for breaking news visit www.qns.com APRIL 7, 2016 • times 13 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.qns.com APRIL 7, 2016 • THE COURIER SUN 21 ooppeedd Is Rufus King worthy of a Jamaica statue? BY GERALD J. CALIENDO Is Rufus King worthy of a statue in King Park ? In the heart of Jamaica, Queens, within King Park lies the remains of a gentleman’s farm and the restored and preserved grand home of Rufus King. A framer of the U.S. Constitution, Rufus King was an early U.S. senator and active opponent of slavery in the United States. Rufus King was an American lawyer who was also a renowned politician and diplomat. King was assigned to Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention with the distinction of being the only delegate coming from Massachusetts. He occupied the following posts during his lifetime: New York representative in the U.S. Senate, Minister to Great Britain and the candidate for Vice Presidency from the Federal party-list between the years 1804 to 1808 respectively. He was also a Federalist candidate for president of the U.S.A on the year 1816. Always a staunch anti-slavery activist, King later became a U.S. senator and, in 1817, voted to end the domestic slave trade and demanded that an anti-slavery clause be added to Missouri’s application for statehood (1820) or the petition should be denied. With slaveholders on the Senate fl oor, King, the last of the delegates to the 1787 gathering still holding public offi ce, minced no words when he said: “Mr. President, I have yet to learn that one man can make a slave of another. If one man cannot do so, no number of individuals can have any better right to do it. And I hold that all laws or compacts imposing any such condition upon any human being are absolutely void, because contrary to the law of nature, which is the law of God, by which he makes his ways known to man, and is paramount to all human control.” As you know, the importance of his commitments and his contributions to this country were so profound that he was one that set the tone for the reason why we are Americans. Freedom for all. Why is there not a statue of this great man? I think he is worthy! Gerald J. Caliendo is chairman of the King Manor Museum. FOR MORE NEWS VISIT QNS.COM 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 SENIOR ATTACKS SPARK QUESTION OF MORALS The latest incidents involving elderly people being mugged and beaten up by robbers is just outrageous! Eventually, our elderly citizens will be afraid to venture from their residences to go shopping or just to go out for a pleasant walk if they are not already consumed with fear. What is happening to our society today? What are young people being taught by their parents or guardians? Is there no more respect for others? It seems that values and morals in today’s society have gone right out the window like every other sense of decency. That is a very sad state of affairs, one that is likely to not improve at all at the rate this society is going. The people who attacked those innocent senior citizens should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law now! John Amato, Fresh Meadows 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. King worthy Jamaica statue? EDUCATION DEPARTMENT WASTES TAXPAYERS’ MONEY SENIOR ATTACKS SPARK QUESTION OF MORALS IT’S TIME TO DISMISS TEACHERS’ UNION BOSS 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 significant 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 significant 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 significant 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 fill 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. 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 certified 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, finally, 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 significant benefits 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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