Mayor Bill de Blasio asserted Friday that a redistribution of wealth was vital in helping end the structural racism plaguing New York City schools.
Speaking during a COVID-19 news conference, de Blasio shared that from the 'very beginning,' he tried to focus on 'equity and excellence' when working on education in the Big Apple.
He described the work he did as part of the efforts to 'profoundly change the distribution of resources.'
'I like to say very bluntly our mission is to redistribute wealth,' de Blasio declared. 'A lot of people bristle at that phrase and that is in fact the phrase we need to use.'
Speaking during a COVID-19 news conference Friday, Mayor Bill de Blasio said he tried to focus on 'equity and excellence' when working on education
He continued: We have been doing this work for seven years to more equitably redistribute resources throughout our school system.
'That means Pre-K for all, 3-K for all, advanced placement courses in every high school, including those that never had a single one. It means changing school funding formulas.'
'There are so many things that we have tried to do to profoundly rebalance the equation. Community schools, focusing on schools that need the most in communities that have not been invested in.'
De Blasio stressed that his efforts were aimed at 'closing the COVID achievement gap' for under resourced students, coming from predominantly 'Black communities, Latino communities and Asian communities.'
'I like to say very bluntly our mission is to redistribute wealth,' he declared. 'A lot of people bristle at that phrase and that is in fact the phrase we need to use'
'It is time to start using every tool at our disposal to address inequality and improve the education of all children,' he stated.
His remarks come just weeks after homeless families and legal advocates sued New York City on Tuesday, claiming a gap in reliable Internet service to 27 homeless shelters where thousands of students were struggling with remote schooling during the coronavirus pandemic.
The lawsuit was filed in Manhattan Federal Court a month after Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wi-Fi would be installed in all shelters with school-aged children.
A coalition of teachers, students, and families protest during a rally called National Day of Resistance Against Unsafe School Reopening Opening in August
The lawsuit denounced his plan as vague and instead demanded a Jan. 4, 2021 deadline for online connectivity. That will be the first day of class for New York City Public Schools after the winter holiday break in the biggest U.S. school district, with roughly 1.1 million students.
'We just filed a class action lawsuit against the de Blasio Administration for its failure to provide students who reside in City shelters access to reliable internet service so they can attend school remotely,' the Legal Aid Society said on Twitter.
Grant Mainland, a lawyer with Milbank LLP, which joined the lawsuit on behalf of the Coalition for the Homeless as well as individual shelter residents and their children, said city delays were threatening to write off the 2020-2021 school year for New York's most vulnerable children.
'Homeless children's lack of access to the virtual classroom has been on the city's radar since the start of the pandemic, yet these children are hardly better off than they were in March,' Mainland said in a statement, referring to the late winter, when New York was the U.S. epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic.
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