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Good evening ladies and gentleman. Friend. And I are committed. To change but. We welcome you here the same thing. Again is a great tribute to. And to the memory of his light the love of God in the lag now. That there is such a. Delight fallen knows the aspect and attractive response to the invitation to come and share in this pleasant evening the guiding spirit of the last act and the academic side of this wonderful and heartwarming enterprise is a man who has given many years life to this cause and this is the tenth anniversary of this mayor's committee I was glad to be achievement he's many things. And it would be. Unavailing to list them all here tonight because he's known to most of you and he's been the heartbeat of the academic program and making it possible for these young people that he's going to try to about to get an education and make their way and the future here in our free society he's the president of things borrowed going to college he's the chairman of the academic committee of the mayor's committee on his glass of achievement and his vice chairman Dr Jack of Hearts and. Missed the beginning. Now Agnes. Judge chaplain Mr Richmond. Reverend clergy distinguished guests on both sides of the day is ladies and gentlemen. The first citation ceremonies on this committee us perceives honoring the outstanding graduating seniors of their parochial private and public high schools of New York City where held ten years ago at the same time the first college tuition scholarship program was projected the merest Committee on scholastic achievement had no financial resources at the time with which to pay for the proposed scholarships and accordingly we presented the plan for the college scholarship program to the colleges and universities in New York City which charge tuition fees and solicited their educational and financial cooperation on an experimental basis for it to we're hearing the colleges that agreed to participate and of a pros program agreed in fact not only to work with the committee in the admission of the selected students but also to match the committee dollar for dollar by charging the merest committee only one half of the value of each scholarship award and providing the other half from their own resources as we suggest if it had not been for the participating colleges and universities appreciation of the vision presented to them these programs might have been delayed some years or perhaps not even have gotten off the ground and those of us who work with the committee are deeply grateful for those colleges continuing support and their president's presence here tonight. And the representation of many others by major officials who participate in our programs at the start of the programs was so exciting and the experiment so successful that in the end of a two year experimental period when the cooperating colleges and universities were asked whether they preferred continuing to expand the program on a matching basis or to have to committee provide a limited number of scholarships that could pay full cost for their response unanimously favored continuation and expansion of the initiated program and the ten years out of a lapsed their college tuition scholarship program has been expanded considerably and two additional programs the incentive awards program and the college tuition grants program have been launched beginning with the coming school year in addition fifty two colleges and universities in the middle states and New England regions including some of the most distinguished institutions in the area will join the fifteen participating colleges and universities in New York City in cooperating with these programs and some parting them with matching funds thank. The opportunities for higher education for New York City residents who are graduates of the New York City high schools I know acquire financial assistance to cover their college expenses will again be brought. Soss the unique partnership between private philanthropy and private higher educational institutions and a public body sponsored by local government that this committee a petal misers will again open new gateway to higher education to increasing numbers of students in the institutions of their choice and for the programs of their choice in due course I'm certain these programs will help set in motion the new approaches that are commended by the great new age on which we are involved. It has become the custom on these our new locations to include in the program greetings by representatives of the most recent recipients of these two wishing awards and of the program's alumni it has occurred to us that on this occasion of the tenth anniversary of the mayor's committee on scholastic achievement it was appropriate to look back to one thousand nine hundred fifty five and to find out what has become of the first group of fourteen scholarship recipients most of who incidentally I hear with us tonight at table one that. I want to be able to write for a. Donor and I have gotten there at twenty seven I'm. Twenty seven. Twenty one occurring when it is occurred not as one who follows the progress of all recipients and who takes much pride and pleasure in their performance I am very much tempted to share the facts with you to limit the time that my disposal ever respects me to a skeletal outliers. The first group of fourteen students awarded to wish of scholarships by our committee in one thousand nine hundred fifty five entered nine private colleges and universities in New York City Catholic Jewish nonsectarian and products them located in four of the city's five boroughs thirteen of these students are in their bachelor's degree most of them with a high honors the one student who did not earn her degree became a teacher upon completion of three years of college study only three of the nine college years that tended by the students have chapters of five Beta Kappa yet three of the fourteen students were elected to five Beta Kappa. Thanks for members of the group earn their degrees not