WWW.QNS.COM RIDGEWOOD TIMES MAY 2, 2019 13
OP-ED LETTERS AND COMMENTS
ANNOYED OVER
BAG BANS & TAXES
I use plastic shopping bags to
dispose of my trash. So now I’ll have
to buy plastic trash bags. As a result,
no plastic will leave the trash stream.
This fee is a tax and yet another way
the government is working against
the people!
QNS member Donald Aridas
PAPER BAG TAX
SQUEEZES CITY
It is really getting out of hand.
This city gives tax breaks to every
corporation and rich foreigner but
makes the poorest citizens pay extra
for everything.
QNS member Gina Santosas
OH GET OVER IT
ALREADY!
It is really not that complicated folks.
Bring reusable bags to the store. There
was a time when we lived without these
bags. The world continued to go round.
I am sick of seeing these things all over
the city, stuck in trees and bushes. Get
over it.
QNS member wansor
AN ASSAULT ON
DRIVERS
Congestion pricing is just another
assault on drivers being squeezed
between bicycles and transit riders.
They will do nothing for congestion
but to fi x a corrupt MTA, which will
probably take 100 years to make the
system accessible enough for the
disabled to use.
QNS member AL
HIS MIND’S
ALREADY MADE UP
Jimmy Van Bramer doesn’t refl ect
my values. He helped chase 25,000
jobs out of Queens that Amazon might
have created. A politician is supposed
to create jobs, not chase them away. I
will not vote for him to be our next
Queens borough president.
QNS member Larry Malchie
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Tests reveal education gap
BY RUBEN DIAZ JR.
The destruction of our city’s
gifted and talented programs,
especially in black and brown
communities, is one of the main
reasons we see a lack of diversity
in our specialized high schools.
A high quality education for our
accelerated learners must be
available at the earliest ages.
The most recently announced
results of the Specialized High
School Admissions Test (SHSAT)
put the crisis our city’s public
education system faces into
clear focus.
Of the almost 4,800 students
admitted to the city’s eight
specialized public high schools this
year, just 506 are Black or Latino,
down slightly from last year. This
inequity is unacceptable.
Numerous options have been
proposed to lessen this shameful
gap and move more public school
students in every community
from middle school to Stuyvesant,
Bronx Science, Brooklyn Tech and
their counterparts.
A true fix to the problems
facing our high schools must
begin in the earliest grades. This
city must recommit to a robust
gifted and talented program in
every community, and reverse the
eradication of these programs that
began under Mayor Bloomberg and
continues unabated during the de
Blasio administration.
The most recent results of the
SHSAT found that Black and Latino
students continue to lose ground
when it comes to specialized high
school admissions.
Slightly less than 11 percent of
all seats at the eight specialized
high schools were offered to
Black or Latino students this year,
despite those two groups making
up roughly 70 percent of all public
school students.
We can easily draw a direct
correlation between these numbers
and the populations of the city’s
86 gifted and talented programs,
which provide students with
accelerated learning options at the
earliest ages.
Of the 15,979 children in those
programs, just 21 percent are
black or Latino. In many minority
communities, such programs do
not even exist.
Our children can do this work.
Black and Latino students are just as
capable as anyone else. Their talent
must be nurtured at a young age.
The DOE must ensure that every
single student has access to gifted
education as early as kindergarten,
SNAPS
SUNSET IN ASTORIA
PHOTO VIA INSTAGRAM @agoodastoriagirl
Send us your photos of Queens
regardless of where they live.
Every student should be required
to sit for the test, as well. If more
students take the test more students
will qualify for the programs, and
the DOE will be unable to ignore
these numbers.
Opportunities for gifted and
talented education have been sorely
lacking in many underserved
communities, despite rhetoric
about desegregating our school
system and the clear evidence that
such programs are a pathway to
specialized high school admissions
and academic success.
If we are going to close the
achievement gap and make our
specialized high schools more
representative of the city, we
must nurture gifted minority
students at the earliest ages and
provide them with the accelerated
learning options they deserve
in the neighborhoods in which
they live.
Mayor de Blasio can make
changes immediately to provide all
students with equity at the earliest
grades.
Ruben Diaz Jr. is the Bronx
borough president.
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