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The following bio is courtesy of Jersey City Families for Better Schools.
Mario Gonzalez
Firstly, I am running for the BOE because I am passionate about children and the arts and am committed to emphasizing use of the arts to serve as platform for instilling desperately needed discipline essential to general academic success. I am the founder, president and CEO of The Hope Center for the Visual & Performing Arts. I personally teach classical guitar and bass, and our school has over 140 students learning ballet, modern dance, tap, vocal, piano, painting, sculpting, percussion, etc. I am absolutely committed to changing the status quo when it comes to arts education in our public schools. Art is the inspiration that encourages the development of discipline in the life of a child without which learning cannot occur.
As to who I am, I am an independent conservative with a passion for our children and for the arts. I am tired of people running for the BOE simply as a stepping stone for holding another public office that they are "really" interested in holding. I will go on record to say that I have absolutely no desire to hold public office of any kind. I am running for the BOE simply because I love our children, this is supported by the fact that I have dedicated my life to them. I vehemently believe that our children should not be used as political pawns for party or union interests. As a result of our focus on perpetuating this political status quo rather than advancing educational objectives, Jersey City can proudly claim some of the worst performing schools in the state. This does not bode well for our children, communities, and house values.
We all know intuitively that the time has come for a revolution in our system of education. Somebody has got to step up to system at personal risk. And so I am committed to actually doing something about our academic malaise rather than pandering to bureaucrats that have miserably failed in their primary mission. It's time we stopped rewarding incompetence at our children's expense and held people to definitive and realistic goals. The truth is that we collect reports on the failure of our educational system when compared to that of third world countries and then do nothing to address the issues revealed by the studies that have been conducted ad nauseam. I independently represent the parents, kids, and teachers that love and care for the well being and legitimate education of our children. People should vote for me only if they want to see radical, intelligent change in the system and if they feel that parents and teachers should be empowered to do what they do best. There is no greater issue that will affect the long term success of our country than the education of our children. We have already lost several generations. We now need to turn the tide.
REV. MARIO GONZALEZ
President/CEO/Founder
The Hope Center for the Visual & Performing Arts
Mario is a trained musician and educator with over thirty eight years of experience in the arts. A product of the NYC public school system, he founded the Hope Center for the Visual and Performing Arts. The Hope Center is a faith-based, non-profit organization that utilizes the visual and performing arts to service an increasingly auditory and visual inner city populace. The Hope Center has conducted the largest art shows in the history of Jersey City and has been featured on NBC, Fox, UPN, POZ magazine, and countless other media sources for it's outstanding contribution to the community it serves.
Beyond his training and experience in the arts, Mario serves as the Northeast Sectional Presbyter for the NJ District of the Assemblies of God, overseeing over 57 churches urban churches, representing thousands of families in both Hudson and Essex counties. Mario has also served as vice president of a multi-million dollar high tech defense manufacturing firm lauded by then-President Reagan as a premier minority led corporation. An expert in DAR and FAR, he has worked for Lockheed and served as a systems auditor for various defense manufacturing firms over the years helping them to both establish and maintain procurement and material control systems. He has also worked as both a retail store designer and graphics designer. He is a graduate of Fordham University in NYC with a degree in economics.
In 1994, Mario founded The Least of These, a ministry to AIDS-afflicted patients in four hospitals in both NYC and NJ. Mario then served as a Protestant chaplain for Terence Cardinal Cooke Medical Center on 5th Avenue in NYC, a long-term care facility for chronically ill patients. Mario came to Jersey City in 1996 and took on the pastorate of Calvary Assembly in Jersey City that has come to be known as The Hope Center Tabernacle since 2000. He is a long term resident of Jersey City Heights, where he lives with his wife Leigh, and his two daughters Stephanie and Sarah.
- Identify two strengths and two weaknesses of the Jersey City Public Schools. How should these weaknesses be remedied and these strengths reinforced?
Based on published standardized test results, if graded on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being a perfect score and 1 being the bottom of the barrel), Jersey City's elementary schools rank 1.4, our middle schools rank 2.6, and our high schools rank a 2.3. Based on these (HSPA) results, it is evident that Jersey City's public schools rank at the bottom of the state academically. A perpetuation of this pattern of performance will not only irrevocably affect the future success of our children, but it negatively impacts property values and detracts from the general attractiveness of our city. Beyond this, the gang and drug related violence, both within and outside of the classroom makes proper teaching extremely difficult, as maintaining discipline is key in a proper teaching environment.
My proposed solutions to the aforementioned issues involve a three-step emphasis as follows:
- To restore an emphasis on arts education system wide. This will help to instill discipline in the kids which many graduate studies have shown transfers over to their academic performance,
- To do everything possible to better the academic performance of our kids in the classroom. This will involve a deep scrutiny of curriculum, teacher performance, and environmental conditions (facilities, equipment, etc.) affecting instruction.
- To give teachers control over their classrooms. A teacher cannot teach if she/he cannot establish control in their classroom. This is an absolute must if we are to get out of the academic quagmire into which we have slipped. We need to isolate disruptive behavior so that our teachers are allowed to actually teach.
Regarding our strengths, I believe that we, for the most part, have good teachers within our system that need support. This support extends beyond throwing money at the problem. It requires a grass-roots effort to reconnect with parents and deal with systemic inconsistencies that affect a teacher's ability to teach. The community at large must partner with our educators in the rearing and education of our children. I really believe in a "village" approach to education.
I also believe that we have the funds available to get everything done that needs to be done. What we also have is a lot of bureaucratic waste that must be eliminated. I would support a systemic revamping of our entire system to improve efficiency and thereby reduce overall cost.
- The new school funding formula presents the Jersey City Public Schools with serious financial challenges. How do you propose to overcome the projected cut in state funding? Again, this is a matter of identifying and eliminating waste and redundancy. This will require system-wide management audits.
- Do you support any form of school choice? What is your position on charter schools, magnet schools, vouchers, or district-run independent schools? I believe that parents should be empowered regarding the education of their own children. Eliminating choice, per se, is counterintuitive from this perspective. An objective review of the academic performance of our children overall seems to indicate that our system is not working. As such, I would support a "think tank" approach where we can seriously consider all options available, both in the U.S. and abroad to see what would best serve our children academically.