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I just had to say this

Affordable College is not a Luxury. It´s the Foundation of a Healthy Middle Class

May 1st, 2012
by Lily.
2 comments

I was lucky that I went to college in 1976. I was working as a secretary but I wanted so much to be a teacher. My husband and I were living paycheck to paycheck and could meet our bills just fine, but we had no extra money to send me to college. My parents were doing just fine, but they were still raising my little brothers and sisters, and they had no extra money to send me to college.

I am a teacher today because the government of the United States of America invested in me. My country gave me money to go to college.

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Go to the Movies. Save a Life

Apr 10th, 2012
by Lily.
3 comments

This Friday you need to go to see the movie Bully.

You need to fill up the minivan, the truck, the car, the bus, walk, run, and just go to see the movie Bully.

You need to take your kids and your grand-kids and your nieces and nephews.  You need to take the church groups and the Little League team and the chess club and the Gay-Straight Alliance club and the scout troop.  You need to go if you’re a teacher or a parent or a coach or bus driver.

You need to go.  It’s that important.  Really.  That important.

The movie will be one of the most wrenching, unsettling, powerful, important films you may ever see.  The language in the movie is strong language.  It is the language of hate.  The situations are disturbing and not a manufactured creature of Hollywood.

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Trabajadoras: A Union Voice for Working Women

Mar 27th, 2012
by Lily.
1 comment

Trabajadoras is the Spanish word for Working Women. Today was an important day for Latina Working Women. Not necessarily a happy day. But an important day.

Because an organization that fights for them, The Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, released a first-of-its-kind report on the working world of Latinas in our country and the challenges they face. It’s not a pretty picture.

Trabajadoras: Challenges and Conditions of Latina Workers in the United States has stark graphs of statistics that clearly show the high poverty rates; the low education attainment; low homeowner rates; the dismal employment ratios; lack of health insurance and any sort of retirement plans of Latinas.

The report is not a cry for pity or charity. It’s a call to action.

We ignore the reality of these numbers to our peril. To our communities’ peril. To the country’s peril. These women are hardworking, talented people with as much potential as anyone on the planet. Why are the numbers so astoundingly headed in the wrong direction? Many reasons.

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These Educators Deserve a Movie Deal

Feb 1st, 2012
by Lily.
1 comment

There are two stories to tell in Chester Upland School District in Pennsylvania. One is a heroic story worthy of a book or movie deal. There are plenty of movies about the lone teacher crusader who against all odds and against the establishment brings students out of the darkness of ignorance and into the light of the power of their own futures.

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I’m a sucker for those movies. But I have a love-hate relationship with them because inevitably, in order to lionize the hero, they have to make all the other teachers in the school less than heroes. They have to make the principal a bully. Movies need a good guy to cheer for and bad guys to boo over. Así es la vida. That’s the way it goes.

Chester Upland, a poor and predominantly minority district, is a long way from Hollywood, but it does have a star in Sara Ferguson.

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