Tom Liam Lynch – high school English teacher, online learning architect for the New City Department of Education, academic researcher and scholar, and public school parent – is the new director of education policy at the Center for New York City Affairs and editor-in-chief of the Center’s InsideSchools project. He’s putting finishing touches on a “1,000-day” action plan for that work, and this week previews it for Urban Matters.

Child welfare investigators, often the first responders to domestic violence cases, aim to help both children and adult victims. However, critics argue that child welfare interventions can go wrong, turning victims into suspects and causing chaos for vulnerable families.

Critics have argued that the City's rezonings have the perverse effect of exacerbating housing affordability problems. On balance, however, the evidence just isn’t there.

The analysis examines the unintended consequence of free, public preschool programs on the supply of child care for babies and toddlers in New York City. It suggests concerns that affordable infant and toddler care for low-income parents may be at risk despite similar enrollment numbers in subsidized child care programs.

Despite an early history as a national leader in safeguarding the interests of workers injured on the job, New York’s workers’ compensation system has eroded considerably over the years, as legislative and administrative changes have often focused on curtailing benefits rather than adapting to changes in the economy, workforce, and business practices. While legislative changes in 2007 and 2017 included some positive measures, for the most part changes significantly lessened the adequacy of worker benefits. The unfortunate result is that the focus of workers’ compensation in New York has shifted from fairly compensating injured workers to minimizing employer costs.

New York State’s Medicaid-induced $6.1 billion budget gap for the coming year stems from reliance on rigid spending caps and fiscal smoke-and-mirror maneuvers intended to project an appearance of smart and disciplined spending control. Now a day of reckoning is at hand.

This report highlights the magnitude and characteristics of New York State’s low-paid independent contractor workforce over the past decade. While the number of app-based independent contractors has grown significantly in recent years, we estimate that they constitute at most 17.5 percent of all low-paid independent contractors in New York State and that there is a much broader group of workers whose work status needs to be examined and clarified.

The New York City Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) recently announced new contract awards to nonprofit agencies to provide preventive services to support families who have experienced challenges in caring for their children. The contracts were awarded through a rigorous request for proposals (RFP) process mandated by the City Charter and applicable laws. And therein lies a major problem.

New York City’s unprecedented and ongoing efforts in the realm of affordable housing show what cities can – and can’t – do strictly on their own to solve a deep and persistent affordability crisis.

An exhaustive study of holistic defense of criminal cases in the Bronx found that it reduces the likelihood of a custodial sentence by 16 percent and expected sentence length by 24 percent. The researchers found that it "offers considerable potential to reduce incarceration without harming public safety

A radically new production of West Side Story will open on Broadway next month. And a new West Side Story movie is to come to the screen later this year. We asked Julia Foulkes, a professor of history at The New School and author of the acclaimed A Place for Us: West Side Story and New York, about the new life and enduring meaning of this musical theater classic.

This report examines the progress achieved with New York City’s July 2019 commitment to early childhood education (ECE) starting pay salary parity that will raise pay for certified teachers in community-based organizations (CBOs) by 30-40 percent by October 1, 2021.

Our six years of key indicators spotlight trends in New York City’s foster care and preventive services systems.

Across New York State, children and adolescents wait weeks—or even months—to get treatment for serious mental health problems. In the coming year, mental health providers and advocates warn that the situation may get worse. Despite an increase in teen suicide attempts, State officials plan to cut payments for several mental health programs that serve young people in their homes and communities.

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s proposal to end use of the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT) would make the city’s most elite public high schools more racially and ethnically diverse. The mayor’s plan would instead offer seats at the specialized high schools to the top performers in each of the city’s public middle schools. We tested this proposal and found that, if enacted, it would give some 2,000 academically qualified Black and Latinx students each year access to higher-performing schools and a more ethnically diverse cohort of fellow students than they typically have through the current school choice process.

This is the first assessment of restaurant employment and earnings over the entire period of New York City’s historic minimum wage increases, 2013-18. Contrary to fears of massive job losses, $20 Big Macs, and shuttered restaurants, we found a thriving industry.

Scrapping the test would make the city's elite schools more ethnically and racially diverse. But it wouldn't be a panacea for ending entrenched patterns of demographic sorting.

The Boogie Down Brigade: Celebrating Bronx Fashion Superheroes The Common Thread Project, the creation of fashion anthropologist Mikaila Brown, has published a comic book-style celebration of what she calls The Boogie Down Brigade. In panel after panel, she spotlights the latest generation of fashionista superheroes shaped by, and shaping, the look and vibe of the borough that brought the world hip-hop: The Bronx.

A Q&A with environmental policy expert Dr. Ana I. Baptista.

Human services aid from New York State helps localities pay for direct services, including public assistance and services provided through nonprofits. In this report we examine New York State, New York City and county budget data to understand how State funding trends affect localities across the state and New York City in particular.

Nearly 15% of New York City public high school students and about 18% of middle school students attend academically “screened” schools that rely on such factors as student grade point averages and standardized test scores for admission. Some educators and activists believe that screens reinforce racial and social privilege and should be abolished. “Screened Schools” addresses this subject and suggests a range of practicable strategies for increasing both diversity and educational quality in schools across the city.

Francine Almash was not especially surprised when an investigator from New York City’s child welfare agency showed up at her door. A few months earlier, her then-10-year-old son, Shawn, who is autistic, had been pinned to a wall by a crisis counselor in his special education classroom and come home with a broken thumb. Almash refused to send him back, and so the school called the State’s child abuse hotline to report her for neglecting Shawn’s education.

This brief provides an update to the report that Parrott and Reich issued in July 2018, "An Earnings Standard for New York City’s App-based Drivers: Economic Analysis and Policy Assessment,” and informs the final pay standard as incorporated in the Driver Income and Transparency Rules, adopted by the NewYork City Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) on December 4, 2018. The newpay standard takes effect February 1, 2019.

Despite an early history as a national leader in safeguarding the interests of workers injured on the job, New York’s workers’ compensation system has eroded considerably over the years, as legislative and administrative changes have often focused on curtailing benefits rather than adapting to changes in the economy, workforce, and business practices. While legislative changes in 2007 and 2017 included some positive measures, for the most part changes significantly lessened the adequacy of worker benefits. The unfortunate result is that the focus of workers’ compensation in New York has shifted from fairly compensating injured workers to minimizing employer costs.

When I was a child, the city of Newark, New Jersey was often the punchline of bad jokes about urban blight and decay. But to me it was home. And it shaped my understanding of what I would dedicate my life to pursuing: Environmental justice.

Community Service Society research found that just four percent of the city’s outer borough working residents commute to jobs in Manhattan by vehicle and could be subject to a congestion fee. This compares with 56 percent of outer borough residents who use mass transit to commute to work.