Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Chancellor David Banks On The Eagle Academy, Reading Programs In New York Public Schools + More

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INTERVIEW: Chancellor David Banks On The Eagle Academy, Reading Programs In New York Public Schools + More · The Breakfast Club

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: Breakfast Club.
• 0:04
  Speaker 3: Morning, everybody, It's DJ Envy Charlamagne the guy. We are
• 0:08
  Speaker 3: the Breakfast Club. We got a special guest in the building,
• 0:11
  Speaker 3: New York City Schools Chancellor David Banks.
• 0:13
  Speaker 4: Welcome, brother, I'm very happy to be here. Good morning
• 0:16
  Speaker 4: to you both.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Man, happy to have you here. Man.
• 0:18
  Speaker 5: If you don't know who David Banks is, he founded
• 0:19
  Speaker 5: one of the most successful and first public schools in
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  Speaker 5: the country that serves exclusively young men of color, the
• 0:26
  Speaker 5: Eagle Academy.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Right, so we'll talk to us about the Eagle Academy.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: How did that come to light?
• 0:30
  Speaker 4: Well, listen, I was a member, been a longtime member
• 0:34
  Speaker 4: of the one Hundred Black Men Organization. It's a national,
• 0:37
  Speaker 4: international actual organization, but started in New York about sixty
• 0:41
  Speaker 4: years ago. And you know, we'd always worked to support
• 0:45
  Speaker 4: our kids in our schools and doing the right thing.
• 0:47
  Speaker 4: But when we started really looking at the data around
• 0:49
  Speaker 4: what was happening with young black men, we realized that
• 0:53
  Speaker 4: we needed to do so much more. And so many
• 0:56
  Speaker 4: of us had gone to the Million Mare in March
• 0:58
  Speaker 4: years ago, and coming out of that March, we came
• 1:01
  Speaker 4: away with a commitment that we had to go much deeper,
• 1:03
  Speaker 4: and that march is what really gave birth to the
• 1:07
  Speaker 4: creation of the Eagle Academy for young Men. It was
• 1:09
  Speaker 4: the first all boys public school in New York City
• 1:13
  Speaker 4: in almost thirty years. When we open, it's not a
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: charter school, it's not a private school. It's a regular
• 1:17
  Speaker 4: New York City public school that really had as its
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: mission to try to help to enlighten and transform the
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: lives of our young men. And since that time I
• 1:27
  Speaker 4: was the principal of the school in the Bronx. Since
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: that time, we've opened up an Eagle Academy in every
• 1:33
  Speaker 4: borough in New York. Wow, we've got one in Newark,
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: New Jersey. When Corey Booker was the mayor and Newark,
• 1:38
  Speaker 4: he hassens to come there. So we've got six schools,
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: over three thousand young men. We graduated over three thousand
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: young men and sent them to colleges and universities all
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: around the country. And it's essentially been a beacon and
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: a blueprint what you can do to transform the lives
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: of young men.
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  Speaker 3: One in Queens Curious, Southeast Queens.
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's actually housing the facility that Allenami Church Rev.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Flake's Church.
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  Speaker 3: Uh, north side of Queens.
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: Then yeah, but it's it's but no, it's Southeast Queens.
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: It's it's it's basically Jamaica Queens. And they used to
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: have a school a few blocks from the church, and
• 2:15
  Speaker 4: we basically took that facility.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: And that's where we are the same neighborhood basically that.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: I grew up in.
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: You grew uprom Queens from Queens.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm a Brooklyn Queen's kid.
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: I was born in Brooklyn and Crown Heights, lived in
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: Brooklyn ntil I was about twelve years old. My dad
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: was a New York City police officer and uh and
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: moved the family and I'm the oldest of three boys,
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: and we moved out to Southeast Queens Cambria Heights at
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: the Hillcrest High School.
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: And your story is the same. My dad is from Brooklyn,
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: New York City police officer, moved me to Queens Queens Village,
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: which is the city of the dixt town over.
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  Speaker 2: Same.
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: It was that same migration almost right in Brooklyn and
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: kind of making their way out to Queens.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: And I went to school with Naila, which is Floyd
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: Flake's daughter.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Did you really where'd you go to high school?
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  Speaker 2: St?
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  Speaker 3: Francis Zone school was Andrew Jackson and you aren't going there.
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: My parents would not let me go there. Same here.
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  Speaker 3: That was the first, the first public school with metal
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  Speaker 3: detectives in the country with Andrew Jackson.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: I lived about three or four blocks from Andrew Jackson.
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  Speaker 4: That's why I should have gone to school Zone And
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: think about that envy, right, like the fact that there
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  Speaker 4: was most of those kids who lived in the neighborhood.
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: These were like smart, hard work and committed kids. Most
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: of us did not go to the neighborhood school because
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: the reputation was so bad violent. And that's one of
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  Speaker 4: the things that I'm trying to do is and now
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  Speaker 4: that I'm in this seat as Chancellor, is to say
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: that that it's ridiculous. We've got to transform all of
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: our schools. So much of the conversation has been about
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: specialized schools and you know, an individual school here or there.
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: I truly believe that you can transform the entire school system.
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  Speaker 4: Every neighborhood school should be a good, solid school and
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  Speaker 4: the things that we can do to make that happen.
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  Speaker 4: And that's that's the reason why I'm here.
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  Speaker 3: Do you think they should take out the I'm sorry,
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: do you think they should take out the quote unquote
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: zone school, right? Because you know, when I was a
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: kid growing up in Queens, you know, usually the resources
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: were in the quote unquote towns with more money, right, right,
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  Speaker 3: So that's where everybody tried to go, whether they tried
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: to get a fake address or you know, they wanted
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  Speaker 3: to do to the Catholic school. And I know my
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: parents wanted me to go to Edison or even Van
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: Buren because those schools were better than my zone school.
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: So do you think they should get rid of the
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: quote unquote zone school where they make you go to
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  Speaker 3: depending on your zip code.
