FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.qns.com APRIL 7, 2016 • THE QUEENS COURIER 35 oped letters & comments EDUCATION DEPARTMENT WASTES TAXPAYERS’ MONEY Despite Mayor de Blasio’s endless promises of change in the New York City public schools when he took offi ce, the New York City Department of Education continues to be a bonanza for consultants, testing companies and organizations offering poor academic programs that do little or nothing for educators and students. Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina continues to approve hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts to companies offering unnecessary consulting services, products and technology, squeezing the budgets of local school districts and schools. As a result, school principals are forced to push out more expensive and experienced teachers. Schools are increasingly becoming a revolving door of new, untenured teachers who are too intimidated to speak out about the wasteful spending their schools engage in. Thorugh the years, more and more money has been shifted out of the classroom and into the hands of consultants, often costing thousands per day, and always without the approval of teachers or parents. The Department of Education continues to be unaccountable to the school community and, most importantly, to the taxpayers. It’s the taxpayers who fund these initiatives, so why are they not included in the decision-making? There needs to be an investigation. Danielle Cooke-Ruiz, Bayside IT’S TIME TO DISMISS TEACHERS’ UNION BOSS Since former Mayor Bloomberg took offi ce in 2002 and assumed control of New York City schools, the leadership in the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) has been complicit in the privatization of public schools, supportive of incessant testing, allowed members to become victims of age discrimination and ultimately is part of a scheme to de-professionalize the teaching profession. UFT President Michael Mulgrew, a huge supporter of the highly unpopular Common Core standards and data-driven teaching and learning, has been largely unresponsive to members’ concerns and, in many cases, pleas for help. What kind of labor leader would ignore his or her members? Teachers have been abused, harassed, brought up on false charges and even fi red. Teachers in many schools continue to work in hostile environments with administrators who are incompetent, inexperienced and/ or abusive. They continue to harass teachers because they know that the UFT will do nothing about it. Despite what Mulgrew says publicly, the UFT leadership has taken no steps to improve the working conditions of teachers. The education departments in local universities are virtually empty. We are at aprecipice of a teacher shortage in New York City. The biggest losers of a teacher shortage will be the students. Mulgrew must accept the blame for this teacher shortage, miserable working environments in many schools and his reluctance to call for the removal of hundreds of horrible school administrators. Michael Mulgrew must also step down. Stephany Verra, Little Neck WHITESTONE RESIDENT REALLY MISSES HER MARKET I am devastated, absolutely distraught, upset and miserable because my Waldbaum’s supermarket on 10th Avenue closed-- my stomping grounds, my fi rst stop of the day. I walked there in all kinds of weather, drove there in knee-high snow. That’s my hangout, my breakfast coffee, my world. Everyone from the deli counter to the cashier to the manager to the man who sweeps the fl oor knew me by my fi rst name. Every morning they greeted me, “Hello, Esther,” and with much concern, they exclaimed, “Why did you come out in this awful rain?” Waldbaum’s staff were my best friend after so many years; they knew all about me, they were my confi dant, they were my everything. My daughter says, “Mom, forget about Waldbaum’s, take a vacation, get away. A vaction will help you forget about Waldbaums.” I think to myself, maybe I will take a vacation, maybe I should take a vacation somewhere where there is a Waldbaum’s! Esther Cohen, Whitestone A LOOK BACK This week’s A Look Back photo comes to us courtesy of Fred Haller of Glendale. Do any of our readers recognize some of the faces above? These are the students of the Class of 1955 who graduated from Glendale’s Sacred Heart School. Members of the class, along with all other alumni, parishioners and former parishioners of Sacred Heart Church and School are invited to attend the school’s 80th anniversary celebration on April 23. The festivities begin with a celebratory Mass at 5 p.m., followed by tours of the school and a “Taste of Glendale” dinner featuring several different Glendale establishments. For more information, call Haller at 718-821-5576 or email HHATTNY@aol.com. For details and tickets, visit www.sacredheartschoolglendale.com. Send us your historic photos of Queens by sharing them on our Facebook and Twitter pages, emailing them to editorial@qns.com or by mail to The Queens Courier, 38-15 Bell Blvd., Bayside, NY 11361. All mailed pictures will be carefully returned to you. FUNDING THE ARTS FOR A BETTER CITY BY ELLEN KODADEK The arts and culture are a vital part of any education, and a wide variety of studies have demonstrated signifi cant positive impacts on young people resulting from the presence of arts education in schools, including improved academic outcomes, increased graduation rates, and enhanced career opportunities. Unfortunately, the last several decades have witnessed signifi cant cuts in arts education, resulting in a situation highlighted by New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer in 2014, in which a large number of New York City schools did not have any arts in the classroom. Mayor Bill de Blasio and the New York City Council have made a signifi cant and overdue investment to address the inequities last year, yet more work needs to be done. Flushing Town Hall is one of a number of cultural institutions that are stepping in to fi ll the gap. We work with 56 schools annually to provide multidisciplinary programs in visual arts, dance, music, and theater, which encompass the many world cultures of our diverse community of Flushing, Queens. This year, our school performances feature Hip-Hop, American Indian music and dance, Irish and African American music and dance, Mexican music, Taiwanese Puppetry, theater for autistic students, and more. Cultural institutions don’t just substitute for arts in the classroom when it’s missing – they provide a unique service. By partnering with the many cultural institutions in the city that offer robust arts education programs, schools have access to hundreds of artistic disciplines, representing cultural traditions from around the world. The importance of cultural recognition and celebration to our city’s extraordinarily diverse school population can’t be overstated – in addition to the well-recognized impacts of arts education more broadly, culturally diverse arts education offers other benefi ts: greater engagement with immigrant and minority students, the development of positive images of other cultures that leads to greater harmony in a diverse community, and a stronger defense against bullying and intolerance. Contact with a wide variety of artistic disciplines – different genres of music and dance, theater, puppetry, painting, sculpture, photography, fi lm, multi-media – can expand a child’s horizons and creativity in a way that contact with only one or two disciplines does not. There’s no way to offer all of this diversity and variety only through classroom teachers. When we think about improving arts education in New York City schools, three major things are needed. First, there must be an increase in the number of classroom teachers, so every school has several certifi ed arts instructors on staff (these teachers also provide the environment and contact necessary to bring in partnerships with outside institutions). Second, there must be an increase in the Department of Education’s budget for contracting with cultural institutions; the recent increase of $23 million for arts education in Fiscal Year 2015 only included $2.2 million for these contracts, a drop in the bucket for a $23 billion agency that serves 1.1 million students in 1,800 schools. And, fi nally, there must be an increase in the Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA) budget to provide more operating support for institutions that offer these services. Flushing Town Hall’s Education department serves 8,500 students and another 4,000 senior citizens and audience members at family programs and workshops, with only one part-time and two full-time staff members. We are straining as we encounter increased demand for our services amid severe cuts exacted to cultural institutions by the previous mayoral administration. This is true for our colleagues across the city. So additionally, we urge an increase of $40 million to DCLA’s Fiscal Year 2017 budget to support the hundreds of cultural institutions across the city. We recognize that New York City Council Education Committee Chair Daniel Dromm, a former classroom teacher, appreciates the value of arts education in our schools. We encourage his Committee colleagues to passionately support the cultural sector’s request for an increase to the DCLA budget. By doing so, they will deliver a clear message that our cultural institutions provide signifi cant benefi ts not only to our schools, but to our students, their families, and all communities across this great city. Ellen Kodadek is the executive and artistic director of Flushing Town Hall.
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