Michael Schwartz for New York Daily News
Gov. Cuomo says poorer schools are lacking in technology and hopes a $ 2 billion initiative can change that.
It’s a tale of two technologies for city schoolchildren.
“We have one set of schools for rich people, one set of schools for poor people,” Gov. Cuomo told a packed room at the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network on Saturday. “You go into a school on the rich side of town, and they’ll show you their first-graders know how to work the fancy new Pentium-process computers. You go to a school on the poor side of town, the most sophisticated piece of electronic equipment is the metal detector you walk through.”
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Casting himself as New York’s progressive leader bent on reform, Cuomo kicked off Martin Luther King weekend in Harlem by speaking to the issues affecting poor, minority communities.
Cuomo said he was proposing a $ 2 billion state initiative to invest in technology in schools across the board.
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He also highlighted the 40% unemployment rate among young black men nationwide as “a crisis in our society. … We need the jobs and we also need the skill sets for those young men to get the jobs and keep the jobs.”
The Democratic Cuomo — who is up for reelection this year — underscored how he doubled the percentage of state work contracted to minority and women-owned businesses to 20% and closed 5,000 prison cells in the state.
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He said he also wants to change a state law that allows 16- and 17-year-olds to be charged as adults in court.
“We have a civil rights crisis of today,” he said of that law. “That law has got to go. I want to make it a priority.”
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On Martin Luther King day, Sharpton’s organization is scheduled to be flooded with politicians, including U.S. Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, both New York Democrats, as well as Mayor de Blasio, who won election on the “tale of two cities” theme, and First Lady Chirlane McCray.
Cuomo appeared to beat the rush by appearing instead on Saturday morning without so many competing Democratic political stars — only Harlem-based Rep. Charles Rangel joined him on the dais.
Echoing de Blasio’s progressive rhetoric, Cuomo said New York should be a leader on fighting inequality.
“This is the progressive capital of the nation,” he said. “Let’s point the way on justice, let’s point the way on jobs, let’s point the way on equality, let’s point the way on getting things done.”
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