What If...
What if you were a wealthy philanthropist who could write a $100 million check to fund any infrastructure or public project in Brooklyn? What would it be? A selective high school to rival Stuyvesant in Manhattan? Hundreds more patrol officers on the police force? A monorail above Atlantic Avenue? Let your imagination run wild.
What if you were a wealthy philanthropist who could write a $100 million check to fund any infrastructure or public project in Brooklyn? What would it be? A selective high school to rival Stuyvesant in Manhattan? Hundreds more patrol officers on the police force? A monorail above Atlantic Avenue? Let your imagination run wild.
White person here. I’m in favor of diversity awareness. Why is that racist or anti-white? I don’t get it? Should we just assume everybody is totally enlightened and call it a day?
I would start three private schools in the Bed-Stuy/Crown Heights North area. Specifically, I would use the $100 million to convert the Old Boys High and the massive New York State National Guard Armories at Bedford and Atlantic (e.g. “The Bedford School”) and Jefferson and Marcus Garvey Blvd (“The Stuyvesant School”) into elite private schools. These nabes are some of the most architectural significant communities in New York City. Good schools would go a long way into making these nabes into tier one hoods in Brownstone Brooklyn!
I would start take 50 million and start several high qulaity small high schools with small class sizes in the lowest performing hoods in Brooklyn. Another 30 million I would invest to fund on-going lending programs for the poor and working poor to start their own businesses. Another 20 million will be used to leverage housing for the poor.
Sylvia, I agree with you 100% about the teaching staff. Throughout my life, I’b been blessed to have been taught at some point or another, whether at school, or in life, by all kinds of people. I think it’s made my life fuller, and made me more open to other viewpoints and other cultures. I agree that too many people are only taught by people who are just like them, and diversity needs to be much more widespread all many more aspects of life.
While we’re at it, a good 100MM would be well spent sponsoring a program that fostered the teaching of at least one foreign language in public school from kindergarten on up. Learning French (or any other language) in 9th grade is difficult, boring and to most kids, useless. If another language was taught from childhood, the way English is taught in much of Europe, it would go a long way to helping Americans function in the world better, later in life. I wish I was fluent in any other language, as well as English. As it is, I know words and phrases in several, but am by no means fluent in them. Wouldn’t it be great in Brooklyn scholars led the way in language studies? We certainly have (again that word) the ethnic diversity to make that possible.
honestly, i’d turn my back on brooklyn and write my $100 million check to a public project in a city with *no* money
whats with all the not-so-subtle anti-white comments here?
And diversity training? Like EVERY group in the borough doesn’t need that. You might care to examine your own prejudices instead of just harping on the well-worn ones. Except you won’t, theres never any need to examine your own is there….
You people need to get your heads out of your asses.
Totally clean up the Gowanus Canal and line it with cool restaurants and bars. Have gondolas plying the waters. Total entertainment district.
crownheightsproud: i like your school idea. it would definitely have to take into account the fact that a lot of people are going to take it the wrong way. in my experience, having a mix of african americans, whites and latinos as teachers in that kind of setting really helps. because no-one wants to hear from an all-white teaching staff that they should be changing their culture just to get a job. and it couldn’t be all african-american, either, cause honestly, if you want people to wrap their mind around the idea of working in a diverse environment, you’re going to have to model it for them.
the best possible scenario: have a diverse teaching staff, with guest lecturers/mentors who are people from those neighborhoods who actually have made it into higher-paying positions.
it’s not going to solve world hunger or be applicable on a huge scale, but it would definitely be a start.
Tinarina, I like how you think. I would donate the money to the public schools in the area that are struggling to raise funds for better afterschool programs to keep kids off the street. Afterschool is the most dangerous time of the day for kids.