After I graduate from high school, I want to go to college and study economics or engineering. My school gave me the opportunity to take a course at BNCC where I learned about how to communicate effectively in the world of international business, and that made me interested in learning about economics.

I want to learn more, improve my skill, and have a good career in the future. One school experience that that has helped me a lot is doing presentations for our portfolios. These presentations have helped me feel more comfortable speaking in front of other people. This is important because I will need this skill for college. job interviews, and my future career.

One example is my social studies pivot, which was very interesting because it was about the harmful effects of vaping on young people's lives. It helped me learn more about the risks of vaping and its effect on young people. When, when we make our portfolios, we choose a topic to research, organize our information, and present To other people, from this experience, I have learned how to communicate better, organize my ideas, and speak with more confidence.

I have also learned how to connect what I am learning in school to real life and our society. Thank you. Gracias. Lo mismo. Perfecto inglés. It's just so impressive. I'm I'm like really taken by it. Thank you for your testimony. Thank you. Thank you.

Esteemed Chair Denowitz and members of the Committee on Education, my name is Eduardo Antonetti. I am Senior Director of Advancement and Advocacy for Internationals Network, but today I would like to share my testimony from my perspective as a longtime educator. I started my career as a proud New York City public school teacher about 30 years ago at Brooklyn International High School.

Since then, I've worked in 4 school districts in New York and Pennsylvania as a teacher, school administrator, and district leader. I have the unique perspective of having helped develop and implement International's performance-based assessment system, including graduation portfolios, and also having taught global history Regents courses and scoring Regents exams at a traditional near-state school. Whereas the Regents forced me to fly through a one-size-fits-all curriculum, teach a decade or more of history per 44-minute class, skip time-intensive projects that promote deep learning, and teach to the test, The International's approach instead allowed me to tailor the curriculum instruction to best meet students' diverse learning needs.

International's performance-based assessment system allowed me to challenge students to engage in academically rigorous activities, to demonstrate their learning in meaningful and authentic ways, and to reflect upon and have real ownership of their learning. I mentor small groups of seniors as their graduation portfolio advisor. And got to know them well so I could provide individualized support as they work towards academic excellence.

Working with my colleagues in Internationals, we developed rubrics, guidelines, and best practices that are strongly aligned with the Portrait of a Graduate framework. The Portrait of a Graduate should not be reduced to just decoupling from the Regents exams or simply hiring a college and career coordinator. It is an opportunity to transform public education in your city and And Internationals Network and our affinity partners stand ready to provide support for this initiative because the education and futures of New York City students are at stake.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. And last on this panel. All right. Good afternoon, Chair Dinowitz and members of the Committee on Education. My name is Jose Jimenez. I'm a proud graduate of International High School. at LaGuardia Community College and Senior Director of Finance and Operations at the nonprofit Internationals Network for Public Schools. Internationals Network, an affinity partner to NYCPS, supports a network of 17 schools in Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Manhattan, as well as a national network of schools for newly arrived immigrant multilingual learners.

Internationals Network also partners with other schools, districts, educators, and leaders beyond that network to put our proven approach into practice. When I entered International High School as a 12-year-old immigrant learning English, I was not asked to wait until my English was perfect before taking on challenging work. I learned language and academic content together through hands-on projects, collaboration, presentations, and experiences beyond the classroom.

Those experiences taught me to communicate across differences, solve problems, reflect feedback, and take the responsibility for my learning. I went on to graduate from college and graduate school, the first person in my family to do so, and to devote more than 20 years to public service in New York City. That is why the New York State Portrait of a Graduate feels familiar to me.

Its 6 attributes, including academic preparation, critical thinking, effective communication, and global citizenship, describe the education I received and the approach Internationals Network has helped schools and educators put into place for decades. As New York expands the way students demonstrate learning, portfolios, performance-based assessment, project-based learning, work-based learning, and early college experiences can make graduation requirements more meaningful. Newcomer multilingual learners deserve rigorous opportunities to show what they know and can do so while developing English, not their potential reduced to one test score.

I urge the council and New York City Public Schools to recognize International Network, our network schools, and the many schools and educators who would support in New York City as models and partners in this transition, including students and alumni. Thank you. As well as— Thank you. Sorry. Thank you. And to all the adults here, you can always submit the, the rest of your testimony in, in writing, and it'll be on the record.

I'd like to thank this panel for testifying today. Gracias. Merci. And next we have Tabitha Peterson, Eric Lee, Rianne Bato, and Seaver Chen. Okay, you may begin when ready. We'll start— unless you have an order you've already prepared, we'll start from my left, your right, and go down.

Good afternoon. First, I want to thank Chair Dinowitz and the rest of this council for allowing this conversation. My name is Steven Chen and I am a senior at Curtis High School. I'm also a youth advocate with the Asian American Student Advocacy Project, ASAP, which is CACF's youth leadership program. To me, being academically, academically prepared goes beyond knowing the answers to pop quizzes.

It means to be able to go to school knowing you will be given the tools to learn to your fullest ability. It also means to go to school knowing you have an environment where you feel safe physically and mentally. A student's learning environment is important. As it shapes social and communication skills as well. But in order to become an effective communicator, students need a space where they are able to express themselves freely without any sense of judgment.

And as of today, this is just not the case in a lot of our schools, therefore making it more challenging to become academically prepared and an effective communicator. On a personal note, I experienced this feeling in middle school. As an Asian student in a predominantly white school, I was the target of many discriminatory, discriminatory jokes. Met left and right with comments about my eyes and my expected grades in math.

It felt like a hopeless and lonely situation, and part of the humiliation was due to not having an environment in my school where I could talk about these issues along with my feelings. This was especially apparent when I brought up being the target of a racist joke to school faculty. They simply brushed it off, gave me some tissues for my teary eyes, and assured me I would be fine since the student who called me that would be moving anyways.

A few weeks later, he moved away and we had a generic assembly slogan, stop bullying. I wasn't seen. My feelings felt invalidated and my true needs weren't met. What happened to me has been lived by countless students, especially from the Asian American community across generations. When students feel that they don't have anywhere or anyone to turn to in their learning environment, they continue not to speak up about it.

In my situation, I left the office thinking, what good did speaking up do? And this further causes race-based bullying harassment to persist in schools. In order to combat this, we need to invest in giving students a space where they know that incidents, incidents such as these will be responded to with empathy, communication, and accountability. Restorative justice programs implemented in schools provide students the space that they're looking for, along with the culturally responsive adult that they can feel free to talk to.

A simple conversation focused on my feelings and the impact those words had on me with the other student would have, would have meant infinitely more to me than a broadly centered assembly. We need to ensure that more schools continue to embed restorative justice programs into their school culture in order to create a space where students can arrive every day academically prepared and ready to learn to effectively communicate.

Thank you. Thank you. And I do want to highlight that the administration proposed a budget that actually cut restorative justice programs, and it was this council that got— there was a sort of justice programs funding restored along with, you know, the mental health continuum. continuum. And I appreciate you talking about the bullying and race-based bullying because it's something that we don't have good reporting on, something we have brought up with the DOE and work that continues to need to be done.

But I appreciate you bringing that up. Thank you. Thank you.

Good afternoon. First, I want to thank Chair Deanowitz and the rest of the council for allowing this conversation. My name is Rian Bato, and I'm a senior at Jamaica Gateway to the Sciences High I'm also a youth advocate with Asian American Student Advocacy Project, ASAP. In my perspective, being a global citizen is being open to people who come from different backgrounds and understanding that everyone has their own unique experiences.

This means actually taking time to listen and learn from others. I was born in the Philippines and only recently moved to New York in 2022. As one of the few Filipinos in my school, I felt isolated. I had nobody else who related to my experiences, and it felt like I didn't have a community in school. School. My peers made assumptions about me based on my AAPI identity and expected, expected me to fit certain stereotypes like being smart and quiet.

If my school had prepared us all to be global citizens with an inclusive curriculum that helps students learn, understand different backgrounds and experiences, along with support to help students like my— like me navigate cultural changes, I would have been better prepared to thrive academically and socially. Being a global citizen requires us to be reflective and future-focused as well.

To me, this means being able to look back on my own experiences, recognize how they shaped me, and think about how I can use what I learned to make things better in the future for others. When I was stressed or struggling, it could feel like I was supposed to handle it all by myself. These experiences made me realize how difficult it can be to take care of your mental health when you don't always feel comfortable speaking up or showing that you're struggling.

I know many other AAPI youth like myself have felt the same way. Many AAPI students deal with stereotypes, academic pressure, cultural expectations, and stigma around mental health. The model minority myth pushes this even further by making AAPI students feel like they have to struggle on their own. Schools have a responsibility to help students become global citizens, reflective, and future-focused, but they often put so much focus on grades that students don't get opportunities to learn about different different cultures the time to have meaningful conversations or to reflect on their own experiences.

If schools can create spaces and opportunities for this, students can become more understanding of others while also learning how to take care of themselves and their communities. Thank you.

Salamat po. Hello, good afternoon. To begin, I'd like to acknowledge and thank Chair Dinowitz and members of the City Council for allowing this conversation. My name is Eric Lee and I'm currently a senior at Queens High for the Sciences. I'm also a youth advocate with the Asian American Student Advocacy Project, ASAP. I believe that academic preparedness plays a crucial role in helping multilingual students like me thrive.