their cum Lauda are still not come a lot larger goals are in their graves coming out one member of the group has earned his medical degree and is now in training in Berkeley one is a senior Coast analyst with a large insurance company in New York City one who are in his law degree at a distinguished law school with a high honors is a practicing attorney with a well known firm in New York City now supporting the committee's programs one has earned a Ph D. in mathematics and is now teaching mathematics in an outstanding engineering school in a nearby state. And I will receive this Ph D. in chemistry next month having studied for it on state and national fellowships and scholarships throughout his graduate years he is already placed with one of the leading oral companies of the country as a research chemist a third candidate for the doctorate is a psychologist with a on another candidate for Dr philosophy the great at Stanford University sent us this telegram as you know as you may know my scholastic career was allayed by a tour of duty with the Air Force although it has indeed been ten years since I received the new scholarship I am still a student Presently I am studying for the Ph D. in astronautics at Stanford University on a National Fellowship consequently would be extremely difficult for me to accept I would like to thank Mayor Wagner and all those who generosity and kindness and nature of me to take that phrase great stride so it's no respectfully thank you thank you. Gentlemen there's no question in the minds of any of us. And I think it's interesting perhaps to relate the. Three generations the Wagner family all Robert Wagner. With education some of you here tonight. Senator Wagner. Newspapers and he's tall them to help support the family. Some of the would be freed to fight for an education at City College and they got a great assess from the legendary Uncle Gus and one lady sat in a got an education and moved on in the world who first Supreme Court judge. It was the guy who was named the corner tenant that was the main event of the Wagner and we got to the other the extreme of the cult and as a young man who. Was received with open arms and a hobbit in the gifted students program and in Harvard as a supplement and now it's been given a George C. Marshall scholarship to use a study in Europe that's young Bobby Wagner and you think. And others are all great and wonderful. Mayor And that's I mean well educated and to have. To be in the air law school. And graduate work in Europe after that a man whose whole inspiration from an educational standpoint was motivated by the efforts that his own father made and I dare say the reason he's And Rose themselves on this program for the last. Decades in the fact of the Zoe effort but has bought a maid and hasn't cost being the rule in the zone. So I'm very happy to present all these big of the evening the mayor of the city of New York but I'm glad you. Thank you very much my good friend Tom Dagon. Members of the clergy and mothers and sisters of the. Drop in level two as well as of late my distinguished colleagues on the Board of Estimate who are here and all of. The wonderful people on the day as and I'd like to especially mention that dustup Rosenberg bought a pirate occasion and was to James Donovan President Board of Education Thank you. Dr Bernard Donovan acting superintendent thank you for. And maybe's and gentleman. I'm very grateful. To leech of you has come here tonight and to each who has made a contribution to the Pyne and worthy purpose of the organization sponsoring this dinner the committee on scholastic achievement last time I am very deeply touched by the. Dedication of these annual dinners to the memory of my beloved father. Is truly honored by this activity which is so completely consistent with one of the major themes of his life. And that is the equalization of opportunity for all of our young people and their encourage men and reward for achievement and voting many who otherwise would have been and I that he would have not only the reward and recognition but the very opportunity for achievement I'm very pleased tonight to that we have a very lovely lady who over the years has his secretary in Washington when he made his great reputation my humble opinion as the greatest United States senator and this state ever had or any state ever had. Already lived the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune but always was one whom we loved and we love this man a real good. The you. Naturally Tom I. Want to express my deep recession for a nice introduction my son Bobby and. My younger son Duncan who had to get back to school yesterday but wanted to be doing and I know will. Get a great thrill out of the fact that the stand I was held in honor of his grandfather I appreciate the labors and the leadership provided through the years for this activity by my old friends my dear and old friend Judge Louie Kaplan from the regiment and. Let me involve. All the others and to you Tom for once again being kind enough to act. One of the capacity as Tim of the day in a committee. And I want to pay my respects to to the work of Dr jackpot staying as chairman of the academic committees I was pleased to salute him. Might get there but I've saluted him on many occasions and on his occasion of the form of insulation of him as president of Queensbury of colleagues I can scarcely conceive of an undertaking. Precisely suited to meet one of the most urgent needs of these times this was a private undertaking as we all know which is greatly served and continues to serve and we had the examples of tool of the wonderful youngsters tonight and the others who are here. The interest of society as a whole and they particular interests of New York City I assume that all present here tonight on not only committed to the cause of education but deeply concerned with the state of education and its present and future directions and problems and I want to talk a bit about some of these tonight as one who you lose the operations of the various parts of our educational system from