Senators Back Guest Workers
Panel's Measure Sides With Bush
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 28, 2006; A01

A key Senate panel broke with the House's get-tough approach to illegal immigration yesterday and sent to the floor a broad revision of the nation's immigration laws that would provide lawful employment to millions of undocumented workers while offering work visas to hundreds of thousands of new immigrants every year.

With bipartisan support, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 12 to 6 to side with President Bush's general approach to an immigration issue that is dividing the country, fracturing the Republican Party and ripening into one of the biggest political debates of this election year. Conservatives have loudly demanded that the government tighten control of U.S. borders and begin deporting illegal immigrants. But in recent weeks, the immigrant community has risen up in protest, marching by the hundreds of thousands to denounce what they see as draconian measures under consideration in Washington.

"There is no issue outside of civil rights that brings out the kind of emotions we have seen," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), one of the bill's primary sponsors, who called the controversy "a defining issue of our times."

Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) rushed committee members to complete their work to meet a midnight deadline imposed by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), who favors a tougher approach more in line with the version passed by the House last December. But once the committee had acted, Frist declined to say last night whether he would substitute the committee's legislation for his own, which includes no guest-worker program.

Frist's efforts to wrest control of the issue from the Judiciary Committee could produce a power struggle among Republicans once the majority leader brings up the issue for debate and votes in the full Senate, probably this week. Specter and the other committee leaders may have to muscle their bill through as an amendment if Frist refuses to back down.

Frist, a presidential aspirant whom Bush helped elect as majority leader, favors tightening control of the nation's borders without granting what he calls amnesty to the approximately 11 million illegal immigrants living in this country. But Bush favors a comprehensive approach, which he says must include some program to answer business's need for immigrant labor.

"Congress needs to pass a comprehensive bill that secures the border, improves interior enforcement, and creates a temporary-worker program to strengthen our security and our economy," Bush said yesterday at a ceremony to swear in 30 new U.S. citizens from 20 countries. "Completing a comprehensive bill is not going to be easy. It will require all of us in Washington to make tough choices and make compromises."

Polls indicate about 60 percent of Americans oppose guest-worker programs that would offer illegal immigrants an avenue to lawful work status, and three-quarters of the country believe the government is doing too little to secure the nation's borders.

But the immigrant community has been galvanized by what it sees as a heavy-handed crackdown on undocumented workers by Washington. The House in December rejected calls for a guest-worker program and instead approved a bill that would stiffen penalties on illegal immigrants, force businesses to run the names of each employee through federal databases to prove their legality, deploy more border agents and unmanned aerial vehicles to the nation's frontiers and build massive walls along sections of the U.S.-Mexican border.

At least 14,000 students stormed out of schools in Southern California and elsewhere yesterday, waving flags and chanting to protest congressional actions. About 100 demonstrators, including members of the clergy, appeared at the Capitol yesterday in handcuffs to object to provisions in the House bill that would make illegal immigrants into felons and criminalize humanitarian groups that feed and house them. More than a half-million marchers protested in Los Angeles on Saturday, following protests in Phoenix, Milwaukee and Philadelphia.

"The immigration debate should be conducted in a civil and dignified way," Bush said. "No one should play on people's fears, or try to pit neighbors against each other."

A confrontation between the Senate and House Republicans now appears inevitable.

"We are eager, once the Senate passes this bill, to sit down and talk with them, but there are certain fundamental principles which we simply cannot compromise on," said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who cosponsored the bill that passed the Judiciary Committee largely intact last night. "It has to be a comprehensive approach. As we all know, just building walls and hiring more border patrols are not the answers to our immigration problem."

Specter, the committee chairman, had tried for weeks to find a middle ground between senators advocating a generous guest-worker program and those categorically rejecting amnesty for illegal immigrants. In the end, that search for a compromise failed because advocates of the guest-worker program had more than enough votes to overcome conservative opposition.

The panel voted to accept a bill largely patterned on the measure sponsored by Kennedy and McCain. Specter and Republican Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), Sam Brownback (Kan.) and Mike DeWine (Ohio) joined the committee's Democrats to win passage.

The panel's bill would allow the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in this country to apply for a work visa after paying back taxes and a penalty. The first three-year visa could be renewed for three more years. After four years, visa holders could apply for green cards and begin moving toward citizenship. An additional 400,000 such visas would be offered each year to workers seeking to enter the country.

Senators also accepted a proposal by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) that would offer 1.5 million illegal farmworkers a "blue card" visa that would legalize their status. The committee also accepted a provision by Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) that would shield humanitarian organizations from prosecution for providing more than simple emergency aid to illegal immigrants, rejecting an amendment by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) to require humanitarian groups providing food, medical aid and advice to illegal immigrants to register with the Department of Homeland Security.

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) protested that the Feinstein proposal was more focused on offering illegal immigrants a path to citizenship than meeting the labor demands of agriculture. Cornyn suggested the Judiciary Committee bill was moving toward creating a caste of second-class workers.

But Cornyn may have summed up Senate fears when he referred to energized voters protesting what they see as amnesty for people who violated the nation's laws and made a mockery of its borders.

"The American people are thinking, 'Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me,' " he said. "The only way we can get the confidence of the American people is to convince them we are absolutely serious about border security and law enforcement."

© 2006 The Washington Post Company
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/27/AR2006032700684.html

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 1:27 AM 3 comments Links to this post

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-protests28mar28,0,932535.story?coll=la-home-headlines
From the Los Angeles Times
THE IMMIGRATION DEBATE

Massive Student Walkout Spreads Across Southland
By Cynthia H. Cho and Anna Gorman
Times Staff Writers

March 28, 2006

Nearly 40,000 students from across Southern California staged walkouts to protest proposed immigration legislation Monday, blocking traffic on four freeways and leaving educators concerned about how much longer the issue will disrupt schools.

The protests are believed to eclipse in size the demonstrations that occurred during the anti-Proposition 187 campaign in 1994 and even a famous student walkout for Chicano rights in 1968.

Some principals put their schools on lockdown Monday to keep students from leaving campus, and Los Angeles Unified School District officials said all middle and high schools will be on lockdown today.

Monday's demonstrations appeared to start in Los Angeles but quickly spread to San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino, Orange and Ventura counties. Though the protests were mostly peaceful, there were a few clashes and several arrests.

Motorists were left in gridlock as youths marched down Sunset Boulevard, Melrose Avenue, Laurel Canyon Boulevard and other major thoroughfares.

At one point, protesters marched onto the Hollywood Freeway in downtown Los Angeles and two sections of the Harbor Freeway, downtown and in San Pedro, briefly halting traffic.

Students in Orange County briefly blocked the Riverside Freeway and Santa Ana Freeway in Fullerton, waving Mexican flags and tossing a rock that smashed the window of a CHP cruiser.

By noon, thousands of youths had gathered in front of Los Angeles City Hall, with student leaders meeting privately with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. The rally took on a festive tone, with many waving Mexican flags and yelling, "Latinos Stand Up!" and "Viva Mexico!"

"It was my dad's and grandfather's sweat and tears that built the city of Los Angeles," said Marshall High School senior Saul Corona, whose father came to the United States illegally before getting a green card. "People like them did things no one else wanted to do because they wanted me to have a better future."

The protests appeared to be loosely organized, with students learning about them through mass e-mails, fliers, instant messages, cellphone calls and postings on myspace.com Web pages. By contrast, the massive rally Saturday that drew 500,000 people to downtown Los Angeles was highly organized, with demonstrators urged to wear white and bring American flags.

Many students said they were marching in opposition to a bill sponsored by Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) that passed the House in December. The bill would give police more power to enforce immigration law and would lead to 700 miles of additional fencing along the border.

Even as the students marched, a Senate committee approved an immigration package Monday that would enable some of the about 12 million undocumented immigrants in the country to become U.S. citizens.

As immigrants or children of immigrants, several marchers said they would be personally affected by Sensenbrenner's pending bill.

"If this law passes, what will happen?" said Yadira Pech, 16. "There would be no more Los Angeles High School. Nearly all of us are immigrants."

Added Antonio Chavez, an eighth-grader at University Heights Middle School in Riverside: "Our parents, our families came here from Mexico. We want other families to be able to come here too."

Some students said they did not know exactly what the bill said but believed that it was part of an anti-immigrant movement taking hold nationwide.

"We just walked out because we didn't want to be at school," said Diana Hernandez, a senior at Dorsey High School in Los Angeles. "But we also believe [the legislation] is wrong."

The demonstrations became violent in some areas. In San Diego County, two dozen protesters were arrested in Escondido after refusing orders from police to disperse. Two patrol cars were reportedly vandalized.

In Riverside, a peaceful student protest unfolded downtown as six youths and one adult were arrested across town after scuffles with police clad in riot gear and carrying nightsticks, authorities said. After following students throughout the city and calling for them to disperse, officers confronted the group. Students responded by hurling rocks and bottles at police.

"They're pushing us around," said Pati Sanchez, a Norte Vista High School senior. "People should be able to say what they think."

In Santa Ana, officers used nightsticks and pepper spray to control students throwing bottles and rocks. They also set up barricades to prevent the protesters from disrupting traffic. One student was arrested and a few others suffered minor injuries, police said.

Four adults were arrested during a protest in Van Nuys, but no major violence occurred in Los Angeles County. The demonstrations prompted a tactical alert by Los Angeles police so the department could deploy officers to areas where they were needed.

"They're noisy but well-behaved," said LAPD Chief William J. Bratton as he walked through the downtown crowd. "Let them have their say."

In a district with about 358,000 middle and high school students, an estimated 26,000 walked out of more than 50 Los Angeles Unified campuses. Teachers, principals and school police urged students to demonstrate on campus, but students flooded through gates and onto city streets and sidewalks.

"It's very disruptive," said Ellen Morgan, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Unified School District. "We want them to express their opinions, but there are venues, there are forums for them to do so. We'd like them to stay in school and get an education."

Not only did the mostly high school students miss class time, administrators said, but the district could lose money if students did not show up. And with postings on myspace.com promoting more walkouts today, principals were doing whatever they could to encourage students to stay on school grounds.

All L.A. Unified middle and high schools will be on lockdown today, which means no one will be allowed to leave school once they enter, officials said. The district plans more stringent measures this morning, prohibiting students from going from class to class as usual.

Teachers are planning lessons on the immigration issue, and administrators are setting aside spots on campus for rallies and sit-ins. Some school officials plan to punish students who left campus with enforced attendance at Saturday school.

In Los Angeles, principals sent notes home that urged parents to tell their children to stay on campus and warned of disciplinary action for those who did not.

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 1:21 AM 0 comments Links to this post

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 11:20 PM 0 comments Links to this post

TEXAS LEAGUE OF UNITED LATIN AMERICAN CITIZENS
SCHOOL FINANCE AGENDA - 2006

SCHOOL FINANCE
 
INCREASE FUNDING
Rationale:

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 8:53 PM 0 comments Links to this post

Thanks to my colleague, Octavio Pimentel, I've got some great pictures here on the march in Los Angeles.
If you got to this link, you'll see that the number of marchers in L.A. could have been as high as a million. These pictures make this higher estimate credible. Click the photo for higher resolution. -Angela

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 8:00 PM 3 comments Links to this post

I want to share Dr. Estevan Flores' commentary on the march in Denver. -Angela

They came from all across Colorado, from Denver to the West Slope and Greeley to Pueblo and all points in between. Waving American flags along with Mexican, Salvadorean, Guatemalan, and others, more than 150,000 people jammed downtown Denver on Saturday to protest anti-immigrant legislation in Washington, DC, and ongoing attacks on immigrants here in Colorado.

Sponsored by a coalition of groups, including Colorado Progressive Coalition and allies including Rights for All People, Service Employees International Union, American Friends Service Committee, and Padres Unidos, the Denver event followed similar large scale rallies for immigrant justice this week in Chicago (300,000 people); Phoenix (30,000); Los Angeles (500,000); Atlanta (25,000 estimated), and other major cities. The crowds in all cities were mobilized by local radio and TV stations, particularly Spanish speaking news outlets.

Why did so many people come together for the largest political rally in decades in Denver? Here's why....The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote soon on HR 4437, sponsored by Rep. James Sensenbrenner (Wisconsin) and supported by Colorado's own anti-immigrant politician, Rep. Tom Tancredo (Littleton). The bill focuses on punishment only, not comprehensive solutions, building a wall along the US's southern border, scapegoating immigrants, and criminalizing anyone - churches, public service agencies, non-profit groups, and others - providing aid to immigrant workers lacking documentation.

This legislation is so mean-spirited that Los Angeles Roman Catholic Cardinal Roger Mahony has said that, if it passes, he will allow his priests and others to act against it as people need to be fed, clothed, housed, and provided medical care if they are sick. Senator Hillary Clinton (New York) said recently that "This bill would literally criminalize the Good Samaritan and probably even Jesus himself. We need to sound the alarm about what is being done in the Congress."

Here in Colorado, one of the national centers of anti-immigrant scapegoating, despite the many contributions of immigrants to our agricultural, construction, service, and tourism industries, the rally's turnout clearly overwhelmed event organizers who had hoped for 2,000 people and wound up filling the entire Civic Center Park from the Denver City and County Building all the way up the hill past the State Capitol!

Holding signs that said "We Are Not Criminals," "we are honest and work hard," and "you can't spell U.S.A. without US," the huge, peaceful crowd listened to speakers, music, and started an impromptu march that closed down parts of 14th Avenue and Colfax Avenue. One sign summed it up nicely "the more that you attack us, the stronger we get."
 
From Ch. 9’s website—Police estimated 30,000-50,000; rule of thumb by a veteran sociologist who attends rallies and marches (me—ETF), “always multiply by at least two or three times what police estimate”

----------------------------

DENVER – Thousands of people gathered at Civic Center Park Saturday to protest federal legislation that would criminalize undocumented immigrants.  

  The immigration reform rally in Denver was one of the largest protests across the country Saturday. March 25, 2006. 5:00 p.m. The rally started at 10:00a.m. in downtown Denver. Police estimate about 30-50 thousand people jammed the streets causing road closures.

Authorities closed Broadway, Bannock, Colfax and 14th Avenue for the protest. Congress is on the verge of passing legislation that will decide how immigrants will be treated for decades to come.

Supporters are demonstrating across the nation because they fear that immigration reform could pass through the Senate Judiciary Committee without reflecting the wishes of the people, says local community organizer.
 
------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Butch Montoya [mailto:fmon@hotmail.com]

NEW AMERICA MEDIA (Commentary): IMMIGRATION MATTERS -- Backlash Against the Backlash Grows
Commentary, Frank Sharry
New America Media, Mar 23, 2006

Editor's Note: There are clear signs that immigrants and their supporters in the religious, state government, labor and business sectors are fighting back against xenophobia being fanned by hard-line opponents of comprehensive immigration reform, writes Frank Sharry, executive director of the National Immigration Forum.

WASHINGTON, D.C.--If 2005 was the Year of the Minutemen, 2006 is becoming the Year of Immigrants Rising. Just look at the tens of thousands of immigrants who marched in downtown Chicago last March 11 for immigrant rights and against restrictive immigration proposals.

Less than three months ago, the leadership of the House of Representatives, in a vicious act of "drive-by" legislating, rushed through a bill that experts consider to be the most anti-immigrant piece of legislation in the United States in 80 years.

Here are some of the lowlights of the Sensenbrenner bill, HR 4437:

-- 11 million undocumented immigrants would be declared "aggravated felons" for having come to this country to do back-breaking work at low wages in order to feed their families.

-- Priests, nuns, health care workers and other helpers would be threatened with jail time for assisting the undocumented.

-- Local police would have to enforce federal immigration laws, undermining community policing strategies meant to build confidence between police and immigrant communities.

-- Day labor sites would be shut down by federal law, overruling the hard work of activists and enlightened local communities attempting to solve problems caused in part by Congressional inaction on comprehensive immigration reform.

