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I'd never expect anybody to clean those areas up, especially not in four years. You're correct, Bloomberg didn't do it in 12 - though violent crime in most, if not all, of those locales is in fact lower (often significantly so) than it was in 2001 (not to mention vs. 1991.)
My concern is that Mr. de Blasio will make the situation worse in those blighted parts of the City. Like him or hate him, Bloomberg's massive wealth meant that he was beholden to no interests, and he never minced words when it came to public safety. To the contrary, just about everything I've heard come out of Bill de Blasio's mouth regarding public safety makes him seem like he's more interested in keeping race-baiting shrills like Al Sharpton quiet than exploring, pragmatically, effective police strategies to improve our record-low levels of violent crime. We all must have heard Mr. de Blasio mention the evils of "stop and frisk" 20,000 times during the campaign, but I'm not sure if I ever even once heard him refer to the raging epidemic of young black men killing other young black men over trivial nonsense in communities such as Brownsville. To me that strongly signaled that his priorities are quite out of place, which is why he didn't get my vote.
I again hope I'll be proven wrong - and I will say that his appointment of Bill Bratton was a highly encouraging, positive step in the right direction.
Bloomberg's massive wealth did not mean he wasn't beholden to special interests. Even if they couldn't get through to Bloomberg himself, there was still the city council, the state legislature, the governor, and the state courts, all of whom at times blocked Bloomberg's agendas. So in the end, he did indeed have to get interests on board in order to get things done.
As for referring to the epidemic of Black men killing each other in ghettoes, how the hell is referring to it going to stop it? One reason why crime went down in those areas is the ending of the crack cocaine era. Crime went down nationally, regardless of whether cities had Republican or Democratic mayors.
Back to de Blasio, though I think he oversold what he could do for the poor, the man is intelligent and not stupid. Rant and rave about Black on Black Crime and he wouldn't have gotten the votes of the poor, Blacks, and Hispanics. The demographics in the city favored him (that's why he used stop and frisk) and so he took advantage like any politician.
Joe Lhota, who might have said more about the crime in places like Brownsville lost the election, didn't he? That was a rejection of Bloomberg. De Blasio captured the anti Bloomberg vote, which also defeated Quinn.
Thanks to Bloomberg overturning city laws in order to get a third time, there was a political backlash against Republicans and against the wealthy. What's done is done, and now de Blasio is the major and everyone has to live with the consequences.
trying to get the LL or super to fix them is like pulling teeth.
Most people in other cities don't experience this.
That's because other cities DON'T have stupid and unfair rent control laws that forces LLs to be cheap because they have a hand full of tenants that pay significantly below market rents. After all, it only makes sense to charge market prices when the LL is paying market price expenses. Yet the NYC RS/RC law does not allow LLs to do so. So in exchange for receiving low rents, LLs opt to cut back on service, maintenance and upkeep in order to help offset the below market rents they collect.
For every action there is a reaction.
Solution: End Rent Stabilization and have everyone pay FAIR market price for their apartment.
You know who are the hypocrites. HIGHLY educated conservative white people who engage THEIR kids in "educational" games and other activities instead of plopping them in some basement to watch TV while they are at work. Oh yes the minute that their kids start kindergarten they have an appreciation for words and numbers and might even have some minimal literacy and numeracy. And their brains haven't been dulled by hours of TV.
And then these people have the audacity to claim that pre K does nothing, merely because we are talking about poor people's kids. You will have to pay for it one way of the other. You either pay for pre K or you pay for jails. Pre K is cheaper.
The issue that one can argue about pre K is that if it is not provided in conjunction with appropriate primary and middle school education it serves little use. But it is a known fact that when the much maligned Head Start kids walk through the door they are ahead of the others who are being exposed to books for the first time.
This is about attempting to break a cycle of poverty and the best way to do so is to improve educational performance of kids from poor families, especially if these families are dysfunctional.
Pre K among highly educated whites is prevalent in the cities and only because these families are themselves busy with both parents holding jobs or it is being used as an advantage to get into highly selective private schools/G&T programs.
In the affluent suburbs where there are even more educated whites, it is less the case and families just send their kids straight to K. Once you strip away the near term competition pressures, these kids who live in more stable family environments don't really need it to get up the learning curve by the time they hit K.