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  Speaker 4: Well, first of all, right, now we have a lot
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  Speaker 4: more choice of movement, particularly at the high school level.
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  Speaker 4: Most kids do not have to simply go to their
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  Speaker 4: zone school. There's a lot more movement where you don't
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: have to change your address, you don't have to do
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  Speaker 4: all the other stuff to kind of sneak around the system.
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  Speaker 4: We offer kids lots of other opportunities, but the reality
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  Speaker 4: is that what we have to do is to ensure
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  Speaker 4: that every school is a high quality school, so you
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: don't even need to do all of that sneaking around
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  Speaker 4: In the first place, and that's where the real work
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: comes in.
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  Speaker 5: I'm very interested in knowing when you say you of
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  Speaker 5: exclusively young men of color, what is different about the
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  Speaker 5: Eagle Academy than other schools, other public schools around the country.
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  Speaker 4: So when I was heading up the Eagle Academy, you know,
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  Speaker 4: you recognize, first of all, you have to start with
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  Speaker 4: disaggregating the data.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 4: Columbia University did a report that said that this was
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: years ago, seventy five percent of the inmates from the
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: entire state of New York came from seven neighborhoods in
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  Speaker 4: New York City.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: Just think about that.
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: Fine, you talked about Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Aubany, the whole
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  Speaker 4: entire state of New York. Seventy five percent of the
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  Speaker 4: prison population for the whole state was not just from
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: New York City. That's a big enough deal of its own,
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  Speaker 4: seven very specific zip codes within.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: New York City.
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: I'm just curious you were talking about and somebody says, Shane,
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: since the time of this report came out, but you
• 5:50
  Speaker 4: were talking about the Center Bronx. You're talking about it
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: was South Bronx. You're talking about Central Home, you talked
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: about Southeast Queens. It was the Lower East Side, you know,
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: at the time, it was Ocean Hill, Brown, it was
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: the neighborhoods where our folks are with the greatest concentration
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: of our folks are.
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  Speaker 1: That's where you are for the whole.
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: State, right, And the problem was that what you had
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: where people were were doing all kinds of analysis about it,
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: and people were having conferences and panel discussions, and I
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: went to so many panel discussions where people just try
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: to play to the crowd and get everybody cheering, but
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: nobody was really offering up any real solutions. We were
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: just talking about how bad the problems were, and it
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: seemed like the most you could hope for was good
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: after school program for maybe twenty five boys.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: That's about as good as it got.
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: That was the reason why we leaned into creating the
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  Speaker 4: Eagle Academy. And what Eagle really represented was a culture
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  Speaker 4: where young men got to see that we cared deeply
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  Speaker 4: about them.
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  Speaker 1: Right. We had a larger.
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  Speaker 4: Percentage of our staff who were men of color, which
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  Speaker 4: is important because so many of these young brothers are
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: growing up with our fathers at home and when they're
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: little guys and the lovable, huggable and cute. That's one thing,
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: and they're right up under mammy. But as they start
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: to get older and the streets start to have a
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: greater influence, they need to see strong male role models
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  Speaker 4: in their lives. If they do not have that, they
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  Speaker 4: are so much more susceptible to the negativity that they
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: will see in the streets. Black boys, Latino boys are
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  Speaker 4: no different than anybody else. They want all the same things,
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  Speaker 4: they need the same things. So a lot of it
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  Speaker 4: had to do with the way that we trained our teachers.
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  Speaker 4: They had to understand first of.
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  Speaker 1: All, about boys.
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  Speaker 4: Boys bring a different kind of energy into a classroom.
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  Speaker 4: You know, boys love to compete, but they don't like
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  Speaker 4: to compete one on one. They like to compete my
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  Speaker 4: group against your group. There are ways for you to
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  Speaker 4: affect that in the classroom in a way that's positive,
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  Speaker 4: as opposed to seeing some behavior and writing it off
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  Speaker 4: as negative. Therefore, kids wound up getting suspended, they wind
• 7:52
  Speaker 4: up getting in trouble, and then the boys themselves start
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  Speaker 4: to give up on themselves. So that's a huge part
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  Speaker 4: of what it is that we focus on is the
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  Speaker 4: culture that young men need to know. They are people
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  Speaker 4: who deeply believe in them. They have to see the
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: power of possibility for themselves as well.
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  Speaker 1: So all the folks.
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  Speaker 4: That we would bring in on a regular basis that
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  Speaker 4: would speak into their consciousness. It's not enough to tell
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: kids about what you could do, and particularly boys, you.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: Have to show them.
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  Speaker 2: You know.
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  Speaker 4: One of the young men said, it's hard to dream
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: of being an investment banker if you've never met one, right,
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  Speaker 4: And so that's what we spend a lot of our
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: time doing. We didn't just talk to them about going
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: to college. Every young man that went to Eagle Academy
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: probably visited twenty to twenty five colleges while they were there.
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: We had them on the role going to colleges on
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  Speaker 4: a regular basis because they you have to plant those
• 8:42
  Speaker 4: seeds in their mind. They have to walk that campus.
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: They got to see the fraternity and Sororita come out
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  Speaker 4: and do a little step. They got to go into
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  Speaker 4: a classroom and see some folks who look like them.
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  Speaker 4: That's what makes it real. If you don't do that,
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  Speaker 4: it's just an amorphous notion that adults like to talk
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: about amongst themselves. But you have to help make it
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: play for young men to understand the possibilities for them
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: to one of my problems with a.
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: Lot of the schools, and since you were a school chancellor,
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: maybe you can give us some insight on it. I
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: feel like a lot of the curriculums are old, right,
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: And the reason I'm saying that is a lot of
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: you know, when we were kids and our parents were kids,
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: people made money differently, right, But now a lot of
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: these kids are becoming millionaire wealthy, you know, Damn they're
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: billionaires off of things that I don't know if school teaches,
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: whether it's the social media bust and how to do
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: things on social media, whether it's little things as like
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: you know, these car wrapping companies that wrap the cars,
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: and like people are making millions off of that, or
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: if it's real estate, or if it's whatever it may be.
