{"id":379456,"date":"2026-10-22T08:04:31","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T08:04:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/379456\/"},"modified":"2026-10-22T08:04:31","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T08:04:31","slug":"nikole-hannah-jones-grills-nyc-schools-chancellor-kamar-samuels-on-integration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/379456\/","title":{"rendered":"Nikole Hannah-Jones grills NYC schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels on integration"},"content":{"rendered":"

Did you know search engines like Google are changing the way you see news? Keep Chalkbeat\u2019s valuable education coverage at the top of your feeds by clicking here<\/a> and checking the box next to our name.<\/p>\n

New York Times journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones grilled schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels at a town hall Tuesday evening, pressing him for more than 30 minutes to articulate his plans for integrating New York City\u2019s public schools.<\/p>\n

The highly anticipated event represented a rare public cross-examination of the leader of the nation\u2019s largest school system. Hannah-Jones recently published a widely debated<\/a> essay about the decision to send her daughter to segregated schools, which turned out to inadequately educate her child<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhile they said it\u2019s a conversation, it\u2019s really about to be an interrogation,\u201d Hannah-Jones said during the event at the Washington Irving campus in Manhattan hosted by the pro-integration advocacy group New York Appleseed <\/a>and The Bell<\/a>, a student journalism incubator. <\/p>\n

After Hannah-Jones repeatedly asked the chancellor about a systemwide plan, Samuels did not commit to any specific integration policies, nor did he offer a timeline for offering a more detailed plan, repeatedly drawing jeers from an auditorium packed with several hundred attendees. <\/p>\n

Here are five takeaways from the event.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t expect top-down integration plans.<\/p>\n

Samuels repeatedly identified one obstacle to developing more aggressive integration efforts: community opposition. It was a striking acknowledgement that anticipated pushback is influencing the administration\u2019s thinking. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t have the conversation well, you will see a level of pushback that will essentially start to end the conversation,\u201d Samuels said. Any efforts to integrate schools would have to first win support from local communities, he said. (Prior chancellors have made similar arguments<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Samuels noted that the Education Department has convened working groups in five of the city\u2019s 32 local districts<\/a> to address a wide range of issues, including school integration. City officials have not said who is serving on them or even if they will produce formal recommendations.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear whether the administration is actually working on integration.<\/p>\n

Samuels\u2019 comments that integration efforts must first win support of local communities is in tension with recent remarks from Mayor Zohran Mamdani<\/a> who said that developing a desegregation plan is \u201cone of our urgent priorities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet the schools chief repeatedly deferred to the working groups. \u201cI am not saying that we will not address segregation in our schools,\u201d Samuels said. \u201cWe are disagreeing in some ways on how that will be addressed.\u201d<\/p>\n

We’re on a need-to-know basis.<\/p>\n

Every weekday morning, Chalkbeat New York is bringing thousands of subscribers the news on public schools and education policy that they need to start their day. Sign up for our free newsletter to join them.<\/p>\n

Hannah-Jones shot back that the lack of specifics and deference to working groups are a stalling tactic. <\/p>\n

\u201cTen months in, when a timeline can\u2019t be offered, you can understand why people feel like that means you are just delaying,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Samuels praised the reduction of middle school screens. But he wavered on going further.<\/p>\n

New York City is unusual in the number of schools that admit students based on their prior academic performance, a process known as screening. Many integration advocates, including Hannah-Jones, have blamed the admissions method for exacerbating segregation. <\/p>\n

Hannah-Jones repeatedly asked Samuels whether he would consider reducing screens, a policy measure proposed by a School Diversity Advisory Group <\/a>convened under former Mayor Bill de Blasio. <\/p>\n

The chancellor noted that fewer middle schools screen students than before the pandemic<\/a> \u2014 a move he supported as a local superintendent \u2014 but he also seemed to be skeptical that ending selective admissions across the board would make a big dent. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not as though you\u2019re going to remove screens and it\u2019s going to suddenly have everybody going everywhere and it\u2019s going to be great,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

New York City is planning to first tackle small schools and integrate students with disabilities. <\/p>\n

When asked about his integration plans, Samuels pointed to the need to first tackle the growing problem of schools with shrinking enrollment \u2014 which tend to disproportionately serve Black and Latino students and the most vulnerable students. <\/p>\n

He said he wanted to \u201cmake sure that we are really looking directly at how we can make structural shifts to those schools.\u201d About 30,000 students attend these \u201chighly segregated\u201d underenrolled schools with fewer than 200 students, he said. <\/p>\n

They offer \u201cfewer advanced courses, fewer extracurriculars, fewer opportunities,\u201d Samuels said. \u201cThese are also often the same schools that have students in temporary housing, students living in poverty, students learning English for the first time, and students with disabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a Chalkbeat analysis found, 33 high schools now have fewer than 150 students, and 113 have fewer than 250, an eightfold increase from 25 years ago.<\/a><\/p>\n

Samuels said that the city also needed to expand efforts to integrate students with disabilities, citing the city\u2019s recent expansion of high-demand programs serving students with autism <\/a>and other disabilities into prekindergarten classrooms for the first time. <\/p>\n

The reviews of Samuels from some quarters were harsh.<\/p>\n

Some observers expressed disappointment that Samuels failed to outline a clearer vision for the city\u2019s schools \u2014 which neither he nor Mamdani has yet articulated<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite the truly heartbreaking reality that the kids themselves know exactly how they are being shortchanged, there doesn\u2019t seem to be any plan for them,\u201d said Johanna Bjorken, the parent of a senior at Urban Assembly Maker Academy.<\/p>\n

Another observer was more blunt on X<\/a>: \u201cNikole Hannah-Jones absolutely kicking Kamar Samuels\u2019 ass right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chalkbeat New York reporter Michael Elsen-Rooney contributed. <\/p>\n

Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Amy Zimmer is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat New York. Contact Amy at azimmer@chalkbeat.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Did you know search engines like Google are changing the way you see news? Keep Chalkbeat\u2019s valuable education…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379457,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4146,136249,41579,9,24,10978,56,63,65,64,96712],"class_list":["post-379456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-chalkbeat","tag-integration","tag-kamar-samuels","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nikole-hannah-jones","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-the-bell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}