My Address to the State Assembly

May 28, 2009

Dear Committee:

On behalf of the Parents, Teachers, Staff, and Friends of West 83rd Street Pre School of St. Matthew’s St. Timothy’s Neighborhood Center Inc., we thank you for the opportunity to address you here today. We appreciate your service to our great City and State, and your advocacy for our families and schools. As parents we have always found security in the hope that our children might be able to make a better life for themselves and a better world out of the one we have given them. This hope is and has always been fostered by the liberating power of education. As was so clearly displayed by the recent and historic nomination of New York’s very own, Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court of the United States, education is the great equalizer.

Aside from a parent’s vigilance and love, early childhood education is a time tested and proven means of molding a child, regardless of their background or challenges, into a productive citizen and asset to their community. Therefore, the very fact that testimony is even needed in regards to this abhorrent and disastrous proposal to essentially eliminate services for over 3000 children by the Administration for Children’s Services and cram them into inadequate public schools is rather morbid. Furthermore, the fact, that this dastardly deed is proposed in dark corners without the knowledge of the public testifies to how low down it is. However, we dare not suggest that an issue of this magnitude is merely, black or white. One way or another we are all culpable. From not so honorable elected officials from the Federal, State, and Local levels to apathetic citizens and negligent parents, the Administration for Children’s Services is hardly a lone assailant in this crisis. “He, who is without sin, cast the first stone.[1]” We must all shoulder some accountability in allowing such a thing to even occur.

However, this so called “cost-saving” measure will cost us more than we can possibly imagine, and I don’t just mean the estimated $7 million dollars it will cost taxpayers[2]. The parents who I speak for through this testimony are hardworking citizens, who are doing everything this City and State could possibly ask of them, and in some cases more. Many are not only working full time jobs, but, they are also enrolled in institutions of higher learning to better serve their families and our communities at large. Mothers, like Nowahyah Levi (No-y-yah Le-vee), who graduates today with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and will pursue her Masters. Fathers, like Cristian Nunez, who has completed studies in the field of medicine. To limit their choices, is to limit them as a family, and to limit them as a family is to hinder ourselves as a community. I ask those who are considering this “cost-saving” measure to also consider what it will mean for families whose children require special needs’ care? I ask them to consider how easy it is for such cases to get lost in the already over burdened public school system? Without these vital services, the possibility of their advancement as a family and ours as a community is grim. Have we not yet learned the steep price we as a society pay when we neglect to “love our neighbor, as ourselves?[3]”

For those who sit on the sidelines and assume this is a problem that only concerns the working class or low income families, think again. In a stirring and eye opening article published in New York Magazine (May 24, 2009) entitled: “Five year Olds at the Gate…” we are given, live and in living color a courtside view of a crisis that has reached far beyond the discomforts and oft ignored concerns of working class and low income families: “…the ultimate act of political cowardice…” says Michael Beebe, a hedge funder whose daughter has been wait listed by a school three blocks from their loft. Clara Hemphill, founding editor of Insideschools.org asserts “it’s a crisis of parental confidence in the system… The chancellor’s idea of equality is that middle-class parents should be treated with the same disdain as poor parents.” These parents and many more like them are experiencing the limited and inadequate choices, that working class and low income families have been saddled with for decades. We are all New Yorkers now: black, brown, yellow and white; blue collar, white collar, no collar at all.

Today, we all share in the indignity and blatant betrayal of the public trust. Today our confidence in the system and those whom we have elected to guard it is forever altered. I can assure you, in the upcoming Mayoral election, the elections of 2010 and elections thereafter, We the People will certainly not forget under whose watch our children’s future has been compromised. There is a groundswell of zealous, grassroots, activism that is neither mystified nor intimidated by heavily funded campaigns or their candidates hollow promises. Our eyes are open and our minds are clear; and we know what is at stake for our beloved City.

There’s something quite disturbing when a society elects to honor the bottom line, at the expense of people. Indeed, the “love of money is the root of all kinds of evil![4]” We are cheating ourselves and furthermore, we are fooling ourselves if we find comfort in bailing out criminal bankers and financial institutions, yet, leave the following generation ill equipped to maintain and grow our economy. We are fooling ourselves, if we are more concerned with building prisons and over priced real estate as opposed to state of the art schools that will enable our children to compete in this ever evolving global economy. We are fooling ourselves if we believe that these “cost-saving” measures will only be enacted in New York. If it can happen here, it can happen anywhere.

I urge our distinguished Assembly to stand with us, the citizens of this great City and State. Fight for early childhood education. The children we neglect today, we will surely answer to tomorrow.

CHILDREN FIRST!

Sincerely,
Johnathan L. Iverson
President
Parent Advisory Committee

[1] John 8:7 of the New Testament (Bible)
[2] The Daily News on March 26, 2009 in an article entitled “Kid Cuts Cost Us.”
[3] St. Matthew 22:36-40 Leviticus 19:18 of the Old & New Testament (Bible)
[4] 1st Timothy 6:10 of the New Testament (Bible)

Copyright 2009 Johnathan L. Iverson Baptiste