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: You know, I don't see a lot of schools jumping
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: in to those curriculums. It seems like those curriculums are
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: outdated and ancient, and a lot of these students bought
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: is boring to them because what they're seeing online or
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: what they want to do is like I don't want
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: to do this in school. I want to do what
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: I enjoy doing. And I see a lot of times
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: that you're not seeing that in those schools. Absolutely, brothers,
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: So I couldn't agree with you more. It's part of
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: the reason why.
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: One of the ma things I focused on was the
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: reimagining of the school experience for kids. You can't do
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: school like we did it one hundred years ago, correct,
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: even fifty years ago, I mean twenty five years ago, right, Like,
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: the world.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: Has changed and it is changing rapidly before our eyes.
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: And it is a major challenge for a bureaucracy as
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: large as a New York City school system, which is
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: the largest school system in the nation, right and by
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: far it's the largest. It doesn't it the most complicated too,
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: It is absolutely the most popular, complicated the work that
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: we do. But it can change, and but it needs vision,
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: It needs leadership that is courageous and bold, and that's
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: what we are trying to do. So you know, one
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: of the things that we are leaning into now is
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: we call bold futures, creating career connected learning for kids.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: That idea that you just raised that school is boring.
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: That's the major reason why kids give up on themselves.
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: This is not I'm just doing school. There's a difference
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: between schooling and edge educating really connects to relevance. Why
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: are we doing this? Kids ask that all the time.
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: Even when we were in school, we always said why
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: are we doing this?
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Lesson?
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: And oftentimes you did not get good answers to those questions.
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: We're helping to provide much better answers. I created a
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: couple of programs that we're leaning into right now, our
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: modern youth apprenticeship programs and our future Ready programs. What
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: those are our career connected programs to some degree that
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: what we all remembered as CTE programs, right except that
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: the old CTE programs were about or automotive shop, building cars,
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: doing wood shop. The career connected learning today is not
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: your grandfather's CTE stuff. Kids are coming out now with
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: the opportunity to step into.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Real jobs even if they didn't go to college.
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: They can make six figure, six figure salaries coming right
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: out of high school. So we're building a range of
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: partnerships with the aviation industry, the biotech industry, financial industry.
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: JP Morgan Chase is paying kids up to twenty five
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: dollars an hour while they're still in high school. Where
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: they go to school, a certain number of days and
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: then they're actually working in the industry for at least
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: two to three days, where we're merging school and the
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: real world at the same time. Then kids understand why
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: you need to be focused in this science class. It
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: connects to something that's real and meaningful. So we got
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: thousands of kids that are doing that. I would invite
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: you to come and join us, you know, come and
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: visit what we're doing at some of these schools. But
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: my goal is to scale this work to very significant
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: levels so that kids get real world experiences. Kids have
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: an opportunity to get not only exposed, but to get
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: paid while they're in high school, and so it prepares them.
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: They get all the credentials that they need when they graduate.
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: So when they graduate, they get a diploma. You can't
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: have it being an empty diploma that doesn't mean anything.
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: I want them to be able to go to college
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: if they want to go to college, but I also
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: want them to have the credentials to step right into
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: the world of work. We're doing that right now for
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: all the reasons that you just laid up.
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: Let me ask question, what's your thoughts on kids taking
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: maybe a year or two off right and this is
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: the reason why I say it. In high school, No, no,
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: when they graduated at a house. I'm just curious. We'll
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: be talking education the reason. Oh yeah, maybe after high school,
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: before you go to college. I'm explained why. So I
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: went to Hampton University. But when I went to Hampton University,
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: I went for a different reason.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: I went because I had to. My parents wanted me
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: to go, and I was just did a graduate. Right
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: after I graduated and I spent some time in a
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: real world, I realized there's so many things that I
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: should have took serious in school, so many classes that
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: I should have taken that I didn't take. And I
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: feel like that's because I didn't know myself. I didn't
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: know what I wanted to do. They make you pick
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: a major, they make they make you do it now,
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: do it now, do now. But if you don't experience
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: the world, you don't know what you're gonna want to do.
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: So I feel like sometimes what you're saying where you're saying, Okay, well,
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: I can take these classes, but I can work at
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: JP Morgan and Chase to see if I like it.
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: You know, I can work at an automotive company to
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: see if that's what fits me, and I feel like
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: that is better because I get a little time to
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: see what I want to do and be like, you
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: know what, I'm going to focus on this opposed to
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: focus on classes that don't make sense to me. So
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: what's your thought on that?
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: First of all, that is a big part of what
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: we're trying to do with these programs.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: The more the earlier you can.
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: Provide that kind of level of exposure for kids, the
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: better it is.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Because nobody should.
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: You know, you shouldn't necessarily know what you want to
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: do for the rest of your life when you're fourteen
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: years old, right.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: So you can.
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: Kids change every year about what they want to be,
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: and a lot of it is based upon what they
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: see and what they experience. And what we want to
• 14:37
  Speaker 4: do is create more opportunities for them to see different
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: things and to experience different things.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: You know, the model of the one hundred Black Men
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: is they will be what they see.
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: Well, if what you see is very limited, then even
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: your imagination can be limited. But when you have an
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: opportunity to see more and to see what it means.
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: You know, when I was in high school, you know,
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: I did an internship at the York College Computer Division.
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: This was back when they were doing computer languages of Cobalton,
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: you know, yeah, exactly right. And this was way before
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: the personal computer. But but it was an eye opener
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: for me because I had a chance to see in
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: real time what the career could potentially look like. And
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: I said, I don't really think I want to do that.
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: I was an engineering major when I went off to college,
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: and and I did not have enough exposure to that
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: because I stayed as an engineering major for two years
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: before I switched to political science. I said, boy, i've
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: I had I had more exposure to this, I probably
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: wouldn't have chosen engineer. I was a good math and
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: science student, but I didn't really want badly enough to
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: be an engineer. You know, I try to provide as
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: much exposure for my own kids. I raised four kids,
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: and you know, my daughter graduated from Hampton as well.
