By Profesor Martin N. Danenberg
“El Quijote del GED”

The Hempstead schools are finally the focus of important institutions and the Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi. It is an election year, but four years ago it was an election year and these people did not have the “vision” that they have now.

The police department spokesperson says he recommends students wearing uniforms in school, which is illegal. He suggested that the schools be let out at different times to reduce gang recruitment, but that assumes that the gang members who recruit are in school all day long attending classes. Now I doubt that very much and I assume the gang members will be there outside the school to recruit new members because it is important to their organization. School hours are unimportant to them.

I would recommend that Tom Suozzi and the others assess the numbers of people who have lived in Hempstead over the last twenty-five years and who still live there and the people who have arrived in the last twenty-five years and find out how many of them do not have a high school diploma or GED. Find out the average grade completed and then study just how far their children have gone. The entire focus on the children in school now will bring some good results, but the children in school do not make up the entire community and I believe that when parents tell their children that they only completed the fourth, seventh or ninth grades, their children do not have much to aspire to.

The mass mobilization of young, middle age, and older adults to the GED will make Hempstead as solid as rock compared with the Hempstead we now know. The main focus in Hempstead is “No Child Left Behind” and that focus is maintained even by opponents of the federal plan because they want their children to succeed in school. I strongly recommend that Hempstead concentrate on “No Person Left Behind” and I will be happy to bring my GED project to Hempstead in the fall. Hempstead could have benefited from the participation of the organizers of the Hip Hop Movement, Charles and Randy Fisher and the King of Kings representative, Todd Fuertado. In addition, I attended a meeting in a church in Brooklyn this week with Reverend Reverend Leroy Ricksy and Evangelist Herman Mendoza who have a close working relationship with Wyclef Jean. All of these people are interested in eliminating violence and racism and promoting education. The Reverend Ricksy did a demonstration in the church in which people of different races showed that they all have the same color blood. Tom Suozzi has to broaden his selection people in order to get the job done. We can accelerate the progress of Hempstead far beyond what the institutions there believe to be possible.

Next we have to concentrate on Freeport, Roosevelt, Wyandanch, Brentwood, Central Islip, and Amityville - New York.

Martin N. Danenberg has a GED project in the Consulate of El Salvador in Brentwood and his project is available in Central Islip Library. In both places the Official GED Practice Test is offered in English, Spanish, and French.