Thread: Making Grade in U.S. Schools

www.latimes.com

Making Grade in U.S. Schools
Foreign-born children are far more likely to drop out if they had a poor educational record before immigrating, report says.
By Mitchell Landsberg
Times Staff Writer

November 2, 2005

A study released Tuesday confirms what many teachers have long suspected: The performance of immigrant children in U.S. schools may reflect the education they received â€â€

I am not a school teacher but do have two children enrolled in NC schools - one in elementary and one in high school. I do at least once a week or every two weeks make trips to school to have lunch (with the youngest, the teen would be embarrassed or more likely mortified if one of her parents showed up and humiliated her just by their presence in front of her peers ) and occasionally to volunteer to help out with parties, field trips and sometimes other extras. Since NC has a very rapidly increasing hispanic population - I know what the situation is just by being at the schools several times per year and seeing for myself. Parent nights are a real eye opener too.

I've noticed more changes with the elementary school in the most recent years, such as this year several new temporary modular units have had to be built in Wake County, NC, to deal with the huge increases in student attendance (again the large number of hispanics). My youngest had to change schools this year in 4th grade to attend one of these "trailer park elementary schools" as my teen daughter's boyfriend so humorously labeled it. It's not a magnet school offering all the other nice extras the original school did. I tried twice by way of the school board to transfer her back to the original school when I heard of the transfer. I didn't think my first request that I was renting a violin where lessons wouldn't be continued at the new school would be approved - not really. But, when I learned that the school nurse who was familiar with her diabetes (not to mention several teachers from K-3rd who were already familiar with diabetes because they had my daughter in their classrooms) would not be transferring, I was surprised this request was denied. But, apparently, the requests of several other parents of children with chronic illnesses to leave their children at the original school were also denied - or so the nurse told me.

One interesting fact - since my diabetic child attended the original elementary (her diabetes was diagnosed at age 3) - never has there been a full-time nurse not even when my daughter was in Kindergarten. The nurse is usually only at the school perhaps two days per week and has to rotate her time being nurse to a few other schools in the district too. This isn't how it was when I was a child, I don't believe, and a long, long time ago. I believe we always had a full-time nurse on staff who was there whenever a child had a fever or other problem and there was a room and bed for sick children to lay down upon until their parents could pick them up. Now, whenever I visit the school and have to sign in at the main office and get my visitor tag, I frequently see sick kids coming in and the front desk employee/receptionist or whatever her title is, having to act as nurse if it doesn't happen to be the nurses' day on duty.

So much for our tax dollars being put to good use when schools cannot even hire one full-time nurse to check temperatures and apply bandages. Not only do the main office staff do it now but often the teachers and this is just one more disruption to their teaching their other students in the classroom. The teachers take care of all my child's diabetic needs as well as I believe any other child's needs who has a life-threatening/chronic illness because there is no nurse available most of the time. The nurse at our school's main roll is to coordinate the care and deal with all the multiple forms that have to be filled out. On the other hand and perhaps the reason why tax money is short to hire full-time nurses, the illegal alien's children are sucking up all our tax dollars.

Almost done with my ranting - just wanted to say that when I read the article posted here I am again disgusted with all the pressures put upon teachers and other school staff to try to push out "A" and "B" grade students. How are they supposed to do this with all the illegal alien children flooding our schools, many of whom cannot even speak English? And, who are overcrowding our schools and sucking up tax dollars meant to educate our children. Again, even though I'm not a teacher, I believe teachers and other school staff are being unfairly dealt with and are expected to do the impossible because of our government's refusal to secure our borders and reduce mass immigration, both illegal and legal.

Forgot to mention in my long post but on one of the last days of my youngest child's 3rd grade when I went to the main school office to pick up the transfer application form, there were two hispanic mothers talking away in Spanish w/five young children between them, three of whom appeared elementary grade level and the youngest two looked old enough to start Kindergarten. The mothers had some filled-out school applications.

I mentioned in a prior post some time ago that this year and last the Student Handbooks in our district were printed both in English and in Spanish. When calling one of the schools and getting an answering machine, and after hearing the lengthy voice mail message in English, I heard it repeated in Spanish. Also, many notices of various sorts are sent home that are printed in both English and Spanish. This includes local town fairs and festivities put on by the Town of ___ (our town).

Do you know if the 5 kids of "questionable" status were moving into the school that just kicked your sick daughter out?

BTW, NC spent $771 million last year on K-12 education of illegals and illegal anchors.

Originally Posted by had_enuf

Do you know if the 5 kids of "questionable" status were moving into the school that just kicked your sick daughter out?

BTW, NC spent $771 million last year on K-12 education of illegals and illegal anchors.

I don't know for sure. The mothers were speaking Spanish which I do not understand very well and I couldn't get a close up look at the forms just that there was handwriting on them, and they appeared to be waiting for someone as the office person didn't speak with them while I was there. If they weren't moving in, some or all of the kids must have already been enrolled there for them to be even waiting in the main office.

I've seen the $771 million figure that NC spends and it is in this FAIR report, and the amount doesn't include extra costs such as ESL and free and reduced meals.


Breaking the Piggy Bank: How Illegal Immigration is Sending Schools Into the Red


This Report by the Pew Hispanic Center is also interesting. Since it is 91 pages long and in PDF format, I can't cut and paste.

http://pewhispanic.org/reports/report.php?ReportID=50
The New Latino South

I haven't had the chance yet to read all 91 pages but on page 6 and pages 43-46 there are some interesting facts about school age children. There is also an interesting chart on page 13.

Thank you noillegalimmigrationnannie, for giving more Americans a chance to walk a mile in the shoes of those of us who are interacting with the public school systems in America.

We've got some serious problems, folks, and as always guess who is getting the brunt of it.....the most vulnerable Americans, our children.
The American people do care, but they must stand up now and yell. They must ask themselves if they are willing to continue to allow George Bush to sacrafice their children's education and futures for the sake of his "friends".

We adults have allowed it to happen to us. We didn't stand up for ourselves. But it is amazing what you can do for your children that you couldn't or wouldn't do for yourself.