Monday, April 4, 2011
Obama Seeks to Better Educate Hispanic Population
This past week President Obama met with students and teachers at Bell Multicultural High School in Washington to discuss the challenges of educating Hispanic youth in today's society. As expected, teachers are finding it very difficult to work with these students because their English is not proficient enough to go very in-depth on any subject. Parents and school officials worry that this will result in them not being able to pass the state-mandated tests required so that they will be able to even graduate from high school. Throughout the town hall meeting the president was direct in voicing his belief that adequate programs must be set into place in order for Latino students to truly benefit from their studies in America's public schools and to become functioning members of our nation's society. He focused his attention on the large responsibilities of parents and schools to make sure the students are actively engaging in their schoolwork and practicing the English language. Many of the students only have the opportunity to develop and refine these skills in the classroom, as their home life is often set to their native languages. One concern held by many is that these struggling students will not be able to immerse themselves into the workforce -- which could be a major set-back for America's economy. Thus, he emphasized the crucial need for these students to have access to both bilingual education and immersion programs in our public schools. Obama stated, "We have schools that do it very well; there are some schools that don't do it as well. We want to lift up those models that do it well" (CNN). I think it is peculiar that he's putting so much effort and interest into this cause, yet every other day on the news the public is informed that the government is working to cut funding to our schools. How exactly does he plan to better educate this population and expand programming of schools are having a hard enough time as it is to simply teach others the basics? I am in no way saying that I do not stand behind the president and this cause; I'm just curious as to how exactly it will be funded. http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/03/27/obama.hispanics/index.html
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6 comments:
I think that Obama is just being realistic, educating the rest of the population is equally as important. But the fact that we have large amounts of Hispanics entering our country everyday is something that a long term approach at educating is necessary. Hispanics bring out GDP up more than normal Americans. A focus on their education will prevent these hard working individuals from falling into areas of crime.
The hispanic population has recently hit a benchmark of 50 million in the United States and that means they are the biggest jump in demographic. While Educating everyone in our country means we have a better work force I am confused as to how we would fund education for many that don't have legal residence or citizenship. I don't feel as though immigration is a bad thing but how will the american people be able to pay for this without an accurate count of how many people they are going to educate? It may be a great idea but realistically I don't think it will get off the ground.
With all the cuts in the education budget i believe that the only way that the Hispanic population may get a better education is go through a private organization.
I think we're all wondering how it will be funded. Most things that are of any importance often times are put forth for cutting and because of that, it begs the question of how any good cause could actually succeed over time. Whether Hispanic education is just a phase or something more, Obama's actions will be the deciding factor.
what we most honestly need is to bring home our troops,take all of the money we would be spending meddling elsewhere and ensure that they have any kind of health care or social security needs taken care of for life. stop making put money into Dick Cheney's wallet and into our schools, because taking care of and educating our own should be first on the list of priorities of national SECURITY anyways. educating our youth, and paying for them to learn, is our only competition in this ever evolving world we live in now. how he does plan on paying for this funding considering we dont live in my perfect world, i have no idea.
Kathleen, your posting brings up a lot of great, meaty issues.
I know its idealistic to say, but I do wish there were another way to fund education besides the way we do it here in NH, via property taxes. As a national community, I think we need to prioritize education (which is what I think our President is trying to rally us to do). Once prioritized at the national level, then I think we could find a new way to fund it. Through a corporate contribution/tax perhaps? Why not? As Dr. Fistek said in class, corporations are the ones that want us trained and they are the ones that hire us. If other countries in Europe and Scandanavia can offer free university, why can’t we? We need to get over our aversion to the word “tax.” Taxes bring essential services and opportunities.
While reading your piece, my thoughts turned to Anthony Bourdain. In one of his books, Chef Bourdain talks about the fact that if you’ve ever eaten in a restaurant in New York City, you’ve eaten a meal prepared by a Mexican chef. We treat immigration like it’s a new issue, but it really isn’t. In fact, everyone reading this post is a non-native American at root. We shouldn’t trivialize or otherwise downplay the ability of Hispanic and other people to adapt to our culture.
Another thought I had was regarding testing. No Child Left Behind spawned a whole lot of testing that was never really validated and doesn’t serve much purpose but to exclude some students from achievement. Test scores are not a good measure of education received. We need to shift our focus away from testing and onto properly funding teachers.
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