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: All my kids went to HBCUs. I have two sons
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: of my daughter went to Hampton. She's teaching in the
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: Bronx now. My oldest son, Jamal, is an assistant principal.
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: He's also in education in Washington, d C. With the
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: Virginia State and then my other two sons, Ali and
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: Malcolm are both graduates and more house. So while I
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: didn't go to an HBC, you all my money went
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: to HBCUs. And the reality for me is that I
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: tried to help provide as much exposure for them to
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: see what was possible correct. And I often tell folks,
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: you know, we never see the genius of a Tiger
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: Woods if his father didn't put that golf club in
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: his hands and put them out there on the greens, right.
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: And so the more we expose kids, so I want
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: to expose them before college. I want to expose them
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: while they're in high school so that they can get
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: to their AHA moment, which then when they're in college
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: is more instructive around what they actually want a major,
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: because they then they know why they want to focus
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: in that area.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 16:42
  Speaker 5: As a chancellor, you know in New York City, like
• 16:45
  Speaker 5: we said earlier, you know the largest, most complicated public
• 16:48
  Speaker 5: school system in America.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: Was there any pressure stepping into that position.
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: Well, stepping into the position, that's a great question.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: There's always a lot of pressure.
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: I would tell you that the biggest pressure o' charlemagne
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: was the pressure that I put on myself because I
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: hold myself to a very high standard and a standard
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: of excellence. I didn't come in here and take this
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: job just to play at it. You know, I've known
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: Mayor Eric Adams for over thirty years. He didn't even
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: interview anybody else to be Chancellor. He said, you're my guy.
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: If I become mayor, you're my guy, and so I
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: didn't go through an interview process. He tells the story
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: that he was interviewing me over ten years, but that
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: interview was him watching the work that I was doing
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: over all of those years. The pressure that I feel
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: every single day is to ensure that I am living
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: up to what my ancestors laid out for me to do.
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: That I know that I'm standing on their shoulders and
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: that they have paid this way for me at this moment,
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: in this time, to do what needs to be done on.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Behalf of all of our kids. Right.
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: So that's the pressure that I feel. It's not the
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: day to day pressure of the media or it's actually
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: going going on in our schools. It's just knowing that
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: these kids are counting on me. They're counting on me,
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: and I have to set up a structure that's going
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: to allow it to happen. So let me tell you
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: the biggest, the biggest thing that I have learned since
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: I've become chancellor, and it is the driving force behind
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: everything that I do. Far too many of our kids
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: can't read.
• 18:20
  Speaker 5: I saw that recently you made you made a lot
• 18:22
  Speaker 5: of news saying that we should, they should focus on
• 18:24
  Speaker 5: literacy and schools, and it kind of blew my mind a.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: Little because I'm like, what the hell are they focusing on.
• 18:29
  Speaker 5: Me.
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: I've had as some guys that I grew up with
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: out there in Southeast Queen's who you know, we get together,
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: we watch the games on the weekends and whatnot, and
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: then say, hey, Dave. When I leave the room, they say,
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: you just teach the kids to read right, And you
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: still have to say, well, what else are we doing?
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: And think about this.
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: Fifty one percent as we came into this administration, fifty
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: one percent of the kids in the New York City
• 18:50
  Speaker 4: public schools fundamentally do not even read on grade level.
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: Sixty four percent of Black kids, sixty three percent of
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: of of Latino kids. But it's a national phenomena. Sixty
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: six percent of the kids in Philadelphia don't read on
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: great level. Eighty percent of the kids in Chicago, and
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: can you imagine it gets worse in the city of Detroit, Charlamagne,
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: the city of Detroit, ninety one percent of the kids
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: don't fundamentally know how to read. You could get those
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: same results if you never even had a school system,
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: if the kids didn't even go to school every day,
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: if they just.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: Stayed home, and then one day at the end of
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: the year, you.
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: Said, everybody, come in and take a test, you would
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: get those same results.
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: What is not knowing how to read mean?
• 19:34
  Speaker 5: Because I know these kids on their phone reading Instagram
• 19:36
  Speaker 5: and Twitter and everything.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: I said, what did that mean when you say not
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: know how to read? What you mean?
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: What I mean is the ability to fully decode text
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: and read for meeting at a level commiserate with where
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: you are. So here's what we've done in our schools
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: for years. We have taught our kids how to read
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: through an approach that's called balance literacy. School teachers know
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: about this all over the country. It is a fundamentally
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: flawed approach. It involves a lot of what they call queueing,
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: which is a fancy word for guessing where basically you
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: open a book. You might not know how to say
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: the word read the word purple. But if you see
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: a purple fence, they'll tell you what do you think
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: it's saying. And because you see purple fence, you may
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: say purple is a purple fence. But if they remove
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: the picture and say read the word purple, you don't
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: even know how to read because you've not been properly taught.
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: I want to be very clear, there's nothing flawed with
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: our kids.
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: The approach that.
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: Has been taken in our public schools all across the
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: nation has been deeply flowed for at least the last
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: twenty five to thirty years. So I'm taking the system
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: back to the old school. We're putting phonics back into
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: our curriculum. Kids are going to learn how to do
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: the basic decoding of words, which it's the way that
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: I learned how to read.
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: And I was going to ask you that because as
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: a parent, right, I don't know, Charloamanne, if you do
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: homework with your kids or if your wife does. But
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: some of the stuff I can't teach my kids, right
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: because I can't teach him the way that they're learning now. Right,
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: So we all learned purple and you.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: Have to say.
