On the heels of a recent citywide education budget cut, and a decrease in expected funding for education from the state, city and state leaders met at Lehman College in the Bronx to discuss strategies for getting more students to stay in school.
The goal of the forum, called “Dropout Summit II,” was to develop a plan to combat New York City’s rampant dropout problem. According to a statement released by the office of Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrión, Jr., “more than 21,000 NYC high school students left without a degree last year.”
At the Summit, Jesse Mojica, Carrión’s director of education and youth, said, “We should not legally allow 16 year olds to have the power to drop out of school.” The Summit’s delegates were unanimous in agreeing with Mojica that the compulsory school attendance age in New York should be raised to 18.
Other speakers at the Summit included the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee’s Chairman, Rep. Charles B. Rangel; New York’s First Lady, Silda Wall Spitzer; Former Governor of West Virginia Bob Wise; New York City Comptroller William Thompson, Jr. and Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum.
Many of the speakers were critical of some of the mayor’s education initiatives. Rangel commented, “I think you’re going to have to have a little more outrage when you find public officials putting dollars and cents where they’re doing nothing.”
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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.