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[MOTIVATIONAL MUSIC] - Hi everyone, Steve Adubato.

Way more importantly, we're honored to be joined by the the Senate Majority Leader in the Senate of New Jersey, is State Senator Teresa Ruiz of the 29th District.

Senator, great to have you with us.

- Thank you for having me.

- We wanna talk about education in just a moment because you know education better than most as a former chair of the Senate Education Committee.

Let's talk childcare first.

Our Re-imagine Childcare branding will come up on the air where people to find out more.

But you have initiated a package of legislation, $350 million of affordable, accessible, quality childcare.

And I happen to know, because we've known each other a long time, this issue is personal for you as well.

Talk about the legislation and why it's such a deep personal commitment for you.

- So clearly, when I entered the Senate I was completely focused on education 'cause I know that it's one of the greatest game changers for anybody's life trajectory, and hyper-focused on early childhood from personal experience, both being in a childcare development center, seeing that firsthand, the impact that you have for the family and to the child and their outcomes, and then, as a mother in that space.

Early days, trying to find close accessibility, recognizing what dry deserts we're in in specific areas in the state for infant and toddler care.

And always understanding that our childcare system is one of the most important variables in the economic success of any state and this country.

But one thing shifted.

The pandemic hit and everybody understood immediately what our daycares, and our schools, and this entire infrastructure, what it meant for the workforce, what it meant for families, and what it meant for the outcomes of the state as far as reopening and getting back to normal spaces.

So it elevated a conversation that so many of us have been committed to, but it really fostered this package of bills.

Understanding what are the gaps in the space is, making it more affordable, supporting the infrastructure that has long been left far behind, supporting individuals who are working in this space that predominantly are women of color, and just really having a global conversation with the business sector, with more colleagues in the space, in making an investment that I think New Jersey is poised to continue to do.

- This is historic.

This is the most significant childcare legislation in the history of the state.

A couple of the key elements of it that will have the greatest impact on particularly women of color and socioeconomically-disadvantaged communities.

Please, Senator.

- So extending, lifting the childcare tax credit, right?

So that more families are captured in that space, fostering a program.

And a lot of this, even though initiated through legislation, ended up either being language in the budget and/or coming out from different programming.

So for instance, the economic development authority of the state.

Making sure that they're making this investment for current or future individuals who are gonna go into this space, supporting them for facility infrastructure and expansion.

And then, just talking about how do we support and create a pipeline for individuals to come into working, because retention is critical.

We see that now in the early childhood space, and we also see it in our education spaces.

How do we foster the next generation of practitioners in this space?

- Senator, again, because before you came to the Senate and you are a Deputy Chief of Staff in Essex County to the Essex County executive, you're a professional in the field of childcare.

You were on the frontlines.

I believe it may have been one of your first jobs.

Is that a fair assessment?

- I wouldn't necessarily call myself a professional.

I never had a certificate in the state of New Jersey.

I did have a wonderful opportunity to teach at the North Ward Child Development Center, and this was pre-Abbott.

And so, - Yes.

- what I recognized firsthand there was that I was blessed to be with four year olds, that if in fact I could have taught them calculus and early algebra and Mandarin, they would have absorbed that.

So what I clearly understood during my timeframe of teaching that one year was that anyone who commits themself to teach should be rewarded and applauded on a consistent basis.

It is the most important profession that anyone can commit themselves to, and that children in those ages can truly absorb anything that you put before them.

And that the earlier we get children in high quality spaces, the returns on those investment are extraordinary.

And the cost savings for those school systems and for the families are great.

And when you think about our working families and you think about the calendar that we have still in this country, people should sit back and say "How can we really reinvent what we're doing?"

Having a calendar cycle that was set for an agrarian society just doesn't fundamentally make any sense.

We have all these struggles.

Summertime, what do we do with our children?

If you're a family that's resourced, there are opportunities that you can explore.

But if you're a family that's struggling, we know what happens during the summer and that's learning loss during those spaces of when we can't support and elevate our children's learning time.