day to day but at a respectable distance and with some perspective I hope I have some observations to make which might be instructive in keeping with the spirit of the eighty for the last decade actually since but make first when sarin up into space from the Soviet launching pad and nine hundred fifty seven education in America has been in ferment and frequently under attack the ferment was necessary the attack was justified. The consequent reexamination of both our educational means and ends was most essential for our national wellbeing into the midst of this ferment that was introduced the increasingly explosive problem of school desegregation and then integration of this castle A necessary to reveal the effects which this program problem has had on the consideration of educational madness we in New York City every sieved up full share of the impact of these policies within the last ten years our schools have been the subject of both violent attack and searching studying the state of teaching and learning as well as of our educational to sell a days are all exposed to the most incisive inquiry and sustained assault indeed the impression was given by critics that AA primary and secondary schools so long regarded as the finest in the country had become of kind of bureaucratic monster without sense of off Ealing and no longer capable of performing that mission and the impression was a highly distorted one yet it is true that outstanding educational experts of America looked at the New York City public school system and found it wanting just as of the school systems in America were. Voices of Razan were muted by the furrow over integration and the resentment over the fact that some of us goals had been allowed to drift down would involve teaching quality and facilities including the schools that taught the poor. Obviously there have been casualties from all this turmoil ferment and strife the school as a place of serene a day as a font of knowledge in the home of the power of the of learning was for the time at least no longer. I hasten to emphasize my view however that these developments arose from losses and were indeed part of horses which were both progressive in their effect and inevitable in their nature yes there were some schoolchildren who did not that of benefit from what occurred but others of greater numbers have benefited and mall ways than we can yet count. Not only our school system but the entire institution of education has been benefited and is benefiting in vast and innumerable ways from the shaking up that has taken place I do not mean to speak as if this were all over in some ways we are only at the beginning in the first stage of the changes that must come yet I have come in recent weeks and even in recent days to the conclusion perhaps a better word is observation that the light of a new day seems to be flooding in slowly slowly but very surely I think and the general shape of things is beginning to be sane direction of further read Vance Abhi getting to be clarified the Clash and clashing armies of sauces ideologies and interests. Have moved on to for the battlefields leaving free a great expanse of ground over which there is a general of cotton on which clear and established gains may be consolidated let me try to enumerate some of these gains one the goal of a quality education for each and every student is clearly mocked out now there remains but to achieve it in all our schools which is of cause and endless quest the important achievement has been to raise the banner of excellence high over all others and to declare our purpose that its benefits to be for all second the goal of integration has been accepted and we begin to see some of the directions and the means by which this called is to be constructively pursued third the goal of equalization of educational opportunity for each and every one of our children has been established a new means of advancing toward it being intensively applied developed and tested Faustus new deepening and expanding channels of communication have been established between the schools and the communities the parents the neighbors the taxpayers the friends of the schools and all others concerned with education these channels have been developed and I developing at every level of the school system from the administrators up some of them down to the local school fifth the other side of the coin of communication is a fact of mobilization. The marshalling of city wide community wide and neighborhood wide concern and interest in the schools and in every aspect of them from facilities to D.G. sixth another major advance has been the mobilization of the universities with all of their intellectual and educational results has to lead and to assist in advancing toward the new goals of elementary and secondary education the set up for Urban Education representing the best results as of all the great universities and I said established under the leadership of Chancellor Bob own city university is the focus of this most promising development seventh there is also the promise swiftly ripening now into an actuality of substantially increased financial support for US schools from the state and from the federal government the federal support is of course to be especially mocked for the new goes to which I have referred eight another major again as been the inclusion of education as I may just striking Faustian the war against poverty and the mobilization of its results has facilities and skills for the very the rent's of the many undertakings that will these and tremendous gains each of them represents in my humble judgment and their star extent following each one is an epic in itself I emphasize that I do not expect in any way that the educational ferment and struggles of the past are at an end even at a point of equilibrium I expect that clashing views and interests and ideologies will continue to agitate the school system. It will be a long time before we are at an end of these struggles but meanwhile we must bear in mind that no program will ever meet with the approval