Boosting teacher diversity and compensation tops the list of educational priorities for New York City adults — while adding programs to improve physical and mental health is the focus for teens, according to a sweeping new survey of more than 60,000 city residents.
The survey, NYC Speaks, administered by a group of nonprofits in coordination with Mayor Adams’ administration, asked more than 43,000 adults and 18,000 teenagers across the five boroughs to list their program priorities across a range of areas.
The most popular policy proposal among adults for improving city schools was to “increase hiring and salaries of diverse teachers and staff.” Similarly, when asked what could be done to address school segregation and “ensure one’s background does not determine their learning outcomes,” people chose “teacher diversity” second most-frequently — right after equitably distributing resources.
The city’s teaching force has grown somewhat less white in recent years — from 59% white in 2017 to 56% white last year, according to city data — but is still far from representing the city’s student body, which was 15% white in 2021.
Just 17% of city teachers are Hispanic, compared to 41% of students, while 7% of teachers are Asian, compared to 17% of kids. The teaching corps is 16% Black, while 25% of students are Black.
Support staff like office workers, aides, and paraprofessionals are much more racially representative of the student body — with 9% identifying as Asian, 24% Black, 32% Hispanic, and 31% white.
But support staff receive significantly lower salaries, with paraprofessional pay starting below $28,000 a year, according to the Department of Education website. The DOE has lost nearly 4,000 paraprofessionals over the course of the pandemic.
Answers from the 18,000 city teens surveyed looked markedly different than those for adults. Students said their biggest priority for improving education was expanding access to mental and physical health services and giving a kids a bigger role in school decision-making.
Both adults and teens said increasing funding for kids facing the greatest “barriers” — including those with disabilities — was their second-highest priority for improving schools.
In terms of reducing school segregation, students were far more likely than adults to support reforming the school admissions process, with “de-emphasiz[ing] tests in admissions decisions” ranking as second for teens, while “creat[ing] a more equitable admissions process” ranked fifth-place for adults.