- So to the Senator's point, actually, we'll have a separate conversation with Senator Ruiz, as I said, who knows more about education than most people as the former chair of the Senate Education Committee.

She just mentioned learning loss.

I don't wanna, because this childcare issue is too in-depth so I'm gonna stay with this a little bit longer.

We had, and I know you know Cecilia Zalkind very well, who is stepping down as the CEO of Advocates for Children in New Jersey after 38 years there.

And she was talking to us in a recent segment, Senator, where she said, "Look, let's face it.

Childcare workers are not nearly paid enough and we need more government subsidies."

Let's be clear.

Where does that piece fit in, paying more for childcare workers, and where does that money come from?

- So, we've talked about this.

I think this is somewhere where a space where government can lean into.

We have to approach this better from a commonsense approach.

If we know that the return on the investment in early childhood, for every $1 you put in can reap you a benefit of $13, why wouldn't we make these investments in the women who are working in these spaces?

You have so many women who commit themselves to these classrooms, who perhaps themselves can't afford to send their children to the space that they're actually working in.

And so, you know, we've explored some tax opportunities there that Senator Vitale has instituted in a bill.

I think that this is an exceptional conversation that we should have and continue to have during the budget process, because I think this is a space where government can lean into and make that investment.

That's where the money should come from because the return is extraordinary.

- Last question, Senator.

You mentioned Senator Joe Vitale, the chair of the Senate Health Committee, who's an advocate who's work shoulder-to-shoulder with you.

Real quick, few seconds left.

To what degree do you find your male colleagues, by and large, both sides of the aisle, supportive of the initiatives that you're proposing?

A few seconds, please.

- So, interesting that pre-pandemic it was few and far between who leaned in.

We know that Senator Vitale has two beautiful young children, so it became something that was very real for him.

And so, those experiences - Right.

- lean into policy.

During the pandemic, everyone was calling, talking about, "What can we do?

How are we gonna support the infrastructure system?"

Because it became more than just a babysitting conversation that people had couched it for far too long.

It became, "My business cannot open if Maria cannot come to work."

She is making a decision whether to stay at home with her child or to actually show up for work.

- Yeah, economic impact is huge as it relates to childcare.

State Senator Teresa Ruiz, who is in fact the Majority Leader of the Senate, from the great city of Newark, Brick City.

Senator, thank you so much for joining us.

- Thank you for having me.

- Stay with us.

We'll be right back.

To watch more Think Tank with Steve Adubato, find us online and follow us on social media.

- We are honored to be joined by Mr. Daniel Gill, middle school teacher in Montclair, New Jersey and author of, No More Chairs.

Mr. Gill, how are you doing, my friend?

- Good.

Thank you for having me.

- So, 52 years as an extraordinary public school teacher.

The thing you're most proud of, is?

- The desegregation of, helping with the desegregation of the Montclair School District.

Most notably, this school, Glenfield Middle School, which is located in the south end of Montclair, which was underserved when I came here.

And which we worked very diligently to renovate, number one, and number two, to rebuild a program that would be a representative of good school and also school that would attract people from throughout the community.

- Your commitment, Dan, and we've known each other a long time, Mr. Gill is former teacher of our son Nick, now at a major university, and was a big part of our son's life, along with thousands and thousands of other sixth, seventh, and eighth graders.

Mr. Gill teaches those three grades, one teacher that whole time.

So Dan, let me ask you this.

No More Chairs is significant, it goes all the way back to your childhood in New York, correct?

- Yes.

That it goes back to my childhood.

It goes back to a birthday party.

It goes back to a day that should be celebrated, and it turned into something terrible.

- Tell everyone who Archie was and why Archie matters.

- So Archie matters because he was a friend of mine and we were both invited to a birthday party by another friend.

And in those days, you used to get dressed up in your, you know, your tie and your jacket.

And we were just so jazzed up, because we were gonna go see him, and we were gonna have ice cream, and we're gonna have cake and we're gonna play games.

