Photo courtesy of Oswald Feliz
Bronx native, attorney, and board member of Northwest Bronx Democrats 4 Change, Oswald Feliz, is clear on what his top three issues are in running for City Council in the 15th District. “Number one, I will work to racially and economically desegregate our public-school system,” he said. “We actually have the most racially and economically segregated system in the country, and that has to change.”
Feliz said that in a city which has the largest public-school system in the country, with over 1.1 million students, where 70 percent are from minority communities, it is unjust that only a fraction gain entry to the best public high schools.
He cites the example of Stuyvesant High School, rated the top public high school in the City, where in 2020, he said out of 760 admitted students, only ten were African American. It was a similar tale in 2019 he said, where out of 895 admitted students, only seven were African American, and only 20 were Hispanic.
Feliz is critical of the design of the school system, not just in terms of the barriers it presents to low-income students and students of color from a funding perspective, but also because of the specialized high school admissions test.
“Specialized high schools determine admission based on one thing – the score on an exam and nothing else,” he said during a recent campaign event. “A test score may not be the best way to measure how well they do.” He acknowledges that it is one factor, but he said it shouldn’t be the only thing that’s considered, adding that many lower income kids have very high GPAs, but do not necessarily do well in the exam.
One reason for this, he said, is that many wealthy parents can afford to send their kids to a special summer school program, six months out in order to prepare them to take the test. Another reason is that many first-generation families are navigating the system for the first time, and may not even know the exam exists in order to apply to these high performing public schools.
If elected, Feliz said he would require top public schools, when screening applicants, to account for not just the admissions exam results, but also a student’s GPA, attendance, teacher recommendations, and social-economic and racial background.
His second top campaign issue is the environment. “The Bronx is a classic example of environmental injustice,” he told Norwood News. “We have the worst air quality in our city, and we also have high asthma rates due to the poor air quality. It’s due to a lot of reasons but it’s mostly because of the air pollution.”
He attributes this to the many highways and expressways in the South Bronx, in particular, including and especially the Cross Bronx Expressway, which traverses a number of neighborhoods, and which he said was recently rated the most congested expressway in the nation.
“You know, it has six lanes – three going up, three going down – a lot of congestion, heavily used by trucks,” Feliz said. He said he wants to plan to create a green space over the 1950s expressway.
“The Cross Bronx [Expressway] has a lot of different areas, most of it is below level and some of it is elevated,” he said. So, the areas that are below ground level, I will work to put basically like a cap or a deck of new green space [overhead] to help absorb the pollution.”
He added that technology would also be installed to absorb more of the pollution into the tunnel underground. “It’s not going to quickly absorb every single particle, but it would, at least, help decrease the pollution in the area.”
He cites Klyde Warren Park, built over the Woodall Rodgers Freeway in Dallas, Texas as a successful example, as well as similar plans in Brooklyn for the Brooklyn Queens Expressway.
Feliz said that a company in Brooklyn analyzed the project there and came up with a proposal. He reached out to the company in question about his ideas for the Bronx and they told him they had actually been trying to analyze the issue in the Bronx but at a certain point, had reached an impasse. “It hasn’t gained enough political traction,” Feliz explained. He plans to change that.
The third priority for Feliz is promoting home ownership, changing the socio-economic fabric of public housing, and curbing gentrification in the Bronx by incentivizing long-time residents to stay in the borough. He plans to offer 15 to 20 percent of tenants in public housing the opportunity to purchase their homes at an affordable rate through a designated non-profit organization, similar to a Co-op arrangement, provided the tenants meet certain criteria.
The tenants would have to have lived in the public housing complex all their lives and they would have to be above a certain income threshold. This means not being the lowest-income earners, but not being well off enough to buy elsewhere in the city. Sub-rentals would be prohibited and if the owners subsequently wanted to sell their home, they would have to do so at the same rate at which they purchased it, using the same non-profit.
“Having housing programs that are economically integrated has a lot of benefits,” Feliz said in a recent Facebook live campaign event. “It will bring income to the community and promote stability.”
In terms of his political experience, Feliz said he has worked previously for State Sen. Gustavo Rivera, he worked on the political campaign for Congressman Adriano Espaillat, and he’s also a community activist, working to protect tenants’ rights in housing court.
Asked why he would be a better candidate than his opponents, Feliz said, “I would say that I am a strong negotiator. As a tenant lawyer, I have taken on the most aggressive landlords in our city.”
He added that he is also an educator, he taught in a classroom in the Bronx for many years, and he currently teaches part-time at Hostos Community College. He said that he would not be an elected official that would only vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on issues. “I’m going to be an elected official that is actually going to be taking the lead on the issues. That is what the Bronx needs to help solve problems.”
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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.
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The elite high schools serve a very small fraction of the student population. Attempts to remedy the low minority representation at the elite schools was supposedly addressed when a number borough-based elite schools, partnered with CUNY colleges, were created. Their demographics were to more closely represent that of the city overall. A local example of this program is the High School of American Studies, adjacent to & partnered with Lehman College. Unfortunately, middle class parents from outside the Bronx learned how to game the admissions process, so its student body now mirrors that of the other elite schools. (For example: Bronx Science has 10% Black & Latino population, while American Studies has 14%) Bloomberg closed scores of neighborhood comprehensive high schools, (while pushing out veteran teachers) replacing them with small charter & mini schools with narrow curriculums, inexperienced teachers, and no options for talented students to participate in honors, business, technical, athletic or arts programs on the level that the comprehensive high schools offered. A number of parents, aware of the loss of these options, feel that the only choice left are the handful of specialized schools, and are fighting to expand admissions to them. However, restoring the closed comprehensive neighborhood schools with their diverse offerings, veteran faculty, neighborhood & alumni networks, would restore options to a far greater number of students overall, than would tweaking admissions to a few elite schools. Having taught in neighborhood Bronx high schools for many years, I would be admitting students to my classes throughout the year who had left (or were “outplaced”) from the elite high schools. These kids were bright enough to gain admittance, but couldn’t handle the crushing workload. Let’s concentrate on helping the majority of our students.
The current public school system can not prepare students for higher academics especially in the Bronx where student performance continues to lag far behind the other four boroughs. When I pointed out to new public schools Chancellor Carranza while he was touring a Parkchester Charter school I asked him, Why is it that this charter school out performs the local public schools, and why is it that Bronx public schools students are performing less than their counterparts in other boroughs. The other four boroughs student performance was over 80%, while in the Bronx student performance was below 70%.
Chancellor Carranza replied that he and the mayor know that Bronx public school students are not performing to where they should be, but he is new, give him a chance.. My answer to him was that I had heard the same story from a previous chancellor seventeen years ago.
Mr. Feliz seems to be unaware of additional funding such as Title 1, and other funding streams to students. I wonder if he is a product of a Bronx public schools or not.