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Congressman
Elijah E. Cummings |
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Congressman
Elijah E. Cummings |
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(9/16/00 Baltimore AFRO-American Newspaper)
by Congressman Elijah E. Cummings
As I watched ABC's series on Johns Hopkins Hospital and the network's profile of Dr. Ben Carson, it struck me that each of us is given an awesome power. We each have the ability to give a child the right start in life.Day after day, Dr. Carson saves children's lives. Growing up black and poor, however, the course of Ben Carson's own life could have been very different.
He freely accounts how, in his youth, he once stabbed a man and was saved from becoming a killer only by the fact that his knife blade was deflected by the man's belt buckle.
What transformed that Ben Carson into a saver of lives?
Dr. Carson credits his strong mother and the power of education. He recounts how his mother would require that he read at least one book each week and write a short report for her on what he had read.
Parental guidance and education intervened to give Ben Carson a renewed start in life. Today, Dr. Carson is widely recognized as the top pediatric neurosurgeon in the world.
Last week, a Head Start press conference at Union Baptist Church reaffirmed the insight that we all have the power to change young lives for the better.
Key supporters of the early childhood development program - including Senators Paul Sarbanes and Barbara Mikulski, State Senate Majority Leader Clarence Blount and Baltimore City Councilwomen Catherine Pugh and Lisa Stancil - had joined DHHS Commissioner Patricia Montoya and me at Union Baptist for an important announcement.
As we talked with little Armani Graves and her 4-year-old Head Start classmates, I thought about Dr. Ben Carson's transformation, and I asked myself, "Who among these children are our future life savers?"
Only time will tell, but one thing is certain. Head Start Director Laverne Stewart and the committed teachers and parents at Union Baptist are saving lives just as surely as Dr. Ben Carson does.
It felt wonderful to inform them that city Head Start programs will be receiving more than $8,650,000 in additional federal support.
Nationally, we have been able to double Head Start funding during the Clinton-Gore Administration, but we need to do more. Only one-half of the children who qualify for Head Start are able to attend.
Paul Sarbanes, Barbara Mikulski, Ben Cardin and I will not rest until every deserving child receives a head start in life. Armani Graves and the other children of Baltimore deserve no less.
During my almost weekly visits to Baltimore schools during the last four years, I have witnessed a renewed determination and a slow but steady improvement in the education our children are receiving. We must be candid, however, about the scope and difficulty of the challenges that lie ahead.
Nationally, and here in Baltimore, we have under-invested in the talents of our children during the last 50 years. The devastating consequences have fallen most heavily upon poor Americans and people of color, but all of this nation's children have been short-changed.
We are working to reverse generations of neglect - and that life-changing process begins with early-childhood programs like Head Start.
For the fortunate and less-fortunate alike, we are all in this educational struggle together. The 1999 National Assessment of Educational Progress revealed, for example, that the racial disparity in reading performance is even greater among children of better educated parents than it is for less-advantaged children.
A good education is the central civil rights objective of the information age. That is why extending educational opportunity to every child in America has become my principal mission in life.
In the trenches of our struggle, lives are being saved every day by people who understand how much is at stake - people like Dr. Ben Carson's mother and the family of Armani Graves.
Like them, each of us has the power to transform a child's future. We are the ones to whom our children must look for their head start in life.
We must not disappoint them.
-The Honorable Elijah E. Cummings represents the 7th Congressional District of Maryland in the United States House of Representatives.
