By Madina Toure
Speaking before the packed auditorium of PS 69 in Jackson Heights for more than two hours Thursday night, Mayor Bill de Blasio touted his rollout of full-day pre-kindergarten and outlined new plans to improve education in the city’s public school system. It was his second town hall since he took office in 2014.
More than 200 residents, teachers and community leaders listened as de Blasio rattled off his administration’s educational achievements at the town hall sponsored by City Councilman Daniel Dromm (D-Jackson Heights) at the school at 77-02 37th Ave. City Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras (D-East Elmhurst), state Sen. Jose Peralta (D-Jackson Heights) and state Assemblyman Francisco Moya (D-Jackson Heights) were also in attendance.
Although the town hall was scheduled to last two hours, de Blasio agreed to speak for an additional 30 minutes to address all the residents’ concerns.
De Blasio said more than 65,000 children in New York City are in full-day pre-K, noting that there are 54 children in full-day pre-K at PS 69.
“We are very, very proud of what we’ve done,” de Blasio said. “The top thing is education and I always said we could not change our schools without starting at the very beginning of our children’s education.”
He criticized mistakes made in educational policy over the years.
“We wanted our kids to go farther and farther, but we weren’t willing to train our teachers properly,” he said. “We weren’t willing to do early childhood education. We weren’t willing to do the investments to make sure that they were reading on grade level by third grade.”
The administration wants to have all children reading on grade level by the third grade over the next 10 years and make computer science education available to all children. He also said there will be free SAT tests for every junior in high school and that every high school now has Advanced Placement courses.
The mayor fielded questions from attendees about space for charter schools, overcrowding in schools, high suspension rates for minority students, adult literacy programs and the Common Core opt-out movement.
He said that over the next five years, the city is investing nearly $3.5 billion to build new capacity to address school overcrowding.
Reach reporter Madina Toure by e-mail at mtour
