Melissa Aviles-Ramos to deliver keynote at City & State’s Education in NY event

New York City Public Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos will be giving one of the keynote speeches at City & State’s “Education in New York: Shaping Tomorrow’s Schools Through Innovation” summit next Thursday. 

With the event just a week away, Aviles-Ramos gave City & State a preview of what attendees can expect to hear about next week at the event, touching on various initiatives and goals the education system is prioritizing. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Can you give us a preview of what you’ll be discussing at our Education Summit next week?

I will be discussing the work that we launched a few years ago on New York City Reads and subsequently New York City Solves – major work that was super important to Mayor Adams and to my predecessor, Chancellor David Banks – and the ways in which we’re continuing to move forward with that work. When I became chancellor, I committed deeply to moving that work forward, and our most recent screener data indicates that we are moving in the right direction. 

I also want to talk about NYCPS Cares, which is the signature initiative that I launched a few months back. The intention behind that initiative was really to support everything we’re doing in New York City Reads. We know if children are being bullied, or if they do not feel safe in school or at home and if parents are struggling to meet their and their children’s basic needs, then we know that all the great academic work that we’re doing is going to have less of an impact. So, we want to make sure that we’re paying attention to everything happening in academia, but then also making sure that we’re paying attention to the social-emotional support for our young people. 

The event will feature a panel discussion on tech in education. What are your thoughts on the increasing amount of tech used in classrooms? What concerns does NYC Schools have about it?

We are super excited to always increase technological access to our young people, whether it’s in hardware and also the right tools to engage their learning and that are going to support learning in the classroom. My team and I have been working really closely with principals and superintendents and vendors to make sure that the right supplemental programs and intervention programs are in front of our young people, so that these technologies that they’re using are really worthy of their time, and that are their standards aligned and that they have impact. We are going to continue to use technology to support learning in the classroom, always understanding that you can’t replace an excellent teacher, but that these tools are great in terms of helping students get the extra support that they need when the tools are right.

The other piece of it is how we think about AI, and I’m looking forward to reconvening our AI Advisory Council, which Chancellor Banks launched in his final days as chancellor before retirement. I really needed to take a step back and work with the team and talk about how we look at AI and other technologies and think about a four-part framework. One of the areas being the responsiveness, making sure that the tools and platforms they’re using are all culturally responsive and supportive of the different ethnic backgrounds and identities that we see across New York City. We also want to make sure that teachers, students and families are using it responsibly.  We also want to make sure that we are preparing our young people for these careers, so that they are not just consumers of technology, but that they are becoming producers of it as well, and using it to enhance their own innovation and creativity. The last part is, how are we using it to increase productivity in the classroom for teachers? There’s so many things that teachers are expected to do, and they do them well with differentiated instruction and formative assessment, but we know that with the right tech tools, they can do this work even more seamlessly. 

Career readiness is also a key goal of the education system. How is the city preparing students for the workforce and what more needs to be done?

I’m very proud of the career connected work that we’ve been doing since the start of this administration in 2022. The mayor has been very clear that “Bright Starts, Bold Futures” is what he expects for the young people of New York City, so our FutureReadyNYC initiative is in over 130 high schools. I think that that’s such important work, because young people are experiencing these careers while they’re in high school, and it’s making the prospective college that they will attend even more a reality for them. We tell children, “Go to college, go to college,” but if it’s not real for them in terms of their career path then what are those tangible opportunities for them? It’s very scary, particularly for first generation students. I can speak to that myself, having been a first-generation high school grad, let alone college, and that was a really scary thing. And so I always remember that experience when I think about our young people.

The other thing is the way in which young people are able to earn wages while they’re in high school, experiencing these internships and apprenticeships and other opportunities. Which is super important because many of those opportunities, when unpaid, go to students who are in a higher socioeconomic bracket and our more challenged students have to worry about supporting their families. We’re making sure that they can explore their college and career opportunities, connecting them with really incredible business leaders and in healthcare, in education. They’re experiencing all these things in high school, but they don’t have to pick between making some extra money to help their families. 

In New York, what issues do you think are the most pressing to solve for students' sakes? What do students need the most?

It really speaks to the initiatives that we’ve already launched. For far too long, too many of our students were not proficient readers, so in turn they were not proficient writers, and they were not proficient in mathematics, and that is not okay. It’s not an excuse for us to say that we are in socioeconomically challenged neighborhoods. This is just a pattern, the repeated pattern that we see in certain communities. At some point, someone has to stand up and break the cycle, right? And that’s true equity work. This administration made a very bold move and said it is not okay that kids aren’t reading. We’re going to stop saying that the kids can’t read, because “can’t” implies that there’s something wrong with the children. And there’s nothing wrong with the children, what’s wrong is how we’ve been teaching teachers how to teach children. So, we made this really bold plan to make sure that our students are proficient readers and mathematicians, and I think that that’s something they deeply need. 

On top of that, we need to confront the realities of systemic racism and poverty and all of the things that plague urban communities, Black and brown communities, minoritized communities. To do that means that we need to really pay attention to how schools are becoming these hubs for the community to combat food insecurity, housing insecurity, domestic violence, bullying in all forms. That is something that we know if we do not pay attention to those things, all the great instructional and curricular work is not going to land well. 

In terms of thinking about our New York City students, they do not need soft bigotry, they do not need low expectations. They need solid research-based curriculum and instruction, and they need supportive adults who understand some of the complexities and realities of being part of challenged communities. We can do both at the same time. We can uplift their academic experience and we can also support their social, emotional and socioeconomic needs.

What concerns do you have about the state of education, considering federal attitudes toward education and the Department of Education?

My concern is that we become distracted. We need to stay really focused. I sound like my boss: “Stay focused, no distractions and crying.” But that’s the truth. Whatever is happening in the federal government, we need to monitor it very closely, and we need to understand the implications for New York City. But that doesn’t mean that it should take away from our work if we sit here and we worry and we don’t plan accordingly and we don’t stick to what’s most important — which is making sure that there are high-quality curricular materials in front of our kids, that our teachers are coached and supported so they can deliver great instruction, that we have high-quality assessments that actually matter and that are giving us data that that are truly reflecting our students and their abilities and their necessities. That’s where we need to stay focused. If we let all the other stuff distract us, then we’re not delivering on our commitment to center children and families first.