-- Seven hundred miles of walls would be built between the United States and our friendly neighbors to the south, an act that has touched off a diplomatic crisis with Latin America.

The self-righteous politicians who cooked up this bill were undoubtedly pleased with their handiwork. They wanted their colleagues to go back to their districts over the holidays with something to crow about on talk radio and at town hall meetings. The lucky were invited to the Lou Dobbs show.

But politics is like physics: For every action there's a reaction. What looked so tempting last year is looking counterproductive this year. It seems the House anti-immigrant tantrum has angered and activated immigrants, their allies, religious leaders and local governments like never before. Here is are some recent events:

-- On March 7, over 30,000 immigrants showed up on the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., to protest the Sensenbrenner bill and to call for legalization. Families came from work and from up and down the East Coast to show their faces and raise their voices. Many carried simple homemade signs that said, "I am not a criminal."

-- Later that week Chicago was the scene of a rally that according to police drew at least 100,000 immigrants, and organizers claimed drew over 300,000. Both the Chicago and D.C. rallies were marked by unprecedented cooperation between the labor movement, immigrants rights advocacy organizations and community organizations led by immigrants.

-- Cardinal Mahony of Los Angeles recently announced that if the Sensenbrenner bill becomes law he will instruct his priests to defy it and provide services to the undocumented, even if it means going to jail.

-- City councils and county supervisors from Southern California to Ohio and Massachusetts are passing resolutions against the Sensenbrenner bill and calling for comprehensive reform that puts immigrants onto a path to citizenship.

-- Beyond Chicago, in Portland, Ore., 5,000 people protested HR 4437. Religious leaders are staging vigils in Ohio. Activists are demonstrating in the Michigan State House, and immigrants are pouring into Washington, D.C., to lobby for comprehensive reform along the lines of the McCain-Kennedy bill pending in the Senate. When Sen. John McCain traveled to Miami and New York to talk about immigration reform, 1,000 immigrants showed up in each city to cheer.

-- Even the undocumented Irish from the New York and Boston are becoming active. Some 2,000 descended on Washington, D.C., this week. Wearing T-shirts emblazoned with green lettering that said "Legalize the Irish," they lobbied lawmakers to back the McCain-Kennedy bill with its earned legalization provisions.

-- The business community is also upset over the Sensenbrenner bill. Groups of employers are flying into Washington, DC and demanding meetings with their representatives. Their message: they need immigrant workers and want to see their work force legalized, not deported.

Call it the backlash to the backlash. Some are even calling the passage of the Sensenbrenner bill the "Proposition 187 moment" of this decade, referring to 1994, when California Gov. Pete Wilson and the Republican Party won re-election by supporting the anti-immigrant ballot initiative Prop. 187. The measure and the ugly campaign for it so angered Latino and Asian immigrants that it led to a surge in citizenship and voting that threw the Republican Party out of virtually every statewide office for a decade.

Obviously, some Republicans understand that supporting immigrants is good for the country and their party. Sen. McCain of Arizona, a leading contender for the 2008 Republican nomination for president, gets it. So do some of his possible rivals for the Republican nomination, Sens. Sam Brownback of Kansas and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.

But more typical of the current thinking in GOP leadership circles is Sen. Bill Frist of Tennessee. He's gearing up to usher a Sensenbrenner-like bill in the Senate, presumably to score points with the same rabid anti-immigrant crowd the House played to. He probably thinks it will help him in the GOP presidential primaries.

Well, Pete Wilson thought his 1994 anti-immigrant platform would help his 1996 run for president. But his role in turning California from a purple state into a blue one and his reputation as a polarizing figure in immigrant communities made Wilson so radioactive no national politicians will be seen with him to this day.

Think about it. Over the past three decades, the GOP has systematically targeted employers, Catholics and Hispanics in order to forge a governing majority. Now, House Republican leaders are targeting employers, Catholics and Hispanics in order to appease talk radio hosts and the loud-but-not-large anti-immigrant zealots.

Here's a political prediction: over time, the Minuteman vote will pale in comparison to the political tsunami gathering strength in immigrant communities and among pro-immigrant constituencies across America.
 

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 9:36 AM 0 comments Links to this post

In bills' small print, critics see a threat to immigration
The measure would designate the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington as the only court in the nation to handle immigration appeals.

By Rachel L. Swarns
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Saturday, March 25, 2006

WASHINGTON — A little-noticed provision in two key Senate immigration bills would reshape the handling of immigration appeals cases and has touched off an outcry from several legal scholars, federal judges and the policymaking group for the federal courts.

The measure would designate the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, an administrative court that focuses primarily on patent cases and currently handles no immigration appeals, as the only court in the nation to handle immigration appeals.

Such appeals are currently shared by the other 12 federal appellate courts.

The judges and scholars say that the circuit court in Washington, which handles about 1,500 nonimmigration cases a year, would be swamped by an additional 12,000 immigration cases. And they say that the court lacks the expertise to handle complex immigration cases, which often raise a host of constitutional and human-rights issues.

The question of how these cases are handled is particularly sensitive because federal appeals court judges have sharply criticized what they have described as a pattern of biased and incoherent decisions from immigration judges in asylum cases, which are the bulk of immigration appeals.

The two bills — one by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the other by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. — were intended in part to ease the burden on the nation's federal appeals courts, which have had a sharp increase in immigration cases.

The provisions could come up for a vote in the Senate as early as next week.

Judiciary Committee staff members said that designating a single court to handle the cases would ensure a consistent standard for immigration decisions and discourage immigrants from shopping for favorable courts.

They said that immigration lawyers would be assigned to the court to help enhance expertise and that the number of judges would be increased to 15 from 12.

But Richard Posner, a federal appeals court judge in Chicago, said the measures were "not a sound solution."

Even with the three additional judges, he said, the annual caseload would surge to 900 per judge from 125.

"I cannot think of an area of law that is more remote from immigration than patents," Posner wrote in a letter to Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., a Judiciary Committee member. "No doubt the judges of the federal circuit can become knowledgeable about immigration law, but they will be overwhelmed by the new caseload."

Leonidas Ralph Mecham, secretary for the Judicial Conference of the United States, a group of judges that makes policy for the federal courts and presents the judiciary's views to Congress, raised similar concerns.

"No sufficient justification to support changing the status quo and shifting these cases from the regional courts to the federal circuit has been provided," Mecham wrote in a letter to Specter.

The judges also raised concerns about a proposal that would appoint a single judge to decide whether immigration cases were worthy of consideration for appeal. If the judge declined the case, no further review would be available.

Durbin said he planned to offer an amendment that would kill the measures, telling his colleagues on the Judiciary Committee that it would be premature to make such changes before holding hearings.

Critics of the new legislation also say that a better solution would be to add resources to the overstrained local immigration courts and the immigration appeals court, known as the Board of Immigration Appeals.

http://www.statesman.com/search/content/news/stories/nation/03/25immigcourt.html

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 10:26 AM 0 comments Links to this post

This came out in the Austin Am-Statesman yesterday. I found it to be very helpful. -Angela

Have knowledge in hand for the immigration debate

10 things you may not have known about immigration.

By Chuck McCutcheon
NEWHOUSE NEWS SERVICE
Sunday, March 26, 2006

WASHINGTON — Immigration is about to sweep aside foreign port ownership and lobbying scandals as the dominant election year debate on Capitol Hill, with the Senate preparing to take up a bill this week on the thorny topic. With that in mind, we've assembled 10 facts behind the headlines.

Did you know . . .

1. That during 2001-04, the number of entering legal immigrants, 3.8 million, eclipsed the 3.7 million who arrived in the 1890s during the mass migration from Europe? That's according to the U.S. Office of Immigration Statistics.

2. That after Mexico, the primary sources of legal U.S. immigrants are India, China and the Philippines? Mexico accounts for about 20 percent; the next three about 6 percent each. They are followed, at 3 percent or less, by Vietnam, El Salvador, Cuba, Haiti, Bosnia, Canada, the Dominican Republic, Ukraine, Korea, Russia and Nicaragua. These top 15 account for 60 percent of legal immigrants.

3. That there are at least 11.5 million unauthorized U.S. immigrants from all countries? The estimate, by the Pew Hispanic Center, is a figure larger than the populations of Cuba (11.3 million), Portugal (10.6 million) and Michigan (10.1 million).

4. That more than 7 million unauthorized immigrants were employed in March 2005? The number accounts for nearly 5 percent of the civilian labor force, the Pew Center estimates. These immigrants make up 36 percent of insulation workers, 29 percent of roofers, 27 percent of butchers and food-processing workers, 22 percent of maids and housekeepers and 19 percent of parking lot attendants.

5. That the percentage of immigrants, legal and illegal, in some of the nation's biggest cities remains below the era of a century ago, never mind the recent high numbers? In the early 1900s, the level of immigrants in cities such as New York and Chicago was in the 12 percent to 14 percent range, American University history professor Alan Kraut said. Today, Kraut said, the figure is about 11 percent.

6. That the "green card" is actually dark blue? It has come in a variety of colors at various times in its history, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service. The changes were made to prevent counterfeiting and, later, to make it easier for machines to read. The first cards enabling unnaturalized immigrants to live and work indefinitely in the United States — a product of the Alien Registration Act of 1940 — were printed on white paper. By 1951, the form was green, but in 1964 it was pale blue and a year later changed to its current color. It also has been issued in pink and pink-and-blue.

7. That the cost of making one arrest along the U.S.-Mexico border jumped from $300 in 1992 to $1,700 in 2002? So finds a Cato Institute study by Princeton University sociologist Douglas Massey, whose measurement is in constant, year 2000 dollars.

8. That Border Patrol officials rely on more than 250 remote video camera sites and 10,500 ground sensors? The system uses radar, heat-sensitive, seismic and magnetic technologies. But as of August 2005, it covered just 4 percent of the combined northern and southern borders, according to Congress' Government Accountability Office.

9. That the number of foreigners other than Mexicans entering illegally has soared? The Border Patrol apprehended 25,000 in 1997 and more than 100,000 in 2005, according to the Congressional Research Service. A Senate bill would authorize the secretaries of state and homeland security to develop ways to help Mexico tighten its southern border to combat human smuggling from Guatemala and Belize.

10. That the Homeland Security Department releases non-Mexican illegal immigrants caught in the United States if they do not have felony convictions and do not pose a threat to national security? The reason is a lack of bed space in detention facilities. They are given a notice to appear in court for deportation proceedings, but most never show up.

The department wants to end the disparity by expanding bed space. There are about 20,000 beds, and the budget request for next year would add 6,700. Compare that to the MGM Grand Las Vegas, the country's largest hotel, which has about 8,000 beds.

http://www.statesman.com/search/content/editorial/stories/insight/03/26immigfacts.html

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 10:24 AM 4 comments Links to this post

Mar 26, 9:58 PM EST

By NEDRA PICKLER
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Founded by immigrants and praised as a haven for the oppressed, the United States now is struggling to decide the fate of as many as 12 million people living in the country illegally.

The Senate takes up the emotional debate on the heels of weekend rallies that drew hundreds of thousands of people protesting attempts to toughen laws against immigrants. Among the election-year proposals that President Bush and members of Congress are considering:

-Erecting a fence on the Mexico border to deter illegal immigration.

-Treating people who sneak across the border as felons to be deported.

-Allowing foreigners to stay in the country legally as custodians, dish washers, construction workers and other low-paid employees.

-Allowing those working in the U.S. a path to citizenship.

-Requiring them to get in line behind everyone else back in their home countries who want to become Americans.

Senate aides met into the evening Sunday in advance of a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting to debate legislation, but there was no evidence of a breakthrough on the issue most in dispute. Lawmakers have been divided on whether illegal immigrants should be required to return to their home country before they become eligible for U.S. citizenship.

For his part, Bush arranged to attend a Monday naturalization ceremony for 30 new citizens at Constitution Hall, a few blocks from the White House.

And demonstrations are planned near the Capitol, including a prayer service with immigration advocates and clergy who plan to wear handcuffs to demonstrate the criminalization of immigration violations.

Bush is going to Mexico this week for a meeting with the leaders of Mexico and Canada. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sunday it's important that Mexico "recognize the importance of defense of the borders and of American laws."

Protests raged across the country over the weekend, led by more than 500,000 people who marched through downtown Los Angeles on Saturday in one of the largest demonstrations for any cause in recent U.S. history. Marchers also took to the streets in Phoenix, Milwaukee, Dallas and Columbus, Ohio.

Demonstrations continued Sunday, when nearly 3,000 people, many wrapped in Mexican flags, rallied at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus and an estimated 3,500 United Farm Workers members and their supporters protested in Los Angeles.

The president, working hand-in-hand with the business community that relies on cheap labor, is pressuring Congress to allow immigrants to stay in the country legally if they take a job that Americans are unwilling to do.

Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., also supports the idea and has vowed that his committee will advance a bill to the full Senate on Monday, even if they have to work "very, very late into the night."

"If they're prepared to work to become American citizens in the long line traditionally of immigrants who have helped make this country, we can have both a nation of laws and a welcoming nation of workers who do some very, very important jobs for our economy," Specter said Sunday on ABC's "This Week."

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., has said that whether or not a bill gets out of the Judiciary Committee, he is opening two weeks of debate on the issue Tuesday. He has offered a plan that would tighten borders, add Border Patrol agents and punish employers who hire illegal immigrants because he says the most important concern is improving national security in an age of terrorism. His bill sidesteps the question of temporary work permits, but he has said he's open to the idea.

Democrats have said they will do everything they can to block Frist's bill. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said Sunday that legislation creating tougher enforcement does not do enough.

"We have spent $20 billion on chains and fences and border guards and dogs in the southern border over the last 10 years," Kennedy said on "Face the Nation" on CBS. "And it doesn't work. What we need is a comprehensive approach. I think President Bush understands it."

Where Kennedy and Bush differ is on the question of what to do with foreigners who are already living and working in the United States. Kennedy and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., have a bill that would allow those immigrants to apply for citizenship once they pay taxes and a fine and learn English.

Critics like Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., say that would give amnesty to people who have broken the law by entering the country without permission.

"It's a slap in the face to every single person who has done it the right way, and to everybody who's waiting out there to do it the right way," Tancredo said. "It's bad policy. And it's also, I think, for the Republican Party especially, bad policy."

Bush wants to give foreign workers a guest permit to stay for a specific amount of time to do a job, without a path to citizenship. Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., propose to let employed illegal immigrants stay for five years but then leave, pay fines and apply to re-enter the country.

If the Senate can agree on the bill, the work won't be over to get legislation to Bush's desk to become a law. The House passed a bill last year that increases penalties for illegal immigration activities, requires employers to verify the legal status of their employees and provides $2.2 billion for a 700-mile fence across the border. But it did not address the guest worker issue.

http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/I/IMMIGRATION?SITE=TXSAE&SECTION=US&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2006-03-26-21-58-44

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 9:11 PM 1 comments Links to this post

March 26, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:25 p.m. ET

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Thousands of immigration advocates marched through downtown Los Angeles in one of the largest demonstrations for any cause in recent U.S. history.

More than 500,000 protesters -- demanding that Congress abandon attempts to make illegal immigration a felony and to build more walls along the border -- surprised police who estimated the crowd size using aerial photographs and other techniques, police Cmdr. Louis Gray Jr. said.

Wearing white T-shirts to symbolize peace, the demonstrators chanted ''Mexico!'' ''USA!'' and ''Si se puede,'' an old Mexican-American civil rights shout that means ''Yes, we can.''

In Denver, more than 50,000 people protested downtown Saturday, according to police who had expected only a few thousand. Phoenix was similarly surprised Friday when an estimated 20,000 people gathered for one of the biggest demonstrations in city history, and more than 10,000 marched in Milwaukee on Thursday.

''We construct your schools. We cook your food,'' rapper Jorge Ruiz said after performing at a Dallas rally that drew 1,500. ''We are the motor of this nation, but people don't see us. Blacks and whites, they had their revolution. They had their Martin Luther King. Now it is time for us.''

