At the CUNY Grad Center (photo via @GC_CUNY)
Roused from the self-imposed seclusion of doctoral dissertation data entry, I was awakened by attention to the recently-proposed drastic budget reduction to our nation's largest urban university system – the City University of New York (CUNY). These are cuts that simply cannot be allowed to go through and this is an issue that affects all of New York, not just the faculty, students, and staff of CUNY.
Public funding for higher education in New York City is the lifeline for many, offering a college education that is accessible, affordable, and high quality. The pending state budget, proposed by Governor Cuomo, includes a $485 million cut from the CUNY operating budget. Such a cut is a direct threat to CUNY, where so many who would not otherwise have access public higher education can actually afford to attend.
We must ensure that CUNY stays affordable.
CUNY's mission since 1847 has been "to provide education to the children of the whole people of New York City." Given financial facts and persistent economic inequality, not everyone can afford one of the highly-ranked private institutions located throughout our city. CUNY provides a high-quality education for a fraction of the cost.
I've been a nurse for 27 years and have two bachelor's and two master's degrees, all from private institutions. A doctoral degree was the next logical step. I chose to come to the Nursing Science Program at The CUNY Graduate Center to pursue my PhD after exploring my options in the tristate area. The Graduate Center is the hub for PhD and Masters programs at CUNY. The very reasonable price of tuition was attractive, but after looking at the options available in the city, what appealed to me most was the expertise and experience of the nursing faculty in the program.
While my story is not indicative of the large majority of CUNY students, it is not unique for the reasons that I chose CUNY and the positives of my experience there.
Composed of scholars and researchers from the three senior CUNY colleges with nursing programs (Hunter, Lehman, and the College of Staten Island), I was enticed, then offered the opportunity to matriculate and to be able to learn, develop, and grow with them. Now in my fourth and hopefully final year with my dissertation nearly done, I regularly reflect on the quality of the program. Never more so than when I see that CUNY funding is in jeopardy.
I have gained so much, not just in perspective, but in the opportunities to have independent thought and pursue deeper expertise. This ability to explore and develop independent scholarly thought is so important, and a unique attribute of the CUNY experience - one different from other local doctoral nursing programs.
The past four years have been a wonderful experience here at the Graduate Center in the PhD in Nursing Science Program, a personal evolution into the world of nursing scholarship, research, and academia.
Cutting funding to the CUNY system and the Graduate Center would be a tragedy of epic proportions for the educational possibilities of future nurses and those who would become nursing faculty so desperately needed, especially in the 12 CUNY nursing programs in our five boroughs.
We can't allow Governor Cuomo and state legislators to eviscerate quality, affordable educational programs throughout CUNY, especially at the Graduate Center I call home. All New Yorkers must let them know that New York City needs the CUNY higher education programs; a $485 million cut in the budget is a direct threat to affordable and accessible higher education for the "children of the whole people."
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by Randy E. Gross MS, RN, NP, CNS, WHNP-BC, ACNS-BC, AOCNP®, AOCNS®
Nurse Practitioner & Clinical Nurse Specialist
Doctoral Candidate – PhD in Nursing Science Program, CUNY Graduate Center
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Student debaters (photo: @NYCschools)
Last week, 5,000 eighth graders got the exciting news that they were offered admission to one of the city's eight test-in Specialized High Schools, which offer a quality public school education unmatched in the country. But while the vast majority come from poor, working class and immigrant families, as has always been the case, once again far too few come from the black and Latino communities.
Black and Latino students comprise a large majority in the city's public school system and should be better represented among those offered admission to its top high schools. Unfortunately, this year about 500 fewer black and Latino students sat for the test compared to last year, and the percentage of these students offered admission declined as well.
The school system, like the city it serves, is heavily segregated, but this lack of racial and ethnic diversity in our test-in schools is unacceptable for many reasons. Still, doing away with the test as the sole criteria for deciding admission and switching to inherently subjective multiple criteria would do little to ameliorate the imbalance and could make it worse according to last year's study by NYU's Institute for Education and Social Policy.
The city must instead invest the resources – both financial and intellectual – and take proactive steps on both a long-term and an immediate basis in order to diversify admissions to our best schools.
