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March 18, 2010
NEEDED MINORITIES IN TEACHING
By Profesor Martin Danenberg "El Quijote del GED"
I had planned to talk about the GED, but I pushed it aside, knowing that people who attended the conference in Dowling College could read my comments on ahorre.com. The Center for Minority Teacher Development and Training goals are consistent with my own. Among the goals of this initiative is to increase the current rate of minority graduates receiving a Bachelor's Degree in Education; reduce the dropout rate of minority students; and to educate, train and recruit more minority men into teaching of the lower grades of the public school systems on Long Island and elsewhere. The GED can be a great path to accomplishing this as well. Remember that my partnership with the Sean Bell Foundation is about "Justice, Jobs, and Education" for people.
Continuing its tradition and commitment to educating Long Island teachers, Dowling College is emerging as a national leader in educating minority teachers, placing over fifty teachers nationally.
I plan to ask the Department of Justice for funds to bring my GED initiative to gangs in Brentwood and across the United States.
To be or not to be diversity. That is the question. If a computer program could replace all teachers and school personnel , educating students better than people, we could eliminate the problem of diversity in the schools. As long as we have problems from teachers of all races (as it was revealed by people there), we can only make slight gains in the system. The system, I told the audience , is very imperfect. Whether it is charter school or non-charter school, it will be the same. Students are often to blame, too, as well as the home life. The panelists are invited to participate in an educational conference that I hope to do. They were very educated and articulate, greatly appreciated. The idea hit me in the middle of the conference that we do not need diversity, if we could just educate students. I did not speak about this because it was more important to share with the moderators, panelists, and attendees that what is going on in Brentwood is the key to turning school districts around. The potential for community involvement is incredible as 2,100 people have joined the BRAVE on Facebook. The violence has to stop and new resources can finally be brought into this school district.
One of the highlights of the conference was meeting Roger Tilles, Regent of the State of New York. There is a lot of racism in New York City where I come from, but the Regent spoke about the Long Island's racism. He also told us that schools do not want to be interfered with by the Department of Education and these are failing districts that really do not stand a chance of improving things. I have friends that tell me some black leaders want to keep their people on the plantation and the failure (deliberate) to help children, parents, and community does just that. We spoke about the GED and Regent Tilles told me the GED is important to the Regents and I hope that Regent Tilles will be able to participate in the conference I am planning where he will speak about the GED.
Here is what I was referring to above and this is about forty years of permanent damage to minority communities. I informed Robert Gaffney, the President of Dowling College, that only one out of every hundred people earns a GED, not 55 out of every 100 or 90 out of every hundred. Taking into account that 40 million adults have no diploma and people choose to go into other professions, often better paying and less stressful ones, that is one of the key reasons that we do not have enough minority teachers. Of course Hispanics often have the language barrier. Sure there are racism and discrimination and all the things that were talked about, but the dropout-low GED rate has created a huge gap for minorities, a gap that can even lead to death (GED Gap-LIRR Platform Gap). Think about it. If you feel you can hide your head in the sand, things will only get worse. People in power have acted like the GED problem is only 4 million and not 40 million. Communities like Brentwood, Central Islip, Wyandanch, and Roosevelt suffer from this problem including not enough jobs in the community, poor parent involvement in the schools, and gang members that have dropped out of school teaching elementary school children how to be gang members. Next may be gang members teaching the developing fetus. Can't we call it racism when an African-American does not help a person of color earn his GED? My business card reads "No Person Left Behind" and not No Child Left Behind. Can you see why?
The photo captures a memory of the Melvin Douglass family, Douglass being the name given to the family during slavery. This memorabilia has been passed down to each generation and it serves as a reminder for all that the family has triumphed over an adversity that they had not created for themselves.
MARTIN N. DANENBERG
7 BLAZER DRIVE
ISLANDIA, NEW YORK 11749
631-348-1341
GEDHOTLINE@AOL.COM
New:
www.mygedhotline.com
www.geocities.com/gedhotline
www.ahorre.com/ged
www.ahorre.com
www.aspira.org
MARTIN N. DANENBERG
7 BLAZER DRIVE
ISLANDIA, NEW YORK 11749
631-348-1341
GEDHOTLINE@AOL.COM
New:
www.mygedhotline.com
www.geocities.com/gedhotline
www.ahorre.com/ged
www.ahorre.com
www.aspira.org
Profesor Martin Danenberg March 18, 2010 03:52 PM