Many protesters said lawmakers were unfairly targeting immigrants who provide a major labor pool for America's economy.

''Enough is enough of the xenophobic movement,'' said Norman Martinez, 63, who immigrated from Honduras as a child and marched in Los Angeles. ''They are picking on the weakest link in society, which has built this country.''

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed legislation that would make it a felony to be in the U.S. illegally, impose new penalties on employers who hire illegal immigrants, require churches to check the legal status of people they help, and erect fences along one-third of the U.S.-Mexican border.

The Senate is to begin debating the proposals on Tuesday.

President Bush on Saturday called for legislation that does not force America to choose between being a welcoming society and a lawful one.

''America is a nation of immigrants, and we're also a nation of laws,'' Bush said in his weekly radio address, discussing an issue that had driven a wedge into his own party.

Bush sides with business leaders who want to let some of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants stay in the country and work for a set period of time. Others, including Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, say national security concerns should drive immigration reform.

But many protesters rejected claims the national security claim, noting that the legislation would hurt Hispanics the most.

''When did you ever see a Mexican blow up the World Trade Center? Who do you think built the World Trade Center?'' said David Gonzalez, 22, who marched in Los Angeles with a sign that read, ''I'm in my homeland.'''

Between 5,000 and 7,000 people gathered Saturday in Charlotte, carrying signs with slogans such as ''Am I Not a Human Being?'' In Sacramento, more than 4,000 people protested immigration legislation at an annual march honoring the late farm labor leader Cesar Chavez.

The demonstrations are expected to culminate April 10 in a ''National Day of Action'' organized by labor, immigration, civil rights and religious groups.
------
Associated Press writers Bob Jablon and Kim Nguyen contributed to this report.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Immigration-Rallies.html

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 8:29 PM 0 comments Links to this post

This is a pretty incredible story. I wonder what changes it will encourage in the area of college admissions?
-Angela


March 26, 2006
Colleges Say SAT Mistakes May Affect Scholarships

By KAREN W. ARENSON /NYTimes

At many colleges, the biggest impact of the mistakes made by the College Board in scoring the October SAT will be on eligibility for scholarships, not on admissions decisions, college officials say.

"With admissions, the colleges say they are practicing holistic review," said Donald E. Heller, an associate professor of education at Pennsylvania State University and an expert in student financial aid. "But with scholarships, some use flat cutoff points with the SAT score. They say if you score above 1,200 or 1,800 on the SAT, you are eligible for a scholarship. If you don't get that score, you don't get that scholarship."

Jennifer Topiel, a spokeswoman for the board, said on Friday that the board recommended that scores not be used that way.

But the reality is that they are used like that in numerous college and statewide scholarship programs. Dr. Heller said he found in a recent study that 7 out of 14 states that offered broad-based merit scholarship programs used specific SAT scores to determine awards, usually along with students' grade point averages. And, he said, many colleges that offered their own merit scholarships did the same.

Over the past two weeks, the board has revealed that because of technical problems in scanning the October exam, the scores of more than 5,000 students were inaccurately reported. It notified colleges of corrections for 4,411 students whose scores were too low — by as many as 450 points out of a possible 2,400 — but is not making changes for 600 other students whose scores were too high.

Christine A. Halloran, an assistant director of admissions at the College of New Jersey, called the scoring revisions a "nonevent" in terms of admissions because much of the decision-making "is based on the strength of the academic transcript."

But she said that under the state's merit scholarship program, which is tied closely to how students perform on the SAT, about five students would receive better scholarships because the board had raised their October scores.

The New Jersey program offers a sliding scale of scholarships that depends on a student's class rank and SAT scores. In-state students in the top 5 percent of their graduating classes, for example, are eligible for full tuition, room and board, plus a laptop computer, if they earn a combined score of 1,500 to 1,600 on the math and reading portions of the SAT. If their scores are from 1,450 to 1,490, they receive tuition, a laptop and a $2,000 stipend; from 1,400 and 1,440 they receive $6,500 and a laptop. Those with lower scores receive less. The amounts diminish for students with lower class ranks.

Franklin and Marshall College, in Lancaster, Pa., which does not have a set cutoff for scholarship eligibility but takes the SAT scores into account, had one applicant whose score correction of more than 300 points meant the difference between a $5,000 scholarship and one worth $12,500.

"I know it is really hard for the public to understand why 50 points can make a difference," said Dennis Trotter, a vice president and dean of admissions. "But when it comes down to it, we might be looking at 200 students who might qualify for these scholarships, and they go head to head. There are a lot of intangibles. One of the quantifiable things is the SAT score, along with the high school record. A swing of even 80 or 100 points on the SAT could mean the difference between the highest-level scholarship or not receiving one at all, because it is all so competitive."

Still, some students say the revisions to the test scores do not compensate them for missed opportunities.

Jake DeLillo, a star lacrosse player at Yorktown High School in New York, received recruitment letters from more than 50 colleges last year, and he was particularly interested in colleges like the University of Massachusetts, which had strong lacrosse programs. But, he said, some of the coaches told him that his spring SAT scores were not high enough, and he needed to raise them about 100 points to be considered.

When he took the October SAT, he thought he had done well — until he got his scores. The results forced him to shift his search to other colleges, and he was accepted by the New York Institute of Technology, last year's national Division II lacrosse champion. Mr. DeLillo said he was looking forward to attending.

Two weeks ago, he said, the College Board told him it had understated his October results by 170 points. "It was definitely upsetting," he said. "People make mistakes, but this was a big one."


Copyright 2006The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/26/education/26sat.html?th&emc=th

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 8:21 PM 0 comments Links to this post

Wow! This is a very sad commentaring on the impact of testing on curriculum. -Angela

March 26, 2006
Schools Cut Back Subjects to Push Reading and Math

By SAM DILLON
SACRAMENTO — Thousands of schools across the nation are responding to the reading and math testing requirements laid out in No Child Left Behind, President Bush's signature education law, by reducing class time spent on other subjects and, for some low-proficiency students, eliminating it.

Schools from Vermont to California are increasing — in some cases tripling — the class time that low-proficiency students spend on reading and math, mainly because the federal law, signed in 2002, requires annual exams only in those subjects and punishes schools that fall short of rising benchmarks.

The changes appear to principally affect schools and students who test below grade level.

The intense focus on the two basic skills is a sea change in American instructional practice, with many schools that once offered rich curriculums now systematically trimming courses like social studies, science and art. A nationwide survey by a nonpartisan group that is to be made public on March 28 indicates that the practice, known as narrowing the curriculum, has become standard procedure in many communities.

The survey, by the Center on Education Policy, found that since the passage of the federal law, 71 percent of the nation's 15,000 school districts had reduced the hours of instructional time spent on history, music and other subjects to open up more time for reading and math. The center is an independent group that has made a thorough study of the new act and has published a detailed yearly report on the implementation of the law in dozens of districts.

"Narrowing the curriculum has clearly become a nationwide pattern," said Jack Jennings, the president of the center, which is based in Washington.

At Martin Luther King Jr. Junior High School in Sacramento, about 150 of the school's 885 students spend five of their six class periods on math, reading and gym, leaving only one 55-minute period for all other subjects.

About 125 of the school's lowest-performing students are barred from taking anything except math, reading and gym, a measure that Samuel Harris, a former lieutenant colonel in the Army who is the school's principal, said was draconian but necessary. "When you look at a kid and you know he can't read, that's a tough call you've got to make," Mr. Harris said.

The increasing focus on two basic subjects has divided the nation's educational establishment. Some authorities, including Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, say the federal law's focus on basic skills is raising achievement in thousands of low-performing schools. Other experts warn that by reducing the academic menu to steak and potatoes, schools risk giving bored teenagers the message that school means repetition and drilling.

"Only two subjects? What a sadness," said Thomas Sobol, an education professor at Columbia Teachers College and a former New York State education commissioner. "That's like a violin student who's only permitted to play scales, nothing else, day after day, scales, scales, scales. They'd lose their zest for music."

But officials in Cuero, Tex., have adopted an intensive approach and said it was helping them meet the federal requirements. They have doubled the time that all sixth graders and some seventh and eighth graders devote to reading and math, and have reduced it for other subjects.

"When you only have so many hours per day and you're behind in some area that's being hammered on, you have to work on that," said Henry Lind, the schools superintendent. "It's like basketball. If you can't make layups, then you've got to work on layups."

Chad Colby, a spokesman for the federal Department of Education, said the department neither endorsed nor criticized schools that concentrated instructional time on math and reading as they sought to meet the test benchmarks laid out in the federal law's accountability system, known as adequate yearly progress.

"We don't choose the curriculum," Mr. Colby said. "That's a decision that local leaders have to make. But for every school you point to, I can show you five other schools across the country where students are still taking a well-rounded curriculum and are still making adequate yearly progress. I don't think it's unreasonable to ask our schools to get kids proficient at grade level in reading and math."

Since America's public schools began taking shape in the early 1800's, shifting fashions have repeatedly reworked the curriculum. Courses like woodworking and sewing joined the three R's. After World War I, vocational courses, languages and other subjects broadened the instructional menu into a smorgasbord.

A federal law passed after the Russian launching of Sputnik in 1957 spurred a renewed emphasis on science and math, and a 1975 law that guaranteed educational rights for the disabled also provoked sweeping change, said William Reese, a professor at the University of Wisconsin and author of "America's Public Schools: From the Common School to No Child Left Behind." But the education law has leveraged one of the most abrupt instructional shifts, he said.

"Because of its emphasis on testing and accountability in particular subjects, it apparently forces some school districts down narrow intellectual paths," Dr. Reese said. "If a subject is not tested, why teach it?"

The shift has been felt in the labor market, heightening demand for math teachers and forcing educators in subjects like art and foreign languages to search longer for work, leaders of teachers groups said.

The survey that is coming out this week looks at 299 school districts in 50 states. It was conducted as part of a four-year study of No Child Left Behind and appears to be the most systematic effort to track the law's footprints through the classroom, although other authorities had warned of its effect on teaching practices.

The historian David McCullough told a Senate Committee last June that because of the law, "history is being put on the back burner or taken off the stove altogether in many or most schools, in favor of math and reading."

The report says that at districts in Colorado, Texas, Vermont, California, Nebraska and elsewhere, math and reading are squeezing other subjects. At one district cited, the Bayonne City Schools in New Jersey, low-performing ninth graders will be barred from taking Spanish, music or any other elective next fall so they can take extra periods of math and reading, said Ellen O'Connor, an assistant superintendent.

"We're using that as a motivation," Dr. O'Connor said. "We're hoping they'll concentrate on their math and reading so they can again participate in some course they love."

At King Junior High, in a poor neighborhood in Sacramento a few miles from a decommissioned Air Force base, the intensive reading and math classes have raised test scores for several years running. That has helped Larry Buchanan, the superintendent of the Grant Joint Union High School District, which oversees the school, to be selected by an administrators' group as California's 2005 superintendent of the year.

But in spite of the progress, the school's scores on California state exams, used for compliance with the federal law, are increasing not nearly fast enough to allow the school to keep up with the rising test benchmarks. On the math exams administered last spring, for instance, 17.4 percent of students scored at the proficient level or above, and on the reading exams, only 14.9 percent.

With scores still so low, Mr. Harris, the school's principal, and Mr. Buchanan said they had little alternative but to continue remedial instruction for the lower-achieving among the school's nearly 900 students.

The students are the sons and daughters of mostly Hispanic, black and Laotian Hmong parents, many of whom work as gardeners, welders and hotel maids or are unemployed. The district administers frequent diagnostic tests so that teachers can carefully calibrate lessons to students' needs.

Rubén Jimenez, a seventh grader whose father is a construction laborer, has a schedule typical of many students at the school, with six class periods a day, not counting lunch.

Rubén studies English for the first three periods, and pre-algebra and math during the fourth and fifth. His sixth period is gym. How does he enjoy taking only reading and math, a recent visitor asked.

"I don't like history or science anyway," Rubén said. But a moment later, perhaps recalling something exciting he had heard about lab science, he sounded ambivalent.

"It'd be fun to dissect something," he said.

Martín Lara, Rubén's teacher, said the intense focus on math was paying off because his math skills were solidifying. Rubén said math has become his favorite subject.

But other students, like Paris Smith, an eighth grader, were less enthusiastic. Last semester, Paris failed one of the two math classes he takes, back to back, each morning.

"I hate having two math classes in a row," Paris said. "Two hours of math is too much. I can't concentrate that long."

Donna Simmons, his mother, said Mr. Lara seemed to be working hard to help Paris understand math.

"The school cares," Ms. Simmons said. "The faculty cares. I want him to keep trying."

Sydney Smith, a vice principal who oversees instruction at the school, said she had heard only minimal grumbling from students excluded from electives.

"I've only had about two students come to my office and say: 'What in the world? I'm just taking two courses?' " Ms. Smith said. "So most students are not complaining about being miserable."

But Lorie Turner, who teaches English to some pupils for three consecutive periods and to others for two periods each day, said she used some students' frustration to persuade them to try for higher scores on the annual exams administered under California's Standardized Testing and Reporting program, known as Star.

"I have some little girls who are dying to get out of this class and get into a mainstream class," Ms. Turner said. "But I tell them the only way out is to do better on that Star test."

Copyright 2006The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/26/education/26child.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 8:15 PM 0 comments Links to this post

March 23, 2006
SAT Problems Even Larger Than Reported
By KAREN W. ARENSON

The College Board disclosed yesterday that the problems resulting from the misscoring of its October SAT examination were larger than it had previously reported.

In a statement, the organization said it discovered last weekend that 27,000 of the 495,000 October tests had not been rechecked for errors. It said that after checking those exams and one other overlooked set, it had found that 400 more students than previously reported had received scores that were too low.

A board official added that the maximum error was 450 points, not 400.

This is the third time in two weeks that the board, which administers the exam, has acknowledged that its earlier assessment of the problems was wrong. In its statement, the board also outlined steps it planned to avoid mistakes.

The disclosures prompted fresh criticism that the board had not been as forthcoming as it should have been in disclosing the problems promptly and in detail.

"Everybody appears to be telling half-truths, and that erodes confidence in the College Board," said Bruce J. Poch, vice president and dean of admissions at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif. "It looks like they hired the people who used to do the books for Enron. My next question is what other surprise we're going to hear about next."

The board said two weeks ago that it had found scoring problems on the October SAT after two students requested in December that their tests be re-scored by hand. In the review, the board became aware of a more widespread problem.

It asked Pearson Educational Measurement, the large testing company that scores the exam, to rescore the October exams. As a result, the board found that 4,000 students had received understated scores and that 600 had overstated scores. The policy of the board is to change just scores that are too low. Pearson has said the errors resulted in part from too much moisture when it scanned the answer sheets to be graded by machine.

Last week, the board said 1,600 exams, separated for special processing because of security and other questions, had not been rescored. The board asked Pearson to rescore those tests. While awaiting that rescoring, the board asked Pearson to confirm again that all the October tests had been scored a second time. It turned out that they had not been.

Last weekend, the board said, Pearson informed board officials that 27,000 tests had not been "fully evaluated." Neither the board nor Pearson explained how or why those tests had been overlooked.

In rescoring the 27,000 tests this week, 375 were found to have scores lower than they should have been. The incidence of problems ˜ 1.4 percent of the 27,000 ˜ was significantly higher than in the first batch of problems, in which eight-tenths of 1 percent of the tests were misscored. An additional 18 misscored tests were found among the 1,600 separated from the rest of the October exams for special processing.

According to the board statement yesterday, the total number of students who received scores too low was 10 percent larger than it had reported before, approximately 4,400 rather than 4,000. The board said yesterday that 613 others had received scores higher than those they had earned on the three-part exam, which has a possible 2,400 points.

The vice president for public affairs at the board, Chiarra Coletti, said it would notify college admissions officers and high school guidance counselors last night through an "e-mail alert," and inform affected students today.

