Educating Great Neck

January 12, 2022

Daily Point

Regent Roger Tilles heads to Great Neck

When November’s Great Neck school board meeting was rocked by a collection of parents and other attendees, seemingly furious at a lesson that was taught in an 11th-grade Regents English class at Great Neck North High School, the incident garnered national notice among conservative activists.

The topic of the lesson was systemic racism. One emphasis of the lesson was that racism in the United States is systemic and has not improved in 200 years. Another was that "White people benefit from this system, intentionally or unintentionally, which makes us all (technically) racist."

Another slide in the teacher’s presentation argued that white people harbor significant fragility when discussing race, and the lesson concluded with students asked to take a pledge to confront, explore, discuss, and call out their own racism and that of others, and work relentlessly toward the goal of anti-racism.

The lesson didn’t sit well with many parents. Parent-activist websites fighting against "Critical Race Theory" picked up on the dispute. The confrontation at the school board meeting was so intense it had to be temporarily recessed.

And the uproar really hasn’t quieted down. In a meeting with the Editorial Board Wednesday, Board of Regents member Roger Tilles said he’s scheduled to be at Great Neck North High School on Jan. 18 to lay out the differences between "CRT," which he says no Long Island district is actually teaching, and "Diversity, Equity and Inclusion," the framework Regents want used.

Tilles has spoken to other such groups and their leaders, and said there is more confusion and fear than anger. "About two-thirds of the people getting involved are curious, not dogmatic. They’re worried that the wrong things are being taught, and want to see," he told the board in a Zoom call.

The other third, Tilles said, are angry, sometimes at what is actually being taught but often at what they believe is.

"The Regents emphasize that diversity should be valued in all aspects of education, including curriculum and hiring," Tilles said, "because it’s crucial to a good education, and fundamental to how we treat each other."

As for parental involvement in curriculum, a particularly hot topic as districts are increasingly besieged, Tilles said he believes in it, and thought the statement by recent Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe, "I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach," set the wrong tone.

"Parents and residents absolutely have a role in determining what’s taught in schools," Tilles said. "They do it by electing board members and throwing them out when they get it wrong, not telling professional educators what books to use and issuing death threats when they disagree."

But with participation in May school board races so low, Tilles acknowledged small groups of voters could greatly disrupt districts. And that turmoil could diminish the high value of education on Long Island.

— Lane Filler @lanefiller

Talking Point

What a difference two decades can make

Jay Jacobs, state Democratic Party chairman, is aggressively trying to clear the primary field for Kathy Hochul’s first run for a full term as governor.

But Jacobs is also the Nassau County party chairman, a post he claimed in 2001 after Tom Suozzi, then the mayor of Glen Cove, beat Tom DiNapoli, then a state assemblyman, in Democratic primary for county executive. Jacobs, who was Suozzi’s campaign chairman, replaced Larry Aaronson, who supported DiNapoli.

Suozzi went on to serve two terms as county executive. His fortunes and those of Jacobs seemed to rise in tandem.

But are Suozzi and Jacobs now replaying the split in the Nassau Democratic ranks that surfaced more than two decades ago — or is it just the politics of the moment?

Last week, Jon Kaiman, former North Hempstead Town supervisor and a longtime ally of Suozzi and Jacobs, announced that he was jumping into the race for Suozzi’s CD3 seat. The subtext: Suozzi is not dropping out of the governor’s race to run again for the seat. Score one for Suozzi.

A few days later, Jacobs hit back, rounding up the LI State Senate delegation for a joint announcement that all of those in Suozzi’s backyard were unanimously supporting Hochul. And on Tuesday Jacobs, who wants to continue as state party chairman, pushed it a little more, predicting Suozzi would drop his bid for governor by Feb. 1 because he is not raising enough money and lacks union support.

Kim Devlin, a senior adviser to Suozzi’s gubernatorial bid who worked closely with Jacobs in pulling off the 2001 upset in the county executive primary, had a scathing response. "Voters could care less about mutual backscratching endorsements, but they do care about candidates who will take on crime, the Manhattan DA’s disastrous policy of not prosecuting serious crimes, too high property taxes and a better response to COVID. While Hochul is hiding behind the establishment, Tom Suozzi is the only candidate talking about the issues and offering solutions," she said in a statement.

And if Suozzi was to upset Hochul in a primary and go on to be governor, what happens to Jacobs this time after a Suozzi win?

— Rita Ciolli @ritaciolli

Pencil Point

Poll worker

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Final Point

Time to win, lose or redraw

The Assembly’s overwhelming rejection of new legislative lines sent by the Independent Redistricting Commission sharply reversed an eternal rule — that the majority puts nothing on the floor unless assured of approval.

There’s a simple reason for this exception. For the legislative majorities to assert full control over the new district lines for State Senate, Assembly and Congress, they had to reject the commission’s plan under the 2014 constitutional amendment that created this whole new process.

Now the commission has until Jan. 25 to try to agree on a single coherent redistricting plan again. For anyone following the story in detail, there’s little reason to believe the evenly split bipartisan 10-member body can do now what it couldn’t do before. And even if they succeed, and that map’s rejected like the first set, the Democratic majorities can then craft and pass their own anyway.

Given that situation, Nassau County’s Jack Martins, the IRC’s Republican vice chairman, has contacted other members of the panel and urged them to reconvene and see whether they can’t finish their part of the task. They have time, but not too much. Martins said even if they’re headed for a rewrite, commission maps are supposed to form the basis of the final product.

All this has led legislative sources to acknowledge to The Point that given a short time frame for nominations for the June primaries, the Capitol’s redistricting specialists are already deployed behind the scenes in "analyzing" the commission proposals to date.

Even if the Democratic lawmakers bypass the commission as expected, the record of the panel’s actions could potentially become part of any litigation down the road. Legal questions could focus on whether the core of existing districts was preserved and whether districts were created with the intent of helping one party or a particular candidate.

Other standards involve even populations, respect for towns, counties and communities of interest, and how condensed or dispersed a district may be.

For Long Island, specific questions are highlighted in the process so far. Will the 2nd Congressional District run north to south with a leg to the east? Will multiple Assembly districts cross the Nassau-Queens border? Will CD3 get squeezed more into Suffolk?

The devil resides in the district details.

— Dan Janison @Danjanison