Fourth Child Policy Forum of New York/55th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education

On November 14th I attended the Fourth Child Policy Forum of New York at the Schomburg Center. The event started out with a group of students from the P.S. 46 Wind Ensemble playing. There were then remarks from Howard Dodson (director of the Schomburg Center), Gertrud Lenzer (director of the Children's Studies program at Brooklyn College), and Joan Lucariello (Dean for Academic Affairs at Brooklyn College). The Deputy Mayor Dennis M. Walcott also spoke.

After the opening remarks, Professor Owen M. Fiss from Yale University spoke. Fiss spoke about the 2nd Reformation that started after Brown v. Board of Education, and ended in 1996 with welfare reform. He also spoke about a 3rd reformation coming now and how we need to focus on our public schools needing to meet students needs like charter schools can. He also spoke about parents needing to understand what is expected/needed of them and how they need to be supported by others to best help their children. Another speaker at this event was Howard Davidson, who spoke about the Convention on the Rights of the Child. He gave a lot of facts about different treaties that protect the rights of children. One of the things that surprised me the most about what he said was that the United States and Somalia are the only two countries that haven't ratified the CRC. This is something that the United States needs to work on and ratify.

One of the most interesting parts of this event, I thought, was the panel discussion at the end. William A. Scarborough, Barbara M. Clark, and Velmanette Montgomery all spoke. Scarborough spoke about many different things, but what I found the most interesting was the information he gave about foster care, working to provide services in the home, and working to get family to take over guardianship. Montgomery spoke mostly about what she called the cradle to prison pipeline and what causes this and how we can help by providing students with more health coverage, meaningful recreation activities, and work opportunities to help them be prepared for life after school. Clark spoke about child advocacy and helping children in school.