Today's "Talk out of School" on the toxic levels of testing and lead in NYC schools

On today’s Talk Out of School on WBAI radio, we spoke with NYC Council Member and Chair of the Education Committee Mark Treyger, about yesterday's oversight hearing on “Breaking the test culture” in our NYC schools, the highlights of which I described on the blog. 

We discussed the success of the the 38 schools that belong to the NY Performance Standards Consortium, that use projects and performance-based assessments instead of  Regents exams that most NYC high school students are required to pass to graduate. The Council Member referred to these schools to as the “best kept secret in our education system”. Meanwhile, the overemphasis on standardized testing in our public schools encourages rote learning and memoritzation rather than develop deep knowledge and critical thinking. We also talked about DOE’s proposal to implement yet another set of standardized tests in our schools and create yet another data system called Edustat.  I followed up by asked him what the powers of the Council were to prevent the implementation of these likely damaging and/or wasteful programs might be given mayoral control.

Christopher Werth

In the second half of the show we were joined by Christoper Werth, senior editor at WNYC’s narrative unit, who explained thow his visit to his young daughter’s elementary classroom led to a groundbreaking investigation of lead contamination, followed by a new round of testing by DOE.  

We also discussed how the risks posed by lead in school water compare to lead in peeling paint and dust, and described how the model bill proposed by NRDC would mandate filtration systems on all drinking water outlets in schools and lower the action level requiring remediation. The possible correlation between the phasing out of lead paint and the national  drop in crime rates was another topic we touched on in our discussion. 

Click here to download or livestream the full episode. More information on these issues are linked to below.

• NYC Public School Parents on NYC Council hearings on Breaking the school testing culture.
• Christopher Werth's reporting on crumbling lead paint in schools
• NYC Public School Parents on high levels of lead in water still found in schools in third round of DOE testing.
• DOE inspection results for peeling lead paint in classrooms
• DOE inspection results for lead found in school water  
• NRDC FAQ for parents on lead in school water: what should you do?
• NRDC Model State Legislation: “Get the Lead Out of School Drinking Water Act” Summary of Provisions

 

Peeling lead paint found in 938 classrooms; and lead-laden water in 500 schools

Update: 9/4/19: The DOE went back and found elevated levels of lead  in twice as many spaces, including 1800 classrooms for preK, Kindergarten and 1st grade students as well as some common areas, and says all these spaces have now been "remediated".  Check out the DOE press release and the latest by reporter Christopher Werth here.

Update: The current state action level for lead in water of  15 parts per billion – the threshold at which remediation must occur – is not a standard based on health or safety, as any amount of lead in water or blood can have negative effects.  Environmental advocacy organizations such as the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Healthy Schools Network are advocating for NY to lower its action level to 1ppb before public schools begin testing their for lead by 2020.  More on this here.  
The model bill is posted on the NRDC website here.   The bill also requires specific remediation efforts including filtration systems on any affected water outlets. NRDC also posts a detailed explanation of the problems with the current system of testing for lead in water in NYC schools, and how the model NYS bill follows the law adopted by the District of Columbia.

The DOE found peeling lead paint at 486 schools built before 1985, including over 938 classrooms serving kids in 3-K, Pre-K, Kindergarten and first grade. More on this at Gothamist [with a WNYC radio sound file],  Chalkbeat and NY Post.

The ramped up inspection is a result of investigative reporting by Christopher Werth of WNYC , who wrote in Gothamist earlier this summer how he had found lead paint in classrooms  here and here; and a letter sent by members of Congress to the DOE as a result of his reporting.

Here is the DOE spreadsheet of the schools inspected and the results.

The DOE says they plan to remediate all these classrooms before Sept., by covering the peeling paint with a “certified primer” and painted over twice.

Yet it doesn’t appear that DOE also checked for lead dust on the floors, which can also be quite toxic, especially for young kids who sit on the rug for “circle time”, as pointed out by Werth in the WNYC interview and earlier Gothamist articles.  And they haven’t checked any classrooms for kids over six, or common areas.

The Chalkbeat article also has a searchable list of the 500 schools that still have water outlets that were found to have lead levels still above the “action level” of 15 parts per billion, though the DOE claims to have “remediated” all but 15 of these outlets once again.

