OPED: by Schools Chancellor Richard A. Carranza Investing in arts education
BRONX TIMES REPORTER, J 12 ANUARY 11-17, 2019 BTR
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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
One of the
good guys
Dear editor,
I almost always agree with
every word that Dr. Vernuccio
says, but I will take a slight exception
to one of his columns.
Yes, most of TV is slanted
against conservative values,
including scripted dramas,
but I do not count NCIS as
one of these. At the end of one
show, when a terrorist type is
taken into custody, one of the
team says that he probably
expects to be mistreated and
dealt with harshly or unfairly.
She says, “Wrong! And do you
know why? Because we are the
good guys.” I loved that there
is still a program that depicts
Americans as what we are:
‘the good guys’.
Anita Mule
Metro North
prediction
Dear editor,
There are more unresolved
fi nancial, staffi ng and operational
issues ‘BP to Amtrak
Get On Board’ (Alex Mitchell
-- December 27) which could
mean that new Metro North
New Haven branch East Bronx
service to Penn Station will
notbegin service until 2024 or
later. Governor Cuomo fi rst
announced this project in January
2014, with a completion
date of 2019 at a cost of $695
million. Several years ago, the
cost grew to $1 billion and today
it is $1.3 billion.
Nobody will know the true
fi nal cost until all construction
contracts are awarded
followed by change orders,
due to changes in scope or unforeseen
site conditions. Can
Amtrak provide suffi cient
Force Account (track employees)
and track outages to support
the construction contractors
schedule? Amtrak force
account employees are committed
to other projects on the
Northeast Corridor. This includes
supporting MTA LIRR
East Side Access to Grand
Central Terminal, Portal
Bridge, Gateway Tunnel, NJ
Transit (Northeast Corridor),
Moynihan Penn Station Train
Hall and East River Tunnels.
How will Amtrak provide a
suffi cient number of employees
to work on these key state
of good repair and system expansion
projects, while at the
same time working for Metro
North Penn Station access?.
There is only $695 million
available in the MTA $32 billion
2015 - 2019 Five Year Capital
Program.How will the
MTA come up with $605 million
more to fully fund the project?
This unfunded balance
will have to compete against
many others for funding in
the next MTA 2020 - 2024 Five
Year Capital Plan. Assume the
next MTA Five Year 2020 - 2024
Capital Program Plan starts
out at $30 billion. First they intend
to program $2.265 billion,
bringing total funding for Second
Avenue Subway Phase 2
up to $4 billion. This is necessary
to leverage $2 billion
in Federal Transit Administration
New Starts dollars to
support a total project cost of
$6 billion.
The backlog of unfunded
NYC Transit safety and state
of good repair bus and subway
projects far exceed $30 billion.
How will the MTA fi nd $19 billion
more on top of $30 billion
toward funding NYC Transit
President Andy Byford’s
proposed ten year $37 billion
plan? He calls it Fast Forward:
The Plan to Modernize NYC
Transit subway and bus system.
Some want billions to accelerate
bringing more of the
471 subway stations into compliance
with the Americans
With Disabilities Act. Others
want billions more to increase
the numbers of new and rehabilitated
subway cars and
buses.
The MTA is unable to consider
running any Metro
Metro North trains from the
Bronx to access Penn Station
until the LIRR begins service
to Grand Central Terminal.
New Metro North service
from the New Haven line must
compete with LIRR, New Jersey
Transit and Amtrak access
to one of four East River
tunnels along with platform
space at Penn Station before
being able to start service in
2024. All three agencies have
plans for increasing the numbers
of rush hour trips to Penn
Station.
This is why any proposed
new services to Penn Station
are unlikely. Amtrak will not
initiate major repairs and
renovations to the East River
Tunnels as a result of major
damages suffered from 2012
Super Storm Sandy, until
2024. It will require one tunnel
being out of service at a
time for twelve to twenty four
months to support this work.
With only three of four tunnels
available, there will be a
reduction in Penn Station access.
To preserve existing service,
some LIRR rush hour
trains will be canceled or combined.
This would eliminate
any possibility of starting new
services, such as Bronx Metro
North Access to Penn Station
until work on all four tunnels
is competed by 2032.
Larry Penner
High-quality arts education
transforms students’ lives. The
skills we learn in the arts apply
well beyond chords and color
palettes, and help so many of
our students succeed in the
classroom and beyond.
My earliest memories are
of my father playing his guitar
surrounded by family in
my hometown of Tucson, Arizona.
By age six, my twin
brother Reuben and I were
playing mariachi with our
family, and we continued to
play as we got older and became
adults. Whether we
were learning new chords or
memorizing songs, music kept
us grounded; it taught us how
to collaborate, and opened
our eyes to our own Mexican-
American culture and history,
as well as that of people across
the world. I was also lucky
that, in the public schools I
attended, I had access to arts
education that refl ected my
cultural background and also
allowed me the opportunity
to play saxophone in the band
while opening so many doors
for me.
Years later, I returned to
my old high school as a social
studies teacher and saw
that the arts programs I treasured
had been decimated.
Kids didn’t want anything to
do with the orchestra or the
chorus. But, they loved mariachi
and Vicente Fernandez.
On the weekends, they would
hear me perform mariachi in
the neighborhood, and they
began to ask me, “Mr. Carranza,
can we do that?”
We started a small guitar
club of 11 students in my social
studies classroom, and as the
program grew we required that
students also participate in
the band, the orchestra, or the
choir – so they were exposed to
different musical genres and
grew as musicians.
When I left the classroom
ten years later, our mariachi
program had grown to 300 students,
and the band and the orchestra
were bursting at the
seams, populated by students
who saw themselves in the
curriculum. We captured who
these students were and what
they desired. Now, the students
who loved Vicente Fernandez,
also wanted to learn
about Beethoven and Mozart.
This is the power of culturally
responsive arts education—
it opens students’ eyes
to culture and history while
allowing them to be themselves
and see themselves.
It advances equity now. Our
school leaders know this, and
I’m proud that, in December,
we announced a record investment
in arts education and
a record number of full-time
arts teachers in New York
City. We also announced that
nearly 1,500 schools – every
single one that participated
in our Arts in Schools survey
– report working with one of
New York City’s cultural organizations
to offer our students
a mosaic of cultural experiences.
Our students are learning
ballroom dance and spoken
word poetry; Afro-Latin
Jazz and calligraphy; August
Wilson’s plays and Indian
classical dance.
Mayor Bill de Blasio and I
know a rich foundation in the
arts is an integral part of a
well-rounded education, and
we will keep investing in highquality
arts education for all
students, in every neighborhood
and every borough.
Across the City, we are delivering
arts education that is
rigorous, inclusive, refl ective
of the diversity of New York
City, and that brings joy to our
classrooms and schools.
I look forward to working
with you as we build on our
progress. Together, we can
expand arts offerings in our
schools even further; we can
engage new community and
cultural partners, including
parents and families; and we
can help every student fi nd
themselves in the arts.
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