And when we arrive at the party, the mother of the young man who had the party opens the door, and says that I could go in, but that Archie couldn't, because there were no more chairs.

Now, Archie was African American.

So I was like, stunned at that point, 'cause I had never encountered anything, any bias like that in my life.

And so I assured the mom that I would go home, and get extra chair if I, you know, if you don't have enough chairs.

I mean, even if I couldn't get a chair, I could sit on the floor, it didn't matter to me, 'cause I was, you know, really unaware of what she was saying.

And then she said, no, you know, you can go in, but Archie can't, because there are no more chairs, so he has to go home.

And at that point, it really hit me that, you know, these are all these code words that people use to discriminate against people.

And it was a microaggression against my good friend and the humiliation for him.

And we both cried huge tears.

It was a seventh floor of an apartment house.

I remember going down the elevator and we just had those big tears rolling down our cheeks.

- You did not stay connected to Archie, did you?

- No, so we graduated from elementary school in 1960 and he drifted to another school.

I did, too.

And that was one of the things that came up.

So since this story has become out there to lots of people, there was a producer from CBS, I think she wanted to reunite us.

And so what happened was she said, oh, I can find anybody.

And so about two days later, she got back to me.

She said, I found him.

The good news, I found him.

But the bad news is he died last year from COVID.

But the good news was he did work in social work for his life.

And I think I have, the one question I had for him was, does he remember that incident?

I mean, was it, that's just one of many incidents in his life?

Or, was it something that it would stand out, just like it did for me?

- You've left an empty chair in your classroom - Right, mm-hmm.

Yeah.

- What do you tell your students that chair means?

- First of all, I think that metaphors are really great for kids.

You know, kids understand metaphors.

And I think that any teacher that teaches, understands that kids grab onto things like that.

And so I hope that what they get out of this is, first of all, you know, we talk a lot about opportunity.

You know, just having the opportunity to sit in this classroom and learn is such a great thing.

And that if anybody comes at that door, they deserve that.

And number two, what it means is, that we don't look at you for, you know, your exterior.

We just accept you.

And whoever you may be, that's who you are.

And that's somebody we'd like to get to know.

And we want you to feel included.

And so from that standpoint, those lessons, sometimes I just have this chair, and sometimes when they're not nice to each other, I say, oh, you don't have a chair for somebody today?

And it kind of like stops it right, you know, right there.

And the other thing I'd like to say was, you know, the whole story, you know, I was teaching Martin Luther King.

I mean, where did the story come from?

And I was teaching about Martin Luther King and was his birthday.

And, you know, we teach the Birmingham letters from Birmingham Jail.

We teach, you know, the March on Washington, and the Selma March and all that.

And I was saying, you know, this is not really not connecting with the kids.

It's, you know, history.

And so I thought, well, you know, I have a birthday story.

And so I started to share it on the, you know, the weekend of Martin Luther King's birthday.

And I thought that that, you know, I said this is a birthday story and I think it kind of like, connects the dots for you a little bit about what happens when people are not kind, not considerate, not open, not empathetic.

- What do you believe the greatest contribution you've made over these 52 years in the classroom has been?

- Well, I get a lot of mail from, you know, when you hang out like I do, I get a lot of emails, which is really great.

- And you also have students come back and visiting you And I know that first-hand.

- Yeah, they tell me what they're doing.

And, you know, every teacher loves that.

You know, I always say, you know, when you're a carpenter you know what you've accomplished every day.

But when you're a teacher you don't necessarily know what happened.

And sometimes it doesn't happen for years.

But then kids come back and tell you, you know, that that was something that you did.

I think that the one thing, the message that they give me is, it's a Maya Angelou thing, it's not what you do, it's how you make me feel.

So very often I'll say, well, what'd you learn about the Constitution?

Eh, not so much.

But I remember the day you bent over, and you split your pants and you laughed at yourself.

You know, that kind of thing?

I remember the day, I had one student, we were writing letters, this goes back to Ross Perot running for president.