Pearson, one of the biggest players in the testing industry, has experienced other scoring problems. It started scoring the SAT last year.

In its statement yesterday, the board said Pearson would ensure that all answer sheets were "acclimatized before scanning" and would scan each answer sheet twice. Pearson will also improve its software to detect whether answer sheets have expanded because of humidity.

In addition, the board said Booz Allen Hamilton, the consultants, would conduct a "comprehensive review, with emphasis on the scanning process," over the next 90 days, and would recommend improvements.

Ms. Coletti said that she did not know how much the new procedures would cost, but that the test fee for the rest of this year would "certainly remain the same."

The board statement quoted Douglas Kubach, chief executive of Pearson Educational Measurement, as saying that the company regretted "the uncertainty and disruption these issues caused" and was "determined to take every possible necessary step to restore confidence in this process."

"Electronic scanning of answers is essential to giving the large number of students who take the SAT the speed and accuracy they require in this important test," he added.

A spokesman for Pearson, David Hakensen, said he could not provide more information on whether the new steps would mean higher prices.

Robert A. Schaeffer, public education director for FairTest, a group that criticizes heavy reliance on testing, said the new announcement reinforced "the need for an outside independent investigation to find out how many more problems have not been reported."

"The College Board and Pearson are clearly not competent to police themselves," Mr. Schaeffer said.

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 8:37 AM 0 comments Links to this post

March 22, 2006

Standardized Tests Face a Crisis Over Standards

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/22/education/22education.html
By MICHAEL WINERIP / New York Times

NEVER has the nation's education system been so reliant on standardized tests and the companies that make them. Thanks to the federal No Child Left Behind Law, this year, for the first time, every student from third to eighth grade and one high school grade must take state tests. That is about 45 million tests to be graded annually and it does not even include all the standardized tests now required for professional certification, or the SAT, ACT, AP, GRE exams, to name a few.

Last week was not a good one for the half-dozen companies that dominate the testing industry. Pearson admitted that it had incorrectly scored thousands of the College Board's SAT tests. The Educational Testing Service agreed to pay $11.1 million to settle a class-action suit brought on behalf of 4,100 people who were told that they had failed a teacher licensing test when they had actually passed. And in New York, new seventh- and eighth-grade tests developed by McGraw-Hill included several questions from practice tests that were mistakenly used again on the real tests.

Test officials say that it was just a bad week and that mistakes are few, considering all the tests given.

But in a recent study that is looking more prescient every minute, Thomas Toch, co-director of a new research group, EducationSector, describes how overextended and underregulated the testing industry is; he warns of many more bad weeks to come, unless something is done.

"The scale of N.C.L.B. testing requirements, competitive pressures in the testing industry, a shortage of testing experts, insufficient state resources, tight regulatory deadlines and a lack of meaningful oversight of the sprawling N.C.L.B. testing enterprise are undermining N.C.L.B.'s pursuit of higher academic standards," he writes. And that is from a man who supports the federal law.

While testing errors make headlines, Mr. Toch writes that even more worrisome is the pressure on states to dumb down their tests — to switch from challenging tests with essay questions to multiple choice to save money and meet federal reporting deadlines. He points out how much cheaper and faster machine-scored multiple-choice tests are to grade. Florida can do a million multiple-choice tests in a day, while correcting tests with essay questions can take weeks. It costs a test company 50 cents to $5 to score an essay, compared with pennies for each multiple-choice question.

The result? "Many of the tests that states are introducing under N.C.L.B. contain many questions that require students to merely recall and restate facts, rather than do more demanding tasks like applying or evaluating information," Mr. Toch writes in his study, which can be found at www.educationsector.org.

A recent Education Week survey found that 42 percent of students are now taking state reading and math tests that are entirely multiple choice. To save time and money, Kansas and Mississippi switched to all-multiple-choice tests this year.

Which brings us to Connecticut. Last year, Connecticut filed suit against the federal Department of Education, contending that federal officials had failed to pay the cost of all the tests required by No Child Left Behind. While the suit got much news media play, many of the underlying testing issues were missed.

Connecticut wants to maintain its state tests, which feature many essay questions and problems that require students to explain their work. The state maintains that to administer these tests every year from third to eighth grade, as the federal law requires, will cost $8 million more than federal financing provides.

In a May 3, 2005, letter, the federal education secretary, Margaret Spellings, said that while Connecticut's tests "are instructionally sound, they go beyond what was contemplated by N.C.L.B." Federal officials suggested that Connecticut switch to multiple-choice tests and eliminate writing tests to cut costs.

For many, the Connecticut lawsuit is a pivotal moment. Will the law's testing demands raise national education standards or lower them?

Connecticut has long been considered the gold standard of state testing programs, mixing multiple choice and essays. A fifth-grade reading test describes a popular game in Uganda and asks students to write an essay comparing the African game with a game played at their school. Connecticut's high school science test requires students to design and carry out a lab experiment, record the results and answer questions about it.

"Connecticut's reputation is to produce tests that are the best in the country," says James Popham, a national testing expert who is a professor emeritus at the University ofCalifornia, Los Angeles. "The Feds' position is so shortsighted. N.C.L.B. is supposed to be increasing the caliber of education and this is lowering it. It's eroding the power of the test to explain what kids can and cannot do."

In their legal papers, Connecticut officials said the deputy secretary of education, Ray Simon, suggested that the state, in addition to saving money by switching to multiple-choice reading and math tests in several grades and dropping its writing assessments, could also "use multiple choice for the N.C.L.B. science tests in grades 5, 8 and 10."

Betty Sternberg, Connecticut's education commissioner, said having challenging tests pushed schools to teach higher-level skills. "Writing is an essential skill that every youngster needs to succeed," she said. "Eliminating it is not an option."

TO hold down testing costs, Connecticut sought permission to give its state tests to every other grade, as it has done since the 1980's.

Ms. Spellings rejected this request, saying that annual testing was a crucial part of the law. Chad Colby, a spokesman for the federal Education Department, said officials would not comment on the pending lawsuit. But in an opinion article in The Hartford Courant last year, Ms. Spellings compared Connecticut officials to children who did not like tests and said that, as adults, they should "surely know better." She wrote that tests needed to be administered annually to highlight and shrink the achievement gap between white and black students.

In response, Gov. M. Jodi Rell wrote that testing twice as often would not close the gap and that the money would be better spent on preschool, technology and a longer school day.

Unlike Connecticut, Mississippi gave in and switched to multiple-choice tests. "Our budget has been very tight the last several years," said Kris Kaase, an associate state superintendent. Asked if he worried that the state was dumbing down its tests, he said, "It's a concern people have."

"It means a statewide assessment is not as complete an assessment of a student as we would like," he said.

E-mail: edmike@nytimes.com
Copyright 2006The New York Times Company



 
 
 

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 2:11 PM 5 comments Links to this post

"I was a stranger and you welcomed me," (Matthew 25:35).

Immigration is a deeply relevant issue for both Americans and Christians. The U.S. is a nation of immigrants, one that has been continually reshaped by new groups of people bringing diverse cultures, perspectives, and resources. Immigration is also a core issue for Christians: the biblical story continually shows God's concern for the migrant and the outcast. The early Hebrews were "strangers in the land of Egypt" and were asked to remember this heritage by protecting the strangers among them in the promised land. Similarly, throughout the New Testament, Christians are called to care for the outcast and the stranger.

The U.S. desperately needs to heed the biblical imperative to care for the stranger. Since the mid-‘90s, when the government established operations in San Diego, El Paso, and Arizona increasing fencing and border security, more than 2,500 people have died of dehydration and exhaustion crossing the desert into the U.S. In addition, thousands of immigrants who do make it into the U.S. are treated inhumanely by an increasingly militarized border security system of police, fences, and jails.

A common misconception exists that immigrants use up national resources. However, immigrants actually contribute $1,800 more on average in annual taxes than they receive in benefits, according to a 1997 study by the National Academy of Sciences. Immigrants pay local taxes through work, purchases, and housing, as well as direct federal taxes. Young immigrant workers contribute to Social Security through payroll taxes. Immigration is also key to a vital economy; in the U.S. immigrants add about $10 billion annually to the U.S. economy. Immigrants to the U.S., documented and undocumented, contribute a great deal to our national economy and government.

"The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God." (Leviticus 19:34)

Links to organizations and resources providing more information on immigration reform:

National Immigration Forum

National Council of La Raza

American Friends Service Committee

U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

No More Deaths Campaign

Latin America Working Group

New American Opportunity Campaign

Mennonite Central Committee Washington Office

Justice For Immigrants Campaign

World Relief

Studies on U.S. Immigration:

National Academy of Sciences

U.S. Department of Labor

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 11:36 PM 1 comments Links to this post

This piece critiques the 65% plan, something that will likely surface during the special session on school finance.
It's good to get beyond the rhetoric and see what the data actually say.
-Angela

Spending on instruction varies among Texas school districts
Even stellar performers don't always hit Perry's proposed 65 percent mark, study finds.

By Raven L. Hill
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Monday, March 20, 2006

Even Texas' highest-performing school districts vary widely in how much they spend on instruction, according to a study released this week by a coalition of education groups, a finding that adds to the debate about the reasoning behind Gov. Rick Perry's "65 percent rule."

The rule would require school districts to spend almost two-thirds of their budgets on "direct classroom instruction" and will be phased in over several years. The education groups have argued that funding should be handled at the local level.

The report looked at total expenditures and their role in the educational process during the 2003-04 school year and found that most, whether for instruction or other operations, were crucial in meeting the needs of Texas' 4.3 million students.

"To have a one-size-fits-all number that is used not just for reporting but for sanctions is inappropriate," said Catherine Clark, associate director of the Texas Association of School Boards.

The association joined other state organizations representing administrators, school boards, business officials and 29 school districts, including Austin, in commissioning the study.

Texas public schools spent $30.3 billion on instruction, operations, administrative and related costs, according to the report.

Sixty-one percent of the money, an estimated $18.6 billion, went toward instruction expenses, such as salaries and benefits for teachers and staff. General operations, including building maintenance, transportation, food service and security costs, accounted for 20 percent. The remainder was spent on administrative salaries, along with health, legal and professional services.

"I am open to having an annual process by which I must explain (spending decisions) to the public," Austin Superintendent Pat Forgione said. "But having an arbitrary trigger of 65 percent, . . . I've not seen any research that says it's better than 60 percent or 70 percent."

School districts spent more or less than the state average depending on student demographics, location, as well as community expectations, the report noted.

For example, small districts as a rule had relatively higher administrative costs. Meanwhile, districts with more students from low-income families spent more on instruction support services and slightly more on operations, possibly because of the need for services such as counseling, health, and breakfast and lunch programs.

The study also found greater spending variations when it compared higher- and lower-performing districts among their peers in the same class than when comparing higher- and lower-performing districts to each other.

For example, Palo Pinto, a small district outside of Fort Worth that was rated exemplary by the state, spent less than 50 percent on instruction in the 2003-04 school year because it has higher transportation and utility costs, Clark said.

By comparison, the Hamilton school district near Waco, also rated exemplary that year, spent about 64 percent.

Lower-performing districts tended to spend more on instruction than higher-performing districts.

State Education Commissioner Shirley Neeley has not released spending guidelines for Perry's rule.

The guidelines are expected to be based on federal definitions of instruction spending, which exclude money used to pay for librarians, counselors, nurses, food service and transportation.

According to those who have met with Neeley, the policy will probably set 65 percent as a goal with no sanctions for districts that fail to meet it.

"The definition needs to be one that makes sense to the public and to the business of education," Clark said.

rhill@statesman.com; 445-3620

School spending

Gov. Rick Perry's rule will require school districts to spend at least 65 percent of their budgets on instruction. Currently, spending patterns vary across Texas, according to a report released by the Texas Association of School Boards and other education groups, because of local circumstances such as student demographics, geography, resources available and community expectations and needs. These are the percentages spent on instruction in 2003-04:

Spending by district type

Major urban 62.3%

Major suburban 62.4%

Other central city 61.5%

Other central city suburban 59.4%

Independent town 59.6%

Non-metro fast growing 60.0%

Non-metro stable 59.3%

Rural 58.7%

State average 61.2%

Central Texas school districts

Austin 60.6%

Del Valle 61.8%

Eanes 63.7%

Georgetown 66.3%

Lago Vista 64.6%

Lake Travis 64.3%

Leander 61.5%

Manor 59.5%

Pflugerville 63.9%

Round Rock 62.3%

San Marcos 63.0%

Sources: Texas Association of School Boards, Texas Education Agency


Find this article at:
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/03/20edcosts.html

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 10:49 PM 0 comments Links to this post

So the special session on school finance convenes shortly on April 17, 2006. Here is Carlos Guerra's analysis. One want to be hopeful but....

Another related piece also appearing in the Houston Chronicle on March 17 titled"Special session to repair school finance set for April 17" adds important detail.

-Angela

Lobbyists step up for the special school finance session in April

Web Posted: 03/19/2006 12:00 AM CST

by Carlos Guerra
San Antonio Express-News

The special session of the Legislature to fix Texas' school-funding system — declared unconstitutional in November — will convene April 17, Gov. Rick Perry said last week. And on this, the fourth try, if lawmakers don't fix it by June 1, it could be disastrous for Perry — who is headed into a four-way plurality election in November — and worse for kids.

There are passionate constituencies on all sides of this issue. Yes, our workforce's educational level will determine Texas' economic future. But it is also easy to see why property owners grumble about ever-rising property taxes.

Many public schools are excellent, and untold thousands of great teachers are producing outstanding students. But there is also no shortage of tales about bad schools, squandered public money and school boards that are well-oiled patronage machines.

At the same time, it is also hard to disagree with conscientious parents and educators who point out that woefully inadequate funding keeps Texas schools from providing today's kids with the educational programs needed to excel.

The current drive to overhaul the state-local funding mechanism that raises the $33 billion for schools started in the regular 2003 legislative session, where the effort finally died amid much acrimony. Perry called a special session to deal with the issue in 2004, but it was angrier and less productive.

Perry then advised lawmakers to seek consensus on a fix before the 2005 regular session, but that session came and went, and the only accord lawmakers reached was that they might find accord more easily if the state Supreme Court held a gun to their heads.

They got their wish in November when the justices found Texas' school funding system unconstitutional. But the ruling was very limited. Because so many school districts are taxing at the $1.50 maximum rate, the court ruled, an unconstitutional state property tax has been created, and school districts no longer have "meaningful discretion" in raising tax rates or spending on community priorities.

And if those things aren't fixed by June 1, the justices warned, state money will stop flowing to local districts.

Perry recruited former comptroller John Sharp, a Democrat, to head the Texas Tax Reform Commission — a panel dominated by business types — and ordered it to put together "a revenue-neutral" package of tax-swaps to lower property tax rates and replace the lost revenue with other tax money.

The panel's report has not been released, but panel members say they will recommend lowering property taxes to $1 and replacing the money lost with new taxes on service providers, a gross-revenue tax on most corporations and raising the cigarette tax by $1 per pack.

And already, two new, heavily funded lobbying groups have formed to join the older trade groups that killed previous efforts to raise taxes on businesses. One new group consists of Texas' largest law firms and the other's membership is a who's who of the state's largest manufacturers.

As for the many parents, educators, administrators, school board members and progressive Texans who want Texas to go beyond smoke-and-mirrors tax-swaps and bogus high-stakes tests, and actually provide the money needed to make our public schools — and our students — competitive with other states, they too are coming together. But the Coalition to Invest in Public Schools' Web site is still under construction, as it has been for a while.

I wonder who will win this one?

