Sunday Links

• Oregon is getting it right when it comes to higher education
• Georgia's syllabus experiment
• Testing the prisoner's dilemma on prisoners 
• This is pretty cool and so is this 
• Protect male sperm!
• Education for Saudi women
• Men better vote in Zimbabwe or else...
• Portuguese migrants settle in Mozambique

Sexism and misogyny this week:

• California has been sterilizing female prisoners 
• Sexism's stamina
• "Have I dreamt about having a model contract? No. Im sorry. But have I dreamed about winning Wimbledon? Absolutely, yes."  
• Misogyny lives on in Australia 
• Lost girls and prostitution
• Sexual harassment and rape in Egypt
• Why cops don't listen to rape victims
• Street harassment a global epidemic

Staying in School is Liberal Propoganda

Apparently listening to the President is liberal propaganda these days, especially if he is speaking directly to young people. The Denver Post:

President Barack Obama's plan to address the nation's students during the school day Tuesday has polarized parents over whether it's OK for their kids to listen to the speech.

On one side are parents who say the webcast speech to K-12 students is "political recruiting" and "spreading the liberal agenda."

On the other are those who say listening to presidential speeches is an important part of American culture and the education process.

The White House officially announced the speech Wednesday morning, and the U.S. Department of Education followed up with a letter to school principals and a lesson plan for discussing the talk. The White House said the speech will address the importance of studying and staying in school.

I dont know if "staying in school" is liberal propaganda, but it seems to me that a president that is pretty popular among young people, is a good role model to be spreading the message about the importance of school. Also, people that assume that by listening to him, young people will become brainwashed also assume that young people cannot think for themselves. Here is a newsflash: we can and we do.

New Curriculum for High School Students about Refugees

Mary Ann Zehr of Education Week reports:

Resource: Curriculum on Refugee and Migration Issues

Jesuit Refugee Services/USA has designed a free curriculum to teach high school students about refugee and migration issues. The lessons are intended to help students explore issues such as why people are forcibly displaced from their homes and how the United States and the world as a whole have responded, or haven't responded, to refugees.

Frankly, this is the first curriculum on refugee and migration issues that's ever come across my desk. The recommended books and reports accompanying the curriculum could provide opportunities for both teachers and students to learn more about displaced people, many of whom are in our schools here in the United States.

(HT: ImmigrationProf Blog)

Two Immigrant Groups on Education

NPR had a double special on immigrant children and education. They looked at Chinese Americans and Dominican Americans. Here are the stories:

• Chinese Immigrant Kids Play a Balancing Role
  
• At School, Lower Expectations of Dominican Kids

Discussion over Higher Education

A recent op-ed in the New York Times by Columbia University Professor of Religion Mark Taylor, titled “End the University as We Know It,” has been causing quite a bit of angst in the higher education world this week.

My friend Jacques Arsenault provides a critique.

Horne vs. Flore

The Supreme Court heard Horne vs. Flore, a long- running ELL case in Arizona. The Supreme Court Justices questioned what is sufficient academic progress for ELLs. Here is some SCOTUS coverage.

The case, Horne v. Flores, involves the English-language instruction program in Nogales, Ariz., for students identified as “English Language Learners (ELL).” Nogales is a border town and many of the the students in the school district speak Spanish as a first language.

In 2000, U.S. District Court Judge Alfredo Marquez found that the ELL program violated the federal Equal Education Opportunity Act of 1974, which says that students may not be denied educational opportunity based on the failure of a school district to take “appropriate action” to remedy language barriers.

Marquez ruled that Nogales’ ELL program was not adequately funded and that the school district needed to fund the program based on its needs. The judge said that the district should conduct a study to determine what an adequate level of funding would be.

Here is some more context.

An article and video on the case can be found on NPR.

The College Board Supports the DREAM Act

The College Board is supporting the DREAM Act. The legislation that would offer some undocumented youths a path to citizenship through college or the military. The association best known for the SAT and AP tests it administers is stepping into the contentious issue for the first time, just as President Obama is signaling that he may encourage lawmakers to overhaul immigration laws this year. The board's trustees have voted unanimously to support the legislation, known as the Dream Act.

English-Only Law Increases Student Drop Out Rate for Latinos

A report by University of Massachusetts at Boston and the Center for Collaborative Education found that the high school dropout rate nearly doubled for students still learning to speak and write in English. Students not fluent in English have floundered in Boston schools since voters approved a law change six years ago requiring school districts to teach them all subjects in English rather than their native tongue.

