FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.couriersun.com MAY 7, 2015 • THE COURIER SUN 23 for breaking news visit www.timesnewsweekly.com MAY 7, 2015 • times 13 oped letters CHEERS FOR BALTIMORE MOM’S PUBLIC STAND Let me applaud super mom in Baltimore Toya Graham for stepping up to the plate, slapping her son Michael and taking him home during the violence in that city. Her 16-year-old son would have been hurt and intended to hurt more Baltimore police officers with rocks. It is times like this that parents need to take the upper hand and put boundaries and curfews for the children. Children and teens stay out of trouble when their parents are involved. As one of our TV stations has said for years, “It’s 10 p.m. Do you know where your children are?” And for Toya Graham, I say kudos for being concerned for your son and doing the right thing. Frederick R. Bedell Jr., Glen Oaks Village JEERS FOR ISLANDERS LEAVING “THE BARN” Congratulations to all Nassau County municipal employees making those six-figure salaries and pensions resulting in Nassau not buying a new arena for the New York Islanders. Instead of bringing your kids to a hockey game, you can bring them to another mall. When kids start losing interest in hockey, who knows what they might do? With those enormous salaries and pensions, you will have plenty of money to bail them out! Frank Blarney, Bayside HE AGREES: TIME TO PAY FOR TRANSIT Your editorial, “Somebody’s got to pay for better Queens transportation” (April 30) makes sense. Federal support for transportation has remained consistent and growing. It has actually increased under virtually every Five-Year Transportation Authorization Act over past decades. When a crises occurred, be it 9/11 in 2001 or Hurricane Sandy in 2012, Uncle Sam stepped up to the plate. Additional billions in federal assistance above and beyond yearly formula allocations were provided. In 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act provided billions more benefiting both NYC and the MTA. Both the city and state consistently decreased hard cash contributions to the MTA by billions under past MTA Five-Year Capital Plans. Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio have not agreed to provide any additional funding to date. Cuomo and the state Legislature could have raised the state gasoline tax by pennies more per gallon to raise additional funding for transportation. Cuomo pledged only $700 million per year. They both failed to provide any additional funding in the new state budget adopted on April 1. Mayor de Blasio has yet to provide any additional funding beyond his $60 million per year pledge within his proposed new $77 billion municipal budget. Will NYC provide additional funding when the new budget is adopted on July 1? Without additional city and state assistance, the MTA will have difficult choices in deciding how to prioritize the expenditures of scarce resources. The result may be deferral of many critical capital improvement projects into the next 2020 — 2024 Five-Year Capital Program. Riders can look forward to additional service delays and more fare increases beyond the next scheduled for 2017. Based upon the original 1951 Master Lease and Operating agreement, it is the City of New York that actually owns the buses and subways. The MTA is managing the system under contract to City Hall without adequate financial support. Larry Penner, Great Neck Standardized state tests are done, but work toward change continues BY STATE SENATOR JOSEPH ADDABBO Students in the third grade and above just finished taking this year’s standardized tests, but the questions our community has for the Common Core testing are far from answered. As a parent of a fifth-grader and someone who visits our schools, I have heard many parents, teachers, administrators and students complain about the recent state tests. Last year, I advocated for and supported a number of changes made to the Common Core testing, which I believe were in direct response to the outcry of many. Changes such as no longer testing children in kindergarten through second grade, not using the tests for actual student grading or promotion, eliminating the distribution of a student’s personal information and releasing some of the questions and tests results were steps in the right direction. For the sake of our children, we need to take additional steps in the right direction. A sure sign that the issue of state tests needs to be addressed is the fact that last year roughly 60,000 parents opted their child out of taking the tests, while this year that number has grown close to 190,000 statewide. While I do support the right of a parent to have their child opt out of taking the state tests for a number of valid reasons, I am also a person who likes to fix things that are broken. I want to fix the broken Common Core standardized state tests and how we evaluate our students and teachers. As a member of the Senate Education Committee, I will promote the need to space the multiple-day tests out over a greater period of time to alleviate some of the stress that students and parents experience. The test questions should better reflect the grade level in which they are given and the ability of the individual child should be considered. I like to have our children have standards and goals, but let’s make sure that they are fair and reasonable. We need the teachers and parents to have more detailed information of previous tests released in a more timely manner in order to better prepare our children for the school year. Until we address the issues surrounding our state tests, no student, teacher or school should be penalized for either the test results or for students not taking the test. Only after major improvements are made to the Common Core testing, we may have to consider changing the name, because the mere mention of “Common Core” causes many emotions to flare. An extremely large number of parents opted their child out of taking the standardized tests this year. To me, that is a strong message that we as a state must realize there is still much more work to be done in revising the implementation of Common Core standards. We must take into account that not only are young minds meant to be molded, but more importantly grow in their own way — we should not focus on cramming information into them and then punishing students and their teachers when these standards are not met. As our legislative session continues in Albany, I invite all of my constituents to make their voices heard. Reach out to any one of my three district offices, or email me at [email protected], and let me know how you think our students and teachers should be evaluated. It is with your insight that I will continue to fight most effectively for our children’s educational well-being. Senator Addabbo represents the 15th Senatorial District, which covers all or parts of Ridgewood, Glendale, Maspeth, Middle Village, Forest Hills, Rego Park, Woodhaven, Ozone Park, Richmond Hill, South Ozone Park, Howard Beach, Broad Channel and the western Rockaways. A LOOK BACK We wonder how many of our readers dined at Niederstein’s Restaurant, a Middle Village fixture that dated back to the mid-1800s. For decades, local residents flocked to the restaurant to enjoy fine German cuisine and celebrate all kinds of family occasions from birthday parties to baptisms, to holidays from New Year’s Day to Thanksgiving. Despite the years of enjoyment and history, the last meal was served at Niederstein’s in 2005, and before long, the sprawling restaurant at the corner of Metropolitan Avenue and 70th Street was redeveloped into a fast-food restaurant and a small shopping center.
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