Contributing Writers: Azad Ali, Tangerine Clarke,
Nelson King, Vinette K. Pryce, Bert Wilkinson
GENERAL INFORMATION (718) 260-2500
Caribbean L 10 ife, APRIL, 2-8, 2021
By Crisanta Duran
New York’s public education
system has been
plagued by severe racial and
economic disparities for
decades, and far too many
promising students of color
have been left behind as a
result. With students of color
now making up a majority
of New York’s public school
students, lawmakers must
address the state’s deeply
entrenched racial education
achievement gap.
According to the National
Center for Education Statistics
(NCES), the United
States national high school
graduation rate in 2018 was
85.3 percent, an all-time
high. With a graduation rate
of just 82.3 percent, New
York trails both the national
average and each of its five
neighboring states. Only 13
states had a lower graduation
rate than New York.
This isn’t just a question
of education spending, however,
as New York currently
leads the nation in education
spending at $29,000 per
student. Texas, by contrast,
graduates 90 percent of its
high school students while
spending roughly one-third
of this amount.
The shameful reason for
the discrepancy between
New York, Republican-led
Texas, and each of New
York’s five neighboring
states is New York’s overwhelming
racial achievement
gap. White students
and students from middle
and upper-class families
have a graduation rate above
90 percent, but Black, Latinx
and Native American New
Yorkers all have graduation
rates below 73 percent.
Only three-quarters of
New York students from
economically disadvantaged
backgrounds graduate,
while a dismal 31 percent of
students with limited English
proficiency successfully
complete high school. This
is less than half the national
average.
Latinx and Native American
students have higher
graduation rates in all of our
neighboring states. In Texas
and West Virginia no racial
group has a graduation rate
lower than 85 percent, and
88 percent of economically
disadvantaged students
successfully complete high
school.
With discrepancies this
profound, the list of urgently
needed reforms is clearly
long, but lawmakers should
start by diversifying the
state’s teacher pipeline. Students
of color perform better
and are more likely to attend
college when they have at
least one teacher of color,
but New York has not done
nearly enough to diversify
its education workforce.
80 percent of New York
teachers are white, and many
are nearing retirement, with
the state needing to hire
nearly 200,000 teachers by
2030. Democratic lawmakers
should expand Assemblywoman
Crystal People-
Stokes’s pilot Teacher Diversity
Pipeline Program, which
provides $500,000 in financial
support for teacher aides
and assistants to receive
the training they need to
become teachers.
Assemblymember Alicia
Hyndman’s proposal of creating
annual conventions for
teachers from diverse backgrounds
should also become
law, as this will help the
state retain more teachers of
color, who face unique challenges
over the course of
their careers. From 2017 to
2019, Black and Latinx educators
had a turnover rate
of 22 percent and 19 percent,
respectively, and overcoming
New York’s teacher
shortage will require reducing
these numbers.
Additionally, lawmakers
could promote educational
equity by establishing pandemic
pods, publicly funded,
evidence-based, one-on-one
tutoring programs. These
programs could be especially
effective for students who
are the most ill-served by
remote and hybrid COVID
learning models, and who’ve
endured significant learning
loss as a result of the pandemic.
Failing to improve educational
outcomes for students
of color as well as students
from economically disadvantaged
backgrounds will leave
New York further behind the
rest of the nation, as well as
our neighboring states, at a
time when having a highly
educated workforce has
never been more important.
Democratic lawmakers
should feel a particular sense
of urgency to tackle this
challenge considering how
embarrassingly far behind
the state lags the nation,
its region, and evenly deeply
conservative, Republican-led
states like Texas and West
Virginia. Diversifying New
York’s teacher pipeline and
ensuring there is greater
equity in funding to address
learning loss from the pandemic
are the right places
to start.
Crisanta Duran is the NY
State Director for Democrats
For Education Reform.
By Caribbean Life
It took a global pandemic that
exposed great economic suffering
and inequality in New York
for the Empire State to finally
be on the cusp of fully legalizing
marijuana.
State lawmakers and embattled
Governor Andrew Cuomo
announced an agreement late
Saturday night to legalize the
recreational use of cannabis in
New York, setting up an outline
for how this dramatic change will
work for the state, the economy
and its people.
For years now, medicinal marijuana
has been legal in New
York — though it’s been speculated
that the main reason why
recreational use wasn’t permitted
earlier was not due to health
concerns, but rather because no
government wants to green-light
a new drug industry, even if the
cash injections of taxing this
drug would be gargantuan.
Obviously, there’s new momentum
behind Cuomo’s plan. The
state is thinking green here —
as in dollar bills, not marijuana
leaves. Dispensary sales will be
taxed at 13 percent, with nine
percent going to the state to fund
specific priorities. New York will
use a portion of the levy to provide
grants to community-based
organizations that advance adult
literacy, job placement and childcare
services. Money will also go
to education and mental health
services focused on drug abuse
prevention.
Although the American Rescue
Plan has been received favorably,
states have bled so much
money during the COVID-19
pandemic that every taxable
industry conceivable should be
fully annexed, lest our essential
services go up in smoke.
We want to recover, better,
faster and stronger. Decriminalizing
marijuana helps accomplish
that goal on a variety of levels.
Legalization shifts police
resources on to other things and
will help free thousands of New
Yorkers wrongly jailed for minor
offenses. A significant excise tax
for marijuana purchases will
pump billions of dollars in new
cash into the state economy over
the next decade.
Moreover, the approved plan
also incorporates the desire for
weed-seller licenses to go to
women and minority populations.
Fifty percent of marijuana
business licenses will be issued
to people from communities disproportionately
impacted by the
enforcement of cannabis prohibition
as well as minority and
women-owned businesses. Let’s
be honest: an ounce of the green
stuff is going to rake in a hell of a
lot more profit that the gumball
mom-and-pops of yore. There’s
great economic opportunity here
that cannot be wasted.
Public safety questions
abound, and perhaps the biggest
concern is for the streets. How
will police be able to stop drivers
who are under the influence of
marijuana from getting behind
the wheel?
The plans call for a research
study to develop better methodologies
to detect cannabisimpaired
drivers, and additional
funding for drug recognition and
law enforcement experts to help
keep the streets safe.
But with those questions
unanswered, there will likely be
inconsistent policing and enforcement
of the rules.
While it’s high time for marijuana
to be legalized in New York,
there is much to do to ensure its
legalization works out for the
best.
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How NY can address its dismal
racial achievement gap in education
Up to speed on legal weed
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