36 THE QUEENS COURIER • KIDS & EDUCATION • FEBRUARY 27, 2020 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
kids & education
Queens lawmaker fi ghts to increase Adult Literacy
Education program funding in 2020 state budgetv
BY CARLOTTA MOHAMED
cmohamed@schnepsmedia.com
State Assemblyman Ron Kim and community
leaders in Flushing are calling
for increased funding for Adult Literacy
Education (ALE) programs in New York.
Adult Literacy Education programs in
New York are essential services that teach
adults the reading, writing and communication
skills needed to fi nd employment,
continue their education and engage with
their children and families.
On Th ursday, Feb. 20, Kim visited one
of the very few ALE programs at the
Chinese-American Planning Council
(CPC) with representatives from Senator
Jessica Ramos’s offi ce and Lena Cohen
from United Neighborhood Houses.
Assemblyman Kim and his daughter
meet with newly enrolled students in a
ALE course at CPC.
Kim has pushed to increase New York
State ALE funding for much of his time in
the state Legislature, where he has partnered
frequently with colleagues such
as Assembly members Patricia Fahy and
Yuh-Line Niou to spearhead the issue.
“Th ere are countless New Yorkers who
are ready and willing to improve their language
profi ciency and develop the communication
skills and literacy they need to
start a career, better provide for their families
and thrive in our city and state,” Kim
said. “Th ere is a huge gap in unmet public
need for these services, and I believe fully
funding that gap as an essential community
investment would pay off many times
over in terms of a net positive fi scal, economic
and social impact.”
Organizations such as United
Neighborhood Houses and the CPC have
sought to address this defi ciency by urging
the inclusion of $25 million for ALE
in the annual state budget. It’s a modest
investment within the overall New York
state budget, which exceeded $170 billion
in the most recent fi scal year, that they say
would bring outsize returns from a better
educated, empowered and far more
engaged workforce.
Lilian Kong, a student enrolled in an
ALE course with CPC, speaks on her
experiences with the program.
Th ere is a waitlist of more than 50,000
eligible adults for these services, according
to the CPC.
“English language courses support New
Yorkers’ ability to fully partake in the economic,
social and civic aspects of our
society, but there is not nearly enough
funding to meet demand,” said Cohen, a
policy analyst at United Neighborhood
Houses. “Right now, settlement houses
and other adult literacy providers can
only off er courses to 3 percent of the New
Yorkers who need them. We are grateful
that Assembly member Kim understands
this dire funding gap and hope
that his colleagues in the state Legislature
will come together to invest $25 million in
adult literacy programs this year.”
According to Wayne Ho, president and
CEO of the CPC, ALE programs are a critical
starting point for Asian American an
Pacifi c Islander immigrants to New York,
over 80 percent of whom are Limited
English Profi cient.
“Th ey create access to better jobs, economic
security, civic participation and
the ability to navigate our institutions and
daily life. For the more than 50,000 people
on the ALE waiting list, they are being
denied that chance. We’re grateful to state
Senator Ramos and Assembly member
Kim for their leadership on this urgent
issue,” Ho said.
Kim said he has consistently pushed his
colleagues, State Assemblyman Speaker
Carl Heastie, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo to
fully fund the programs, which is currently
only funded at $7.8 million.
Kim noted that he and his colleagues
had been successful in preserving and
increasing partial funding for several
years, but were dismayed by consistent
attempts to cut funding for ALE programs
by parties such as the governor’s offi ce at
each new legislative session.
“My colleagues and I are sometimes
frustrated by the inability of some other
elected offi cials to see the vital importance
of this issue, but we will continue to fi ght
our hardest to secure full funding for ALE
in New York,” Kim said.
Opportunities for tech education in Queens are slim: Report
BY JACOB KAYE
jkaye@schnepsmedia.com
@QNS
Queens lags far behind Manhattan and
Brooklyn when it comes to off ering tech
training and education programs, according
to a new report from Tech:NYC and the
Center for an Urban Future.
Th e new report shows the stark diff erence
in tech education opportunities provided
to New Yorkers across the city. While
opportunities to break into and train for the
tech sector in Manhattan are fairly robust,
they’re slim everywhere else in the city, the
report found.
“Th e tech sector has become an increasingly
important source of middle-class jobs,
but too few of these good jobs have been
going to Queens residents,” said Jonathan
Bowles, the executive director of the Center
for an Urban Future. “We can change this,
but it will require ensuring that a lot more of
the borough’s residents have access to
high-quality tech training and education
programs.”
Th ese programs include coding
camps, robotics classes for children
and teens, workforce training programs
in IT support and bootcamps
focused on soft ware
engineering or data science.
“There aren’t
enough of these
programs citywide, but
the options are particularly limited
in Queens,” Bowles said.
Queens is home to just under 10 percent
of the city’s K-12 tech education programs
and 20 percent of the city’s adult tech training
programs. Almost 48 percent of all K-12
tech education programs are in Manhattan,
and Brooklyn is home to about 32 percent of
programs citywide. Like Queens, the Bronx
and Staten Island have less than 10 percent
of the city’s K-12 tech
education programs.
But even in
Queens, some
neighborhoods are
better off than others.
Programs for tech
education for kids are
nonexistent in a handful
of Queens neighborhoods,
according to the
Center for an Urban Future.
Th e report — which is the
f i r s t to offi cially count all tech education
programs in the city, according to
its authors — indicates that there are currently
no K-12 tech education programs in
Jackson Heights, North Corona, Bayside,
Douglaston, Little Neck, Flushing, Murray
Hill, Whitestone, Howard Beach or Ozone
Park.
Th ere’s just one K-12 tech education
program between Jamaica, Hollis and St.
Albans.
While Queens fares slightly better in its
off erings of adult tech education programs
when compared with the rest of the city
— about 20 percent of the city’s adult programs
are in the borough — several neighborhoods,
including Ridgewood, Glendale,
Middle Village, Howard Beach and Ozone
Park, have none.
Ultimately, the report warns that this data
shows major gaps in programing across the
city and challenges that limit the eff ectiveness
of eff orts made to diversify the tech
workforce and develop a local pipeline of talent
for tech companies based in New York.
Th e Center for an Urban Future suggests
policy makers and civic leaders should begin
to make investments in diversifying the
opportunities off ered to people across the
city, but in particular, to low- to middle-income
New Yorkers.
Lilian Kong, a student enrolled in an ALE course with CPC, speaks on her experiences with the
program.
Assemblyman Kim and his daughter meet with
newly enrolled students in a ALE course at CPC.
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