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: Right, and then you got to keep going through that
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: cert until you say the word purple. They don't teach
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: like that, which is very difficult. And I was going
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: to ask you what those percentages that you said was
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: that before COVID, after COVID, during COVID, Because during COVID,
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: we got a lot of kids that mommy and Daddy
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: can't teach them and talking to the screen every day
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: on FaceTime, on class work, they're not paying attention like
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: my son would be in class. The birdfly. He outside
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: looking at the birds. He outside looking at the people
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: cutting the grass. He's looking at his siblings. He's like, mam,
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: can I get a snack because they're not in So
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: I felt like COVID in the pandemic affected them a
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: lot because it put them behind where they needed to be.
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: They were already behind envy, that's my point. They've been
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: behind for the last twenty five years. When COVID did
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: was reveal what was all there, and it was an
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: eye opener for so many of our parents who had
• 22:04
  Speaker 4: already been struggling to understand what is this, what is
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: this new way that they're doing with the kids that
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: even the grandparents were saying, this is not the.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: Way you learned to read.
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: So folks knew that something was wrong, but weren't sure
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: what to.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: Do about it. New math that new.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Math, Yeah, and and and uh.
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: And it was very frustrating for parents who said, I
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: don't even know how to help with the math or
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: even with the reading. And it shouldn't be that way,
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: because a sound educational system is so clear and basic
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: that parents can be real partners in helping to do
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: the work. But we were using this very progressive way.
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: A lot of it came out of Columbia University Teachers College,
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: and the average educator believes that the folks at the
• 22:52
  Speaker 4: university level they must know, right, they're a deep researchers,
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: they're really smart folks. So we just kind of followed
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: the script that they laid out, and like the dance
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: of the Limits, they marched us off the side of
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: the mountain all across the nation. But my message to
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: kids is wasn't your fault. My message to the educators
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: is it wasn't your fault. We gave them a floored playbook,
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: and I'm giving a very different playbook that's going to
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: put folks back in place, and you know how I
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: know it will work. In the state of Mississippi, they
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: went from using that that approach of balance literacy and
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: took it back to the basics of phonics and vocabulary
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: development and what we call the science of reading. Mississippi
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: for decades has been the lowest performing state in the nation.
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: Even other states that did poorly said we at least
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: we're not as bad as Mississippi. Mississippi has gone from
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: last to basically first because they completely shifted from that
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: florid approach, and so a state like Mississippi can do
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: what they did. All odds are on what we're doing
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: here in New York City. So we've trained up all
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: of our teachers across the city. Half of our school
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: districts have rolled out this new approach this September. The
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: other half are going to be rolling it out next year.
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: We're not leaving it up to every school to do
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: it the way that you think works best. We're giving
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: a very prescriptive model here and say we know what works,
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: we need everybody to do it this way, and we're
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: going to be able to monitor this in a much
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: more significant way that really has a level of fidelity
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: that's attached to it. I'm not going to leave this
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: up to just willy nilly everybody just doing this because
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: we have failed kids for far too long, and that
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: stops with me.
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: I guarantee you.
• 24:39
  Speaker 5: You think schools are still recovering from the COVID homeschool years.
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, schools are still recovering. But I do think
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: that we're seeing the signs of the recovery. Our tendance
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: is up. You know, we have this issue around chronic absenteeism,
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: which essentially means kids still missing too many days from school,
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: but those numbers are lowering as well, so we got
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: more kids back in school. Listen, kids need to be
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: in school, their families need their kids to be in school.
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: Nobody should just be home, hanging out or otherwise out
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: on the streets. So we're seeing folks back. But I
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: think what we're also seeing is because of what we're
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: doing around our literacy work and our career connected learning
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: really giving more purpose to schools, kids have a reason
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: to be back in schools in a way that's making sense.
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: I see parents talk to parents, I speak of churches
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: and whatnot all over the city, and people are saying
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: thank you, thank you, thank you. It's an amen corner
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: because they know what we're doing is getting our kids
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: back on the right track, and it's going to give
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: a greater degree of.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: Hope for our kids.
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: There's nothing worse than for a little boy or little
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: girl to feel like a failure and they're eight years
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: old in the fourth grade.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: Chance.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: I was just going to say, if you do the
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: comparison of kids that you feel are failures that I
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: can't read or can't do math, and you compare it
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: against mental problems or mental illness, and I'm gonna tell
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: you why, Right, if a kid can't read or understand
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: in correctly and they are in a classroom, right and
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: they feel like a teacher is gonna say, young man,
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: you read, and he's gonna be embarrassed. What is he
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: gonna do. He's gonna act out, right, He's gonna act
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: out so that teacher does not call on him. So
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: he's gonna want to get in trouble, right, and then
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: he's gonna get sent to the principal's office and he's
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: gonna be be deemed as a kid that is a
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: problem or a troublesome or not focused right then they're
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: gonna put him into a conversation with a therapist. With
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: a lot of times school therapists will be like, the
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: first thing that they do is they want to give
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: the kid medicine or give him something that he might
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: not need, when really the problem might be he just
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: can't read and he's not confident in himself.
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: Man, and let me tell you something, brother, you are
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: spot on, because when you can't read, you wind up
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: giving up on yourself. The system gives up on you.
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: It's a direct alignment pathway to prison, to homelessness, to unemployment,
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: to depression. It's all those things. The die gets cast
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: very early on. That's why I'm making my biggest bet
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: that if I can ensure kids are all going to
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: be on grade level by the third grade, because all
• 27:03
  Speaker 4: the resource says, if you get the kids on grade
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: level by third grade, they're good from there because from
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: there they can see the success, they feel a level
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: of success, their confidence kicks in. Now you can start
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: they can start to to to read to learn as
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: opposed to just learning to read. But but but if
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: you don't teach them how to read properly, it's like
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: building a house starting on the second floor.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: You you didn't have.
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: The foundation, and so so so we're gonna make sure
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: that the foundation is solid and strong. It doesn't happen overnight,
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: but I believe it can happen sooner rather than later.
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: And it certainly won't happen if you don't start. So
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: we have started.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: I'm all in on this.