As a student, being academically prepared does not simply mean having access to the information needed to succeed academically. Rather, it means having access to the resources necessary to learn without fear or self-doubt. Multilingual students require much more than just translation. They require instruction that acknowledges their identity and supports them through teacher training that specifically addresses multilingualism, and diversity of language background.

Secondly, for me, an effective communicator is someone who has a supportive environment to communicate their thoughts and ideas regardless of culture or language barriers. Students should be able to express themselves freely without concern about the judgment of others based on their language skills. Schools should provide an environment where all students' voices are valued, where language differences or barriers do not limit the voice of a student.

As a student from the AAPI community, I frequently translate school documents for my parents. In addition, due to the lack of systems supporting immigrant families at school, I had to act as a translator between my family and teachers. I've also observed some of my peers refrain from speaking up during classroom conversations because they fear how their broken English will be judged.

These examples provided are not unique to my own story. When students are denied adequate language access, they are unable to fully participate in class discussions, restorative justice circles, or collaborative learning activities. While the DOE assesses test scores and graduation rates as indicators of student success, they do not assess whether students feel linguistically supported or if they believe they have the ability to speak.

With pressure placed upon teachers to prepare students for standardized testing, opportunities for educators to engage students through restorative practices or multilingual engagement continue to decrease. We need to invest in real language access from translated materials to inclusive school environments so every student can participate fully. as an effective communicator. We need to embed a culturally responsive curriculum including AAPI history so students feel represented, supported, and academically prepared.

Finally, we need to measure belonging, not just test scores, so schools are held accountable for creating environments where all students can learn, speak, and thrive. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony, and I do want to highlight 2 important things. One is you have a Queens High School for Science, is that right? You have a Our great graduate right here, our Committee Council Alejandro Carvajal, also went there.

He just graduated 2 years ago, so he's the same age as you. Also, I think it's so important for all the different communities around our city to be seen and heard, and that's why this council has invested, I think at this point, millions of dollars over the years in the AAPI curriculum. We're doing this work in this council, but of course it means nothing without students like you coming to testify and sharing your voice.

So thank you for testifying today.

And last in this panel. Good afternoon. First, I want to thank Chair Dinowitz and the rest of the council for allowing this conversation. My name is Tabby, and I'm a junior at Brooklyn Technical High School. I'm also a youth advocate for the Asian American Student Advocacy Project, ASAP. What does it take to create a truly safe space?

Well, a whole bunch of factors really, with 2 of the most important ones being critical thinking and cultural awareness. I understand critical thinking to be the ability to take in your surroundings with observations and create thoughtful inferences based on what you observe, and define cultural awareness as being thoroughly educated on your own social identity and how it can impact your interactions/relationships with others.

When I walk into the classroom, the first thing I want to be is open-minded. Not only does this make classroom conversations more conducive, but it also lets the people around me know that their presence is welcome. Being aware of my cultural background, like my race, my race and ethnicity, and how it can indicate ways in which I'm similar and different from my peers grants me the ability to be sure that I'm creating an inviting space for everybody.

Unfortunately, a common problem that minorities face in the classroom is a lack of knowledge about their own history and impact in America. In the case of the AAPI community, there is a severe lack of inclusive curriculum. This in turn makes it difficult to foster a thoughtful environment and perpetuates an uncomfortability for the AAPI community and other minorities while in the classroom and even in their everyday lives.

I can say that I have witnessed firsthand the result of shared unawareness creating misunderstanding and discomfort in my own community. Often in the Black Student Union of my school, there is talk about demographics of the student body and how it makes us feel uncomfortable. One time there was a conversation, a conversation that mentioned how the majority of students in the school are AAPI.

Because of what I've learned in spaces like ASAP, I could see how the model minority myth harmfully impacted and shaped the conversation that unfolded. Now, if our school had included AAPI history into the curriculum, students would be educated on the model minority myth and learn that it is completely untrue and should be dismantled while minorities focus on bridge building and solidarity.

Although our struggles are different, Minorities should be able to find community with each other instead of fighting to be second place in a hierarchy that shouldn't even exist. This is just one example of how inclusive curriculum and shared understanding across differences can help support critical thinking, cultural awareness, and ultimately school safety for all students.

Thank you all for your testimony today. I, you know, seeing student leaders come up here and testify is really inspiring, so thank you for coming up today. I'm going to call the next panel. Ariana Mischa, Jeannie Ferrari, Xavier Otero, Bashir Juwara, Vera Shengalia, Eric Levine. Oh, and whole folders. Oh. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair Dinowitz and members of the council. My name is Jeanne Ferrari. Since 2012, I've had the privilege of leading 2 New York City public schools, both Humanities Preparatory Academy and the Beacon School, as principal. Both belong to the New York Performance Standards Consortium. A 30-year network of 38 schools with a state waiver to replace high-stakes Regents examinations with performance-based assessments, or PBAs.

Instead of asking students to cram for a one-size-fits-all test, we prepare them to research, write, and orally defend what is essentially a college dissertation across 4 core subjects. Students must present their findings to a panel of educators and outside evaluators who ask rigorous, unpredictable, on-demand questions on the spot in a way that simply cannot be faked. The process demands critical and creative thinking, clarity, and the capacity to communicate your ideas effectively to an outside audience.

Every single college graduate who has returned to visit me over the years says the PBAT process is the single most important factor that's prepared them for their college education. None of this would be possible without our innovative district structure, which allows our 38 schools to collaborate across boroughs, unify and align our grading rubrics, and provide the professional development that teachers need to uphold this model over time.

To sustain our work and make it a true blueprint for how the city's transition to Portrait of a Graduate could work, our schools must continue to collaborate within our unique Consortium, Internationals, and Outward Bound district, and continue to partner with the New York Performance Standards Consortium, who provide the professional development that upholds this model and ensures its high quality across our schools.

I am grateful to the New York City Department of Education and the City Council for your time and your leadership. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker.

Hello, Chair Deno. Good evening, Ms. Lewis and members of council. My name is Xavier Otero, and I'm a senior at Middle College High School, which is located at— on the LaGuardia Community College campus in Long Island City. Middle College is a school of the consortium. Middle College's system of performance assessment is helping me with all the portfolio portrait of graduate components, but I want to focus on how it made me an effective communicator and reflective and future-focused.

Thank you. I came to Middle College from a very traditional middle school where the classes were test-driven and focused on passing the Regents exams in 8th grade. Because I was good at math and computer science, and because of all my classes were focused on individual work, I assumed my future job would be sitting alone in a room working for a company.

I was very shy and nervous to talk to others, especially grown-ups. My outlook completely changed at Middle College where my ideas and and individual personality was taken seriously. Teachers focused on pushing students' individual passions. I was also allowed to make choices about what I wanted to study and focus on. I wrote my social studies PBAT on how entrepreneurs like Elon Musk should not be given power in government, such as Doge.

In our classes, we are expected to work with our peers. Teachers frequently refuse to answer questions, telling us to talk to each other to struggle out our confusions. It had pushed me out of my comfort zone but made me a more collaborative thinker and made me more confident in advocating for myself. This new independence and freedom made me feel excited for what I learned because I chose what I learned.

I've also built skills of planning long-term projects like PBATs, organizing the paper, managing deadlines, and so on. The freedom also allowed me to plan for the future and take classes that would help me most. I am enrolled in several college classes and plan to get my associate's degree. I no longer see myself alone in a room. I now work in the community helping others.

I plan to become a firefighter and perhaps get a degree in psychology. And I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have. Thank you.

Good. Thank you, Xavier. Next speaker.

Hello, members of the council and everyone present in this room. My name is Ariana Misha. I'm a junior at the New York Institute for Collaborative Education in Manhattan, a member school in the consortium. I began 9th grade in a traditional high school which emphasized AP classes, leaving little time for extracurricular activities that had always been important to me.

I even quit debating, which I had done for 5 years. Everyone was just trying to pass tests. I started going to NYCE at 10th grade, I'm surely learning a lot more than before because NICE creates pathways for students to chase their passion both in and out of school. My human rights teachers organized a mock United Nations conference in the class rather than just teaching in a traditional way, and this inspired me to follow my passion for civics and take up Model UN as my extracurricular activity, and also serving as a youth delegate at the General Assembly at the United Nations headquarters.

I'm currently on the debate team and the president of our newspaper club and I consider myself a true global citizen. NICE has allowed me to take my interests in an academic direction. For my neuroscience panel this year, I'll be looking at how to— how the involvement in political activities at an early age has a long-term effect on the brain and personality development.

We as students aren't bound to learn only one thing determined by someone else, but rather we get the chance to choose our own passion by making every word reflected. All consortium schools, including NICE, has banned the use of AI during the pre-bat process. Our works are project-based, and which doesn't always make us needy to use AI. Last year, I've done multiple advocacy efforts, which includes fighting against AI with KnightCrew and being part of a national and international Sustainable Development Goal campaign.

My school, for me, is a place where I grow and learn by interacting with my teachers, calling them by their first name, and gaining confidence and collaborating with my peers for every project while also being highly active in different social and international activism. The goal of education should be to create students who know how to pass a test— should not be to create students who know how to pass a test, but graduates who can actually change the world.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker.

Thank you, Council. you. My name is Bashir Diouara. I come from a country where education access is limited and where students attend different types of schools. Growing up in The Gambia, I attended madrasa, an Arabic school where the curriculum focused primarily on religious studies. I had little exposure to English, science, history, or mathematics. I moved to the United States in the summer of 2017.