Which brings up the question, if they had remediated them last year, as they claimed, how effective is the process by which they address this?

The DOE should immediately inform parents at all schools with classrooms that tested positive for lead.  The more research is done about lead and its effects, the more scientists realize that even children with tiny amounts of detectable lead in their blood are more likely to have academic and behavior problems.  See my earlier blog post about this, as well as these two scientific studies.

All parents should also probably have their kids tested for lead, especially if their schools are on the list but even if not.  Too often children go without lead testing, as reported by Reuters. 

One good thing is that there is new research showing that medical treatment to remove lead from blood can be effective, according to a paper published in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics and discussed in Chalkbeat here.

In the fall, you can also contact the DOE to report peeling paint in in your child’s school through the Paint Reporting survey .  For more information, check out the DOE webpage here.

High levels of lead dust found in city schools via an independent WNYC investigation

photo: WNYC/Gothamist

Yesterday Christopher Werth of WNYC radio posted a story online at Gothamist and broadcast on WNYC about an investigation he undertook in four NYC schools in which he found high levels of lead dust on the floor and windowsills from peeling paint. WNYC had emailed the principals and PTAs at over 30 public elementary schools built before 1960 — the year lead-paint was banned in New York City --  and gained entrance to only these four.

Werth took samples in preK to second grade classrooms and in common areas shared by students age six and below -- who are at the greatest risk of lead poisoning. In each of these schools,  there were serious violations that exceeded limits adopted by the City Council for floors -- currently at 10 micrograms per square foot, to be lowered to five micrograms by 2021.  Some samples contained lead 1000 times above this limit.

The reality is there is NO safe amount of lead in the blood; and the lowest levels that can be detected have significant negative impacts on a child's cognitive abilities and behavior.

Similarly, a recent audit by the NY State Comptroller  found preK classrooms in CBOs and in public schools with "potential fire and safety hazards,  toxic cleaning supplies" - and in at least one case, peeling lead paint.

DOE has a poor history when it comes to testing for lead.  For years, district officials insisted on using a discredited method to test in school water, by flushing the water first -- even when this method violated EPA guidance and by 2016, a new state law.

As Dr. Morri Markowitz, lead expert at Montefiore hospital, says in the Gothamist article, “Do I trust the New York City Department of Education to conduct a fair, objective study in their schools? I would say that this is not an agency that has a long-term record of credibility on this particular issue.”

To make things worse, the city's most rigorous public health laws that regulate lead do not apply to DOE schools, as Werth explains:

"Since 1997, for example, child care programs — which also enroll 3K- and pre-K-aged children — have not been permitted to have “lead-based paint on any interior surface,” according to Article 47 of the NYC Health Code. And under Local Law One, private landlords who are renting a newly-available unit are required to fully abate lead paint on doorways, windows and other high-impact surfaces, which tend to create significant amounts of lead dust.

Neither of these provisions apply to schools."

This is in part because the Council has uniquely limited authority over DOE, which is legally still considered a state agency even under Mayoral control.  Yet the Department has been expanding 3K and preK programs and assuming more authority over child care services, which is slowly but surely further whittling away the ability of the Council to make law and provide checks and balances.

A recent audit by the NY State Comptroller also found preK classrooms in CBOs and public schools with "potential fire and safety hazards,  toxic cleaning supplies" and in at least one case, peeling lead paint.

In response to the WNYC investigation, Mark Treyger, chair of the NYC Council Education Committee commented,

“There's a gap in terms of our ability to legislate over the DOE directly on this issue.  Quite frankly, they don't like when the City Council has certain power over their policies and regulations and rules. However, I will not accept resistance from DOE on this front.”


The reality is that since DOE is not under municipal control, new state laws may have to be passed to require stricter scrutiny and remediation for lead paint in NYC schools, even as DOE is absorbing more and more power over childhood services that used to be given to other city agencies, such as Early Learn.

And yet there has been little push back by the Speaker or the City Council as a whole to ensure adequate checks and balances which would require advocating for municipal control.

More on the WNYC findings and the Mayor's response in the twitter "Moment" below.

⚡️ “High levels of lead dust found in NYC schools”https://t.co/cKeFa7qHas

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) June 25, 2019