(HT: ImmigrationProf Blog)

DREAM Act Reintroduced

Yesterday, Today, the DREAM Act (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act) was re-introduced. This bipartisan legislation addresses the situation faced by young people who were brought to the United States years ago as undocumented immigrant children, and who have since grown up here but are being denied the ability to fully contribute to society.

The DREAM Act would provide certain undocumented youth conditional legal status and eventual citizenship, if they attend college or join the military. It would also allow immigrant students access to higher education by returning to states the authority to determine who qualifies for in-state tuition.

For the first time since it was first introduced in 2001, the DREAM Act enjoys strong backing of House and Senate leadership, all of the relevant committee chairs and President Obama, who was an original sponsor of the legislation when he was in the Senate.

According to the National Immigration Law Center press release, the bill has strong sponsorship among both Democrats and Republicans:

Senators
Russell Feingold (D-WI)
Edward Kennedy (D-MA)
Patrick Leahy (D-VT)
Joe Lieberman (I- CT)
Mel Martinez (R-FL)
Harry Reid (D-NV)

House of Representatives
Joseph Cao (R-LA)
John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI)
Devin Nunez (R-CA),
Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL)
Zoe Lofgren (D-CA)
Jared Polis (D-CO)
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL)

But three states currently would not be able to benefit from the legislation due to their state laws- Colorado is one of them.

A Must See: 'Walk Out'

I recently saw the movie 'Walkout,' which tells the true story of Chicano/a students from five East L.A. high school who organized three days of school Walk Out to protest for improved educational standards. It is a great movie that describes how community organizing should take place.

Based on a true story, student activist and Mexican-American Paula Crisostomo, tired of being treated unequally, decides to take action and stage a walkout at five East Los Angeles high schools in 1968, to protest educational conditions and complain of anti-Mexican educational bias along with some 10,000 students. Paula Crisostomo is not Mexican- American--she is Filipina-American. Written by Norma Schaffer

Education and Assimilation

In the second part of a New York Times series that chronicles the diverging viewpoints of educating students who speak English as a second language, the difficulties of educating those from foreign cultures is addressed. Not only do teachers have the challenging task of teaching English-speaking skills to a diverse population, these same teachers may feel pressured to spend significant classroom time to teach for an exam mandated under the "No Child Left Behind" law.

(HT: Immigration Law Reform Blog)

The Colorado Rockies and Tuition Equity

Why some people are finding more reasons to support the Colorado Rockies...

And more info on Tuition Equity from the Higher Education Access Alliance.

A Difficult Time in the US for College Educated Latin American and African Immigrants

As unemployment rates rise throughout the country, one group is affected disproportionately: immigrants. The Washington Post reports:

One out of every five college-educated immigrants in the United States is either unemployed or working in an unskilled job such as a dishwasher, fast food restaurant cashier or security guard, depriving the U.S. economy of the full potential of more than 1.3 million foreign-born workers.

The plight of such immigrants is familiar to anyone who has gotten a ride from a Washington taxi driver with an engineering degree from Ethiopia or had their car parked by a garage attendant who used to practice law in El Salvador. However, the report by the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute is the first to quantify the extent of the problem.

Of particular concern was the finding that highly educated Latin American and African immigrants fare far worse than Europeans or Asians. Nearly half of recently arrived college-educated Latin Americans hold unskilled jobs. So do more than one-third of those who have been in the country for more than 10 years and have presumably had more time to learn English, make professional contacts and pass U.S. professional certification exams. And the lag persists even when only immigrants who are in the country legally are considered.

By contrast, well-educated European immigrants' employment patterns are virtually indistinguishable from their U.S.-born counterparts regardless of how long they have lived in the United States. Asian immigrants educated abroad do only slightly worse.

Though African immigrants are more likely to hold highly skilled jobs than Latin Americans, they have the highest unemployment rates of all foreign-born groups. During the 2005-2006 period, 6 percent of recently arrived, college-educated Africans and 4.1 percent of Africans with a U.S. degree were unemployed, compared with 2.6 percent of U.S.-born college graduates.

It's possible that discrimination against Latinos and Africans is a factor but that much of the gap can be explained by the differing language skills and immigration circumstances common to immigrants from each region.

College-educated Africans have the best language skills of any group: Only 15 percent speak English poorly or not at all. But it appears that this benefit is swamped by a different disadvantage: Only 10 percent of the Africans are sponsored for entry by employers. Instead 42 percent are sponsored by family members and nearly a third come in through a government lottery program. And immigrants entering on such visas often lack the professional networks needed to find a job in their field.