To contact Carlos Guerra, call (210) 250-3545 or e-mail cguerra@express-news.net. His column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA031906.01B.guerra.2fca898.html

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 10:35 PM 0 comments Links to this post

Congratulations to Kimberly Marciniak and her parents who supported Kimberly’s decision to stand up for something that she believed in. My older daughter in the seventh grade also didn’t take the TAKS test this year (nor last). Coupled with changing admissions trends that de-emphasize standardized test scores, this news is encouraging. -Angela


Taking TAKS to Task
03/18/2006 12:00 AM CST
By Jenny LaCoste-Caputo
San Antonio Express-News Staff Writer

When Kimberly Marciniak first decided to take a stand against standardized testing by boycotting the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, critics from all sides begged her to change her mind.

Since public school students in Texas must pass the test to earn a high school diploma, teachers and guidance counselors worried the intelligent young girl was throwing away her chances for college. A guest on a local radio talk show said she'd made a "stupidly stubborn decision."

Now Marciniak, 18, has the ultimate "I told you so." She has been accepted to her top three college choices and offered scholarships from each one.

Marciniak is part of a growing contingent of students nationwide showing their opposition to high-stakes testing by putting down their pencils.

In Massachusetts, New York, Washington and California, students and parents have boycotted state tests in recent years. And a growing number of colleges and universities also are turning their backs on standardized tests by dropping the requirement that applicants submit an ACT or SAT score.


A senior at North East School of the Arts — a magnet program at Lee High School — Marciniak has a stellar academic record and spent last school year studying in New Zealand.

Despite the advanced placement courses she's taken and the classes she's aced, Kimberly will count among the school's dropouts this year because of her refusal to take the TAKS test.

"I think a lot of people thought when it actually came down to graduation requirements that I would eventually take the test," Marciniak said. "I always felt like if I was doing the right thing and I felt so strongly about it, then no matter what happened, I'd be OK."

If the growing backlash against standardized tests keeps up, Marciniak may have plenty of company.

More than 730 four-year colleges and universities nationwide do not use the SAT or ACT to make admissions decisions about a substantial number of their applicants. Policies vary from school to school.

Some schools may not require test scores at all, while others exempt students who meet grade-point average or class rank criteria. Some schools may require the scores but use them only for placement purposes or to conduct research studies.

The list of test optional schools is growing. The schools range from small liberal arts colleges to state college systems in California and Oregon and includes more than 40 schools in Texas, the University of Texas at Austin and at San Antonio, among them.

But that doesn't mean students who don't take the TAKS will have an easy time being admitted. It's possible to attend a Texas college without having officially graduated, admissions officers say, but policies vary.

Robert Schaeffer, the public education director for FairTest, an advocacy organization based in Cambridge, Mass., that opposes what it calls the misuse of standardized tests, keeps an online list of colleges that don't consider test scores for admission.

He said half a dozen colleges in the past year have switched to test optional — including Knox — and he expects several more to make that decision in the coming year, based on his conversations with admissions officials at those schools.

"Many colleges are realizing that test performance is not a true measure of a student's merit," Schaffer said.

Amen to that, say students like Marciniak and Mia Kang-Radlet, who as a freshman at MacArthur High last year refused to take a TAKS practice test and the real thing when it rolled around.

They say the "drill and kill" mentality of test preparation is destroying their thirst for knowledge and creating a generation of students who are missing crucial lessons in critical thinking, creativity and discovery.

"The issue for me with TAKS has never been whether or not I can pass, but whether or not I can participate in something I believe is unfair," Marciniak said. "Civic responsibility is something I learned about in my seventh-grade year. You have no right to complain about the president if you don't vote. Well I look at TAKS the same way. I would have no right to complain if I know there is something I can do to change it."

Marciniak applied to small, "test optional" liberal arts colleges. Her top two choices: Hampshire College in western Massachusetts and Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., both offered her scholarships based on her decision to boycott TAKS.

In her acceptance letter, Hampshire admission officials signed off with a P.S. that read: "Kim, your willingness to stand up for your beliefs is inspiring. At Hampshire, you'll be able to combine your passion for social justice, cultural studies, education reform and the visual arts into a meaningful education."

The school offered her its "To Know Is Not Enough" scholarship for active participation in democracy to bring about change, worth $30,000. Annual tuition at Hampshire, plus room and board, is just over $40,000 a year.

"The school's motto is 'To know is not enough' and it implies that knowledge for the sake of knowledge is not enough and it should be knowledge in service," said Elaine Thomas, director of college communications for Hampshire. "We have a definite commitment to civic action. We particularly attract and like students who ask a lot of questions. Our approach to education is inquiry based. That's what makes Kimberly a perfect fit here."

Knox awarded Marciniak its top social concerns scholarship, worth $28,000 over four years, plus an additional visual arts scholarship. The school was founded by social reformers in 1837 and some of its earliest students included women and African Americans, said Paul Steenis, vice president of enrollment and dean of admissions. Knox charges about $32,000 per year, including room and board.

"When we saw Kim take this stand on very principled grounds, really taking some risks, it really resonated with us," Steenis said. "Just this past year we took the bold step of becoming a test optional college. It's a growing trend particularly among more select colleges to move beyond test scores. It's really a response to this world that is increasingly obsessed with testing at all levels. Teaching to a test has become more important than learning."

Marciniak said her parents — her mom graduated from Wellesley College and her dad graduated from Harvard University — stood behind her decision to boycott the test, even if it jeopardized her college chances.

She said she hopes she's proven a point.

"I was so thrilled not only to be accepted but also thrilled that in a sense I proved all those disbelievers wrong. My decision did not hurt my college application process like everyone feared," Marciniak said. "In fact I saw the exact opposite — the colleges I applied to looked on a principled boycott as a positive thing."


jcaputo@express-news.net

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 8:43 PM 2 comments Links to this post

Here is an eye-witness account of the Immigrant Rights March that took place in Chicago last week. It comes by way of George Schmidt, author of SUBSTANCE Magazine but who is now also research director for SEIU Local 73. The Local represents the largest percentage of the non-teaching people working for Chicago public schools (5,000 custodians and security people) and another 18,000 public employees across Illinois. A couple of news reports are included below as well.

Also, check out this link for video clips:
I'll also be posting George's narrative in other posts.

-Angela

3/11/06

Angela,

Yes, I am lucky to be working for SEIU, today even more so that two
days ago. What happened in Chicago yesterday was the beginning of
something bigger than any of us will appreciate yet.

If you want, I hope you will also share this with your students and
others. The march in Chicago yesterday was organized in part by SEIU,
which, as you know, represents a lot of people who have been left out.
I have photographs of the organizer who first came up with the idea,
and who was criticized for it until suddenly...

I stayed on the ground throughout the march and walked more than four
miles yesterday in the course of covering it and taking photographs.

Although police ultimately estimated that 100,000 people marched in
Chicago yesterday, I think that estimate is low -- very low. More about
that later.

The most important thing to note about the march is that it was the
largest civil rights (or human rights) march in Chicago history and
that it was probably the largest march of any kind in Chicago history.
The only event that might compare took place last year to celebrate the
World Series victory of our (international) Chicago White Sox. And the
tone was the same.

When I arrived at Union Park at Lake and Ashland Ave. in Chicago
yesterday at noon, at first it looked like there was a small turnout.
The park itself was half empty. The reason the park was half empty,
however, was that the street west of the park was filled with people
for at least two miles, curb to curb, and the crowd kept growing. I
arrived by elevated train at about noon, and was able to take
photographs looking north and south from the elevated stairs so that I
have some photographs of the crowd from above. It was virtually
impossible to get shots from ground level that showed the vastness of
the crowd.

North from my first vantage point, the crowd stretched at least
three-quarters of a mile to Grand Ave. However, that was as far as I
could see, and people told me it actually filled the street as far
north as Chicago Ave. (one mile north of the city's east west axis) by
the time the march began moving towards the Loop (two miles to the
east) at 1:00. So there were a mile's worth of people north of the
center point before the march began.

But then I looked south, and the sea of people stretched even farther
to the south. I could only see as far south as the Congress Expressway
(I-90), which is raised. I was later told that the people arriving from
the south were walking up Ashland Ave. from 18th St. (one of Chicago's
traditional Mexican communities) and that what happened was that as
people got farther north it became impossible to walk on the sidewalks,
so people spilled into the streets until, at about Taylor St., the
police realized they had to close Ashland Ave because it was filled
with people. That was a mile south of where I was, so by the time the
march actually began, there were about two miles of people spread along
Ashland Ave. from roughtly Chicago Ave. on the north to Taylor St. on
the south. Anyone with a Chicago map can see the great distance this
was. Anyway, if you are using a map to share this, think of that entire
space filled with people so tightly that it was difficult to walk.

I finally headed west one block in order to get near the point where
the march turned east (at Jackson Blvd.). By the time I got to Jackson,
the march stretched east as far as the eye could see, and Ashland was
still filled and filling up even more.

My son Danny attends school at Whitney Young High School, a public
school, which is one block east of Ashland. The marchers were streaming
down Jackson towards the Sears Tower, which loomed on the horizon like
a beacon or compass point. Everyone was heading towards the tallest
building in Chicago (once in the world).

Whitney Young High School has an overpass above Jackson Blvd. under
which the crowd was streaming. I called my son Danny on his cell phone
and left a message that he should join me for the march, since
participation in it would be a better way to deal with government
(which he is studying in an AP class) and U.S. History (which he is
also studying) than sitting in a classroom. Then I went into Whitney
Young, where the principal and I talked and she agreed I could take my
son out on what is called an "early dismissal" for the march. I went up
to the walkway and took photogaphs of the sea of people strecthing west
and east from that point, and then went down and joined the march again.

About a half mile to the east, I stopped when Danny finally called me
back and waited for him to reach me. By that point, it was clear that
Chicago was experiencing its "Day without Mexicans." I saw men walking
out of buildings wearing custodial worker uniforms and other men and
women walking out of those expensive restaurants in Greek Town. I have
a hunch that the owners of some of Chicago's most expensive restaurants
had to bus their own tables yesterday, because the working people along
the line of march were leaving work to join the march. When Danny
caught up with me at Halsted St., still a mile from the site of the
rally, we talked about what was happening, and I pointed to those huge
buildings ahead of us, framed around the Sears Tower.

"If Chicago really had to face a day without the people we're marching
with, every toilet in every one of those buildings would clog up within
a day and the whole place would have to shut down within two days," was
one of the things I said. I just couldn't help thinking of how stupid
has been the narrative that puts a "CEO" at the center of every story
about this country today.

The march was a family affair. There were thousands of children, many
in arms, on shoulders, and in strollers. The youngest marchers were
only a few days old. The eldest, some in wheelchairs, were in their 70s
or older. But most of the marchers were that wonderful "demographic"
that marketing and political people talk about -- teenagers and young
adults in their prime. Hard working people. There were thousands of
teenagers marching arm in arm with their boyfriends and girlfriends. At
some points it was like that scene from "Close Encounters..." where
everyone is heading towards the same place, almost a vision.

There were banners and signs, but most people were simply walking.
Although American flags dominated, second among the flags were the
Mexican flag, followed by the flag of every nation south of the Rio
Grande River, and other flags including (I saw and recognized) Poland
and Ireland. Although the main language of the march was Spanish, if
you were listening closely you could hear many other languages as well.

Although the flag of Mexico was the most common, flags of other nations
were also everywhere. You could feel the combination of both flags --
the stars and stripes and the others --- as almost a human poem to what
we have built in this country, when this country at its best is before
us in our humanity.

I didn't have a radio, but was told that the Spanish radio and TV
stations were reporting continually on the march, and that people were
being told to join the march from school or work. It was clear that
students were walking out of perhaps a dozen Chicago high schools also
day. I don't have attendance figures yet, but teachers I met from one
high school (Senn, which has had the anit militarism struggles) said
"attendance is way down." Senn is about ten miles from the assembly
point of the march. A teacher from Gage Park High School (about eight
miles south of the march) said that her school began emptying out
around noon and continued to do so. Nearby schools (especially Benito
Juarez High School, which is on Ashhland Ave. two miles south of where
the march turned towards the Loop) were reportedly empty by lunch time.

When we got across the Chicago River and into the Loop, I saw something
I had never seen before. The Chicago Police had closed off six streets
to all but emergency traffic. Wells St., LaSalle St., Clark St.,
Dearborn St., and two smaller streets that run north to south were shut
down -- except for thousands of people walking on them -- from Adams
St. south to Congress, a distance of a bout a quarter mile. I took
pictures of each street filled with people and empty of cars, because
that is unprecedented, too.

I have to leave for a union meeting, but there are a couple of other
things I'd like to share.

If, as I suspect, a quarter million people marched in Chicago
yesterday, it was the most peaceful assembly of that many people in the
history of this city. Police reported that a couple of people were
arrested for graffiti. That's it. My estimate of the numbers, which I'll
be revising, came after I tried to count the number in one block and
came up with "5,000 to 7,000" (curb to curb) in one Chicago block.
There are 16 blocks in a mile, and the front of the march was entering
the federal plaza by 2:00 p.m. while the tail of the march was still
stuck on Ashland Ave., two miles to the west, waiting to begin. But
people were also entering the march from all other points, not just
through the march itself.

There were dozens of songs. In federal plaza, a group of Mexican
dancers with huge feather headdresses danced the entire afternoon. All
of the streets were packed so tightly that it was at times impossible
to move. Yet people were making sure to look for the little ones, who
generally didn't look frightened, even in the tightest crowd.

Because the Chicago Board of Education building sits right above the
federal plaza, I was able to talk my way into one of the south offices
towards the end of the march (about 4:30 p.m.) and take my last
photographs from 14 floors above Adams St.

For a time as I was walking along, choruses from an old union song --
Solidarity Forever -- kept going through my head:

It is we who plowed the prairies, built the cities where they play,
Dug the mines and built the workshops, endless miles of railroad lay,
Now we stand outcast and starving midst the wonders we have made,
But the union makes us strong.

It was a day when all of us could be proud to be Americans and proud to
be truly for democracy. It was a day when the Plutocrats must have
trembled slightly after their years of lies and CEO worship, after
their foisting of stupid millionaires into the White House and
horrifying wars...

And so much more.

I'll share more as I find the time to work it up. I hope this -- one
narrative among thousands -- helps us build that counter narrative
we've talked about so long.

George N. Schmidt, Editor, Substance
www.substancenewsc.com
___________________________________________________________________________________________
A show of strength

Thousands march to Loop for immigrants' rights
Workers, students unite in opposition to toughening of law

By Oscar Avila and Antonio Olivo
Tribune staff reporters
Published March 11, 2006

In a show of strength that surprised even organizers, tens of thousand of immigrants poured into the Loop Friday, bringing their calls for immigration reform to the heart of the city's economic and political power.

What started as a word-of-mouth campaign, then spread through the foreign language media, grabbed the attention of the entire city by midday, as a throng 2 miles long marched from Union Park on the Near West Side to Federal Plaza.

Police estimated the crowd as large as 100,000, making it one of the biggest pro-immigrant rallies in U.S. history, according to national advocates.

Observers said the turnout could galvanize both sides in the immigration debate, launching a grass-roots pro-immigrant movement while provoking a backlash among those who want stricter controls.

The trigger for the rally was a controversial federal bill that would crack down on those who employ or help illegal immigrants. But the broader message--carried mostly by Mexicans, but also by a smattering of Poles, Irish and Chinese--was that immigrants are too integral and large a part of Chicago to be ignored.

The rally drew some of the state's most powerful politicans, including Gov. Rod Blagojevich, Mayor Richard Daley, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin and dozens of aldermen and state lawmakers.

But the men and women who pushed baby strollers and waved homemade signs, the workers who clean hotel bathrooms and landscape suburban lawns, flexed their muscle too.

American flags bobbed overhead while also decorating shawls, placards and the scarf on a baby's head. That dominant motif was set off by the colors of Ecuador, Colombia, Guatemala and, of course, Mexico.

Urgent chants of "Si, se puede," or "Yes, you can," echoed off the walls of downtown skyscrapers, with drums adding a festive backbeat.

