Dr. Kaliris Salas-Ramirez supports performance assessment but criticizes NYC Reads and Solves
Salas-Ramirez, CEC4 president and parent of a consortium student with an IEP, says performance-based and inquiry learning helped her son find his voice. She supports Portrait but calls NYC Reads and Solves culturally destructive and not aligned with culturally responsive curriculum.
Khalid Salas, it is you may begin once you are unmuted and the sergeant cues you.
Hi, good evening, Chair Denowitz, and thank you for holding this really important hearing.
We are in a time of transition in our New York City public schools.
I do want to disclose, so my name is Kalidi Salas.
I'm the parent of two public school students, and I'm also the president of CEC4.
And I should also state that my children both attended Central Park East 1 Elementary School, which is the oldest public progressive school in New York City, founded by Deborah Meyer.
In addition, I am a parent of a high schooler in a consortium school.
So you can imagine that I deeply believe in the use of performance-based assessments, problem-based learning, inquiry-based learning, and an emergent curriculum to support all of our learners, particularly our most vulnerable learners.
I do want to share that my oldest child has an IEP.
He suffers from anxiety.
And it has been this type of curriculum that has allowed him to find his voice and has allowed him to develop the skills that he's going to need as he looks forward to being a politician, not a choice of mine.
And so it is really important to create these spaces for young people.
I will also say that I'm a medical educator and 60% of my curriculum is problem-based learning.
So when we're talking about career and college readiness, the portrait of a graduate really resembles what our expectations are in higher education and setting up students for success in terms of
of providing them with a deep learning experience rather than just going over content, which, as you mentioned, is one of the methods in terms of teaching to the test or teaching to a regents exam.
I will also very quickly state that New York City Reads and New York City Solves, these curricula are culturally destructive, and at the center of the portrait of the New York State graduate is culturally responsive curriculum.
And so I really want to interrogate the notion that New York City Reads and New York City Solves is preparing our children to move forward with these requirements for the portrait of the New York State graduate.
And hopefully we'll be thinking about how we can develop curriculum that is responsive and relevant to our New York City public schools.
Time expired.
Thank you.