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May 23, 2006
NYC Black Caucus GED Roundtable
Congressman Rangel and I had a brief discussion about doing a new GED Roundtable and his response was “let’s do it.” I expect to bring together the Congressional, State, and City Council Black, Hispanic, and Asian Caucus members to discuss the GED and how it can help reduce poverty in Latino, African American, and other communities. The GED is the cement of any educational plan for the poor. But the educational revolution that will take place must include English language acquisition and literacy for Hispanics, too, in Spanish. Most of the speakers, including Councilman Robert Jackson, Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, and Congressman Charlie Rangel told the audience that education is the best answer for poverty.
Many people were talking about parental involvement and I informed them that parental involvement to me means that forty-three percent of Hispanic adults have no GED and are not setting an example for their children. So we have to mobilize those parents to get the GED and then you will see parental involvement that you have never seen before. The City Council has the plan that is needed to help people now.
I was invited by a new, great friend of the GED, City Councilwoman Annabel Palma (and her assistant Domingo Flores). The councilwoman and I will be heading the campaign to double the number of GED’s in her district and around New York City. Her leadership is greatly appreciated at this moment by knowledgeable people who are finding out that the high school graduation, which has not been good, has been falling dramatically and that New York State has been at or below the national average, making New Yorkers less competitive nationally.
I told the panelists and members of the audience in the voter registration room that my beloved grandmother who arrived in the United States in 1911 and who died in 1978 was never a United States citizen. She loved America and never voted, but if we had had the opportunity to vote in support of giving voting rights to legal residents of course we would have backed up my grandmother’s right to vote. I also call upon all Jews and others to back up voting rights for disenfranchised peoples.
I introduced myself to Nydia Velazquez. She knows I did a GED Roundtable in the Congress of the United States and her office sent a staff member to that event.
Councilman Liu agreed to cooperate in bringing about a Chinese GED Roundtable for that large immigrant community.
Congressman Rangel (a GED graduate) and I spoke briefly about a new tax plan. I revealed this plan at the LCLAA Conference in San Juan Puerto Rico last year. Instead of giving huge tax cuts to the rich, and Congresswoman Velazquez said we are giving $100 to the poor and $40,000 to the rich, I propose that we take back the tax cuts from the rich and give the tax break to all of us, but the monies should be invested and not spent (like monies in IRA’a and 401 K’s). The basis for giving tax benefits to the rich is that they invest the money in the economy. We can do the same thing with our tax dollars and make our nest egg for retirement greater, enhancing our social security.
Councilman Charles Barron found out that I am an alumnus of 711 FDR Drive, apartment 2E. He lived in the next building in that New York City Housing project. So we were neighbors.
I told others about my all Latino GED Roundtable with Aspira of New York and that I am planning GED Roundtables for Pastors in each borough. There was a general consensus of great interest. There are seven million Hispanic adults out of sixteen million who have no GED. Latin America has never had the GED in Spanish and this has held millions of people back. Recent statistics show that the number of young people between the ages of 18 and 25 who have no diploma have doubled in about eight years. Smaller class size, better instruction, and a revolutionary program for GED for adults must go together now. City, state, and national government must do something great now. It appears that African Americans in New York State do not take the GED in great enough numbers.
The GED in the hands of parents now will give them access to better jobs, access to institutions of higher education and technology programs, and provide them more income to save, afford rents or home ownership, start a small business later on, and save for their future and inspire their children to aspire to greater success. Many members of the New York City Black, Latino, and Asian Caucus of the City Council now have my plan to mobilize communities to reduce poverty through the GED. The rest of the members may get that plan from me or from their colleagues.
It was wonderful to see former Mayor David Dinkens, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, so many members of the City Council, and Patrick Jenkins of the staff of gubernatorial candidate Eliot Spitzer there.
MARTIN N. DANENBERG
7 BLAZER DRIVE
ISLANDIA, NY 11749
GEDHOTLINE@AOL.COM
631-348-1341
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Ahorre May 23, 2006 07:29 AM | Noticias | GED Math