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: I've been in this education space for you know, over
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: thirty five years now, and and and I've seen some things,
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: and and and I'm from New York. I've been here
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: all my life. We're gonna change the system, man, We're
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: gonna get We're gonna get these kids back on track.
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: And as I travel all around the city, the educators
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: around New York City, they're saying thank you, right because
• 28:03
  Speaker 4: they also have been told that they are failures because
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: they can't The reading scores are so low, the mass
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: scores are so low. And these some smart people who
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: are committed, who do care about kids. But the narrative
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: on them has been they're racists, they don't care about kids,
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: they don't care about our kids. That's really not the case.
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: People do care. You have to give them the right
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: script on what they need to do. And that's what
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: we're giving them, and we're going to be monitoring it
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: very closely.
• 28:32
  Speaker 5: How are New York City public schools addressing mental health
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: issues and young people?
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: Well, first of.
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: All, there are a whole wide range of things and
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: kids talk about this all the time, right, So I
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: mean we've got we've got over five thousand social workers
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: across our schools, a whole several thousand guidance counselors who
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: are all stand in a gap really around those issues.
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: When you see Kwamei shows up and you can see
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: things that just not quite right and they need some help, right,
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: so we stand in the gap for them. We have
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: over three hundred of our schools right now today who
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: have mental health school based mental health clinics in the schools,
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: So there are real resources in those schools right now
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: to help to address those needs for our kids who
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: just have some extra supports that they need. Do We
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: have close to seven hundred more school Charlamagne where they
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: don't have the school based health clinic, but they have
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: a partnership with the local hospital or some community based
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: organization that also provides those so support.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: So we got closer to a.
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: Thousand of our schools that already have these kinds of
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: supports that are actually in place. One of the things
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: I'm really excited about is this December, together with the
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: Department of Health, we're gonna be launching our telehealth program.
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: With that program is designed for high school kids. A
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: high school kid who's gone through some stuff, whether it's suicide, aviation,
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: or just some level of depression, some level of trauma,
• 29:56
  Speaker 4: whatever it might be.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: They don't have to make an appointment.
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: I don't have to wait till school starts to go
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: and try to find the counselor they can just pick.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: Up their phone.
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: We're gonna have everybody will have this app and they'll
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: be able to call right into and get somebody in
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: real time who can be on the phone, who can
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: talk them down, who can give them in that moment,
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: just what they need, because there are a lot of
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: kids who are crying out for help and we can't
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: afford for them to have to wait to get the help.
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: So that's going to start in a couple of months.
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: We're really excited about that. The Department of Health is
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: rolling that out, and they're gonna be working in a
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: strong partnership with New York City Public schools. So that's
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: another thing, and we're going to continue to continue to
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: build from there.
• 30:35
  Speaker 5: I want to go back to something nbcaid, how do
• 30:37
  Speaker 5: you know when a child is actually going through mental
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: health issues versus them just acting out if they want
• 30:42
  Speaker 5: to get out of work or school.
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that's that's a great question. And that's that's
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: I think win in doubt. Make sure you error on
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: the side of thinking that there's something really wrong, correct, right,
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: But a lot of that comes from just knowing the kids. Right,
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: These kids are not robots, and the people that work
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: in their schools. And when you ask me about what's
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: the secret source to like an Eagle academy, again, it's
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: our relationships with the kids. When kids are in school
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: where they're well known, somebody knows them well, that's how
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: you keep your hand on the posts of what's going on,
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: and you can see when the kids are just something
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: is off from its normal course. And then the other
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: kids themselves, their friends will let you know. You know,
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: all those years I was principal, I probably learned out.
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: I learned more about kids from their friends who would say,
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: mister Banks, you need to really go talk to Charlemagne
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: because he's going through some stuff right now. He's not
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: gonna willingly come and tell you about it. But there's
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: some stuff happening at home. I know about it. Just
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: see what you can do when you're in a school,
• 31:47
  Speaker 4: when the school works, well, it's a family, and we
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: keep our hand on the pulse and the kids are
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: not like just a factory workers, you know what I mean,
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: So we know what's going on with them.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: And then went a doubt.
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: You know, that's why you those social workers in there,
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: because they're trained to look with that, with that, with
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: that extra eye and have a better sense. Me what
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: I did and I encouraged school principles all around the city.
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: I didn't always know because I wasn't a trained social worker,
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: but but but I cared deeply about these kids every
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: single day, Envy, every single day, Charlamagne, I greeted all
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: my kids at the front door every day I was
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: not in my office as.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: Kids came into school.
• 32:26
  Speaker 4: I shook the hands of every single young man of
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: Eagle Academy when they came into that building, not most days,
• 32:34
  Speaker 4: every single day at the front door, greeted them. I
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: dapped them up, gave up game, game, gave up gave
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: a hug, and I could look in their eyes and
• 32:43
  Speaker 4: I knew right away if they were going.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: Through something because I knew them.
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: And I'm telling you, most of our leaders around the
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: system operate the same way. They know their kids, They
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: love their kids. Our New York City public schools have
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: gotten a really bad rap as though, as though we're
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: in an industry of folks who just don't care.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: And the kids can't read, and the kids can't do math,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: and the.
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: Kids can't can't, can't, and the kids also take on
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: that persona. I'm here to change that, and I believe
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: that we can change that. But you gotta You have
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: to breathe a level of hope and optimism into a
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: system for the.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: Believe in itself.
• 33:20
  Speaker 4: And then you have to start to see some victories
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: so that people recognize that, you know, we.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: Really can be better.
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: You gotta help convince them and so and that's why
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: I keep telling you the reading thing is so important.
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: And I've already seen some signs. Ive already spoken to
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: some parents in such a short period of time who've
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: already said, my son had a woman in the Bronx
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: who told me my son every day, I had to
• 33:48
  Speaker 4: like push him.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: To go into school.