Despite the density of the crowd, shoulders and elbows rubbing from one sidewalk to the other, police said there were no incidents or arrests. But the event shut down traffic in parts of the Loop, and snarled the evening commute as marchers competed with office workers for space on jammed trains and rerouted buses.

As they transformed the Loop with their presence, immigrants made a powerful statement elsewhere by their absence.

Without his immigrant employees, a Northwest Side body shop owner gave up and closed for the day. An Italian restaurant in Downers Grove relied on temps to cook and managers to bus tables. High school students walked out en masse. "I have never been prouder to march, to show my commitment to a cause, than I have been today," U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) told the crowd. "We have brought together the true fabric of what Chicago is, of what our country is."

After a moment of silence for soldiers in Iraq, a young girl led the crowd in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Jose Soberanis, 21, led a group with a poster of Martin Luther King Jr. that he had sketched with his 11-year-old sister, Cecilia. He equated his fight with the civil-rights movements of the 1960s.

"As the saying goes, `I have a dream.' Well, we have dreams, too," Soberanis said. "African-Americans were looking for social acceptance. That is what we want too."

Hundreds of high school students were no-shows, and officials speculated that most of them attended the rally. At Farragut Career Academy in Lawndale, about half the 2,500 students walked out after attendance was taken at 10:40 a.m.

Josue Martinez, a Tilden High School senior who attended, said: "We're supporting our parents and our parents' parents, who came here and worked hard. A lot of classrooms are empty today."

Whole shifts of workers left their jobs to underscore the importance of immigrant workers. One server from an Italian restaurant came in his work tie and apron, draped with a U.S. flag. Construction workers, still wearing hardhats, came straight from their job sites. Clerks from the El Guero market in Aurora piled into the store's delivery van, riding on produce boxes.

Alex Garcia and about 10 co-workers from a Joliet commercial sign company rode a Metra train to Chicago's Union Station, walked out to Union Park, and then retraced their steps as they marched back to the Loop.

"Most people don't realize how much work we do, but it's part of their daily lives," he said. "We are putting up all the buildings and cooking all the food. Today, they'll understand."

Crowds stretched back at least 20 blocks from Federal Plaza at one point. The procession was so long that some marchers still hadn't made it to the plaza when the two-hour rally ended.

Sensing the scope of the rally, critics of illegal immigration from around the country had flown into Chicago to support local activists at a news conference earlier in the day.

Sandra Gunn, government relations field associate for the Washington-based Federation for American Immigration Reform, said she hoped politicians would ignore the "display of arrogance and intimidation" from protesters who she said flout immigration laws: "It is our voices that they must heed."

Some bystanders, marveling at the crowd's size, shared similar opinions.

"They have a right to march," said Alicia Corley, an insurance claims adjuster standing outside a Potbelly sandwich shop on Adams Street. "But we can't even take care of our own people without more coming in from other countries. Look at all the homeless in the city. Let's take care of them first."

Rally organizers originally mobilized to fight H.R. 4437, a bill approved in the U.S. House of Representatives that would drastically strengthen immigration enforcement, including extending a fence along the Mexican border and severe punishment for those who aid illegal immigrants.

They back a competing bill that would provide legal status for most undocumented immigrants and make it easier for legal immigrants to bring in relatives. That legislation, sponsored by U.S. Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Edward Kennedy (D-Mass), also would expand temporary work visas.

Frank Sharry, executive director of the Washington-based National Immigration Forum, said the Chicago rally would get the attention of Capitol Hill lawmakers. Sharry's first reaction when a Chicago participant e-mailed him photos from his cell phone: "Wow."

----------

oavila@tribune.com
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


Chicago Sun Times
March 10, 2006

Thousands protest immigration bill

BY NATHANIEL HERNANDEZ ASSOCIATED PRESS



Tens of thousands of immigrants from throughout the Chicago area, many carrying U.S. flags, marched into downtown Chicago on Friday in a show of support for immigrant rights.

The rally came as the U.S. Senate struggles with a bill to stiffen border enforcement and a new report estimates the illegal immigrant population has grown from about 8.4 million in 2000 to nearly 12 million.

Shouts of "Si se puede" (Yes, it can be done) could be heard throughout city streets as marchers descended upon the plaza across from the Dirksen Federal Courthouse, where they listened to speeches voicing support for pro-immigrant legislation and opposition to a measure that would toughen penalties for illegal immigrants.

"Raise those American flags!" shouted U.S. Rep Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill. "This is our country, and this is where we will stay."

The peaceful marchers stood shoulder-to-shoulder at the plaza. Some carried signs that read "Keep our Families Together," "No human being is illegal" and "Do not criminalize the American dream."

Abigail Marquez, 35, said she came to the rally with her husband and teenage son to express her support for Latino issues.

Marquez, a native of Guadalajara, Mexico, said she did not expect so many people to participate in the march, organized by dozens of activist groups.

"I had no idea. There are just so many people here," she said in Spanish. "I feel very happy because it shows that we are all united."

From a platform, Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich addressed the massive crowd in Spanish, telling them that he is the son of immigrant parents and understands the issues that are important to them.

His proclamation that "Ustedes no son criminales. Ustedes son trabajadores" (You are not criminals. You are workers) elicited loud cheers.

Hours later, marchers still thronged streets in the city's downtown business district, sometimes clogging streets and preventing vehicle traffic from moving.

The Illinois Minuteman Project, which is affiliated with a national volunteer civilian border patrol group that aims to stem illegal immigration, held a news conference before the march began to speak out against it.

Rosanna Pulido, the group's state director, said she doesn't want to see Chicago become "sanctuary city" for illegal immigrants.

"There are 14 million underemployed Americans. Don't they have the right to have a better life and support their families? Let's give them an opportunity because this is their country," she said.

The march began at noon at a park several miles west of the downtown Loop business district. Police estimated that more than 75,000 people marched into downtown, sporadically shutting down traffic in the Loop and many surrounding streets.

Students and housewives pushing strollers marched side-by-side with construction workers, mechanics and senior citizens. Some marchers called out the names of their neighborhoods or suburbs; communities across northern Illinois were represented.

One worker said he hadn't seen that many people in the Loop since a ticker-tape parade was held for the Chicago White Sox after they won the 2005 World Series.

"In terms of a protest, I've never seen anything this big. I'm impressed by the magnitude," of the crowd, said Tom Bonk.

But one person who wasn't impressed was Pulido, who said that the demonstrators were essentially promoting illegal immigration.

"What it means is that 75,000 people marched for lawlessness in Chicago," she said.

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 10:02 PM 6 comments Links to this post

This piece by Betty Brink is a real eye-opener. I just tracked it down in the FORT WORTH WEEKLY. It addresses the purchase by Dallas ISD of a reading curriculum for middle school special education children called, "Voyager," alongside an alleged ethics violation by Marsha Sonnenberg, a staff person in charge of the district's reading program. Specifically, Sonnenberg had recommended that the district buy a reading program produced by a company (SOPRIS West Educational Services) for which she was a consultant and for whom she had previously worked. Here are some pertinent quotes from this piece.

"When schools in the state of New York bought Voyager under pressure from Lyon, Big Apple public advocate Betsy Gotbaum blasted the state’s decision as one that chose what was best for a company rather than “what’s best for our children.” After observing it in the Birmingham schools for a year, University of Alabama professor Fran Perkins called Voyager’s curriculum “the best example of the worst reading program for young children” she’d ever seen.

Others see Voyager as part of a larger right-wing push to privatize public education. In the October issue of the Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, university researchers Patricia Hinchey and Karen Cadiero-Kaplan wrote that by “putting public funds into private pockets” with its blatant promotion of companies such as Voyager, the Bush administration is setting the stage for a widespread acceptance of for-profit charter schools funded by public money, a threat “not only to public education, but democracy itself.” Ultimately, the authors wrote, the No Child Left Behind initiative is designed to fail, and when it does, public school teachers will be the “scapegoats” and the private sector will become the rescuers....

And in spite of all of the millions that have poured into the district for new reading programs since 1998, reading scores for most Fort Worth students have not improved.

Larry Shaw, head of a local teachers union, noted the same trend when he commented a few years ago on the schools’ sale of “branding rights” to private companies, allowing them to put their names on auditoriums, football stadiums, and the like. When a visitor shows up on one of these campuses, Shaw said, “he better not bend over, or a Pepsi-Cola banner might be slapped across his backside....”

Entrepreneurs of every stripe, it seems, have realized in the last decade or so that schools are not just places where scholars and future presidents are made. They are places were fortunes can be made — especially with a few friends in the right places."

Check it out.

-Angela

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 11:46 PM 0 comments Links to this post

I know a lot of folks are headed out soon for spring break (including myself). Want to share with you some current news that illustrates the power that parents and grassroots communities have when they exercise it. -Angela

Thu, Mar. 09, 2006
Voters sent a clear message, PAC's official says
By JOHN MORITZ
FORT WOTH STAR-TELEGRAM AUSTIN BUREAU

AUSTIN - Voters sent a clear message Tuesday that they expect their lawmakers' loyalties to remain with the people who placed them in office and not with the partisan leaders who control state government, said the head of a grassroots organization that helped topple one of the Texas Legislature's powerful incumbents.

"People back home expect results. And they want public servants who will listen to their concerns, not to the viewpoints of certain political leaders," said Carolyn Boyle on Wednesday. Boyle's Texas Parent PAC is credited with defeating state Rep. Kent Grusendorf, the Arlington Republican who is chairman of the House Public Education Committee.

Boyle's Austin-based organization targeted Grusendorf and a handful of other veteran lawmakers who its members believed had lost touch with their constituencies during last year's effort to overhaul the state school finance system and reshape public education.

Grusendorf and state Rep. Elvira Reyna, R-Mesquite, were defeated. San Angelo Republican Scott Campbell finished second to a Parent PAC-backed candidate in a three-person race but will advance to a runoff next month, as will Parent PAC candidates who ran in open seats in Lampasas and Denton counties.

Boyle said her organization was instrumental in helping many of the House Republicans, including Fort Worth's Charlie Geren, who were targeted for defeat by San Antonio millionaire James Leininger because they did not support his push for private-school vouchers.

Several political observers agreed that Parent PAC and other grassroots efforts managed to tap into voters' discontent over the failure by top state leaders to fix what the Texas Supreme Court has ruled an unconstitutional school finance system. Gov. Rick Perry has called three special legislative sessions but has been unable to reach an agreement with House Speaker Tom Craddick and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, the Texas Senate's president, on a plan to fix the problem.

All three are Republicans.

Political analyst Harvey Kronberg, who publishes the online Quorum Report, said the vote tallies in many key House districts spell bad news for Craddick.

"The speaker is weaker today than he was a week ago," Kronberg said. Grusendorf has been Craddick's point man on public education ever since the Republicans gained control of the House in 2002. "The speaker forced a lot of members to cast votes on school finance and other issues that were not always popular with the folks back home, and that's what a lot of members were having to defend themselves on during this campaign."

Not so, said Craddick spokesman Chris Cutrone.

"Elections are local matters, and there are a lot of factors that go in to determining their outcome," Cutrone said. "Overall, the speaker was very pleased with the outcomes in most of the races."

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/state/14056134.htm


© 2006 Star-Telegram and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 11:31 PM 0 comments Links to this post

I quote: "House Democratic Chairman Jim Dunnam of Waco said the election results should send a message to Republican members that they need to work more with education and parent groups." In viewing the election results, I have to agree with Dunnam. Education groups still have their muscle in Texas, counter-balancing special interests that pervade the legislative process. -Angela

March 8, 2006, 10:16PM


ELECTION 2006

House changes may needle session
Primary election triumphs, defeats will affect debate on school finance

By JANET ELLIOTT and R.G. RATCLIFFE
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

AUSTIN - Lingering hard feelings over primary election battles, lame ducks and a few new lawmakers will contribute to changing dynamics in the Texas House that could make it more difficult to overhaul school finance in a special session expected to begin next month.

ADVERTISEMENT

"There's plenty of animosity out there," Austin political consultant Bill Miller said Wednesday, a day after the primaries. "It begs the question of, 'Where from here?' "

During last year's first special session on school finance, an education-funding bill passed in the House by seven votes, and a business and sales tax bill to pay for property tax cuts squeaked by with only one vote. In the second 30-day session, the House killed both bills.

Lawmakers are facing a June 1 deadline set by the Texas Supreme Court to resolve the problem. But several major changes have occurred in the House between last year and this week's elections.

Two Republican incumbents were knocked off in their primaries by candidates backed by public education supporters who thought too much emphasis was put on property tax cuts and not enough on funding education. One of those defeated was House Education Chairman Kent Grusendorf, R-Arlington.

A third Republican incumbent ran second in his primary and was forced into a runoff.

All three will serve in the House during the special session. According to House rules, Grusendorf will keep his position as committee chairman, although House Speaker Tom Craddick could name a special committee to handle school finance legislation.

Also in Tuesday's primaries, three House Republicans survived major challenges mounted by wealthy school-voucher advocate Jim Leininger of San Antonio. Two other Republicans targeted by Leininger did not win re-election. But all five will be in the House for the special session.

Additionally, five House Republicans created tension by campaigning against state Reps. Charlie Geren of Fort Worth and Carter Casteel of New Braunfels. Geren won his GOP primary while Casteel lost hers.

Another change involves Craddick's power structure. At least five members of his leadership team are lame ducks who will be leaving the Legislature at the end of next year. They include Reps. Peggy Hamric and Joe Nixon of Houston, who lost races for the Texas Senate.

And two Democrats will join the school finance debate for the first time. Rep. Ana Hernandez, D-Houston, won election in December to the seat held by the late Rep. Joe Moreno, D-Houston.

Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, won a special election last month to the seat held during last year's sessions by Rep. Todd Baxter, R-Austin. Baxter had been a sure vote on Craddick's team.

Miller, a consultant who is close to Craddick, said the success of the session will depend largely on whether legislators can set aside their differences over the elections.

"The whole business is built on relationships."

Rep. Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands, did not have a primary opponent but does face a Democrat in the general election this fall.

"The leverage you have is November. Even more pressing is June 1," he said, referring to the court deadline.

On the positive side, legislators' job may be easier if Gov. Rick Perry limits the special session to paying for schools and drops some of the more controversial school changes pushed by Craddick, including November school board elections, a uniform school start date and teacher merit pay.

Leininger doesn't want the House to debate vouchers during the special session, said a spokesman for the physician and businessman.

"The plan is to do it in a regular legislative session. It's so important that no one wants to rush that debate," said Ken Hoagland.

"I hope they will come back and just focus on solving the problems of how to pay for our schools and reduce property taxes, and not get distracted by special interest legislation," said Carolyn Boyle, whose Texas Parent PAC helped defeat Grusendorf and Rep. Elvira Reyna, R-Mesquite.

House Democratic Chairman Jim Dunnam of Waco said the election results should send a message to Republican members that they need to work more with education and parent groups.

janet.elliott@chron.com

r.g.ratcliffe@chron.com


This article is: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/3711038.html

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 11:20 PM 0 comments Links to this post

What all this means is that Texas was going to withdraw this from its surplus and the surplus monies are probably ear-marked for bailing out the state in the upcoming April session on school finance--which gets underway, I hear, on April 18, 2006. The state's really going to be in a fix now. -Angela


Senator pans Texas' $2 billion storm aid request

09:39 AM CST on Thursday, March 9, 2006


By ALLEN PUSEY / The Dallas Morning News


WASHINGTON – An influential Missouri senator urged Senate colleagues Wednesday to vote against a Texas request for $2 billion in hurricane relief funding, likening its reception to more than 450,000 Katrina evacuees to those of a "paid companion."

A startled Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, later rejected the remarks as "unfair." But the sentiment expressed by Republican Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond suggests rough sailing ahead for the state's bid for federal funds.

"I know there are costs and burdens, but I need to be convinced that they [Texas] should be compensated," said Mr. Bond, describing the state's absorption of hurricane victims as mutually beneficial.