And I have, every time they run for president, I have the kids write letters.

And I said to this one kid, how do you know your letter's gonna be read by Ross Perot?

And he says, oh, I don't know.

And I said, well, you gotta make it stand out.

So I gave him some crayons and I said, draw on the envelope and, you know, make a decoration and I maybe he'll open it because it stands out.

So we sent it, he got a letter back from Ross Perot, and I just saw him recently, maybe a year ago, and he said, you know what Mr. Gill, you know what you taught me?

I always have to stand out.

And so those are kind of the things that I cherish as a teacher, as a somebody who believes in young people and giving kids opportunities to learn, but, most importantly, feel good about themselves.

- Dan, we don't editorialize on public broadcasting when you're hosting and anchoring, but I feel comfortable saying this to you, and I know I speak for countless parents, you've made a difference.

Cannot thank you enough as a parent of a kid in public schools and kids in public schools for the work that you do every day, you've done for 52 years.

To you and to all the public school educators out there, we say, thank you.

Job well done.

Thank you, Dan.

- Well, and I always say to parents, thank you.

You know, I always end every conference by thanking a parent for having faith in public schools in a time when we are being attacked for so many reasons.

And in a time, you know, after COVID where we've had so much difficulty trying to get these kids back on target.

And I really do mean that.

I thank people having that understanding that public schools are great, especially here in Montclair, which are diverse, which offer kids various kinds of opportunities, to trust us to do the right thing and to help kids become better students, but also become better people.

- That's Mr. Gill.

Thank you, Dan.

- Thank you.

- You got it.

We'll be right back.

To watch more Think Tank with Steve Adubato, find us online and follow us on social media.

- We're now joined by Scott Richman who's a regional director of the Anti-Defamation League in New York and New Jersey.

Scott, good to have you with us.

- Thanks for having me on.

- Antisemitism on the rise.

The question is how bad is the problem and what is driving it?

The ADL did an audit in this regard.

Talk to us about what you found.

- So ADL's annual audit of antisemitic incidents is something we've been putting out since 1979.

So for 42 years.

It's, it's not a survey, that's typically the way that people take the temperature of antisemitism in this country.

It's actually a compilation of ADL's incident response work, ADL's responding to antisemitic incidents, literally every day of the week in all 50 states.

And that, that incident response work once a year is compiled, and we put out this audit.

Our 2021 audit which is the most recent one, was the highest on record.

We had never seen such numbers for antisemitism.

And that number is quadruple what it was in 2013, which is about the time when we, we began to see this rise.

- Listen, there are so many factors driving the horrific nature of antisemitism in our nation.

What are the top two or three?

- Well certainly social media, I would put up there as, as a top reason.

Social media is a huge driver of hate.

I mean, look, social media is important.

It gives people a voice.

It democratizes society, but it also gives haters a voice.

And unfortunately, that voice is something that they have the capacity to, to put out there, and for it to go viral in a way that it it never did with television or radio or, or, or newspaper.

And the reality is that in, in those old form of media, you know you needed to ask permission.

A newspaper, a television station, a radio station needed to say I'm okay with putting this out on the air.

And typically they would say no.

They would push it to the margins of society and say this doesn't belong.

But with social you don't need to ask permission.

- And we would say no.

- And you would say no, of course.

- Of course.

Any reasonable and responsible media platform would say no.

To what, I interrupted you because there are, I'm sure there's some other drivers of this, but I want to get right to this.

And it's not about Kanye West or Ye as he is called today.

And it's not about his meeting exclusively, his meeting with Donald Trump, with Nick Fuentes.

You can look up who that is, but it's also afterwards when I listened to Kanye West talk about Hitler, was a, I don't even, I'm not even gonna try to paraphrase what he said, but it was positive.

In what world is that even remotely seen as a quote point of view that is to be given a platform?

- Right, it's unfortunate.

And, you know another reason I would cite is a general emboldening of extremists and extremist views.

This is the type of statement that in the past would never have been countenanced.

And suddenly it's been, it's been given credence.