I had one goal at the time, to enroll in American high school and learn English. I vividly remember going with my uncle to Fordham Plaza to register for school. I wanted to attend traditional American high school because one of my friends attended one at the time. During the registration, the person assisting me tried to have basic conversation with me in English.

Although I understand some of what she was saying, I could not respond. She paused for a minute and recommended International Community High School in the South Bronx, ICHS, explaining to my uncle that given my level of English at the time, she did not believe I would thrive in traditional American high school. The recommendation changed my life. I learned— I arrived at ICHS largely unprepared for academic expectations of an American high school.

At the time, I was only confident writing my full name in English. Nothing else. I still remember being introduced to algebra in 10th grade and seeing equations with x's and y's instead of just numbers. I remember thinking, this can't be math. I had barely learned addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division in Arabic, and suddenly I was being asked to solve algebraic equations.

It was intimidating at the time, but ICHS did not treat what I lack as limitations. Instead, my teachers saw potential and gave me support and encouragement to develop as a thinker and learner. Ms. Cora, my first English teacher, introduced me to reading and writing through Greek mythology. I was fascinated by the stories because they were different to what I had encountered in Arabic studies.

At the time, I was struggling to read and write. Ms. Cora was patient with me, encouraged me. First time I was writing full sentences and paragraphs She recognized my curiosity and pushed me to express my ideas even when I was struggling. And similarly, my mathematics experience was equally transformative. With Ms. Kwame's encouragement, I began writing on performance-based assignment tasks known as PBAT, exploring Zeno's paradox and relationship between finite and infinite.

At first, I struggled to understand the problem, but the project gave me something I had rarely experienced in school before, permission to be curious. ask questions, experiment, and find my path towards an answer. To become observant, the project that I would work on— equation in the train between work and school. I explored decimals, developed equations, and eventually wrote more than 20 pages.

I presented my research before a panel, explained how I developed my equation, defended my research findings, and connected abstract mathematics problem to broader equations about real life, including Nelson Mandela's struggle to freedom, for justice, and South Africa. Thank you. If you could just summarize your last point. Yes, I will. I will. Yes, um, I know it's a long one, but to summarize, the Consortium School experience has given me an, um, opportunity and made me the learner and thinker I am today.

I just recently graduated from University of Cambridge with my master's in philosophy in development studies, international development studies, um, and without the Consortium experience at International Community High School, I don't think I will be here, and I think my path would have been completely different. I am really grateful for the experience.

Thank you. Hi, my name is Vera Shingele. I'm a mom of graduate of Urban Academy and a mom student who's in Beacon. So I know immigrants aren't the most popular group in America right now, but in New York, families like mine aren't the exception. We are the huge part of this city. We fled an authoritarian country. When we arrived, my daughter Vasilisa was one of the many kids starting school here after their whole world had fallen apart.

For a child, that feels like landing on Mars, and I think the most important thing a school can do for child is show her that not everything is gone. Adults still listen and questions are still welcome and her voice still belongs to her. A child in that state probably won't show her best thinking on a timed test on one stressful morning.

But give her time, a hard question, and a teacher who pays attention, and you'll see what she can really do. You cannot teach values. through A, B, C, or D. They grow through practice. Rewriting an essay for the first time, defending an idea out loud, fighting for your argument— that's what performance-based assessments ask of students. It isn't the easy option, and no one does it alone.

It takes teachers, classmates, a community. Today, Vasilisa studies at Cooper Union. Her entrance test gave her a few abstract prompts and 4 weeks to turn them into 6 original concepts. Drawing well wasn't enough. They wanted to see whether she could think. Her consortium school had prepared her for exactly that. You know that we parents are anxious people.

We are always chasing the next goal: high school, college, good job, good salary. We rarely stop to ask why. Immigration made me stop. When you are running into the unknown with two kids and two suitcases, you remember very fast what matters. We want our children to be free, honest, and brave. As someone who fled an authoritarian country, I can tell you that people do not become free, honest, and courageous by learning to choose the correct box.

Thank you. Thank you. And I do want to address something. I know that comment that immigrants aren't the most popular group right now is probably like a. Funny little side comment, but I just want everyone watching to know that the you know my office, the council, the Department of Education—we do an incredible amount of work to celebrate and uplift our immigrant community because they are so loved.

It may not feel like that with in the White House, but it's certainly that way here in New York City, and I want everyone listening to know. Thank you so much for my family. Yeah, thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Eric Levine. I teach 9th grade social studies and lead the UFT chapter at Harvest Collegiate High School, a consortium school near Union Square. I became a teacher partly because I hated school. My parents put a great deal of value on education and moved me and my siblings just north of the city to Rockland County due to the reputation of the schools there.

The high school I attended still hovers around the top 50 high schools in the state, and it was a miserable experience for me. At no point in those 4 years did I feel like my individuality was honored, that my interests were encouraged, or that I was learning what I would need for after graduation. As a teen, I became very interested in politics and current events.

I wanted to get involved in the world around me, but my high school never offered an outlet for me to explore that. Instead, much of my time in high school was spent preparing for the New York State Regents. I often wondered if there wasn't a better way to educate students. So imagine my excitement when, just weeks into my training as a teacher, I found out that there were more than a dozen schools working together— more to do— sorry, dozens of schools working together to do something better than the Regents.

Once I learned of the New York State Performance Standards Consortium, I never wanted to be or teach anywhere else. In the past 11 years, I've visited many of those schools, and in every single instance, I've thought to myself, I wish I went to high school here. I taught in a traditional region school for a few years, waiting for the opportunity to work at a consortium school.

My time was filled with prepackaged curriculum, rushed lessons and units, and a lack of rigorous work and deep thinking for my students. I did what I could, but at the end of the day, they needed to pass these tests. My school bragged about its high graduation and college acceptance rates, but never reflected on or commented on its low college retention rates.

That model simply did not prepare students for the rigors and demands of what comes after high school. Consortium schools like mine better prepare students for what they will encounter after they leave. I have the freedom to design classes that are responsive to their interests and lives, that are deep and rigorous, and that are rooted in skills that will set them up for success after they graduate.

There is no mad dash to cover 300 years of human history in 9 months. Classes become living, breathing things that force students to think deeply about the world around them and make connections to their own lives. These classes prioritize critical thinking, reflection, and effective communication, as do the project-based assessments they lead to. They prepare students to be the global citizens that we hope they will be for the rest of their lives.

Working in a consortium school allows me and my colleagues to provide the kind of educational experience to hundreds of students that I wish I had been able to have had myself.

All right, from a fellow chapter leader, thank you. You can begin whenever, I don't know if you have any order. Oh, they're all done, okay. I'd like to thank— sorry, what's up? I'd like to thank this panel for your testimony today. Really appreciate it and appreciate your stories. Thank you. Next panel, we call Randy Levine, Daniela Souza Egorov, Cherie Gibson, Ann Nelson, Jordan Pineda, David Bloomfield, And Kimberly Olson.

Okay, thank you. We'll go— unless you have a pre-planned order, we'll go from left to right, my left to my right, starting with David. And just remember to say your name for the record.

Yes, hello, my name is David Bloomfield, Professor Emeritus, Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center. Thank you, Chair Dinowitz, members of the council. Simply put, Nothing in last week's Regents meeting gives confidence that the state is ready to define the portrait of a graduate's blurry outlines. Surprisingly, staff even stepped back from their signature renunciation of Regents exams.

Despite Deputy Commissioner's memorandum that the exams are inappropriate as graduation requirements or even for grading, they now insist that the exams persist to align curriculum to learning standards. Such a proposal would return districts to teaching to the test, the very problem Portrait of a Graduate was meant to reform. My urgent request is that the Council recommend a pause in the Regents' promulgation of regulations tied to Portrait of a Graduate until the field can fill in the blanks left unrealized by State Ed.

Call it a clinical trial of Portrait of a Graduate's aspirations, before regulations set its structures in stone. Of particular importance are attention to the needs of multilingual learners, students with disabilities, other groups, and local circumstances, which State Ed has largely ignored in its overall plan. New York City is well positioned to act without State Ed's imposing mandates, clearly not ready for prime time.

Deputy Chancellor for High Schools Alan Chang has strong experience as a former superintendent for consortium, international, and expeditionary learning schools, the very basis for Portrait of a Graduate's emphasis on project-based experiential curricula, and well along in planning without premature state mandates complicating their work. By putting graduation standards in the hand of educators, not standardized test vendors or politicians bent on inflating pass rates, we can bring sanity to end an era when gimmicks like credit recovery— Thank you.

Substitute for teacher judgment. Thank you very much.

Thank you to Chair Dinowitz, the Education Committee, and the New York City Council for the opportunity to testify. today. My name is Annie Nelson, and I'm a policy analyst at Children's Aid. For over 170 years, Children's Aid has worked to ensure that young people face no limits to their aspirations or potential. Today, we serve nearly 50,000 children, youth, and families across more than 40 sites citywide, including 19 community schools.

As an organization that works in schools and with young people across some of the city's most under-resourced neighborhoods, We know that our education system is not yet preparing every young person for postsecondary success. We support the intention behind the Portrait of a Graduate to reimagine the skills that young people need to succeed in college, career, and civic life.

At the same time, changes to graduation requirements should not diminish schools' responsibility to ensure that every student has access to a rigorous and high-quality education. Its success will depend on ensuring that all students have the experiences and supports needed to develop the Portrait's core competencies. The community school strategy can help make this possible by expanding relationships, enrichment opportunities, and academic supports that remove barriers to academic opportunity.

