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Policy

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.

(more…)

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Frightening Children in Alabama

Oct 11th, 2011
by Lily.
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I do not understand deliberate cruelty. I understand it exists. I understand that those who practice it can often justify it as excusable and even noble. But I do not understand it.

But cruelty to a child? This is beyond all understanding. It is cruel to deliberately frighten children. In Alabama they have passed an anti-immigrant law infinitely worsethan the shameful one passed in Arizona that got so much attention.

alabama school

AP

One thing that makes Alabama’s HB 56 worse is the provision designed to frighten school children and confuse families.

Immigrant families, which are overwhelming Latino families, are bound to be confused about what their rights are, and their rights are precious few, but clear.

One legal right was settled by the Supreme Court over 30 years ago.

All children, immigrant or not, with or without documentation, all the public’s children have the right to a public education. Children will not be punished with illiteracy for the acts of their parents. That’s the law. (more…)

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Sad to be in the Pink

Oct 4th, 2011
by Lily.
7 comments

Pink can be an ugly color. If it’s a pink slip.

I had to explain to a friend of mine from another country what the term “pink slip” meant. I had to explain that even though they weren’t actually pink these days, it meant that a perfectly hard-working, dedicated, competent person was losing his or her job because the employer didn’t have enough money to pay them.

I had to explain that hundreds of thousands of educators, teachers and support staff, were facing pink slips. And these non-pink, pink slips mean that students will find themselves in unmanageable class sizes sitting in rooms of 40 or 45 or 50 children.
Pink slip

I’m a teacher who knows something about what happens to children in unreasonably high class sizes. I had 39 5th graders one year when I taught in Utah.

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A Commission that Matters: Excellence in Hispanic Education

Aug 31st, 2011
by Lily.
2 comments

I’m about to become an official “commissioner”. I’m not really into titles, but this one, I want. This commission, I want. This work, I want to do because it’s work that matters.

Because so much depends on the success of the work of this commission. (The White House Commission on Excellence in Hispanic Education).  It will advise the President of the United States on what needs to be done to create state-of-the-art, high-quality, proven learning opportunities for our Hispanic students. These are students who so often come to our schools needing something special, something customized to fit them.

These are students who come to us often speaking English as their second language or not speaking English at all. The ability to speak English is essential if you’re going to succeed in the United States. But the ability to speak two languages is a gift; it’s a strategic advantage to our country.

In a global economy where more and more employers are looking for employees who are bilingual, how do we nurture an immigrant student’s first language while ensuring he or she is proficient and comfortable speaking English.

How do we provide learning environments where they become bi-literate? How do we open new and exciting pathways to careers that will treasure and reward the skill of being bilingual?

(more…)

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