"They took in displaced families who receive benefits, fill empty housing and take on important jobs," he said. "And that should be part of the calculus.

"I think it's time we get back to being a good neighbor and not a paid companion," said the senator, who left the committee room by the time Ms. Hutchison had a chance to reply.

Ms. Hutchison told the committee that what Mr. Bond said "was particularly harsh and not at all fair or realistic."

"He seemed to indicate that he thought that we were asking for charitable contributions for the millions of dollars and hours that were put in by volunteers in Texas," she said. "That is not the case."

Texas received $70 million of $11 billion in Katrina-related federal grants, Ms. Hutchison said. And the state still houses more than 400,000 evacuees, including 38,000 school-age children. The Texas request includes nearly $1 billion in community block grant funding for various projects.

She said the state had exhausted its allotments of community grant funding by the time Hurricane Rita hit just a few weeks later, and victims of that hurricane have been shortchanged in federal aid.

The state's $2 billion bid for reimbursement has had trouble getting traction in Washington.

Three weeks ago, Texas was excluded from a White House emergency request for hurricane funds, a rebuff that Ms. Hutchison blamed on a lackadaisical state response to requests for documentation of its needs.

This week, Texas officials were told that they are unlikely to receive federal funds for 70,000 homes and businesses in southeast Texas devastated by Rita because high winds, rather than floods, caused the damage.

Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson, a Texan, added another blow to the state's bid Wednesday, testifying that Texas cities have been reimbursed by FEMA "very well" for millions they advanced for housing for Katrina evacuees.

"Have we reimbursed them completely? No. But to say that they have not been reimbursed is not true," Mr. Jackson said.

Dallas officials say the city has received about $3.4 million of $6.8 million submitted to FEMA for reimbursement. City officials say they have no indication that the funds will not be reimbursed.

Mayor Bill White of Houston said FEMA has been conscientious about reimbursements for housing and police costs related to nearly 200,000 evacuees in the Houston area, but the payments have slowed in recent weeks. A recently signed contract with the agency should help rectify the problem, he said. But when those funds end, he said, the community grant funding requested by Texas should be provided to bridge the gap.

E-mail apusey@dallasnews.com

Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/DN-katrelief_09tex.ART.State.Edition2.50c9537.html

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 9:45 AM 0 comments Links to this post

I saw this inspiring film myself last week. It was excellent! Here is a good summary comment of the film from the film's website.

"WALKOUT is the story of the birth of the Chicano civil rights movement and a testimony to the inspired leadership and courage of those who led the way: a high school teacher and a a 17-year-old Latina, who literally changed the world."

Also, great for all ages. You can see it on HBO on Saturday, March 18 at 8PM ET/ 8:30 PT. Check out the HBO announcement as well.

-Angela

HBO film teaches EP teens about '68 protests

Gustavo Reveles Acosta
El Paso Times
Tuesday, March 7, 2006

High-schooler Melina Carachure didn't know about the 1968 student demonstrations in East Los Angeles before watching an early screening of the film "Walkout" on Monday.

Carachure -- who along with 500 other students from the El Paso district viewed the movie -- left the screening at the Abraham Chavez Theatre with a newfound need to learn more about her Hispanic heritage.

"I wish they would teach us more about this kind of stuff in history classes. I feel really proud right now," said Carachure, who attends the district's School Age Parent Center.

"Walkout" is the dramatic story of the true events behind the 1968 Chicano-organized protests that called for equal educational opportunities and facilities for Hispanics in Los Angeles.
Award-winning actor Edward James Olmos ("Stand and Deliver") directed the film, which will air March 18 on HBO. It stars Alexa Vega of "Spy Kids" fame and Efren Ramirez, who played Pedro in "Napoleon Dynamite."


Arty Piñeda, a senior at El Paso High School, said he thought he would be watching a documentary, but instead was surprised at how involved he became with the film.

Piñeda cheered as actors playing high-school students walked out of their classrooms and carried picket signs, and booed as movie police used clubs to stop the peaceful demonstrations.

"It made me mad that the students were beaten for standing up for their rights," he said. "I'm glad I got to see the film and learn about our history."

Before watching the film, the students heard from area leaders who told them about the Chicano movement and the pivotal role young people played in it.

"What I wanted them to know is that what was going on in California in 1968 was happening here in Texas, too, at the same time," said Gregory Rocha, a political science professor at the University of Texas at El Paso. "What a film like this does, is tell our youth what their parents did to make things better for them."

According to the movie, the walkouts lead to better conditions in the heavily Hispanic East Los Angeles schools. The filmmakers also credit the events of that year with increased enrollment at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The California walkouts inspired other Chicano student protests in the Southwest, including one at UTEP in 1971 that lead to the creation of the Chicano Studies program.

The EPISD board of trustees signed a resolution last week proclaiming March as César Chávez Month. Chávez's birthday, March 31, is a state holiday in Texas. The Chicano civil rights leader, who died in 1993, and his nonviolent protests were mentioned throughout the film.

Gustavo Reveles Acosta may be reached at greveles@elpasotimes.com ; 546-6133.

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 1:25 PM 0 comments Links to this post

Here's an earlier piece that a friend shared with me that is relevent to the bilingual education and English language learner assessment debate currently. -Angela



A fourth-grade bilingual teacher shares her story of preparing students for mandated tests that are not developmentally appropriate.


Summer 2003

By Kelley Dawson

President George W. Bush claims no child will be left behind under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. But testing required by the ESEA results in educational practices that are developmentally inappropriate and discriminatory for English language learners. In addition, pressure to raise test scores is causing significant negative changes in bilingual programs.

I teach fourth grade at a bilingual elementary school in Wisconsin. Our school, our district, and our state all have a commitment to bilingual education. But our ability to follow through on that commitment has been seriously compromised by the ESEA.

Last November my colleagues and I administered standardized tests to about 50 fourth graders, roughly half of them English proficient and the other half Limited English Proficient (LEP).

In September, the state informed teachers that all students with an English proficiency level of three or above must take the state standardized tests in English. Previously these students had been tested in Spanish, but the state Department of Public Instruction had negotiated the level-three cutoff with the federal Department of Education. This cutoff was of great concern to bilingual educators, because level-three and -four students, by definition, do not read and write at grade level in English. In fact, most level-three and -four students I know have good verbal English but are just beginning to read and write in English.

When we learned our level-three and -four students would be tested in English, the rush began. We were supposed to prepare about 25 LEP students to take a fourth-grade battery of standardized tests in English. We had about a month to get them ready.

We created small, intensive English transitional reading groups, unrealistically hoping that we could raise students’ reading levels from roughly a first or second grade level to a fourth grade level in a month. We began teaching math bilingually, explaining concepts in Spanish but pushing students to write explanations of their mathematical thinking in English because that’s how they’d have to do it on the test. Several non-classroom teachers were enlisted in this test preparation effort so that students could learn in small groups.

The teaching strategies mentioned here — transitional reading groups, a focus on math problem solving, and helping students write in English — are normal, positive aspects of our fourth-grade program. Most fourth graders make great gains in all of these areas over the course of a year as they make the academic transition to their second language — but it cannot be done in one month. What was inappropriate about this test preparation scheme was not necessarily the teaching methods we used, but the fact that we tried to force our students to make nearly a year’s worth of progress in one month so they would be ready for the test in November.

Another problem that this test-prep routine presented for our school was that several specialists and non-class-room teachers, including our special education teacher and mentor teachers, were pulled from their other duties in order to work intensively with our fourth-grade students on test-prep and to administer the tests. This helped our students but negatively impacted students at other grade levels.

In addition, our normal curriculum was interrupted for two months while we carried out this emergency test preparation plan. We put our math statistics and data unit on hold so that we could focus on general problem-solving skills and explaining mathematical thinking in English. We shortened Spanish reading instruction to 40 minutes a day. We shortchanged our social studies unit on conflict resolution and our science unit on the Milwaukee River ecosystem. We focused instead on packing in English reading and math before November.

In the two months leading up to the test, I attended planning meetings and work sessions with my partner teacher and several other staff members. We planned test-prep curriculum, organized the testing groups, and tried to figure out how to make the necessary accommodations for our LEP students. Each of us spent between two and six hours a week outside of the school day doing this work. This not only diverted our time away from other planning and teaching duties, but also cost our school a considerable amount of money, since we were paid for our work.

Finally the tests began.

THE TESTING BEGINS

Department of Public Instruction officials had informed teachers that they expected us to make every allowable accommodation so that LEP students could do their best on the tests. Allowable accommodations for LEP students included extra time on all five tests (English Reading, English Language Arts, Science, Social Studies, and Math); reading aloud the science, social studies, and math tests; and providing a verbal translation in Spanish of the science, social studies, and math tests.

These accommodations nearly tripled the time that LEP students needed to complete their tests. Our English proficient students spent about 6.5 hours altogether to complete their five timed tests. It took us seven days at two-and-a -half hours a day to finish the tests with our Limited English Proficient students . 17-and-a-half hours of tests.

One day I asked students to write about their experiences with the tests. The LEP students and English proficient students had different kinds of responses. English proficient students said things like: " was fun because we took the test for an hour and we got to play math games and read for the rest of the morning" (while they waited for their LEP counterparts to finish). LEP students wrote things like: " was hard because it took so much time, and I got tired."

The math, science, and social studies tests took the most time and were the most grueling. We administered the tests in groups of six LEP students. We read each test item aloud twice in English, stated the translation twice in Spanish, and then gave the students time to think, work, and mark their answers. We moved on to the next question when everyone was ready. Imagine being ten-years-old and paying attention to this type of a learning situation for almost three hours every morning . not to mention trying to "do your best" on the test!

Students coped with the test in their own ways. Some shrugged it off and did their best even though they got tired. One boy shut down each day after about half the time, putting his head down and refusing to answer any more questions. A bright girl who has very high expectations for herself and was making great progress in English before the tests appeared increasingly downtrodden as the days went on. A very quiet girl suddenly burst out with "Teacher, this is crazy!" as I read the umpteenth question on the science portion of the test.

We teachers did not have the easiest time of it, either. During testing weeks we blew off steam by taking the kids out for kickball every day at noon when the tests were done and by counting the days of testing left. But the months of time and energy we spent preparing our students for a test that we do not feel is educationally useful took its toll on many of us. One colleague said she felt she was going crazy trying to reconcile what we were doing with her own vision of what education should be. I, too, felt this way and experienced an enormous amount of stress and desperation about the whole situation.

This process of trying to prepare the LEP students for the tests and administering the tests to them was unreasonable and educationally inappropriate. But my school and other schools engage in these kinds of practices because law requires us to, and because the stakes are high. Many of our bilingual schools are on the "schools in need of improvement" list. If we do not improve our scores, we face sanctions.

The ESEA and its testing requirements are implemented somewhat differently in each state; the federal Department of Education negotiates the details with each state"s education department. Some states, like California and Texas, offer Spanish standardized tests to students who have been in the United States for less than three years; other states like Wisconsin did away with Spanish testing and give alternative assessments to the small percentage of students who are not required to take the tests in English. But all states are under pressure to test more English language learners and to begin testing them after fewer years of English language instruction.

The national research shows that English language learners learn English best when they learn to read and write in their native language first. Then they can make a successful transition to reading and writing in English. This process is not quick . research shows that it takes five to seven years for students to function at grade level in academic English. Unfortunately, there are too many teachers, principals, and schools that are feeling pressured to ignore that research. They are short-changing literacy in students' native languages and pushing English early because of pressure from the ESEA and English standardized tests.

Schools, districts, and states that want to provide quality bilingual education are finding that harder and harder to do given the pressure from the federal government. The ESEA seems designed to force English upon English language learners before they are academically prepared — a practice that is both pedagogically harmful and developmentally inappropriate."

Kelley Dawson (skoolied@yahoo.com) teaches fourth grade at La Escuela Fratney in Milwaukee, Wis. She is an editor at Rethinking Schools.

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 12:36 AM 0 comments Links to this post

Navarrette is dead wrong. Many, if not the majority of us, who oppose NCLB do NOT support the status quo. This problematic premise of his could be considered racist, as well. -Angela
March 1, 2006

Ruben Navarrette / The Indianapolis Star

SAN DIEGO -- You have to hand it to critics of No Child Left Behind. In trying to preserve the status quo, they're wrong. But at least they're persistent. In fact, they're persistently wrong.
They'll get another chance to blast away over the next several months as a bipartisan commission holds public hearings across the country to get an earful on what works with the law, and what doesn't. The commission will send recommendations to Congress, which is expected to renew the law in 2007.
It's easy to see why those who prefer the status quo detest NCLB. Under the law, children in every racial and demographic group in every public school must improve their scores on standardized tests in math and science.
The critics hate requirements like that for one reason, because good tests not only tell you if kids are learning but also if teachers and administrators are holding up their end. If the truth comes out, disgruntled parents might go from demanding accountability from schools to demanding it from the individuals who work in them.
The critics are nothing if not versatile. First they insisted that NCLB was unfair to schools because it was a one-size-fits-all approach with no flexibility. Then they said the law was unfair to teachers because it tied them to student performance when not all children learn at the same pace.
Now they're insisting the law is unfair to some students because it benefits middle-class white kids and hurts Latinos and African Americans. At least that is the conclusion of a troubling new study by the deceptively named Civil Rights Project at Harvard University. Troubling because the agenda it advances is dangerous and the thinking behind it is backward. Deceptively named because if this group cared about civil rights, it would push in the opposite direction.
It goes back to the flexibility the critics requested and eventually received. Now that 49 states have either amended the law or waived some of its provisions, the critics have the chutzpah to insist that the thing they wanted has produced a result they find unacceptable. They claim that schools that educate white and middle-class students are more likely to take advantage of loopholes and dodge accountability than those that teach poor kids and Latinos and African Americans. As a result, they say, schools with poor and minority kids are more likely to report low scores on exams and are thus more likely to incur sanctions. That is, according to the critics, an education law intended to help black and brown kids is, in fact, racist.
That criticism is half-right. There is racism here, but not in the law. Rather, it is built into the educational system that the law seeks to reform.
It begins when a teaching corps that is three-fourths white approaches minority students with what President Bush calls the soft bigotry of low expectations. It continues as those teachers, at a loss to explain why these students don't do as well in school, cling to the racist assumption that minority parents don't value education. And, finally, it is compounded when those who want to preserve the status quo do everything they can to undermine testing -- not to protect black and brown children but to protect the adults who are disenfranchising them.
The No Child Left Behind law didn't create racism in education. But it just might be helpful in exposing it.
I suspect that the Harvard study is right about one thing -- that some schools have come up with creative ways to skirt the law by taking advantage of waivers and the like.
But schools that resort to such maneuvers are only hurting the kids they're supposed to be teaching. Minority students are much better off for being held accountable with no exceptions and no excuses.
That can be messy. But whom are we kidding? It's nothing compared to the mess that the special interests have made of the educational system.

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2006603010314

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 9:22 PM 3 comments Links to this post

I'm glad that there is still a debate.... -Angela

English-only immersion debated for schools
Politicians, families, educators seeking common ground

Feb. 28, 2006 12:00 AM/ ARIZONA REPUBLIC

In November 2000, Arizona voters approved the most restrictive English-only education law in the country and prohibited textbooks, materials, bulletin boards, or teaching in any language but English.

Two years later, voters reinforced their message by electing a state schools chief who promised tougher enforcement of the new law.

The law nearly eliminated bilingual education programs that had been widely used in Arizona schools, classes with specially trained teachers that combined instruction in Spanish and English.

To help schools comply with the new law, the state developed a model English-only immersion program.

Under the model, English-learners would be placed in English immersion classes of five to 15 students with a specially trained teacher and a teaching assistant. State planners said most students would learn enough English in one year to keep up with their peers in regular classes by their second year.

To be prepared for English-learners moving into regular classes, the state requires all teachers to complete a 15-hour workshop in English-only teaching methods by August. And under the model, schools would track students who tested out of the English-learner programs and provide tutoring and other help for those who fell behind.