The Essentials for Community School Transformation, developed by 4 partners including the National Center for Community Schools at Children's Aid, provides a framework for creating these school-based conditions through practices including expanded learning, community-connected instruction, integrated support systems, and student and family engagement. We see these practices in action across Children's Aid's community schools citywide. At Central Park East 2 in Harlem, project-based learning and after-school program connects academics to real-world challenges.

At Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School in the Bronx, college tours and career exploration help students connect their learning to their futures. And in 2 of our schools in Washington Heights through student governments and training in participatory action research. Students can use critical thinking skills to identify issues in their school communities and use their findings to drive change as emerging global citizens.

Based on these experiences, we urge the Council on New York City Public Schools to first establish 100 new community schools by fiscal '29, prioritizing schools where students face the greatest barriers to academic opportunity. Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

Thank you so much. I told you I'm a little tougher on adults than kids. So, all right. I what? I said we look like him. Oh, you— sure. You may begin. Good afternoon. My name is Daniela Souza Igorov, and I'm a New York City public school parent and a fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Since the 1800s, the New York region's exam has indicated academic excellence and rigor.

Generations of New York students have studied hard to accomplish this milestone. It is deeply concerning that the New York Board of Regents will eliminate those exams, and board member Felicia Thomas-Williams said that, quote, you don't assess a fish on climbing a tree because fish can't climb trees, quote. Why do the people responsible for setting education policy in our state have no confidence in our kids' ability to learn.

This is just the last act of the Board of Regents to eliminate any accountability in our state after lowering the standards of the state tests a few years ago to hide the drop in performance after the extensive closures of schools during the pandemic. New York State now spends nearly $40 billion per year on education, which makes it the most expensive public school system in the country for 19 consecutive years.

Unless the Portrait of a Graduate sets rigorous and objective measures like the Regents, it will be another ill-advised decision which will only try to mask the reality that the majority of our students are not learning basic skills in math and reading at the end of high school. It will lower the— it will lower the value of New York State high school diploma, and it won't solve the actual problem that the New York Board of Regents and this body should be focused on making sure our kids— making sure our public schools actually teach our kids or offer school choice for those who are not lucky enough to get a seat in a public charter school or cannot afford to pay for private school or homeschool their kids.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Oh, with 13 seconds to spare. All right. Okay.

Good afternoon, members of the New York City Council Committee of Education. Chair Dinowitz, thank you for the opportunity to speak today on the New York State Portrait of a Graduate. My name is Cherie Gibson. I'm a proud New York City public school alum, a high school parent, a citywide Title I parent leader, and education advocate who served as a member of the New York State Blue Ribbon Commission on Graduation Measures.

The Portrait of the Graduate came out of the recommendations of the commission and is foundational to the systemic change of what education in New York State could be encompassed in the entire New York Inspires transformative plan. The Portrait of a Graduate was a direct answer to what we heard resoundingly from students, families, higher education officials, employers, that we have not been preparing our young people for postsecondary success or future past the 21st century.

A focus on Regents, a one-day exam, piecemeal work on providing variety in their students' learning experiences, which was mainly in extracurricular clubs and activities, as you heard from the journalism students today. Assessing educators' effectiveness just on a standardized exam. The— Excuse me. Rigor has been mentioned a lot today, but it's not found in just a one-day exam.

The dependence or focus on the Regents has minimized the importance of classroom work and participation. And in— and in looking at additional experiences that we think that there's no other way to assess our students' mastery of a subject is only from a Regents. Have you spoken to a teenager lately who's taken a Regents? walk out of the Regents either saying, whoo, man, that was so easy, we learned that at the beginning of the school year, or nothing we learned this whole school year was on this test.

And so if we're stating that their rigor, their mastery is to be learned by the exam. Thank you for your testimony.

Thank you, Chair Dinwiddie, for holding this hearing and for the opportunity to speak with you. My name is Randi Levine. I'm Policy Director of Advocates for Children of New York. In addition to helping families navigate New York City schools, including high school graduation requirements, AFC also served on the state's Blue Ribbon Commission on Graduation Measures and coordinates the statewide Coalition for Multiple Pathways to a Diploma.

We are pleased to see the New York State Education Department move forward with its proposal to decouple Regents exams from graduation requirements. AFC has long advocated for multiple pathways to a high school diploma, for a system that provides students with multiple ways to demonstrate what they know and are able to do. And this is especially true given that there is no evidence that exit exams increase student achievement.

And I think you heard from the students here more powerfully than I can ever say the value of those multiple ways and how they have impacted students' learning. As this work moves forward, to ensure we capitalize on this opportunity, there are many steps that need to be taken. With our limited time today, we'll highlight just a few recommendations.

First, New York City Public Schools needs to engage in extensive stakeholder engagement with meaningful opportunities for feedback. New York City Public Schools should also draw on the expertise of schools and educators across New York City that are already using performance based assessments. NYCPS should also start developing a comprehensive communications plan now to ensure students and families understand what they need to do to graduate.

There are still big questions to answer, and it's hard to overstate how critical it will be to get clear and accessible information out to the field. There must also be an intentional and targeted focus on the needs of students with disabilities and ELs. Too often in our work, we see barriers to access and meaningful participation, such as limited supports and accommodations for students with disabilities in certain work-based learning programs.

We want to ensure that students with disabilities and ELs can get the academic and transition support they need to graduate and to have full access to graduation pathways. Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

Thank you so much. Good afternoon. My name is Jordan Panetta, the policy lead on this issue at Ed Trust New York. We look forward to sharing our comprehensive written testimony in the coming days. Ed Trust New York has serious concerns regarding the state's rollout, not necessarily the idea of Newark Inspires and the Portrait of a Graduate. Specifically, we're concerned that this initiative would be rolled out, will create major challenges to New York City public schools that will exacerbate issues of access with the creation of alternative learning pathways, creating challenges in comparing and assessing post-secondary readiness, sacrifice rigor by creating learning pathways that are difficult to design and assess between schools and across districts, eliminate any measure of student readiness and system accountability that the Regents exams had historically provided, and divert investments from essential initiatives like NYC Reads and NY Resolves, which are prime— uh, which play critical roles ensuring students are entering high school at the grade level.

EdTrust New York is urging NYSED to delay the rollout of INSPIRES, including the decoupling of the Regents exams for this next cohort, until they address these concerns and provide districts with more holistic implementation guidance. We urge the council members to also call for a delay in this implementation and seek clarity with state leadership and the Board of Regents.

If INSPIRES is not delayed, we recommend the city prioritize the following principles as it develops a plan to align with the portrait. First, we want— should convene a task force to design and vet alternative learning pathways and their post-graduation application with key stakeholders, including families and students. Second, provide students with vetted assessment options to demonstrate proficiency in addition to the Regents.

Third, develop competency-based evaluations that ensure comparability across districts and schools. Fourth, prioritize rigor when designing instruction pathways and rubrics and competency-based assessments. And last, look at the 37 consortium schools and their PBAS as scalable models of rigorous and effective 21st century learning. We'd like to emphasize this last principle. Finally, EdTrust believes this is an opportunity for the city to lead as an example. for the rest of the state if NYCPS leadership prioritizes collaboration and remains committed to building a readiness system that is rigorous, equitable, and promotes transparency and accountability.

Thank you. Under the wire. Perfect. All right.

Thank you, Councilmember Dinowitz, Councilmember Wong, the Education Committee, and City Council staff for hosting today's oversight hearing. My name is Kimberly Olson, and I'm proud to be the Executive Director of the New York City Arts and Education Roundtable, also proud graduate of New York State schools, having taken many Regents exams in my time. As our city maps out this next chapter in education, the Roundtable and our constituents believe that arts education is among our strongest untapped resources to meeting this milestone.

Each of the 6 core attributes starts with the arts. Research shows the impact of arts education on developing a broad range of in-demand skills that help students prepare not only for college, but career and civic life as well. As a theater educator, I saw firsthand as my students demonstrated their knowledge by writing and performing original musicals on topics like immigration, Rosa Parks, civil rights, as well as Black inventors like Lonnie Johnson and more.

Historically, these Regents exams have squeezed dance, music, theater, visual arts out of the school day in an attempt to teach to the test. Moving away from these high-stakes stakes testing towards alternative assessment measures is a positive shift that has immense potential to showcase student rigor, excellence, and creativity. Yet to realize this vision, we need more information and action from New York City Public Schools in 4 key areas.

First, we need clear guidance. We need explicit clarity on how arts will be mapped within Portrait of a Graduate and how arts-based performance measures will count towards graduation requirements. Then we need arts Second, we need more arts teachers and support for these teachers. Roughly 1 in 5 New York City public schools lack a certified arts teacher. We must invest in the hiring of certified arts teachers to ensure that schools have the content knowledge on hand to support the delivery of arts integration and arts-based capstone projects.

Third, we need professional development. Arts teachers can't carry this load on their own. New York City public schools needs to invest in robust professional development so that educators can co-design these learning experiences and capstone experiences as well. Last, we need strategic partnerships leveraging DCLA, MoMA, and New York City Public Schools, as well as our arts and cultural partners to support CTE pathways.

Thank you. Thank you so much. I'd like to thank this panel for their testimony today. I'm just kidding. Okay. Again, as always, if I mispronounce your name, I apologize. Amanita Sanchez, Timothy Barba, Beth Vertig, E.T. Rodriguez, Kevin Benoit, or Benoit. I'll tell you why I mispronounced it in a second. Iker, Chiquita Car, Chiquita Arco. I had a colleague whose last name was spelled the same way as Benoit.

