New York City Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza announced Friday he is stepping down, nearly one year into helming the city’s huge gamble on reopening public schools for students during the pandemic.
Meisha Porter, the executive superintendent of the Bronx school districts and a 20-year veteran of the city Department of Education, will be the next chancellor and the first Black woman to hold the role. She will start March 15th.
Carranza’s departure is his decision, officials said, noting the toll the COVID-19 pandemic has taken on his own life with the death of 11 relatives and close childhood friends.
Carranza has been the face of the country’s largest school system since 2018, and throughout the pandemic. When Mayor Bill de Blasio grimly announced on March 16th, 2020 that he was going to shutter school buildings and switch more than a million students to remote learning, Carranza was by his side to say “I have tremendous, tremendous faith in the teachers of New York City and the administrators of New York City, and I know that if there's any school system that can launch into remote learning on a moment's notice like we're about to do, it is the New York City Department of Education.”
While school buildings were closed from March through September, Carranza oversaw the creation of the Regional Enrichment Centers to provide childcare for essential workers. The centers came to be touted as a successful trial run of the eventual reopening of the school system where social distancing measures and public health strategies could be tested.
He also marshaled the effort to distribute 500,000 devices for remote learning through the distribution was rocky, leaving many students unable to connect for many months. Parents and educators have expressed frustration with his leadership citing problems with remote learning and the chaotic lead-up to school reopening over the summer.
But educators also welcomed Carranza’s candor on issues of integration, a word de Blasio was reluctant to utter for years. A native of Tucson, Arizona, Carranza’s grandparents were Mexican immigrants; his father was a sheet metal worker and his mother worked as a hairdresser. He often spoke of the challenges he faced, and the support he received from educators when he entered elementary school only speaking Spanish.
Almost immediately, Carranza gained praise from some and criticism from others for his outspokenness on diversity. He voiced views that were more progressive on integration than many of the actual policies implemented during the de Blasio administration. He also implemented system-wide anti-bias training for teachers and championed de Blasio’s plan to remove the SHSAT, the single test that determines admission to the city’s selective high schools, citing long-standing research on test bias. But many Asian families, in particular, objected to the proposed policy and the language Carranza used to promote it. For months before the pandemic, critics dogged him at public events chanting and wielding signs calling for his resignation. Carranza was also vocally opposed to the city’s Gifted and Talented testing of four-year-olds, which will end after this year.
De Blasio and Carranza both denied that his departure was due to clashes over school desegregation strategies, with the mayor telling WNYC's Brian Lehrer those reports are "totally inaccurate."
At Friday's press briefing, Carranza teared up as he spoke of the loss of his loved ones and repeatedly said he was seeking "time to grieve." Other officials said his strength has been commendable: “I have never seen a human being as clear, as compassionate, as honorable, personally, professionally after an endless series of tribulations and I honestly don’t know how he did it,” a senior DOE source told Gothamist/WNYC.
De Blasio appointed Carranza three years ago. Then the superintendent of the Houston Independent School District, Carranza was the mayor’s second choice, after Miami’s school chancellor initially accepted, and then declined the job live on TV. His future as the city's chancellor was also cast in doubt, when at a recent mayoral forum the candidates all said they would replace him.
As the school system lurched towards de Blasio’s vowed reopening target in September 2020, criticism of Carranza mounted from the teacher and principal unions, which said the city’s reopening strategy was dangerous and the public school buildings unfit for teaching.
Then, the September 10th reopening date was moved to a staggered start, followed by a switch back to all remote learning across the system in November as COVID-19 rates surged. In December, the city reopened schools for the youngest children and students with disabilities, followed by middle schools reopening this week.
High schools have stayed on full-time remote learning, with no date announced for reopening — because teenagers spread the virus more than younger kids, the issue will be one of the new chancellor’s first major challenges.
Meisha Porter
“I pledge to our students, to young people, I'm indebted to you as a leader, as a teacher, as a principal," Porter said at the news briefing. "And I promise we'll do everything to reopen schools, starting with high schools -- we're ready to go. We'll expand the learning opportunities and do more to address trauma and academic needs, because we know that that is very real."
She added, "And to all the little girls out there, I'm saving a seat for you."
A Queens native, Porter brings decades of experience with the school system -- she was a teacher and principal for 18 years and has been Executive Superintendent in the Bronx since 2018. The DOE said she “has overseen the largest gains in graduation rates of any borough in that time, from 67.4 in 2018 to 73.0 – a 5.7 percentage point increase, as compared to a 2.8 point increase citywide. Postsecondary enrollment in the Bronx has also had a substantial increase under her tenure, with 54.9% of the 9th grade cohort for the Class of 2019 enrolling in college, a 1.2 increase from the Class of 2018.”
The president of the United Federation of Teachers union issued a statement Friday praising Carranza as an ally in some of the union's clashes with City Hall.
“Richard Carranza was a real partner in our efforts to open school safely. Too often he had to fight behind the scenes to keep the needs of students, staff and their families ahead of politics. We wish him well. He will be missed,” UFT President Michael Mulgrew said. “We have successfully partnered with Meisha Ross Porter on projects in the past, including the Bronx Plan and expanding community schools. We look forward to working with her in the future.”
With Brigid Bergin
