Posts Tagged ‘Education’
NYC Public Schools Pay $35 million per Year for Nothing
11:38 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Bizarro|Controversia|Education|Labor|New York|New York City|radio · 3 Comments
11 Mar 2009I was dumbstruck after listening to last week’s episode of Chicago Public Radio’s This American Life program this morning. The episode featured a story so Kafkaesque I first doubted its veracity and then just sat shocked. It’s simple enough to sum up in just a few words: the New York City Public School system sends teachers who “misbehave” or are suspected of having done something wrong to what amounts to detention hall for teachers. Teachers are told they will be going to a “reassignment center” and when they arrive, wait to meet with district authorities.
But there will never be a meeting. The teachers sit in rooms for hours doing nothing. Those hours turn in to weeks. Weeks into months for most. And for some into a year or more than one year. Doing nothing.
A culture emerges within this confinement. It is reported by those who have been in what is called “the rubber room” – the informal name for the facility — that the overwhelming boredom and depression felt by the teachers translates into childlike behavior, violent fights and territorial squabbles. In effect, they become a lot like children in detention.
Teachers awaiting their fate — a decision by the NYC school system on whether they will be reinstated and return to teaching or terminated — continue to earn their full salary, even though they are doing absolutely nothing in the rubber room day in and day out. The estimated cost to NYC taxpayers? Some 35 million dollars per year. Read more…
Number of Latinos in Schools Doubles
7:48 am By Maegan La Mala · children|Education|Immigration|society · Comments Off
27 Aug 2008
A lot has changed in the world since 1990, and over the past 18 years, the Latino population has grown exponentially. The Pew Hispanic Center has released a new report titled “One-in-Five and Growing Fast: A Profile of Hispanic Public School Students” which, as its name suggests, shows that one in every five public school students is Latino.
A majority of Hispanic students — about 75 percent — live in what the study calls “established” Hispanic states: Texas, Colorado, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.In Texas, more than 40 percent of enrollments from 1990 to 2006 were Latino students.
Almost 20 percent of the nation’s Hispanic students — nearly 2 million — live in Texas.
From 1990 to 2008, the Latino public school population grew from 5 million to 9.8 million.
Via / Chron.com
Chilean Teachers Protest Against Education Inequality
4:30 pm By Maegan La Mala · Activism|Chile|Education|Latin America · Comments Off
17 Jun 2008
An on-going series of public manifestations against the state of the Chilean education system came to a head yesterday as hundreds of school teachers took the streets, and at least 20 broke into the Palace of the Moneda, throwing about pamphlets expressing their opposition to the “Ley General de la Educación”. 12 teachers were arrested when they tried to submit a document with their demands to the government at the palace.
The National Organization of teachers has called for a strike which was set to begin yesterday and extend into Thursday, and its spokesperson said that 90% of the schools in the Santiago metropolitan area would stop classes, while the Chilean Minister of Education debunked the claim, saying that 1800 schools in the capital were having classes.
Meanwhile, several schools and universities have been taken over by student protesters, and according to Mexico’s La Jornada, at least two — the University of Santiago and the University of Valdivia — have been “vacated” by the carabineros.
The new Chilean education law at the center of this public backlash is said to perpetuate the breach between rich and poor with regard to education, and is costing president Michelle Bachelet some major popularity points. For some background on the LGE, check out Chilean college student-blogger Ernesto Manriquez’s analysis of the legislation and what it will change.
Via / La Jornada
Image via Arriving at the horizon on Flickr
12 year-old to study medicine in Mexico
5:11 pm By Maegan La Mala · children|Education|mexico · Comments Off
16 Aug 2007
A “super cerebro” — a real-life Doogie Howser — has emerged in the Mexican state of Puebla: a 12-year old named Andrew Almazán just finished high school and is off to study medicine and psychology at the university level.
The University of the Americas in Puebla announced today that they have accepted little Andrew, and that he has received a grant which covers all of his costs, including providing a home on campus where he can live with his parents.
The university has also created a special program for him given his young age, which for now would not require him to perform autopsies or dissections.
Via / El Universal
Struggling students opt for medical school in Cuba
11:45 am By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Cuba|Education|Politics|society · 1 Comment
25 Jul 2007
In what may be Fidel Castro‘s best PR moment of the year, and, coincidentally, excellent promo for Michael Moore‘s new film Sicko, 8 American students have graduated from medical school — in Cuba. Reports the International Herald Tribune:
Four New Yorkers, three Californians and a Minnesota native, all from minority backgrounds, have studied in Havana since April 2001.The six women and two men made up the first class of Americans to graduate from the Latin American School of Medicine since Castro offered free medical training to U.S. students after meeting with a delegation from the Congressional Black Caucus seven years ago.