He didn't pronounce it as you pronounce it. So I had a 50/50 shot. Got it wrong. Hey guys, has everyone in this room waited for us to fill out the form already? Yes. Y'all must be friends. You have like 8 seats there and you're all— We work together. Perfect. Should I start? Yeah, please, Beth. Okay.

Hi. So thank you so much. It's great to be here. I'm Beth Fertig, executive director of Press Pass NYC, which is part of the Youth Journalism Coalition. And before this job, I was a reporter for over 25 years at WNYC Public Radio, where I covered education and politics. So I have been on the other side of this microphone a lot, and I want to tell you how much I love this organization and why it's relevant here, because Press Pass trains teachers and students to build school newsrooms in public schools across the city.

We've worked with more than 40 middle and high schools since launching 5 years ago, including Bronx River High School, Queens Tech, and a few of the other schools that are out there rallying with you. And Student journalism, as you've heard, is one of the most powerful and overlooked tools the city has for building the skills at Portrait of a Graduate. 3 pillars in particular— critical thinking, effective communicating, and being a global citizen— are constantly practiced in student newsrooms.

I've watched this happen at our partner schools. A Bronx student won a prestigious award for reporting on immigration enforcement in her neighborhood. A student in East New York, Brooklyn used real reporting to debunk a rumor about a school lockdown being caused by ICE. It wasn't. A school in Queens told— a student at a school in Queens told me interviewing people taught him the difference between writing news and opinion.

And we are very grateful for the continued investment in student journalism, but we just want to plead for training the teachers. That requires its own type of funding because you can't ask an English or social studies teacher to start a news team without sufficient training. Journalism is its own profession. The students need to learn the difference between news and opinion, ethics and understanding, how to talk to sources.

And that's why a trained advisor to work with a student newsroom is so important. Our advisor fellowship gives teachers 30 hours of professional development, a mentor, and a stipend for free in their first year, with 2 more years of support. So this is how to build the infrastructure for student journalism. By training teachers, and that's how to get what we want for all of our graduates.

And we look forward to any collaboration.

Thank you. Thank you. Hi, how are you? Uh, hello, Council and Eric DeNuits, who I know. My name is E.T. Rodriguez. I am actually a professional journalist as well. I received a letter of recognition from Councilman DeNuits when I resigned as editor-in-chief of the Riverdale Press. I'm also project manager with Press NYC, and I'm also a professor at Lehman College.

So as a journalist, I lead my classes with a lot of news-based articles, and I tell my students to have curiosity for the world around them. My students are fresh out of high school, presumably with their Regents diploma, and an overwhelming amount of them do not have a curiosity for the environment around them. They don't know what's going on in their own neighborhoods.

They are cripplingly shy, suffering from public speaking skills, and they do not know how to put their thoughts on paper. So, but as a workshop leader with Press Pass NYC, I have seen smart and articulate students, a lot like the ones that you've seen today, who are civically engaged young adults. And we— I know we celebrated $280,000 of investment in teaching.

However, most of those schools, as Beth has said, don't have a dedicated journalism teacher, and they have to pull from their faculty who are already busy and overwhelmed to teaching their classes. So we, as she said, we offer 3 years of training and support for free to teachers whose schools agree to give them the journalism class or club, which has enabled us to build back student press in more than 40 schools and counting.

You know, our program also, we're going to try to set up a Bronx Journalism Hub, which we're announcing in January, which I am leading the project for, in a historically under-resourced neighborhood and in an area that's already being considered a media desert. Right? Bronx Times down to one full-time reporter, News Bronx 12 on a skeleton crew, and Norwood News just, you know, on this hiatus.

So yes, this journalism in schools is important, but it's also important to train the teachers so that these students can be effective, civically engaged. Also, I dropped out of high school, didn't take my Regents, failed my Regents 3 times, went to school, got my bachelor's, got my master's. Here I am today. Regents aren't necessary. Thank you. Thank you.

I also want to point out the Norwood News is, is in my district. It was one of like 2 papers in my district, the other one being, uh, Virudel Press. And yes, Norwood News, uh, shut down. Very, very harmful to the community for sure.

Good afternoon, I'm Kevin Benoit. I am a Brooklyn resident, uh, Brooklyn native. I am also the school program manager for Press Pass, so I'll definitely be doubling down what we've been saying here. Portrait of a Graduate sets out to support students so that they are critical thinkers, effective communicators, global citizens, and ready to learn, work, grow, create, and contribute.

Student journalism checks all those boxes in real-time, hands-on ways. When a student reports a story, they investigate, verify facts, and weigh competing accounts. That is critical thinking in action. When they write, edit, and publish for their peers, they practice clear communication for a real audience. And when their reporting tackles civic questions, such as a student news team debunking rumors about immigration enforcement in their school, or investigating practical impact of citywide phone ban, They act and engage— they act as engaged global citizens who are accountable for what they publish.

However, what I've witnessed in schools over the years is that student journalism requires support from local government and school administrators to thrive. While media and technology evolve, the fundamental principles of journalism remain constant. It's important that we have programs that introduce students to meaningful journalism Teach fundamental principles, and provide a support system of trained teachers and administrators who are excited to build student newsrooms.

Press Pass does— Press Pass NYC does just that. I've worked in schools in Canarsie, East Flatbush, Williamsburg, Bushwick, Jamaica, Queens, Crown Heights, et cetera, et cetera. What I will say is there is no one-size-fits-all. And I think that is one of the things we heard today. There's a lot that needs to be figured out and hopefully will be figured out.

Hopefully the council continues to push back on some of the things you heard today. Journalism is one of the aspects that can help with Portrait of a Graduate, but there is so much more that needs to be figured out.

Thank you. And I could tell you, this is, you know, when I became chair of the Education Committee, I said, like, I know we have to have a hearing on this issue because I kind of felt I knew where we would be, which is not sure where, right? So this is not the end of this conversation. Everyone here who's testified and beyond will be an integral part of, you know, making sure all the things we're asking for, whether it's the communication, whether it's the rigor, you know, whether the professional development, we're going to hold the DOE accountable to make sure that's all there.

I do want to ask, though, Supervising Superintendent Chang, I think, as well as the other superintendent who's here, spoke about partnerships with nonprofits and industry. And I'm wondering from your perspective what obligation you feel or what role you think you should or can have in developing the sorts of assessments and rubrics that would demonstrate the level of rigor and engagement per the Portrait of the Graduate?

Hi. We're a service provider. We train teachers. We also have fellowships for students each semester. But in our work to train the teachers, We certainly follow through on what they're doing each semester. That's Kevin's whole job. We hired him just now to— Just today? No. And you already put him up on the panel? Let's say a month ago.

But he'd been working with us already for a few years. And now his full-time job is being that person who checks out whether our— we have journalism educators who train the teachers. Kevin's job is going to the schools to make sure that they're not hitting too many roadblocks because they need a lot of support. And that's why our fellowship gives them 2 more years beyond that, because it's really hard to learn a whole profession, journalism, and then teach a bunch of kids how to do it.

So when you're asking really about rubrics or how— What I'm asking is, when we talk about portfolios, we talk about some sort of assessment. You've heard it mentioned throughout the day. some sort of assessment and some sort of assurances that, you know, a kid from Canarsie is doing the same type of work and is held to the same standard as a kid from Bedford Park.

Now I get what you're getting at. So, all right, Kevin can definitely answer this. So outside of Press Pass, I've also worked in education for 20 years, from Harlem Children's Zone to you name it. I worked in high school for 5 years. I was a career And all that to say, what I've seen this summer alone, I had 50 interns, right, coming from city schools all over the city.

The biggest issue is, while they can all come up and say how great their school is, oftentimes they don't even know what's happening at the school up the block or in the same building. So unless we can figure out a way to get all the schools on the same page, you know, we're going to do journalism, we're all going— and it doesn't have to be journalism, but we're all going to do these same things so that we're all judged on the same basis.

Because even with Regents, right, and again, I worked at a high school, we knew if we had students with IEPs, all we had to do was get them to take the test 3 times. Even if they failed at all 3, as long as you took it 3 times, we can Ask the city to just waive it, right?

And this was happening with most of the Black and brown students that I worked with. But then, I go to a Bronx Science or Brooklyn Tech, and they look at the Regents like, this is just one of the things we have to do today. And they're gonna do 15 other things, and they're gonna be successful at all 15, but then you have the same students who live on the same block with them, go to the same corner store, and they're not getting the same service.

So unless we can figure out how we can get everyone on that same page, and I think it starts at some of our local schools, it starts with some of our smaller districts, but overall, there's no reason a student in Canarsie isn't getting the same education as someone in Park Slope. Great, yeah, agreed. And I would hope and think that if, you know, the DOE shouldn't be creating their, whatever assessments, whatever portfolios, portfolio they're asking the kids to do, they shouldn't be doing that in silos, that you have expertise in journalism, that you can and should be partners with the DOE in that work.

You know best what good journalism looks like, and I would just hope and think the DOE would lean on you for that, and that you— it seems like you are willing and able partners in that work.

All right, I'd like to thank this panel and call up the next panel. Thank you. Edgar Rodriguez, AJ Rothman Noonan, Lara Evangelista, David Adams, and Aurora Kushner. It's 2 pages. I don't have mine. I'm going to submit it online. Should I begin? You may begin when ready.