• 33:49
  Speaker 6: I think it was in the third grade. Oh boy,
• 33:54
  Speaker 6: she's had to push them, like, come on, you gotta
• 33:56
  Speaker 6: go to school, she said. But because of the work
• 33:58
  Speaker 6: we've already done with the reading, she said, I'm at
• 34:01
  Speaker 6: home and he's like, Mommy, come, I want you to read.
• 34:03
  Speaker 6: I want you to read with me. This new book
• 34:05
  Speaker 6: that I'm reading, she said.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: He's reading like he never read before.
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: I love it, she said.
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: So now when I walk them to school, he's running
• 34:11
  Speaker 4: into the school at his mom tell me that It
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: brought a tea into the eyes of everybody that was
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: in the room, and what it said was we are
• 34:18
  Speaker 4: on the right track. Stay steady on this course, and
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: make sure that we're doing that. Because when kids learn
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: to read, they believe in themselves and they get that confidence,
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: and when that confidence kicks in skies on them.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: You can do all kinds of things after that.
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: How can people get involved, man, and continue to make
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: a change in their local public schools.
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: How do we help you do your job?
• 34:37
  Speaker 5: Yeah?
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I need you first of all.
• 34:39
  Speaker 4: I think you know we need the fillanthropic community first
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: of all, to continue to invest in this and to.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: Believe in the public schools.
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: You know a lot of great charter schools out there,
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: and I believe in choice, and I'm not knocking any schools,
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: but ninety percent of the kids in New York City
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: and across the nation still go to regular public schools.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: So if you don't lift up those public schools, you're
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: just playing around on the margins. You're never going to
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: fully affect real change.
• 35:05
  Speaker 4: So, first of all, believe make those investments our folks
• 35:09
  Speaker 4: in the community and folks like yourselves.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: But one of the things I say to.
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: Folks is when when people come in, don't just ask
• 35:16
  Speaker 4: them how they're doing, ask them what they're reading.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean. Like, I just started this
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: new book, the Age of AI, this.
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: Whole notion around artificial intelligence.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: It's critical.
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: We're doing some stuff with our kids right now, trying
• 35:29
  Speaker 4: to build out a whole new system. The New York
• 35:32
  Speaker 4: City public schools and schools around the nation and in
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: fact around the world are going to look drastically different
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: within the next ten years because of artificial intelligence.
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: I'm reading a book right now about the dangers of it,
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: and the dangers are real.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: The dangers are real, and if we're not careful. They'll
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: make people obsolete. So we have to be careful.
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: I read a book when I just finished this summer
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: on the bluff book, right, you know, I get a
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: chance to go to the vineyard in the summer and
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: spend some time and relax. But but the deal is,
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: as folks what they're reading, right, and and and let's
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: just help make sure that.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: Let's make reading the new sexy and.
• 36:10
  Speaker 5: Uh, the Shamans Path to Freedom, That's what I'm talking about, right,
• 36:16
  Speaker 5: self reliance.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: It's a book of original essays from Ralph Waldel Emerson.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: You know what I want you.
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: I want everybody that comes on your show, I want
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: them to I want them to come in with their book.
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: I want them to come in into even if you
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: just take a minute or two, because with your show
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: represents better than anybody, it's culture and the millions of
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: people that you have watching this.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: If these folks are all like, what are you reading?
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: And you can't show up with very and Charlemagne unless
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: you're talking, showing them the book that you're reading and
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: talking a little bit about it. If that becomes part
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: of our new lexicon, if that becomes part of the
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: culture of what we're talking about you can transform minds,
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: you can transform the way we show up in our schools.
• 36:58
  Speaker 4: I really believe that, and so I was just saying,
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: continue to promote it.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: I just did that this morning because I was talking.
• 37:04
  Speaker 5: You know, my donkey of the day to day was
• 37:05
  Speaker 5: a public library in Huntsville, Alabama that's banning a book.
• 37:09
  Speaker 5: I can't remember the name of the book, but they
• 37:10
  Speaker 5: banned it because the author's last name is Gay.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: It's not rock Sanne Gey, it's.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: Another w wow.
• 37:14
  Speaker 5: But they're banning it just because that word gay comes
• 37:17
  Speaker 5: up as a key word.
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: So they banded the book.
• 37:19
  Speaker 5: The book has nothing to do with sexuality, just as
• 37:22
  Speaker 5: crazy nothing. And so I did Donkey to Day to
• 37:26
  Speaker 5: that library. But I was talking about how much I
• 37:27
  Speaker 5: love reading because my mom was an English teacher and
• 37:29
  Speaker 5: I grew up on the bookget program.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: You know, I got two books.
• 37:32
  Speaker 5: I'm a New York Times bestselling off book in print,
• 37:34
  Speaker 5: and I'm also from South Carolina, where the first anti
• 37:37
  Speaker 5: literacy laws were created.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 37:39
  Speaker 5: So when you asked me about reading in books, it's
• 37:43
  Speaker 5: business and it's personal to me. Yes, man, you know,
• 37:45
  Speaker 5: it's personal. Like I truly believe reading reading it helped
• 37:48
  Speaker 5: me change my life.
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: See that absolutely, and it can help to transform the
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: lives of so many young people.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: Let me tell you, these kids are brilliant. Man. I
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: had the best job in the world. I really do.
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: And it's because first of all, New York City. There's
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: no place like this, and we know that, but I
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: get to live it every day because every single day
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: I'm moving around the whole city right, like, like where
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: in the world can you go with? One day, I
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: start in the Bronx at a school with Cardi b
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: who it made a million dollar donation to her middle
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: school that she graduated.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: From, and and and and and.
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: The kids go crazy and she shows up in all
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: her Cardi b neis and and then I leave there
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: And at the end of the day, I'm meeting with
• 38:26
  Speaker 4: Jewish Yeshiva leaders from the Orthodox Jewish community at City Hall.
• 38:31
  Speaker 4: Where else can you see that range but a place
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: like New York City, right, the whole world lives here
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: out of the school last week in Brooklyn and all.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: The kids are Ukrainian.