And we've seen that.

People have given permission to say things and do things that they would never have been able to in the past.

I mean, you know, you're coming to me, you're coming to ADL.

People come and ask that the, the opinion of the Jewish community on these issues.

When somebody like Ye says that he likes Hitler, that he likes the Nazis, this isn't just an issue for the Jewish community.

This isn't just an issue of antisemitism.

More than 400,000 people lost their lives in World War II in the, you know, who were from this country, fighting against what that stands for.

This isn't just about the Jews, it's about American values.

- So in Charlottesville, with those marching and chanting "Jews will not replace us", when there is not universal condemnation of that, as if that's again, a point of view that should be given a platform, and it's not condemned roundly and clearly by the then president of the United States and other prominent government officials at every level, but particularly at national level.

To what extent do you believe Scott, that it quote unquote normalizes "Jews will not replace us?"

- It does.

And you know, those statements or statements, any form of hate, any statement that's made that's antisemitic, it needs to be condemned roundly by elected officials, by people in positions of power and influence.

- By people who are not Jewish.

- People who are not Jewish, of course.

Or it becomes normalized.

People, people feel oh, I can say this.

- That's not me, and you know better than I do.

I'm sorry for interrupting Scott.

When people said as it relates to the Holocaust, well, it's not me, it's not me, it's not me.

And then, you know, you know the rest better than anyone.

- Yeah, this is, this is the way that antisemitism becomes normalized.

And we've seen it over the past few weeks.

When I spoke about this huge rise in antisemitic incidents since 2013.

We're dealing with this not from a week ago, a month ago, a year ago, but for years.

But over the past few weeks, we've seen this sort of normalization of antisemitism, celebrities and sports figures and people of influence saying things that, that make it seem like it's okay to make these kinds of statements.

And we hear it, we hear the copycat crimes.

We hear people saying things that mimic what they're hearing from, from their celebrities.

And you know, you take something like Hebrews to, Negros to Hebrews, the, the book, the movie that Kyrie Irving put out there.

Now that was an obscure novel.

It was an obscure film that people had not heard about.

And suddenly it skyrockets to number one in two countries on Amazon.

- Kyrie Irving's an influencer, sorry for interrupting again.

Kyrie Irving with the Nets is an influencer.

He retweets it and then says well I don't really know what's in it.

And there are some good things.

And then apologizes way too late in the eyes of most.

And then what was the responsibility of every other NBA player, every other athlete, and every other person of goodwill Scott?

- Everybody must condemn it.

That's clear.

No, Kyrie as well as everybody else.

I mean this is, this was full of antisemitic rhetoric.

It blamed Jews for the slave trade.

It talked about Holocaust denial.

I mean this is no, this is, there's no, no arguing about this.

It's unequivocal.

- Final question from my perspective.

We talked about social media, the role of, I don't even, we're not mainstream media.

We're public broadcasting.

We're affiliated with public broadcasting.

What is our responsibility in this fight?

- The responsibility of media outlets is to responsibly lift this up.

And, you know this issue, and of course the condemn antisemitism and not to give a platform or too much of a platform to this antisemitic rhetoric.

- I assure you Scott, and all those people of goodwill who care deeply about the problem of antisemitism, we will continue with our colleagues in public broadcasting to shine a light and to have meaningful dialogue about this horrific trend that has to stop.

Scott Richman is regional director of the Anti-Defamation League of New York and New Jersey.

Scott, I wanna thank you so much for joining us.

We appreciate it.

All the best, you have an open invitation.

- Thank you.

- You got it.

I'm Steve Adubato, thank you so much for watching.

We'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] Think Tank with Steve Adubato has been a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by The Turrell Fund, supporting Reimagine Childcare.

RWJBarnabas Health.

Let'’s be healthy together.

Kean University.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

The Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey.

The North Ward Center.

PSE&G, Newark Board of Education.

And by Wells Fargo.

Promotional support provided by Insider NJ.

And by CIANJ, and Commerce Magazine.

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