Thank you, Chair Denowitz and panel. My name is Edgar Rodriguez, and before this role, I served for over 20 years as a teacher, assistant and principal of our schools in New York City. I come here today as Vice President of School Support at Innovations for Public Schools, which has partnered with the city for over 37 years to drive system-level change.

As an affinity partner, we lead— we're the lead partner for 71 public high schools and provide services for schools across the city. She's associated with Portrait of a Graduate, um, asks schools to reorganize, and educators to teach and assess students in ways that they've never been trained to do so. As educators, we are concerned that so many questions remain unanswered even as these changes are being implemented as we speak.

Students whose diplomas will be granted under the new requirements are already in our buildings, taught by teachers who have received little relevant professional learning in this matter. Generative AI brings opportunities, and at the same time lots of challenges and questions about the validity of any assessment. This work has to move quickly, and it has to draw on the capacity that already exists in the city.

Affinity organizations represented in this panel collectively serve a third of the high schools in the city and represent a significant piece of that capacity. We have spent decades doing this work with our schools, and the system should treat us as critical resources in this transition. NuVision's affinity network and our work with the schools has derived 3 key things that we believe are of value to this transition.

Curriculum, we have produced curriculum in science and social studies that is used by the majority of high schools across the city and is based on real-world investigations and phenomena and is a type of project-based learning that the Portrait of a Graduate calls for. It's already written, goes through continuous revisions, and it's already field tested. The rest is in my— didn't make the 2 minutes, but I'll do better next time.

I appreciate it. I also want to appreciate New Visions. I taught at a New Visions school, so double thank you. Good afternoon, evening.

Jared Denowitz. I want to First of all, thank you for all your support for the affinity network and Urban Assembly, as well as being a champion for social emotional development of our young people. I am David Adams, Chief Executive Officer at the Urban Assembly, and for 30 years, the Urban Assembly has partnered with New York City Public Schools to design, test, and scale solutions for students historically underserved by education system.

Today, our network includes 23 unscreened career connected middle and high schools, and we support the Portrait of the Graduate because it recognizes that readiness requires more. Than just credits and exams, that students must learn to think critically, communicate effectively, build relationships, navigate decisions, and apply their real-world learning to real-world challenges. This vision closely reflects Urban Assembly's work in social and emotional learning, post-secondary readiness, and instructional quality.

And our students demonstrate what is possible. Our class of '24 achieved a 90.3% graduation rate, 7 points above the city rate, And particularly strong outcomes from Black and Latin students, multilingual learners, and students with disabilities. The Urban Assembly has demonstrated a strong record of helping New York City public schools moving promising ideas to scale. Through Strong, Resilient NYC, we helped make social and emotional learning supports available across 1,600 schools.

We trained more than 50,000 educators and supported assessment for more than 720,000 students. We helped develop post-secondary bridge model that ultimately expanded citywide, and we now support Future Ready NYC in connecting academic learning to college and career pathways. These experiences have taught us that a strong vision is only the beginning. Schools need practical tools, professional learning, implementation support, meaningful measures of student growth, and systems for learning what works.

Urban Assembly is ready to bring that experience. to the Portrait of a Graduate as an innovation and scaling partner that can test approaches in rural schools, examine the evidence, codify effective practices, and help New York City public schools bring them to students across the country— city. Thank you. I was watching that there. Across the country. Wow. You have big goals.

Hi, Chair Dinowitz, and thank you for this support you've shown us already today. My name is AJ Rathbununen. I'm executive director of the New York Performance Standards Consortium. As you've heard, we're a homegrown model built by NYC educators for NYC students, a performance assessment that holds students to high standards. My written testimony also includes information about our assessment system and its alignment to the New York City— New York State portrait.

The consortium began almost 30 years ago when New York City Superintendents Steve Phillips and Deborah Meyer sought state approval for a group of schools to use performance assessment instead of Regents exams. It was a founder, and the DOE has effectively supported the consortium ever since, as the rest of the system continued to use Regents exams, first through the alternative high school district, then the CFN structure, and now the affinity schools.

Support without which we couldn't have built and sustained this system or welcomed 10 new schools in 2013. We've learned many lessons. I'll share 3 today. First, changing assessment is just the start. It requires reorienting school culture towards inquiry, all of which takes extensive professional development and collaboration led by teachers, not outside vendors and consultants, so the system is truly owned by the educators.

Second, this work cannot be dictated from the top. The school system must instead provide what Commissioner Tom Sobel called top-down support for bottom-up school reform, like funding and structures that provide for collaboration, exactly what Affinity's partnership model enables, and school-based decision-making through programs like PROSE. Third, high standards require accountability, but not the top-down test-based accountability we've relied on for 20 years.

It requires lateral accountability within and across schools and to the communities that schools serve. The DOE can help by building more networks like Affinity and aligning incentives, including city dashboards, away from test scores and towards more robust measures of school quality. Finally, I invite you and the council staff to see our work firsthand. In October, our teachers hold half-day moderation studies to calibrate scoring of student work, the heart of our PD.

And in November and December, our network hosts inter-visitation days. Dates and RSVP information are at the bottom of my written testimony. Wow, that's a very, very fast last sentence. I love it. Now, my favorite thing you said was that, uh, we have the expertise here in our city, that we don't need to hire outside vendors to do this work at great cost and probably lesser quality.

All right.

Hi, my name is Aurora Kushner. I'm the Vice President of Programs at New York City Outward Bound Schools. Chair Danowitz, thank you for this hearing, and thank you for all the support for Outward Bound that you've given us. For over 30 years, we have partnered with New York City Public Schools to pioneer the exact kind of powerful learning defined by New York State Inspires as we transition towards the Portrait of a Graduate.

As New York moves from single-day high-stakes Regents exams towards performance-based assessment, assessments and broader measures of student learning, some worry that academic rigor will be diluted. Our research-based approach shows that this is a false choice. Through our affinity network, our schools, all of our schools, are living laboratories for this work. We coach educators to design rigorous, standards-aligned, project-based units grounded in real-world problem solving where students analyze, synthesize, and apply complex concepts rather than simply memorize information.

We also build student agency and belonging through our signature advisory structure, CREW, where every student is known, valued, mentored, and held accountable. Students track their own progress, identify learning targets, and publicly demonstrate their growth through presentations of learning and performance-based assessments. When you intentionally pair meaningful challenge and real-world real-world engagement with genuine belonging, students thrive, and the results are measurable.

We see that in our graduation rates. We see that in our post-secondary enrollment and our persistence data, far surpassing city averages. Our DOE climate surveys consistently outperform the city in academic rigor and trust. This transition is not about lowering expectations. It's about Expanding what rigor means and giving students more ways to demonstrate what they know and what they can do.

We don't need to start from scratch. The teacher coaching practices, school models, and student outcome data are already here in New York City. We invite you to come visit our partner schools, seek crew— I can finish the sentence for you. Again, because I have already had the great pleasure of visiting your schools. And I will surely be happy to do even more visits.

Great. Good afternoon, Chair Dinowitz and members of the Education Committee. My name is Lara Evangelista. I'm the executive director of Internationals Network for Public Schools. For over 20 years, we've partnered with New York City public schools to design and support schools for newly arrived immigrant students through a practitioner-developed and research-based approach. I'm also a New York City retired educator and the former principal of Flushing International High School, where in 2013, I led the transition from a Regents-based graduation requirement to a fully performance-based assessment system requiring students to complete and publicly defend 6 rigorous tasks.

What I learned is that this shift is not simply about replacing exams. It's about transforming instruction and students' everyday experiences. Preparing students for graduation defenses begins in the 9th grade. I had to have teachers collaborating across subjects and grade levels to develop students' abilities to research, investigate questions, revise their work, and defend their thinking. We didn't abandon any academic rigor or content when we did this work.

We deepened it while developing the competencies that now the New York State Portrait of a Graduate holds. And we extend that— extended that learning beyond the classroom through work-based learning, dual enrollment, giving students the opportunity to apply their knowledge, explore careers, and those skills in the world and college-level work. And we could not have done this work alone.

Internationals Network worked alongside our schools to strengthen instruction, develop common rubrics, and build accountability across the network. The creation of the affinity district in 2015 deepened that work by aligning district resources and accountability with our practitioner expertise and sustained professional learning. The affinity structure has made ambitious reforms possible in everyday classrooms and sustains them over time. Today, 17 international schools demonstrate what's possible when schools have the expertise, support, and accountability to sustain the work.

As we implement the New York Portrait of a Graduate, we stand ready to work with NYCPS and invite you to our schools.

Thank you so much. I want to thank you. I mean, I think all of you in your different ways have supported the work. I've done the work of this council, whether it's panels, with your students, particularly the international schools, I think have done a lot for, obviously, our immigrant students. But all of you in various ways have supported the students and this council and our work.

You were mentioned in the DOE's testimony, the work the DOE does with you, getting an understanding, getting expertise on What the portrait could be. In your opinion, has the DOE leaned on you hard enough for that support? Have they utilized the skill set that you bring to the table enough? I think there's a lot more work to be done in terms of coordination with the DOE.

Each of our schools has a superintendent that works with our schools directly. But that superintendent accountability is not organized around scaling or innovation. It's organized around the same kind of accountability structures that other superintendents are organized around. For us to be able to take the practices that we have developed and ensure that all students have access to them, the superintendent structure that goes up to the DOE needs to see themselves as innovators and problem solvers to the questions of things like Portrait of the Graduate rather than just operating operational executors around what the DOE's objective is.