This is also a challenge for college-educated Latin Americans, who are the least likely to be sponsored by employers -- with only 6 percent receiving such visas compared with 16 percent of Europeans and 35 percent of Asians.

Well-educated refugees often face the highest hurdles because they lack even the cushion of family support and have little time to prepare for their move to the United States or look for work once they're arrived.

Obama and McCaine on Higher Education and Service

An estimated 44 million Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 will be eligible to vote in the upcoming election, according to Rock the Vote. Of those 44 million, 17 million are voting-age college students, a large percentage of whom have ranked college costs and worries about student loans and their ability to pay for their education as among their top concerns. As a result, both McCain and Obama have made it a point to address issues of concern to college-age voters.

Both presidential candidates support increases in federal Pell grants, arguing for Pell grant award amounts that better keep up with the rising costs of college. As U.S. senators, McCain and Obama both voted in favor of the College Cost Reduction and Access Act last fall, which increased the maximum Pell grant award from $4,050 to $5,400.

While federal Pell grants target the neediest and lowest-income students, McCain and Obama have also attempted to address the needs of a college student population at large -- the 18 million students who enroll in college each year, and the 7 to 9 million who apply for federal financial aid.

Obama would like to see a scaling back of the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP), which allows borrowers to take out their federal parent and student loans from a third-party private lender and is currently used by the majority of families who rely on federal college loans to help finance their children's college education.

Instead, Obama has thrown his support behind the Federal Direct Loan Program, through which parents and students obtain their federal college loans directly from the Department of Education. Obama contends that the Federal Direct Loan Program is a less costly option for both borrowers and taxpayers, since the government isn't required to pay subsidies to third-party lenders as in the FFEL program.McCain, on the other hand, backs an expansion of the FFEL program.

Both McCain and Obama propose additional financial help for those students who participate in public service programs. McCain wants to expand the Teach for America program, which places college graduates in low-income school districts after an accelerated teacher-certification process.

Obama, for his part, has outlined a plan for a $4,000 education tax credit as part of his American Opportunity Tax Credit program. To qualify for the tax credit, a student enrolled at a public college or university must complete 100 hours of public service.

Two additional proposals round out Obama's higher education platform: a simplification of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and a community college partnership initiative.

First Pre-Kindergarten Program for Refugee Children in Georgia

CLASP (Child Care and Early Education):

While Georgia's pre-kindergarten program is universally available to all 4-year-olds, waiting lists persist and in many cases recently arrived immigrants and refugees, lacking knowledge about how to navigate the enrollment process or arriving late in the registration period, are effectively shut out of programs. Every year, Refugee Family Services assists and registers refugee children in Georgia Pre-K—but they are able to serve only a fraction of the families that need support.

In their interviews, RFS found that refugee families had different needs from other immigrant families, and that few programs had the information and resources to meet these needs. To fill this need, RFS applied to the state to become a provider of the pre-kindergarten program, and this August, Refugee Family Services will inaugurate the first pre-kindergarten program in Georgia intended for use principally by refugee children. This program will allow these children access to a high-quality pre-kindergarten program that is prepared to competently meet their cultural and linguistic needs and is situated in an organization that is experienced in meeting the family support needs of diverse refugee communities.

The pre-kindergarten class will be filled by children from Somalia, Sudan, Honduras, Congo, Burundi, Iraq, Burma, and Vietnam. Most of the children were born in refugee camps. For the first time, they will have the opportunity to participate in a pre-kindergarten program that is designed with them and their families in mind.

Kristof on Poor Parenting

Nick Kristof concludes that urban education in America is in shambles: See "Cities in Crisis" which reports that our nation’s 50 largest cities graduate only 50% of their high school students. He attributes this to poor parenting.

This argument blames parents for their children's poor performance in school. But by doing this, we are shifting the responsibility of education away from the schools and onto upbringing. Not only does this ignore those students who are resilient despite the fact they grow up in broken homes, (or those that are 'failures' despire the fact that they grew up in in-tact households) but it is too simplistic of a hypothesis. In reality, many exogenous factors cause 'failure.' Borken homes + institutional bias + peer networks + poor educational standards etc. etc.

In season 4 of The Wire, a pilot project was set up for kids who 'didnt fit in in the regular classroon,' and it appeared to be working, but was shut down because of particular assumptions about education. There are many such programs that are not supported either due to bias or lack of funding. Instead, those people who are pursuing creative classroom ideas should be supported. If as Obama argues, his $18 billion pledge to support education “is not going to make a difference if parents don’t parent,” then we will continue to give up on these children. The answer lies in innovation, not blame.