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: When you represent, when you understand like what that diversity
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: is and you figure out how diversity can represent the
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: ultimate beauty of what a nation should really be. It's
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: an amazing, amazing opportunity. But if you don't do it right,
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: you can see some of the craziness. Like we another
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: part of the country at banning, banning books, banning.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: Books because of the author's last name.
• 39:06
  Speaker 5: Feel about that, just the overall banning of books, especially
• 39:10
  Speaker 5: the black books.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: Man, it is it is.
• 39:12
  Speaker 4: It is not only ridiculous, it is so dangerous and
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: it is a form of indoctrination because education is ultimately
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: about the enlightenment of the mind. You can't enlighten your
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: mind if you're limiting what folks even have access to, right,
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: and so so we should never be about banning books. Certainly,
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: there's some books that are appropriate at certain grade levels,
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: and that's that's true of any good school system. But
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: what we're seeing, which I think is very dangerous, is
• 39:44
  Speaker 4: the banning of books for political reasons. And I don't stand.
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: I don't stand for that. I want I want New
• 39:52
  Speaker 4: York City to be a beacon of enlightenment. Uh, you're
• 39:56
  Speaker 4: looking at this issue. What's going on in the Middle
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: East right now, as horrible as it is, and we
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: pray for the.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: Peace for the people over there, but kids need to
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: be studying.
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: What's why folks, you know, dropping bombs on each other,
• 40:09
  Speaker 4: that that stuff goes back centuries. What let's study that,
• 40:12
  Speaker 4: Let's talk about that. Let's not limit the books, you
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: limit access to knowledge. That's a that's a recipe for indoctrination,
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: that's a recipe for authoritarianism, and it leads you.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: Down the wrong path.
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: That's not what any healthy republic or democracy should ever
• 40:31
  Speaker 4: be about. So so I'm about consciousness raising, I'm about knowledge,
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: and every side has a little something to offer, and
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: we need to be paying attention to what everybody's saying.
• 40:42
  Speaker 4: This issue of immigration that we're watching every single day
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: and how it's playing out in New York and all
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: across the country. I want our kids studying the issue
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: of the day, not just being told this is the
• 40:53
  Speaker 4: right way. And the only thing we're going to read
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: and study is one person's point of view.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: That's not education. That's that's not education.
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: So so not for it, and we need to continue
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: to make sure that we lift this up.
• 41:05
  Speaker 5: I got one more question because we talked about the
• 41:06
  Speaker 5: mental health piece earlier, and you know I have an
• 41:09
  Speaker 5: organization called the Mental Wealth Alliance, and one of our
• 41:11
  Speaker 5: biggest things that we want to do is we want
• 41:13
  Speaker 5: to get social and emotional learning in public schools K
• 41:16
  Speaker 5: through you know twelve.
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: What are they doing?
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: First of all, let me tell you we would love
• 41:21
  Speaker 4: to work with you on that, because there's a way
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: for us to take that work and really and really
• 41:26
  Speaker 4: scale it up, and particularly coming off of the pandemic,
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: the social emotional learning work, and it's happened well before
• 41:33
  Speaker 4: I even became chancellor. You know, there's a lot of
• 41:37
  Speaker 4: work that is being done in our schools in support
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: of social emotional learning. You know, I visited a school
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: in Staten Island, like maybe in my within my first
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: two weeks of being in this position. The school designed
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: a wall and the wall represents and it lights up.
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: It's a wide range of the feelings that you're having
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: at any given moment in time, and they designed it
• 42:01
  Speaker 4: as a fun war and you get a chance to
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: kind of walk along this wall. There's a little path
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: that you walk through and you get to touch different
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: parts of the world that reflect the feelings that you're
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: having and that moment, and the folks in that school
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: so get to observe that and figure out who they
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: need to try and support who's feeling a certain way,
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: because you have to remember kids don't always they won't
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: always articulate how they're feeling at a given moment. But
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: this is another way for them to kind of physically
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: express where they are. They're feeling anger, they're feeling happiness,
• 42:36
  Speaker 4: or they're feeling joy, they're feeling sadness, Like what is
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: it that they're feeling? Because ultimately that tips you into
• 42:42
  Speaker 4: a place where somebody needs to sit with you and
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: say I'm here.
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: That's right, I'm here.
• 42:49
  Speaker 5: You know, next year when I do my Mental Wealth
• 42:51
  Speaker 5: ex Vocal, we just had it this past Saturday and
• 42:54
  Speaker 5: on our World Mental Health Day, I want to bring
• 42:55
  Speaker 5: like two hundred kids.
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: Man, we got to figure that out. How we just
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: have to undred kids in attended Charlamagne.
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: We can do two thousand kids?
• 43:03
  Speaker 5: Oh, I mean we did three thousand people this year, right,
• 43:06
  Speaker 5: you know, But I want to have like this always
• 43:08
  Speaker 5: kids there. But I want to do something specifically. But
• 43:10
  Speaker 5: we just have a bunch of kids from New York
• 43:11
  Speaker 5: just just there.
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: Brother you you all you got to do is let
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: me know where and when and we will absolutely make
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: it happen. We would love to be in partnership with
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: you on this. When we go to the schools the Marini,
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: we talk to kids. Mental health is one of the
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: major things that kids talk about, not just for themselves,
• 43:29
  Speaker 4: but for their friends, right because they care about their
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: friends and they can see the stuff that sometimes that
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: their friends are going through. So yes, let's make that real.
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: Let's partner on that because you know, young people and
• 43:41
  Speaker 4: they follow your lead as well, want so much of this,
• 43:44
  Speaker 4: and if we work in partnership, we have an opportunity
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: to truly impact the lives of just let's do it.
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: Let's do it, man, I'm with you.
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: You have it, James. We appreciate you for joining us.
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much, brother, Thank you, New York City
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: Schools Chancellor, and thank you brother, thank you. It's the
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: Breakfast slog, good morning, wake
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: That ass up early in the morning at Breakfast Club