Right. I think sort of related to what AJ says, it's— and kind of what I talk about all the time, it's like, what are you measuring? If you're measuring those Regents scores, credit accrual, and attendance, that's how you're going to measure success. But if you have a measure of success for innovation, then I think we would probably start seeing a lot more of that.

Did you want to add something? Yeah, I was going to add that There is, I mean, this is very complex. All afternoon we've been talking about like all the layers this touches, right? And so there's a piece around, you know, assessment, away with the regions, performance-based assessments. That's one piece. There's another piece around work-based learning, work-based readiness.

And we're doing a lot of collaboration with the Office of Pathways around Future Ready and how the portal can monitoring the progress with all those metrics. I think that work has been flourishing, not explicitly in the context of Portrait, but I think it can inform it. And it's one area in which we're collaborating in terms of our work and innovations on how the portal has served as a place for schools, districts, and the central office to take a look at where the schools stand, where those individual students stand, and the plans that have to happen to respond to those patterns.

Right. So, I'm seeing a panel of people who stand ready to work with the DOE, who are not being— whose skills and experience are not being leveraged enough, and who also, in order to support that, need the DOE to recognize some of the kind of special work that the affinity network does, and I guess rate the schools on that, or value that sort of work as part of their quality review, let's say.

I mean, I think the other important thing to say is that the educators in our schools are really passionate about the work that they do and really willing to share. And I think as we wait for New York City Public Schools to figure out what the build-out of the transition is going to look like and how they're going to think about how classroom instruction will change, change and sort of how high school looked different.

There are people who are ready to be tapped. I mean, there were multiple people on this panel from New York City Public Schools today that are connected to our schools, right? Including Alan Chang, including Delia Bebe. Like, these are people that know our work and they know we're ready to help. And so I think it'll come eventually.

And I think historically when there have been, like you alluded to the programs in the past about the visitations, intervisitations, when I mean, we look at all the previous structures, Showcase, Learning Partners, Lighthouse. I mean, overwhelmingly, our schools were willing to host folks during those and, again, are willing to do it again. Yeah. But as I kind of mentioned towards the end, it takes the structure from the DOE and it takes investment and money, right?

Like that, the support, investment, the money investment. It takes all that. But it's good to know that we have a whole network of partners, and we're going to keep making sure the DOE knows it and acts on it.

I'd like to thank this panel for their testimony today. Thank you. Next panel is Troy Kingston, Alisa Uchaikina? Uchaikina? Uchaikina. Uchaikina? Close enough. Well, I'll get it right the third time, I promise. Edward Gordon, Nadav Zeimer, and Kamala Karman. I'm gonna mix things up. You know, go a little crazy. We'll start on the right. Is it on?

Yeah, sure is.

My name is Kamala Carmen, and I'm the parent of 2 children, both now in their early 20s. I believe that my children graduated from their New York City public 6 through 12 school having fully attained the attributes distributed around the portrait of a graduate wheel. That they did so is arguably a foregone conclusion since they attended a consortium school, and the practices and approaches of the consortium model, as you heard today, very intentionally aim for the outcomes called for by Portrait of a Graduate.

Moreover, even their prior schooling was pointing my kids in this direction. Brooklyn New School, their progressive public elementary school, in many ways resembled what a consortium school for younger children might look like. It too used an inquiry approach to nurture students' curiosity and creativity. encourage collaboration with peers, and foster independent critical thinking. It too lived by the maxim, more teaching and learning, less testing.

I'm thrilled that at long last New York State has moved to decouple the Regents exams from graduation. I know that this change raises alarms for some parents and pundits who worry that this means that standards will be lowered or feel panic about what will replace the Regents. I'm here to tell you that I opted my children out of nearly every state test in elementary, middle, It would have been all, but the opt-out movement wasn't really a thing until my older child was in 6th grade.

Because of the consortium's waiver, my older child took only the ELA Regents. My younger child didn't even take that due to COVID cancellation. Far from lowered standards, what I saw at both my children's schools were environments that helped them produce work that was far more challenging and detailed and meaningful than what the state tests or the Regents would have asked of them.

They didn't need any external replacement assessments. They just needed strong instruction. Thank you. schools where teachers were honored as professionals with plenty of opportunities to advance their own learning and practice, and students were not seen merely as data points with no agency in shaping their learning. The actual threat to high standards is— Thank you. I just have 3 sentences.

Okay. Hello? The actual threat to the high— to high standards is not the diminution of the Regents exams, but the imposition on schools of the bland corporate curriculum products of New York City Reads and SOLs, and the incessant and invasive screeners students today are surveilled with. I am relieved my kids graduated before that state of sad state of affairs came to pass.

And that's again the outside— we don't need outside curriculum for millions of dollars.

Testing, testing. It's on. Mr. Chairman, committee, good afternoon. My name is Edward Gordon. I'm the president of the Nubian Conservatory of Music. It is a small private music school in Brooklyn, New York. I come to you as an educator of over 50 years' experience, and 31 of those years were spent in the classrooms of the New York City public school system.

I am a former parent of the New York school system and now a grandparent of the New York school system. Mayor Mondani wants to bring rap poetry into the system. I have expressed in writing why I do not think that that is a good idea. If we are speaking honestly about rap, it has very few redeeming qualities.

No one is learning how to sing properly, how to play an instrument. Many of the people that it glorifies are either ex-drug dealers or ex-convicts. Please don't get me wrong, I am all for giving people a second chance, but I was taught that role models have to be held to a higher standard. And we have wonderful role models out there, such as Mariah Carey or Lawrence Brownlee, the African-American Metropolitan Opera tenor.

We see young men holding their groins for periods of time, and there is the filthy language which often degrades Black people and especially Black women. The bottom line is that it A 10-year-old Black boy was trampled to death at a so-called rap concert. I want something better for my granddaughter. Our children need orchestras, choruses, and bands. Erasmus Hall High School has an electronic organ sitting there collecting dust, but it needs about $2,000 worth of work to make it fully functional.

That figure is probably higher by now. Sorry, my sinuses. Oh, as I got that estimate a few years ago, no one wants to help me raise money. Just finish up your last sentence, please. No one wants to help me raise money to repair that instrument. Thank you. And, you know, we heard, I think, one other person talk about the arts, and I think the arts can and should be integrated into the Portrait of a Graduate as well.

That's for me at least, my own personal experience. Someone who, you know, theater and music was integral to my middle and high school experience, and someone who then as a teacher saw theater and music as something that was transformative for my students. This can and should be part of the portrait of the graduate.

Hello, my name is Alisa Uchaikina. I'm a I'm a senior at Kingsborough Early College Secondary School, and I'm a student from Brooklyn, New York. My school doesn't have a dedicated journalism club, but one of the opportunities my school gave me was the Fellowship for the Future of Journalism. I first applied to the program during my sophomore year, and this is actually one of the reasons I'm here today.

The program gave me the opportunity to explore journalism from different angles and perspectives, as well as to meet a lot of amazing journalists and learn from their experience. Our mentors don't teach us how to follow templates or put strong limitations on our creativity and our words, which is what school usually does. Instead, we have the freedom to write about things that genuinely interest us and find our own voice.

One of the articles I wrote this year is called How the Morning Shapes the Mind. In this article, I talk about the importance of reducing our use of phones, especially during the first 30 minutes after waking up. It can give your brain a calmer start to the day. That way you can feel more present, which is the most important for students while taking Regents.

And if it wasn't for journalism, I might have never thought about something like this or decided to experience— experiment with in my own life. Journalism helps me notice things I might normally overlook and tell interesting stories about things that can seem ordinary. It gives me freedom to explore what I genuinely care about, find people who share those interests, and develop my own voice.

I'm very grateful for everything this program has given which is why it's very sad to know that so many students don't have the same opportunity. I believe every student should have the chance to write, learn from professionals, and have their voice heard. Journalism teaches us critical thinking by asking questions and looking at different perspectives, and it teaches effective communications by turning our ideas into stories that others can understand and connect with.

I'm just asking to make sure that DOE supports journalism education and opportunities like fellowships for the future of journalism in all NYSE public schools, or at least most of them. So every student has the chance to develop their voice, to learn from professionals, and have their stories heard. Thank you.

Thank you so much for your testimony. You may begin. Chair Dinowitz, thank you for— and committee, thank you for this opportunity. I taught physics and led Harlem Renaissance Transfer High School through a period of turnaround. The difference in our The system was never talent and opportunity. It's always been audience, and audience has always been rationed. You saw— you've said yourself that the Regents create perverse incentives, and audience is what replaces them, is what I'm arguing here.

Assign an essay that only one teacher will read, and the student lets AI write it. Put her on stage defending her own work, and no one can stand in for her. Would you let your own children be assessed by an auditorium full of chatbots? All students deserve an authentic audience. And AI will lure them into offloading their learning, and our public schools will crumble as a result.

The answer to AI is not more edtech. It's an expert human audience for every student. Video is the new number 2 pencil. The learning happens off-screen in the real world, and the camera comes out to capture their off-screen learning for assessment purposes. In video format, student work can be reproduced and distributed across space and time at zero cost, allowing an expert reviewer or college admissions officer to pull up a chair to each student's proudest moments.

I support the moratorium as a tourniquet, not a solution. Portfolios for all is the solution. It's the only solution since everything is downstream of assessment, and the only way to offer an expert audience to all students is validated video portfolios. Real work validated by experts at scale. The first step is journalism. which gives students an audience, a deadline, and a reason to check facts.