After six years, few schools have been able to establish that model. Schools say they can't afford the cost. The state can't afford to offer technical guidance or much oversight. And many teachers remain lukewarm on the entire idea.

So instead of a uniform approach, the state's English-only immersion programs are different from classroom to classroom and district to district.

In January 2000, before the vote on English-only schools, a federal court had already decided Arizona was not spending enough on English-learner programs. That court battle has continued for six years, through the vote, through a couple of studies and through a contentious Legislature.

So far, under orders from a frustrated federal judge, the state is approaching $1.5 million in daily fines while the governor and lawmakers continue to fight over what the state needs to spend to make English-learner programs work.

The daily fines began Jan. 25 at $500,000, increased Friday to $1 million and will hit $1.5 million in March while politicians try to fix the problem. If the Legislature adjourns without a solution, the fines will reach $2 million a day.

There is one thing, however, the different parties appear to agree on: Arizona needs to create an English-only education system that works.

Each side has its own twist on a plan, but the basic outline is the same. The state needs to create a variety of English immersion programs and send technical teams to schools to launch them.

Then, it needs to track students' progress and make changes to any program not helping English-learners keep up with their peers.

Beyond the basic plan, here is the status of English-learner issues today through the eyes of key players.

State: Politics and money


The battle among the court, Arizona legislators and Gov. Janet Napolitano is about how much extra money schools need to teach English-learners and how it should be distributed. Beneath the surface it is also about clashing political ideologies, illegal immigration and a November election.

For example, Republican lawmakers, who run both the state Senate and House, want the funding plan to include tax breaks for businesses that help pay for English-learners to transfer from public to private schools. Napolitano has twice vetoed that idea. The House did eventually approve a funding bill for English-language learning, backed by Republican leaders, that did not include corporate tax credits for private schools.

Republican lawmakers also want schools to use federal money earmarked for children living in poverty before they ask the state for more to teach English-learners. The governor has rejected that idea, too, saying the state is responsible for funding the programs.

Lawmakers and Napolitano are aware of growing concerns among state voters that illegal immigration is out of control and responsible for filling classrooms with kids who can't speak English.

In December, Arizona schools chief Tom Horne, citing Pew Research Center statistics, asked the federal government to reimburse the state $750 million a year for the cost of educating 125,000 children who are in the state illegally. But a Pew analyst said half of those children were born here and are U.S. citizens.

To Horne, that was splitting hairs. "It's the federal government's fault the undocumented parents crossed over, and had they not done so, we would not be presented with these students," he said.

State Senate President Ken Bennett, a Prescott Republican, said he has an obligation to voters to turn the current "mish-mash" of programs into a structured system that will teach English in a year or two. That was the promise that sold the ballot initiative six years ago.

Becky Hill is education adviser to Napolitano. She said the governor is most interested in tracking progress of students in any new program and making changes if the program isn't working.

"The governor wants schools to use what programs are within the letter of the law and that work," Hill said. "Then replicate them."

Rep. Linda Lopez, a Tucson Democrat, said the state should turn to the schools for direction. Schools have monolingual kids arriving throughout the year and at all grade levels. Some children speak survival English; others can't read in their own languages. Each school may need a variety of programs to help all the kids.

"People want to paint English-language-learner kids with the same brush," Lopez said. "You can't do that."

Republican lawmakers wanted the Arizona Department of Education, run by Horne, to develop the wider variety of model programs. They did not want the 11-member State Board of Education, with its growing number of Napolitano appointees, to take the lead. Now, they've agreed to a task force but continue to wrangle about who appoints members of the task force.

Schools: Different directions


Many schools don't have the money to follow the state's model program. Some aren't sure they would want to even if they could.

And the idea of separating English-learners all day from the rest of the students seems for many schools too close to discrimination. Many schools prefer to keep language-learners in regular classes with a specially trained teacher or pull them out for shorter periods of language classes.

"It's not a good practice to segregate like that," said Mona Arredondo, Tolleson Elementary District's language learning coordinator. "I understand the state's point, but it's hard for students to learn that way."

Tolleson blends all levels of English-learners into regular classes convinced that students just learning English need to listen to and talk to children who are better English speakers. Teachers often pair fluent English speakers with students who are struggling and encourage them to work together to solve problems and create projects.

All of Sunnyslope High School's 150 English-learners are in the state's model program.

In their first year, the north Phoenix school puts them with a highly trained teacher and teacher's aide in a small classroom of fewer than a dozen children, all at the same level of English fluency. In their second year, most are ready to attend a reading class where they spend their time in groups of eight learning English from a computer program and a teacher. Those who need it receive extended one-on-one tutoring.

Principal John Croteau said most of his English-learners not only graduate, they go to college, even if they must stay in high school an extra year.

The advantage at Sunnyslope is money. Like other schools, Sunnyslope gets about $350 in state money for each English-learner. The district also receives $98 in federal money for such learners.

But in the early 1980s, Glendale Union High School District settled two civil rights complaints over English-learner programs by agreeing to levy an extra property tax. That tax now nets the district about $3 million a year, or an extra $2,338 for each of the district's 1,283 English-learners.

Irene Frklich has directed Mesa Public Schools' English-learner program for 20 years and is a longtime supporter of English-only immersion classrooms. What shocks her about the state's model is the suggestion that English-learners could be put into regular classrooms with teachers who have little training beyond a 15-hour workshop.

Mesa is the largest school district in the state and requires that teachers for the English-learner program have a special degree or "endorsement." Teachers earn an endorsement by taking certain college courses that prepare them to teach children a new language while teaching history and science. Today, the district has 600 specially trained teachers. Frklich expects an additional 100 next school year.

Frklich calls the state's requirement of a 15-hour workshop to prepare teachers a shortcut, a waste of time and money.

"What do you learn in two days?" Frklich asked. "Would you send your child who needed special education to a special-education teacher with two days' training?"

Teachers: Language struggles


Restricted by law and limited by a lack of money, Arizona teachers work within English-only parameters. Many have doubts and wish for other options, but in the meantime, they use a variety of techniques to reach English-learners.

Deer Valley Unified District teacher Donna Newport, 42, teaches second grade at north Phoenix's Constitution Elementary. Three of her students don't understand English at all, two more understand at an intermediate level, and three students can read English but not comprehend what they read. The remaining 15 students grew up speaking English.

At her school, English-learners leave her class for up to 90 minutes each day to attend a smaller class where the teacher will speak a little Spanish.

Over the past few weeks, her children have been learning about weather, and using pictures, sounds and actions to create thunder and rain, and trips outside to look at and label clouds.

Even under the English-only rules, Newport said, "I truly believe I'm providing them with the best second-grade education." But she is worried.

When she taught this weather unit to students who grew up speaking English, it took about two to three weeks. In a class where eight of 23 students are struggling to understand English, it will take five.

In a recent geometry class at Tolleson's Arizona Desert Elementary, Eva Gómez sat in front of a graph and asked her fifth-grade students to describe a line on the graph that goes on forever. The class threw hands in the air, slowly spread them apart and made the sound, "Hummm," in unison, as their imaginary lines went on to infinity. When Gómez called on Philip to demonstrate a point on a graph, he punched the air with his finger and clucked with his tongue to show her his imaginary point.

"I'm trying to put a lot of movement into it so they can feel it, hear it, visualize it," Gómez said about her math lesson. With no teaching assistant, she works separately with students who are lagging behind, while she gives those ahead of the lesson independent work.

"It's hard," she said, "but it's not impossible."

Families: Trying to fit in


Back in the fall of 2000 when Arizona voters passed the English-only proposition, many Hispanic parents voted for English-only. For them, learning English was one of the most important things their children could do. Those in favor of the proposition saw it as way to speed the learning.

At the same time, many of Arizona's English-learners come from poor families. For most, Spanish is their first language and remains so at home. Many parents do not have the financial means nor the English skills to help their children learn, be it with computers or books or talking through a homework assignment.

Jorge Solis, newly arrived from Mexico, stood five minutes outside the door of his seventh-grade classroom, too frightened to open the door to his first class in a new country. His mother's words spun through his head: "You have to learn English to be successful." They gave him the courage to finally open the door, he said, and it was his classmates who helped him learn English.

Today, he is a senior at Sunnyslope and ready to graduate in May. But Spanish is still spoken at home, and his mother now admonishes him to be proud of his Mexican heritage.

"I say to my son, at my house only speak Spanish," Maria Solis said in slow but solid English. "And when I go to learn English and when I understand English, I will speak English with you."

Vanessa Abarca, 19, is a sophomore at Glendale Community College and a fourth-generation Glendale resident. But her first language is Spanish, as is her 8-year-old brother's. Everyone in her house speaks Spanish. It's an important way the younger generations stay close to her grandparents.

Before kindergarten, Abarca knew a little English from her aunts and cartoons. Her Glendale elementary school wanted to put her into a bilingual class, but her mother objected. Her mother said she'd take care of Spanish, English was the school's responsibility. Abarca is grateful to her mom and promotes the "sink or swim" English immersion method for all language learners.

Abarca said she understands that many Latino kids, including English-learners, lag behind their peers and drop out. But she hesitates to blame that on language.

"It could be a lot of things," Abarca said. "Problems they're having at home or the income of the family."

Glendale mother Norma Alvarez calls all the debate about how best to educate English learners "an insult."

"I guess we're dumb and we don't learn fast," said Alvarez, an administrator for Glendale.

Alvarez, who spent 2000 campaigning for English-only classrooms, said there should be no distinction between children who know English and those who don't. There never was when she grew up in Glendale.

"You're putting more money into it because you believe this little kid can't learn like others," Alvarez said. "If you treat him differently from everyone else, he'll always feel different."

Former state legislator and lobbyist Alfredo Gutierrez is now a radio talk-show host and businessman. He grew up in the small mining town of Miami with teachers who taped his lips shut if he spoke Spanish.

"Some of us succeeded, but we're the small minority," he said. "We all remember the kids we left behind."

When Gutierrez recalls the faces of those children who weren't as lucky, the debate is no longer about one side vs. another. Many children thrive in an English-only environment, but others fade.

"We want to make sure our kids make it, and immersion is good for a lot of kids," Gutierrez said. "But you can't impose it on every youngster. Some kids need a longer bridge."

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0228ellprimer0228.html

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 10:49 PM 0 comments Links to this post

By ERIC HOOVER /CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION

Only 51 percent of last year's high-school graduates who took the ACT examination had the reading skills they needed to succeed in college or job-training programs, the lowest proportion in more than a decade, according to a report scheduled for release today.

Twenty-one percent of black students, 33 percent of Hispanic students, and 33 percent of students from families with annual incomes below $30,000 were prepared for college-level reading, the report said.

The report, which was prepared by ACT Inc., the nonprofit Iowa-based organization, is based on the scores of 1.2 million high-school students who took its popular college-entrance test.

Among other things, the report found that students' reading skills did not develop throughout their high-school years. According to ACT, the percentage of students who were on track to mastering "complex" reading assignments was higher in the eighth and 10th grades than in the 12th grade. The organization also found that more than half of the states defined reading standards only through the eighth grade.

"The states are silent," said Cynthia Schmeiser, senior vice president for research and development at ACT. "When states aren't communicating what students should know, the bottom line is you can't get what you're not being asked to learn."

The report also said that a student's ability to read at a college level affected his or her performance in a range of subjects, including English, mathematics, and science.

ACT has also found that students who are ready for college-level reading are more likely than other students to enroll in college immediately after graduating from high school, to earn higher grades in college, and to return to college for their sophomore year.

The report includes recommendations for improving reading instruction in high schools and lists what the organization defines as the essential features of complex texts.

The ACT's report, "Reading Between the Lines," is available online on the organization's Web site.

http://chronicle.com/temp/email2.php?id=qzvzBrgZckZs3FxdTXbb4nRygqqtCrfh

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 10:25 PM 0 comments Links to this post

This is an excellent, albeit brief, synopsis of the history of nativism in the U.S. by Patrick Osio, Jr.HispanicVista.com
February 23, 2006 -Angela
 
  A Nebraska elementary school teacher was arrested and convicted for teaching in a foreign language.  He was fined and jailed as the law read that teaching elementary school children a foreign language or using a foreign language to teach was a crime. How can this possibly happen in America?

Were this article to end at this point, letters would pour in suggesting that the teacher and I go back to Mexico. Letters would include hoorays for Nebraska along with reminders that English is the language of America and that Mexicans do not want to assimilate to the American culture and way of life and are stealing jobs from Americans.

Hold off on the letters, there is more to the article. The teacher arrested and jailed was not a Hispanic, he was of German ethnicity and the language he used was not Spanish, it was German. The teacher appealed to the Supreme Court (Meyer vs. Nebraska) that in turn overturned the conviction as an infringement on personal liberty.

Since the creation of the country after the American Revolution there have been those, known as nativists, who oppose immigration, foreign language usage and the practice of religions and cultures not conforming to those of the nativists. Today’s similar in attitude group are but the latest batch, whose commonality with past groups is their claims that unless we make a final stand the country, culture and sovereignty will be overrun and forever lost.

Teacher Myer’s Supreme Court case was in 1923. But the question of language dates to the organization of the new country as the founders debated which language to adopt. German was of prime consideration, as was Dutch and even Greek was considered. There was good reason, about one-third of the population was foreign born and numerous languages were in use. English was chosen as the nation’s language (though never as the official language) simply because the majority of the founders in power were English users.

Early day nativists argued that immigrants depressed the wages of "artisans and laborers because newcomers would work for less pay than native-born workers." This argument was heard in the early 1800s about the Irish and German immigrants, today it’s about Mexicans.

We also hear that Mexico through Mexican immigrants is hatching a Reconquista, a plot to take back the “conquered land.”  In 1844, the argument was that the Pope in Rome was secretly planning to seize control of America through Irish Catholics. In those days opportunistic political candidates campaigned to deny citizenship to Catholic immigrants denouncing Catholicism as an evil foreign influence.

To diminish the power of those already citizens a secondary argument was that "a set of citizens, German and Irish, wanted to get the Constitution of the U. S. into their own hands and sell it to a foreign power."  From 1840 through 1880, German immigration was in excess of 4 million and Irish immigration over 1.5 million – their number making them the target.

Some prominent figures in those days carried the nativist banner: Henry Francis Bowers founder of the American Protective Association; John Bell, presidential candidate in 1860, John J. Crittenden, Senator from Kentucky; Nathaniel Banks, Speaker of the House, Jerome Smith, mayor of Boston; Henry Wilson, Vice President under Grant; Secretary of State Edward Everett; Lincoln’s Attorney General Edward Bates and many more.

Those names are today replaced by Congressmen Tom Tancredo, James Sensenbrenner, Duncan Hunter, Charlie Norwood, Lamar Smith, and about 80 other Congress representatives. From outside government there is John Tanton, founder of a multitude of anti immigrant, disguised as ‘immigration reform’ nativist organizations: Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), Numbers USA, Pro English, and others that replace the Know Nothing Party, the Immigration Restriction League, Order of United Americans and Order of the Star Spangled Banner organizations of the 1800s.

Nativists attack and periodic influence continued into the 1900s. Germans after WWI once again became targets as happened to Myers in Nebraska. The 12+ million Italian, Jewish, Poles, Austrians, Czechs, Hungarians and Slovaks immigrants arriving through the 1920s, suffered the same wrath, in some cases worse at the hands of nativists.

Fortunately nativists have always been a minority in the Unites States but their power to create national division and cause fear about immigrants is always present. We are again faced with such force. 
Nativists don’t want immigration reform because to them it’s not about immigration; it’s about the kind of people coming to America – modern day nativists don’t want Mexicans of color.
________________________________________________________________
Patrick Osio, Jr. is Editor of HispanicVista.com (www.hispanicvista.com).  Contact at Posiojr@hispanicvista.com

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 12:18 AM 0 comments Links to this post