New York Assemblyman Marcos Crespo is the latest example of an influential Democrat offering full-throated support for school choice, including options such as tax credit scholarships.
At a press conference in Miami last week, Crespo pointed to Florida’s tax credit scholarship program, the nation’s largest private school program, as giving New York a “playbook for something that works.” (The program is administered by nonprofits such as Step Up For Students, which co-hosts this blog.)
Crespo repeatedly referred to Miami scholarship student Valentin Mendez, who preceded him at the press conference. He also referenced the Catholic school education that helped shape U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
Like Crespo, Sotomayor hails from the Bronx. Her success wouldn’t have been possible without the school, and without her mother’s sacrifice in paying tuition, Crespo said. “Us in government,” he continued, “have a responsibility to create more opportunities for more Justice Sonia Sotomayors.”
Here are Crespo’s remarks in full, edited slightly for length and clarity.
I want to thank you and CREO for bringing us all together on this important conversation. It’s hard to follow Sen. Sandoval and Valentin and his testimony. But I’ll share with you what’s happening in New York.
I represent the community in the southeast section of the Bronx that has been known for far too long for all the social ills associated with urban communities and low-income communities. We have talked for years that education is our priority. We have talked about fixing a broken system that continues to fail to graduate and prepare enough students in our community, particularly minority children, Hispanic children, low-income community children. We’ve talked about the fact that 80 percent of the kids graduating from our school system, when they go to college, they need remedial courses because they’re not prepared for the academics they’re going to confront there. Think about that.
We talk about the economy of the state, and whatever state you’re in, whether New York or Illinois or Florida or wherever you are in this country, you’re not competing with just your own local community businesses. You’re competing in a global market. We talk about the failure of this country to be competitive with other superpowers around the world, and we have that conversation but we don’t do anything about it or enough about it.
I’m here today, and I’m here with friends who are Republicans and Democrats because as the senator said, this isn’t a partisan issue. The issue of education is a moral issue. It’s a rights issue. And it is an issue of opportunity and growth that is going to keep this country to be the great country that it’s been. We cannot do that without preparing the next generation. We cannot achieve that without empowering our young people to be the leaders of tomorrow. We say that far too often as a punchline and not as a real goal, and as a commitment for anyone regardless of what label you use to describe yourself and your politics.
I don’t know that an elected official, or a bureaucrat working at a state education agency anywhere in this country, can know better what’s best for Valentin than his mom who spoke here earlier. No one can tell her what’s best for her son.
In every state in this country, we talk about diversity. We talk about the strength of our diverse communities, we talk about the diversity of faith, of cultures and languages that make the United States what it is, certainly New York what it is. But then we don’t translate that very concept into the way in which we provide opportunities. Ladies and gentlemen, one size doesn’t fit all.
And when a system has been what it is for far too long, continues to not do enough – there’s success stories, but for every success story there is a failure – the fact of the matter is, while we discuss the politics and the policy of it, there are children like Valentin who are not given an opportunity to be successful. And every day that we fail to provide more options, it is another child that we fail to provide an opportunity for. And that has to change. And that’s why I’m so proud to be here. To figure out what we can do better.
So Florida has given us a playbook for something that works. To allow those that have resources to invest in education and better opportunities for those children from families who don’t have the means to make the choices that the senator made in his life, that I made in mine.
I shared a story last night about my stepdaughter. She was told by her traditional public school in the Bronx that she had a learning disability, and that she had no future. And the truth was, that as a parent we had to accept that she was just going to be one of those students that didn’t have the skill sets to be successful. She was denied opportunities and services. And it wasn’t until my wife and I made the difficult choice of – the financially difficult choice – to be able to put her in … a Catholic school in the Bronx where within a year she was able to not just show the naysayers that she was going to be successful, but now she is at another Catholic high school in the Bronx, an honor roll student.
And I’ll tell you about another young lady who grew up in the South Bronx. Who grew up in the projects. She grew up in Bronxdale Houses. A neighborhood known more for crime activity and drug abuse than for anything else. A neighborhood where if you weren’t from the Bronx you wouldn’t dare go visit. At a time when poverty was rampant, crime was rampant, the traditional stereotype of a young Latina living in a single parent household in a low-income family. And if you look at the statistics, the only thing there for her was to be another statistic of failure.
But the parent wanted more for her. And made the sacrifice to put that child in a Catholic school called Blessed Sacrament. That child received an education, a foundation for future growth that took her all the way to becoming the first Puerto Rican woman to serve on the United States Supreme Court. Justice Sonia Sotomayor. And I stand here today as the Assemblyman who proudly represents a development formerly known as Bronxdale Houses, now known as Justice Sonia Sotomayor Houses.
And that wouldn’t have been possible without that sacrifice that that parent made. And us in government have a responsibility to create more opportunities for more Justice Sonia Sotomayors in our community, for more success. .. And to empower families to make choices that work best for their kids.
I think I’m a fairly intelligent elected official. A little bit. But I know, and I don’t lose sight of the fact, that I don’t know better than the parents who know their children. And my responsibility is not to tell her what she needs, it’s to provide options for her to choose. And to give this young man a chance to stand at this podium and tell you about all the great things I’m sure he will do. Because that is what we need to do in this country to empower not just the Hispanic community but all communities. We need to do better.
We are falling behind economically. We are falling behind in the global market. And this country needs to tap into and invest in the intellectual capital of our most precious resource, and that is our young people. And that is not a punchline, ladies and gentlemen. That is a responsibility whether you’re a Democrat or Republican, whether you’re upstate or downstate, urban or rural. We all need to work together to make sure the next generation is empowered and able to lead us into a better future. That is why I’m here today.
That is why I believe that the success that Florida has seen, through this tax credit, can be emulated in other places. I will push harder than ever to make sure that the state of New York, with as much bipartisan support as we have for the New York version of the tax credit (scholarship), that we are able to give our children what Florida’s currently giving theirs. And make sure that those opportunities continue to grow across this country. Because they deserve it. And we need to do that in order to move our economy forward and our country forward.
That is what I’m here to share with you. And I hope that as the rest of this conference progresses, that we can continue to build this network and demonstrate that there are a lot of us who believe in real success and not just our own interests, or partisanship, or labels.
Our goal is to be judged by the Valentins of the world, and not by you know, who our traditional political friends are, or how much they’ve invested in our campaign. It’s not about that. It’s about Valentin. And it’s about his future, and this country.
