Thread: Kindergartens see more Hispanic, Asian students

Kindergartens see more Hispanic, Asian students

Updated 6m ago
By Haya El Nasser and Paul Overberg, USA TODAY

The kindergarten class of 2010-11 is less white, less black, more Asian and much more Hispanic than in 2000, reflecting the nation's rapid racial and ethnic transformation.

The profile of the 4 million children starting kindergarten reveals the startling changes the USA has undergone the past decade and offers a glimpse of its future. In this year's class, for example, about one out of four 5-year-olds will be Hispanic. Most of today's kindergartners will graduate from high school in 2024.

More Hispanic children are likely in the next generation because the number of Hispanic girls entering child-bearing years is up more than 30% this decade, says Kenneth Johnson, demographer at the University of New Hampshire's Carsey Institute. "It's only the beginning."

A USA TODAY analysis of the most recent government surveys shows:

•About 25% of 5-year-olds are Hispanic, a big jump from 19% in 2000. Hispanics of that age outnumber blacks almost 2 to 1.

•The percentage of white 5-year-olds fell from 59% in 2000 to about 53% today and the share of blacks from 15% to 13%.

"This is not just a big-city phenomenon," Johnson says. "The percentage of minority children is growing faster in the suburbs and in rural areas."

In Lake County, Ind., a Chicago suburb, the under-20 population went from 51.8% white in 2000 to 47.1% in 2008, Johnson's research shows. In rural Nebraska's Colfax and Dakota counties, the share of Hispanic youths is rising while young whites are down from 60% to about 45% in the same period.

•Schools face linguistic challenges. The share of 5-year-olds who speak English at home slipped from 81% in 2000 to about 78%. The share of Spanish speakers grew from 14% to 16%.

"That makes issues of language development and how to teach them even more important than 10 years ago," says W. Steven Barnett, co-director of the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University. "In some districts, 40% of their kids are Latino, and 4% of their teachers are. It's a huge gap."

Educators are grappling with the challenge, and "we really have a long way to go before we understand what the best methods are," says Lisa Guernsey, director of the Early Education Initiative at the non-profit New America Foundation. Today's kindergartners are tomorrow's high-schoolers, and "we need to know what their needs are."

•Kindergarten enrollment is up, from 3.8 million in 2000 to about 4 million.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/cen ... 7_ST_N.htm

Again, Why does Texas attempt to educate the ILLEGALS and their anchors! Texas has a bilingual program for just Spanish speakers only costing Billions of dollars once it began to pick up steam. The ILLEGALS and their anchors in the Texas School System are so illiterate that our schools have to spend time and resources to teach the ILLEGALS and anchors "proper" Spanish before they can even consider teaching the ILLEGALS and anchors English! The ILLEGALS and anchors have their own program starting in pre-kindergarten through the 5th grade, seven years, and most do not or do not want to learn English. But the Feds and Texas continue to flood the school system with our money. Don't be concerned, the ILLEGALS do not have any intention of learning English! They want to take over the U.S. for their Third World home countries or at the very least turn the U.S. into just another Third World Country so they may feel more at home!

"Teachers" in the Texas ILLEGALS (bilingual) pre-kindergarten - 5th grade program receive several thousand dollars per year more than the real TEACHERS who work with the "NON-ILLEGALS"!!!!

The State of Texas claims they pay bilingual teachers extra because they are hard to find and have additional credentials. Most have less educational credentials than real teachers, many do not have educational degrees or for that fact most do not have advanced degrees that are required for real teachers. The only additional credentials are the ability to converse in Spanish. United States elementary students should not be required to learn in Spanish, the reason for the "bilingual program (ILLEGAL program)" is that we are forced to "educate" the ILLEGALS and their Anchors![/b]

•About 25% of 5-year-olds are Hispanic, a big jump from 19% in 2000. Hispanics of that age outnumber blacks almost 2 to 1.

•The percentage of white 5-year-olds fell from 59% in 2000 to about 53% today and the share of blacks from 15% to 13%.

So blacks and white populations continue to decline, while the hispanic population skyrockets, largely because of out of control illegal immigration.

Essentially, we are transforming the United States into latin America in the name of "diversity."

Are you kidding me? This is news? Where have the USA reporters been the last 5 years - the suburbs are run over and trashed by the illegal invasion.