of all of the pack sions and all of the honest but differing viewpoints and within the great city yet I do believe that when the chronology of these times is written it will be said that these days mocked a time of general advance I have already referred to the many forces which were involved and I say now that all who have contributed and have helped to translate the clashes of forces along with firm and end up evolved into practical measures of progress the heroes perhaps the heroes of this vast time to take at this moment let me say that I feel a growing and deeply renewed faith in the school system not only in its present levels of achievement but in its purpose and degree of momentum for change at that patient and progress I certainly want to say that the same about our great and growing city university under the pressure and invigorating academic leadership of Chancellor Bob Carr and with Gus Rosenberg and all of the members of the Board of Higher Education now the chancellor BALCO has given vitality and a great sense of unity on should I say university to City University in fact and then D. the City University and its component colleges should be and are among the greatest sauces pride far on the August no other city in the United States has or supports a comparable institution. Of course the City University has the largest student Roland of any city university or any university fabs in the world but I'm not preparing to its size but to its quality and their squad as a reflects the quality inherent in our elementary and secondary schools too here are some interesting facts and think these are usually boring but I think you'll get rather a thrill out of them there is a highly reputed nationwide fellowship program called they would grow well some fellowship which has been in existence for twenty years over these try to is eleven thousand Palo ships have been awarded for graduate study. Really in the humanities and social sciences of those eleven thousand awards two hundred thirty eight have gone to graduates of the fog colleges of a city university and this is incomparably the greatest number that has gone to the graduates of any single university in this country. Thirty seven of the city university graduates and now college professors at Yale and on down Michigan Minnesota Columbia Binah Rutgers Bennington and costs also at the colleges of the city university itself out of the records of the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Foundation comes another interesting fact whereas both the state of California and the state of New Yawk produce roughly the same number of high school graduates New Yawk and predominately the city of New York has produced twice as many Woodrow Wilson fellows as California. And I for the fact is that seven of the ten secondary schools throughout the nation producing the law just number of Woodrow Wilson fellows are in New York City. Bronx High School of Science is the loco state and nationally did produce a one hundred and twenty two fellowship zero on women's. Diverse and highest Dr mice to a big lead in that. Foment head now and the president of France community college Stuyvesant High School graduates one sixty eight Erasmus Hall one forty six the High School of Music and one forty four S Hills High School one thirty six and Hunter College High School thirty the top ranking high school in the rest of the country producing the lodges number of Woodrow Wilson fellows was to the Philadelphia centralized gold which tied with our high school of music and I bought the place with forty one and of course these there are. Many of the facts and figures which Reflektor on the inherent excellence of a great many of us schools in the basic soundness of the school system which maintains that in the midst of our concern for the future we must not lose our pride in the past no perspective with regard to the educational at said Sweeny already possess them must they use my speed kept well in view as we improve extend and increase the range and flex that melody of our educational efforts let me make one other point which may seem disconnected. Although it is very central living theme of this discussion and that is the fact that the present concentration of our efforts on equalizing educational opportunity for all of our young people to see special services and facilities for the disadvantaged is really no radical innovation we have been doing it and I schools for years with the mentally retarded for the physically handicapped and the emotional maladjusted what we are undertaking now is a massive new effort what directed at the economic. Commander placed socially and educationally handing can we as a team to bring them up to the same starting line as that from which of the children's thought through preschool training so special classes and curriculum and Richmond at the primary level that can be no quarreling with this undertaking the only question we should ask is why had as pagans so long to obtain the financial help from the state and federal governments to enable us to do it on the scale that is necessary it is in its connection with all of the gallows purposes and the cheap mince which I've been discussing that the efforts of the mayor's committee on scholastic achievement has shown the significance they truly have this committee and all of its supporters have been working for a long time taught the same goes towards which the nation is now moving all of you have been contributing to the War Against Poverty long before it was officially declared ever since this committee was founded. I trust and hope you will persist and even extend your absolutes never was there a more critical time never was there a brighter prospect for success and victory not tomorrow not next year but in the years to come. Years that many if not most of us will live to see and not we then our children and those who served in this cause such as you and all of us and contributed to it will be really blessed and truly blessed by those who come at. You. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.