A program of enriched educational opportunity must be instituted in every neighborhood to permit all children to have a fair chance of success on the test and in life. Gifted and Talented Programs must exist in every district. Enriched education, especially in math and English language courses, must be available in every middle school in the city. When 53 percent of the students at test-in schools come from only 15 percent of middle schools, the fundamental answer to the problem of underrepresentation is clear.
Immediate actions must be taken to increase the numbers of students from underrepresented communities sitting for the test. And, increased attention must be paid to better preparing underrepresented students to do well enough on the test to gain admission. There is no fixed passing grade on the test. "Passing" is simply a function of scoring high enough to rank among the 5,000 highest scoring students to qualify for admission to one of the schools.
The Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation, which I head, with the support of National Grid, has worked with Brooklyn Tech to run an innovative pilot STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) Pipeline program for the past three years that reaches out to underrepresented middle schools, identifies children of promise and provides them with accelerated coursework and test prep. The program starts with rising seventh graders and offers them an intensive two year experience with classes during the summers and on Saturdays during the school year.
We have had good success during the first two years that students in the program have sat for the test. This year, students received offers from Brooklyn Tech, Stuyvesant, and Brooklyn Latin, all specialized schools. Half of last year's students in the program – and nearly two-thirds this year – offered admission to Tech are black or Latino.
We are encouraged by the support for diversity at specialized high schools shown by Albany legislators in both chambers who are proposing dedicating funds to create similar pipeline programs in every test-in school. This would cost less than $1.3 million a year, or $2.5 million over two years, and enable all eight specialized high schools to run outreach and test preparation programs in underrepresented middle schools throughout the city.
While Mayor de Blasio is committed to combatting educational and economic inequality, it is still the case that a child's chances of educational success are closely correlated to where he or she grows up. Because test-in schools should serve students from every neighborhood, there is a special obligation to give all promising students tools to succeed.
The answer is not to do away with an admissions test, but to make that promise of social equality real by committing resources and intellectual firepower so that every academically promising child, regardless of their neighborhood, has a fair chance of succeeding on the test, and beyond.
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Larry Cary is president of the Brooklyn Tech Alumni Foundation.
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Steven Choi, the author (photo via NYC DOE)
New York prides itself on being a gateway of opportunity, a place where people from across the world come to build their businesses, send their children to school, and provide for their families. With more than four million immigrants in New York, these newcomers make tremendous, vital economic, social, and cultural contributions to the Empire State.
And yet there is an enormous amount that our state - led by our elected officials - can do to support our newest New Yorkers move up the economic ladder. That’s why on Thursday, March 10, the New York Immigration Coalition is holding a statewide advocacy day, all the way from Buffalo to Brentwood, to commit to NYIC’s 2016 “Immigrant Blueprint for New York” – the framework for a comprehensive, long-term plan for the state to improve outcomes for immigrant communities and help be a national leader in immigration.
On Thursday, we'll meet with 38 legislators across New York - in Buffalo, Rochester, the Hudson Valley, New York City, and Long Island - to emphasize the needs of their communities.
Our “Blueprint” includes five major pillars for how to achieve immigrant prosperity:
Strengthen integration efforts for New Americans by providing adult education programming for immigrants that need them, and ensuring that limited-English-proficient speakers are able to access government services;
Address the persistent achievement gap for immigrant students and English Language Learners by ensuring tuition equity on the college level, creating multiple pathways to a high school diploma, reducing the required number of Regents exams, and investing in career and technical education;
Provide access to healthcare for immigrants who are excluded from coverage by federal law, and improving access, coverage, and care for immigrants who are eligible to participate in New York’s health exchange;
Advance immigrant justice and uphold due process through ensuring access to affordable and reliable legal services, as well as limiting intrusive and unlawful collaboration between local and state law enforcement and immigration officials to improve trust between communities and law enforcement;
Protect workers’ rights for New York’s most vulnerable, including farmworkers and other low-wage workers exploited by unscrupulous employers, and by meeting basic needs such as including access to driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants who play critical roles in our economy yet lack tremendous barriers around transportation access.
These strategic steps are not pie-in-the-sky. They are concrete and achievable, and will do wonders for New York’s economic growth - catapulting New York even further as a leader in successful immigrant integration. This March 10, our message is simple: By supporting immigrant communities, we are investing in New York - and we call on our elected officials to use this blueprint to make sure we secure New York’s present and future as the greatest state in the union.
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Steven Choi is the executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition. On Twitter @SteveChoiNYIC & @thenyic.
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