Let's expand J for A and let student creators know that we support them. For example, we can give student journalists a press pass within school that allows them to use electronic devices to create content, not consume it, as journalists. Let's ensure New York City students learn to be creators, not scrollers, drivers of AI, not dependents on it.

Give every student a real audience. The research is in my written testimony with more detail, and you can find more at academiccapital.org.

Thank you. Thank you. And I'm sure you tuned into our hearing last week and the one in June where we discussed extensively screen time and AI. So thank you for this panel's testimony. Our final in-person panel, Dominique Jones, Joni Rivera, Ellen McHugh, Theresa Ranian. Theresa Ranieri. Same as last panel, we'll start on my right, your left.

Thank you, Chair Denowitz, for the opportunity to speak and to really talk about this important topic. I'm going to turn in my written testimony, but just to kind of focus on a few points. One of the things that I think we are kind of missing in this conversation around Portrait of a Graduate is the ecosystem around schools that can actually help to support them.

I represent Global Kids. I'm the executive director. Thank you. And we serve 30 schools, one as a community school director— community school provider as well as after-school provider. We are going to be central in this conversation about the implementation of Portrait. We actually are organizations that can actually enhance and also deliver on certain programming such as our global citizenship programming, which, you know, Global Kids has been working through for 38 years and providing those leadership services to our schools.

And so I think it's important that we start to have the— you know, it's great that we're talking about the pedagogical approach, the instruction, you know, shifting assessment to portfolio assessment, but there has to be supporting organizations that are supporting services that can help to reinforce, enhance that learning. And I think that organizations like mine and other CBOs will be instrumental to that.

I think also we also provide some expertise resources that can help around evaluation, and I know that's something that you've talked about all day. I've had the opportunity to listen to you speak to those things. We have some of the infrastructure to support that. We also are thinking about how do we measure the impact of interventions on the whole.

Thank you. child. And so I think that that's important. We should talk about it. One thing I think is also we need to be having joint hearings with the Youth Committee, bringing DYCD and DOE together so that they can begin to think about how we can partner and leverage those resources. You know, we as a community school provider are there every day working with kids, families, and we really want to be able to make sure that Portrait is a success.

Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. Thank you for your time. My name is Teresa Ranieri, and I've been an educator in New York City public school system for over 30 years. The portrait of a graduate begins with our youngest learners in kindergarten as they learn to think critically, communicate effectively, and use what they have learned behind— beyond the classroom.

That's why I'm asking for the council for baseline funding for New York City and New York City Solves so that we can help create this portrait of a graduate. We need to provide recurring funding so my children are prepared to be these young adults we heard today. It goes beyond a curriculum. It is teacher professional learning, time for collaboration, coaching, and implementation support.

Not only has it been successful in my school, students decode and write But it goes beyond that with vocabulary and background knowledge. Aligned with your portraits of a graduate, we complete inquiry and research projects, go on field trips supporting modules. And these are the foundations for capable readers, effective communication, critical thinkers, engaged citizens that we want all of our students to become.

I've heard you say repeatedly today, and I was very happy, what support are our teachers going to have? Teachers need continued professional learning and coaching so they can make thoughtful instructional decisions and respond to the students sitting in front of them. Students who need additional support need access to targeted intervention and tutoring. Family needs meaningful opportunities. We need to invest in the educators that are before all of our students, kindergarten through high school.

But my concern is this won't happen with donations if there's not baseline funding. So that our kindergartners can be those that you saw today. Thank you. Thank you. And, and just one, one point to make about that. I, I appreciate the recognition that, uh, you know, you hear this committee talk a lot about training teachers, and you hear from the, like, the affinity network said, you know, it isn't just a couple of trainings, it is deep, engaging work that needs to be done.

One of the elements of the $280,000 we got for the Youth Journalism Coalition like so much other funding, it helps leverage private funding. But this council is committed to investing in the things that we know work and help educate our students. And so I won't talk more about the money, but again, I'll reiterate, this can be done internally through the DOE, through our professionals here, not through outsized outsized contracts.

Wood outside contractors are those, and they are mostly not-for-profit organizations, but they come in 8, 10 times a year. They're not a part of the community. They're not, they don't know our children, our families, the teachers, and that just speaks volumes.

Okay, and our final in-person panelist. Ms. Rivera. Good afternoon, Chair Zanowicz and members of the Committee on Education. My name is Joni Rivera, and I'm the Assistant Vice President of Educational Services at the New York Foundling. Thank you for this opportunity to testify on New York's Portrait of a Graduate. For students who have experienced foster care, the Portrait of a Graduate must reflect more than academic achievement.

It must also include stability, belonging, self-advocacy, healing, and a supported transition into adulthood. The New York Foundling has served children, families, and communities for more than 150 years. Through our education and child welfare work, we see every day that nearly 500 young people in foster care we serve are capable, resilient, and full of potential. But too often, their path to graduation is complicated by placement changes, school transfers, transportation barriers, trauma, missed services, and uncertainty about what comes next.

Programs like the Foundling's Road to Success show what is possible when students receive consistent trauma-informed academic support. Road to Success pairs nearly 2,000 students with tutors who also serve as mentors, coaches, and advocates. While the overall graduation rate for New York City students in foster care is 42%, students participating in Road to Success achieved an 88% graduation rate last school year of 2026.

Thank you. Students like Lisa and Jared remind us why sustained support matters. Lisa graduated while navigating disrupted placements and uncertainty about her college transition. Jared, an English language learner, was one Regents exam away from graduation, and with tutoring and encouragement, improved his score by 26 points and earned his diploma. Their stories show that graduation is possible, but support cannot stop at the finish line.

We recommend that the city strengthen early identification of students who are undercredited, chronically absent, missing services, or struggling with Regents requirements. We also urge stronger coordination among schools, Administration for Children's Services, foster care agencies, caregivers, Fair Futures coaches, tutors, and education specialists. Finally, we ask— sorry, finally, we ask the city to invest in proven individualized models like Road to Success so more young people can graduate prepared for college and career.

Thank you for your time and commitment. Thank you for your testimony. And also thank all of you for your work that you do, you know, recognizing, I think, what so many of us do, but a very rigid system doesn't, which is that our child and our children are more than just test scores. There's so much more to our children.

I would love to see the portrait recognize the incredible work that our kids do and the incredible people that they are. So I once again want to thank you for your work and your testimony.

And that concludes the in-person portion of our public testimony. We will now move to remote testimony. If you are testifying remotely, please listen for your name to be called. Once your name is called, a member of our staff will unmute you. You may then start your testimony once the sergeant-at-arms sets the clock and cues you to begin.

Okay, uh, Khalili Salas, it is, uh, you may begin once you are unmuted and the sergeant cues you.

Hi, good evening, Chair Dinowitz, and thank you for holding this really important hearing. We are in a time of transition in our New York City Public Schools. I do want to disclose, so my name is Khalidi Salas. I'm the parent of 2 public school students, and I'm also the president of CEC4. And I should also state that my children both attended Central Park East One Elementary School, which is the oldest public progressive school in New York City, founded by Deborah Meyer.

In addition, I am a parent of a high schooler in a consortium school. So you can imagine that I deeply believe in the use of performance-based assessments, problem-based learning, inquiry-based learning, and an emergent curriculum to support all of our learners, particularly our most vulnerable learners. I do want to share that my oldest child has an IEP. He suffers from anxiety, and it has been this type of curriculum that has allowed him to find his voice and has allowed him to develop the skills that he's going to need as he looks forward to being a politician.

Not a choice of mine. And so it is really important to create these spaces for our young people. I will also say that I'm a medical educator and 60% of my curriculum is problem-based learning. So when we're talking about career and college readiness, the Portrait of a Graduate really resembles what, what our expectations are in higher education and setting up students for success. in terms of providing them with a deep learning experience rather than just going over content, which, as you mentioned, is one of the methods in terms of teaching to the test or teaching to the— to a Regents exam.

I will also very quickly state that New York City Reads and New York City Solves, these curricula are culturally destructive, and at the center of the Portrait of the New York State Graduate is culturally responsive curriculum. And so I really want to interrogate the notion that New City Reads and New York City Solves is preparing our children to move forward with these requirements for the portrait of the New York State graduate.

And hopefully we'll be thinking about how we can develop curriculum that is responsive and relevant to our New York City public schools.

Time expired. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Although, you know, we have— you're allowed to say what you want. I have to forcefully push back and say your child should aspire to be a politician. It is a very— it's a great— you know what, because we're here today talking about a critical issue, the critical issue of portrait of a graduate, and that could be your child on this great dais with these cups, these dentist cups.

But I do want to thank, you know, the Department of Education, all of the people who testified today. It's clear that this is an issue that people care about deeply because they care deeply about the future of our city and care deeply about our children. It's also clear that there's a lot of work to do, that there are a lot of people outside of the DOE and within the DOE who are being very thoughtful about this work, but there is so much more to do in terms of the communication, in terms of sharing best practices, ensuring we are holding ourselves to a very high rigorous standards so that we are seeing our children for who they are and giving them the best education possible.

So I want to thank the DOE and everyone who testified once again, and this hearing will be adjourned once I read this very important message. If there's anyone else present in the room who has not had the opportunity to testify but wishes to do so, please raise your hand. Seeing no one else who actually wishes to testify, anyone on Zoom?

There's no one on Zoom. Okay, now I can officially close out the hearing. Thank you.