All else equal rubygreta is correct. You don't typically need pre K to impart education. This assumes of course that kids are attended by responsible caregivers like a stay at home parent, relative or nanny/au pair before they start school, as is the case with educated suburban families.
I predict disaster. Love him or hate him, Bloomberg was beholden to no one. He used his time in office to experiment with interesting urban ideas. Think all those urban parklets and bike lanes that the greenies love so much would have sprouted up under Dinkins? There would have been no money in the budget for such a thing. De Blasio is a part of that same NYC progressive machines that promises "progressive" results, but merely shovels money into the unions. At the end of the De Blasio term, we will have more public housing (but not for the middle class), a decaying infrastructure, and more public employee administrators retiring at 55 with fat pensions paid for by the rest of us. That is ALWAYS what happens when you vote for the progressive NYC machine. It has been that way all the way back to Tammany Hall. How soon we forget our history!
Sorry, but Bloomberg was a shill for the Wall Street and big business crowd. His only purpose in becoming mayor was to attempt to destroy the teacher's union so that his cronies could privatize schools and dip their greedy pig fingers into the tax pool.
Urban parklets and bike lanes were a Manhattan thing, the rest of the boroughs couldn't care less. We were too busy dealing with the astounding neglect that the midget mayor sent our way. By the way, YOU don't pay for pensions, WE contribute and the money is invested. The contributions by the city have to increase when Wall Street screws the entire country over and destroys the economy. You pay for private pensions, benefits, dividends and CEO parachute packages every time you spend your money to buy something by paying higher than necessary prices.
If you don't like the city contributing to pensions, which the workers subsidize with their own contributions, perhaps you would prefer that municipal salaries were raised to private salary levels which would probably bankrupt the city in a couple of years. Pensions were designed as deferred compensation for accepting lower salaries and allowing investing to help defray future costs. Again, Wall Street screwed that up big time.
We do not need pre K to educate kids but everybody knows that BDB PK is NOT about education. It's a dole out to the working poor by effectively giving them free daycare. DB knows it.
In fairness NYCers and businesses brought it upon themselves by harboring cheap workers for so many years that they must do whatever it takes to keep them in the city.
Actually, there is some evidence that pre-k is helpful since vocabulary skills are pretty much set within the first 5 years of life.
Quote:
Originally Posted by caribny
You know who are the hypocrites. HIGHLY educated conservative white people who engage THEIR kids in "educational" games and other activities instead of plopping them in some basement to watch TV while they are at work. Oh yes the minute that their kids start kindergarten they have an appreciation for words and numbers and might even have some minimal literacy and numeracy. And their brains haven't been dulled by hours of TV.
And then these people have the audacity to claim that pre K does nothing, merely because we are talking about poor people's kids. You will have to pay for it one way of the other. You either pay for pre K or you pay for jails. Pre K is cheaper.
The issue that one can argue about pre K is that if it is not provided in conjunction with appropriate primary and middle school education it serves little use. But it is a known fact that when the much maligned Head Start kids walk through the door they are ahead of the others who are being exposed to books for the first time.
This is about attempting to break a cycle of poverty and the best way to do so is to improve educational performance of kids from poor families, especially if these families are dysfunctional.
Have to disagree here. As a teacher who has worked with both low income and upper middle class kids, the richer kids have more access to distracting technology. They also have more access to two parent homes, less negative distractions like poverty and hunger, and more positive reinforcement.
There are, of course exceptions: poor kids who are very successful due to excellent parenting and rich kids with great opportunities who are spoiled and lazy.
What is not PC to admit is that parenting is the major force behind academic success. So we make up excuses.
Actually, there is some evidence that pre-k is helpful since vocabulary skills are pretty much set within the first 5 years of life.
Yes PK is helpful but the question is to whom and for what purpose. Will the kid who starts at K in Roaring Brook Elementary School fail at grade level because he or she did not attend pre K?
Yes PK is helpful but the question is to whom and for what purpose. Will the kid who starts at K in Roaring Brook Elementary School fail at grade level because he or she did not attend pre K?
I can tell you this from 25+ years of teaching middle school: NOTHING promotes academic success more than involved parents (not helicopter parents who make excuses for their children, but involved parents who teach their children to value education and knowledge). Attending Pre K will most definitely NOT guarantee later success if the support and parenting doesn't continue.
