On March 6th, my group and I talked to a woman named Bonnie Greaves who is a volunteer at the Citizens’ Committee for Children. This organization’s goal is to “educate and mobilize New Yorkers to make the city a better place for children”. This organization doesn’t help children directly, but they promote solutions to make sure that NYC children grow up in educated and safe environments. Bonnie Greaves explains that if a child is impoverished, then they don’t have the opportunities/life experiences that we have. Education provides a means for breaking out of poverty, but most of impoverished children don’t get proper education or can’t finish school because they can’t afford to stay there. “Poverty has an impact on the ability of kids to become fully educated and turn the lack of education only increases poverty.” There are more than 1 million children in NYC public schools today. The government has never really supported full day pre-kindergarten education, but those early years of a child’s life are really important and early childhood programs could be helpful and have a huge impact on child poverty. They have half day kindergarten education, but that is really hard for parents who are trying to work because many of them can’t afford to have a babysitter for their children. Bonnie Greaves says that “the money you spend on early childhood education, pays off later because they aren’t going to be supported by the government later.”
