#Invite Cuomo

Michael Mulgrew is right on target [“Cuomo’s out of touch,” Feb. 5]. It is poverty and inequality that prevent children from learning effectively.

As a retired SETSS teacher of 35 years, I can tell you it is true. The majority of my learning disabled children did not own a home computer. The ones who had one rarely had a printer. Parents had no money for ink cartridges.

Daily, I opened up my classroom for an extra 45 minutes before school, so that children from all over the school could do their homework and projects. I bought children school bags and alarm clocks. Some came to school not having eaten breakfast. They could not purchase needed eyeglasses.

Children lived in large housing projects where guns were shot off on the roof on July 4 and other times. Parents literally wept in front of me because they were afraid to let their children leave their homes. Often, the grandmother was the primary caregiver of students. Parents were out working. A few were in prison.

I asked the children one day to write about a tree. A student responded, “Where I live we have no trees.”

Let’s invite Andrew Cuomo to spend a few days with our students here in New York City, where they go to school, and where they live.

If we don’t fight for these kids, who will? Most people think that charter schools are manna from heaven that will save education. But they are unaware that children who have academic and behavioral challenges are spit out by charter schools. I’ve seen it too many times with our own special education students.

Someone needs to shine a light on the disparities, inequities and classism that charters are creating in public school buildings and in low-socioeconomic neighborhoods!