I understand De Blasio's intentions in promoting Pre K BUT he must also acknowledge that this is not a universal solution AND he must undo the damage that Bloomberg's regime did to schools.
Bottom line is that NO politician will sacrifice their political career to speak the truth about the importance of parenting above all other factors in a child's education. I assume his hope is that Pre K will set a stronger base for those children who will not have the other many advantages later in their schooling career and give them a better foundation.
Do I believe this will make a massive difference? Sadly, no. It would probably be more helpful to lower costs of living and raise income so that more homes could have a stay at home parent but we all know that is a pipe dream.
Do I believe this will make a massive difference? Sadly, no. It would probably be more helpful to lower costs of living and raise income so that more homes could have a stay at home parent but we all know that is a pipe dream.
This is assuming its not a single parent household, of which there are many in the city. There's limits to what the government can do, or should do.
And there were government attempts to lower the cost of living for low income people. They were housing projects. See how well that turned out?
Pre K among highly educated whites is prevalent in the cities and only because these families are themselves busy with both parents holding jobs or it is being used as an advantage to get into highly selective private schools/G&T programs.
In the affluent suburbs where there are even more educated whites, it is less the case and families just send their kids straight to K. Once you strip away the near term competition pressures, these kids who live in more stable family environments don't really need it to get up the learning curve by the time they hit K.
All else equal rubygreta is correct. You don't typically need pre K to impart education. This assumes of course that kids are attended by responsible caregivers like a stay at home parent, relative or nanny/au pair before they start school, as is the case with educated suburban families.
The reason why pre K is less used in the suburbs is that mothers, usually reasonably educated, do for their kids, what those mothers who must work, or lack the skills, cannot do, so need help.
Kids need to be in an intellectual stimulating environment to develop their cognitive and other skills. Working mothers, forced to leave their kids with untrained baby sitters, pay the price when they kids lac the skills to hit the ground running, once they start formal education. There is an explosion of kids with poor speech because many spend all day watching TV and not being engaged in conversation with an adult.
The issue is that with people like you and thing about the poor sends you to bash them. I guess you prefer that their kids remain dumb, drop out of school, and then ruin your neighborhood with their behavior. The poor aren't leaving NYC and the day that you begin to understand that the better. So you can toss your Angry White Man attitude aside.
Your friend ruby has cognitive impairments. She says that before she started school they used to have a her singing songs, painting etc. Its amazing the skills that a kid develops when he paints something, and then describes what he painted and why. That is all pre K is supposed to be. To provide experiences that kids from poor and/or families with working parents, cannot otherwise get. No we aren't suggesting that they solve calculus problems before they turn 4.
If I am skeptical about anything its about the after school programs. If all they do is have kids playing basketball then I don't see what sense it makes. They can do that without taxpayer funds being spent. I look forward to more details on this, but I doubt I will because I think that de Blasio is bigger on rhetoric than he is on details. Maybe Chirlane will help him with that.
I can tell you this from 25+ years of teaching middle school: NOTHING promotes academic success more than involved parents (not helicopter parents who make excuses for their children, but involved parents who teach their children to value education and knowledge). Attending Pre K will most definitely NOT guarantee later success if the support and parenting doesn't continue.
I .
Did you ever think that proper implementation of Pre K will demand parental involvement and the development of parenting skills when needed? It might be better for you to insist on this than to suggest that its a good idea for some kids to arrive in public school with no concept about what numbers and words are supposed to be about.
Indeed maybe a pre requisite for attendance might be that parents are involved, or the kid is either excluded or must pay fees. It is not intended to be a free baby sitting service. Bet you the threat of this will force most apathetic parents to change their attitudes.
Now I am a skeptic about de Blasio and the PC crowd, who always seem to forget that the most important adult in a kid's life are its parent(s), and that no one else can replace that. They need to be reminded of this, and made to ensure that all aspects of education, from pre K to at least middle school place heavy emphasis on parent involvement, with heavy intervention when this doesn't happen.
That makes more sense than claiming that pre school doesn't work so don't do it. With that attitude one might as well say that education doesn't work because few of these kids graduate college ready.
Do you know who most people who live in inner city neighborhoods blame for poorly behaving kids. THE PARENTS!! So why do you assume that no politicians will do it for fear of....indeed this is the honesty that might be needed to give more people faith in the political process.
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