“I’ve learned that medicine is not a business,” said Toussaint Reynolds, a graduate from Massapequa, New York. “I will be a better doctor in the United States for it.”
New Latino Scholarship Directory released
2:13 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Education|Money · Comments Off
9 Jan 2007
Live in California and need money for college or know someone who does? The Tomás Rivera Policy Institute has just announced a new directory for Latinos looking for college dollars:
The directory, which was originally released in early november 2006, has been viewed online more than 15,000 times and quickly sold out its initial print run.Now in its second printing, the directory has been expanded to include more than 20 of the largest national scholarship funders, providing millions of dollars of additional scholarship opportunities for California’s Latino students.
Printed copies will be distributed through the Sallie Mae Fund’s national “paying for college” bus tour, which launches its California tour today. Additional scholarship directories will be distributed by the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute, and by the Hispanic Scholarship Fund at their programs throughout Southern California.
Get more info and download the online version at LatinoCollegeDollars.org.
Thanks to reader Cindylu for the tip!
Black and Brown
7:48 pm By Maegan La Mala · Education · 2 Comments
28 Aug 2006
Historically Black colleges are recruiting Latinos. According to an AP report earlier this month covered by both CNN.com and USAtoday.com
A great move for historically Black colleges since:
a. the country is moving towards becoming a greater mixture of colors, to embrace that fact is to embrace a more realistic sample of the population,
b. the creation of a more united minority front is just what the colored population of this country needs (especially in terms of voting and economic power) and,
c. learning how to understand Black culture (all Black people are not drug dealers), and Latino culture (all Latinas aren’t sluts who liked to be called “Mami”), will only lead to a greater understanding and respect of each.
And who knows, maybe both Latinos and Blacks will realize the fate of one minority group in the United States is the fate of them all? Maybe they’ll do something about it?
But is it a great move for Latinos?
Pew research reveals Latino attitudes toward English
3:18 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Immigration|language · Comments Off
8 Jun 2006
Contrary to the argument that a lot of anti-immigrant people tend to make — that Latino immigrants “don’t want to learn English” — some new data from the Pew Hispanic Center.
Hispanics by a large margin believe that immigrants have to speak English to be a part of American society and even more so that English should be taught to the children of immigrants, according to recent surveys conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center.The endorsement of the English language, both for immigrants and for their children, is strong among all Hispanics regardless of income, party affiliation, fluency in English or how long they have been living in the United States.
Florida gets an “F” in History
1:54 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Education|Florida|history · Comments Off
6 Jun 2006
The Miami Herald has an article today about how, despite the very strong Latin American and Spanish origins of the state of Florida (and it’s huge Latino population), the state’s educational system is flunking out on teaching kids about Latin American history — and any other history:
Despite the state’s burgeoning Hispanic population, an education think tank gives Florida an F when it comes to teaching students about the history of Latin America — or any other civilization.The failing grade comes because the state’s standards for teaching world history are so vague, concludes the study by the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, which didn’t hesitate to castigate the state.
”Florida’s approach is so superficial that it is, for all intents and purposes, worthless,” said the report, which was released Monday. “There’s nothing glowing in the Sunshine State’s standards, and little worth redeeming.”
Student unrest in Chile continues
6:45 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Activism|Chile|Education|Politics · 1 Comment
5 Jun 2006
Unrest in Chile’s schools rages on after weeks of sit-ins and protests. The Latin Americanist rounds up a few stories about this ongoing saga on their site today. QuePasa reports on recent incidents which they say mark the “first crisis” of Bachelet’s presidency:
Faced with the first major crisis of her three-month old term, President Michelle Bachelet proposed amending Chile’s constitution to guarantee quality education.But as her proposal was made, police fired water cannons and tear gas on about 1,000 high school students and some adults at a barricade blocking public transport in downtown Santiago.
Leaders of the protests said more than one million students and their supporters would take part in the latest nationwide strike. They are demanding efforts by the government to close the gap between public
Bachelet is calling the protests
“…’unnecessary’ but said that by Tuesday “I will send to Congress a bill to reform the constitution, to confirm the right of all citizens to a quality education.”She added: “The students have made felt their demands, which I have described as just and legitimate, for a better quality education, and they did it peacefully.”
See some amazing photos about all of this on Flickr.
Via / Que Pasa and The Latin Americanist
Photo via JP’s Flickr page
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