NEW SCHOOLS BOSS: HERE’S MY PLAN
New schools boss: Focus on needy students
NEW SCHOOLS Chancellor Richard Carranza vowed Tuesday to fight for the city’s most vulnerable children.
In an exclusive interview with the Daily News a week into the job, Carranza, 51, shared his views on a variety of topics, including arming teachers (“ridiculous”), divisive politics (“it doesn’t help”) and immigration raids (“over my dead body”).
Amid a whirlwind tour of classrooms and administrative offices, the chancellor spoke to The News at Brooklyn’s Brighter Choice Community School in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
When he got to a music class, Carranza grabbed a guitar and sang, charming the students with the popular mariachi tune “La Bikina.”
The delighted kids won over, Carranza now needs to focus on their elders.
He suggested major changes may be in store for how the city serves black and Hispanic students, and those living in poverty. “It’s going to be about how we empower the system, to actually create conditions where students will be well served — not just some students, but all students,” he said.
Carranza, the son of Mexican immigrants, suggested some schools could soon receive more funding to address inequity in a system where schools in wealthy neighborhoods command more resources of almost every kind.
He also suggested changes could be coming to Mayor de Blasio’s controversial Renewal Schools program, which has managed only mixed results for troubled city schools.
“You have to have a system and a funding mechanism that understands from an equity perspective, there are some communities that have challenges that are greater than other communities,” Carranza said. “How you prioritize resources is really important.”
He acknowledged the divisive election of President Trump and the chaotic mood of the county had affected classrooms.
“It doesn’t help to have a national rhetoric that targets any community,” he said. “Over my dead body are there going to be immigration raids. We will support our immigrant students and families.”
The veteran educator praised de Blasio’s overhaul of school safety protocols, even amid a spike of suspensions and arrests in the current school year, saying disciplinary actions too often target some students unfairly.
He said arming teachers in the wake of the Parkland, Fla., massacre is “the most ridiculous idea I’ve ever heard in my life” and students prefer to learn in schools that don’t feel like prisons.
“I’m not supportive of more guns in schools — I want fewer guns in schools,” he said.
Carranza also said that increasing the city’s anti-bias training for teachers is a top priority as thousands of parents called for culturally responsive education following reports of racist incidents in city schools that The News exposed.
Carranza also said the allegations of sexual discrimination against him in a suit settled by the San Francisco school district in 2016 were not true and that he had no knowledge of other women with similar complaints against him.
“The allegations in that lawsuit never happened,” Carranza said. “I stand on my record of almost 30 years, working with thousands of individuals and supporting lots of different people in lots of different ways.
“And as New Yorkers get to know me, they’re going to get their own impression of me as a leader and what my style is.”