Women v. Men Politics

Men are involved in politics that are more home origin based. They focus on issues from their native land such as: medical resources, road construction, and sports stadiums. This involvement is called Hometown Associations where immigrant worker will form a group in order to help their hometown and mainly ran by men. Even though they are immigrants to the U.S. they have more power or money to change political policies in their native from the U.S. because they can work more and save more. The only downfall is that they can make these small changes, but the government does little to help and when they do it is only to get in the media spotlight.

Men focus on their native land because they have beliefs that one day they will return to their native country. The only thing is that this for many is only a belief that few have sought through. Immigrants have a mind-set that they will go back home with more than what they left with and impose change with their experience in this country. Maybe, this is why the their is a low citizen rate because they are wanting to belief that they will return and see their migration here as only temporarily.

Women on the other hand focus more on this countries politics because this country is better off for them. They have more freedom to work and not just be a submissive housewife. While int this country they gain independence from poverty or atleast lessen it and gain independence from their Macho husbands. Women tend to look for the future of their children in which they would rather see them grow up here than in their native land. Why would someone want to return to their land where change isn't near? they don't, therfore, they focus in their new home land.

Women here can organize against the wrongful doings of the government that effect them. Women unlike men they use all federal aid that is provided for them such as WIC, Food stamps, and child care assistance. These services help when women are busy in organizing campaigns.

Women focus more in th U.S. becuase ublike men they don't really care about going back to their home country. This country is better for them even though they have to suffer a lot in order to succeed, but in the long run is extremely better for them and their children

Latinos voting in New York

In this video it says that Latino Voters are increasing and can make a difference on who will win the state for the 2008 Presidential elections.

According to the book, Between Two Nations, Latinos have a large population, but do not have strong voting numbers in order to enforce change in the political machine. We have the numbers, but there are various reasons why th Latinos Vote isn't as strong as it should be.

I believe as Latino education prospers the increase for political participation will only get stronger in which Latinos will be able to make some changes within national politics.

NuYoRicans

In this video is distinguishes the NuYoRicans v. the "real" Puerto Ricans. It puts down the NuYoRicans because they aren't considered to be "true" Puerto Ricans because they "Afro-centric" because of Americans heavily relying on rap music. NuYoricans also being 3rd or 4th generation PR in which have lost their culture by acculturating to US society. This can also be comparedto Mexican Americans and Mexicans in which Mexican Americans are considered pochos.
People from native countries don't go through the same experiences and are biased to the non-native and vis versa. This is were tensions and misunderstandings of one another clash into tensions.

No Child left Behind

http://www.fldoe.org/nclb/


On January 8, 2002, NCLB was signed into law. Americans united behind a revolutionary idea: every child can learn. The law confirms that as a nation, we will not accept a public school system that educates only a portion of its children.

NCLB recognizes what truly makes a difference in providing a quality education. It calls for a highly qualified teacher in the core subjects in every classroom; the use of proven, research-based instructional methods; and timely information and options for parents. Schools that underperform are held accountable, providing their students with free tutoring or transfer to a better performing public school. In other words, children’s education needs are placed first—where they belong.

To achieve its goals, NCLB works according to four common-sense principles:

holding schools accountable for results;
giving states and districts flexibility in how they spend federal money;

using scientific research to guide classroom practice; and

involving parents by giving them information and choices about their children’s education.

In 1965, Congress passed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), providing, for the first time, significant federal funding for K–12 education. The original law has been renewed eight times, most recently by NCLB.


According to this educational bill children will be given better instructors and better curriculum. The wrong thing about the bill is that it still doesn't include immigrant children that it is leaving behind by excluding from recieving an education. Children that are included in this so called educaitional bill are those that are citizens of this country. Even the children of this country are being left behind by the governments intervention with education.

Children aren't being left behind individually they are staying behind in clumps because of the high standards the state has imposed on schools. Pressure is being to on them at such a young age that they aren't allowed to have fun, but prepare for examinations at such a young age. ALl students suffer from this because they have to work harder in order to meet the minimum stanrads to continue their education. The government is just trying to make the nation a more competitive compared to other nations that aren't as advacned aas the US. is this why our children should pay because of the governments ego?

Programs are being cut such as Arts and Physical education in order to focus on curriculum that they will be tested on by the state. Children lose a lot by the closure of these programs. They aren't allowed to be creative and be able to express themselves through art or music. If schools don't meet the minimum standards federal grants and money is held and aren't allowed to make thier own decision how they can spend money. The schools with the least money are the ones that are suffering more and getting worse. Instead of the main focus being money given to them their resources are becoming more scarce.

If it is money that the government is concerned about they should rethink the way that they spend the nations money mostly going to the military when their main focus should be helping the young minds of this nation.

Parents have faught for the removal of this bill, but have been unsuccessful. Several ethnic paretns have faught for the removal pf the bill in order for their children to recieve a beter education. Women protested aginst this bill because it would affect their childrens education. In the book, Fluid Borders, parents reacted the same when it come to their childrens future at stake. After these acts from the government when they obrstruct the childrens learning and seem to be going against the people. They they think why the vote of Latino isn't strong. The government dpesn't seem like they want to help. The only way to be heard are through protests that have been shown through historical events has shown that this is the only way the government listen is to bring it to them.

How can students be in pursuit of higher education if the state is making more diffiucult for them to continue through their education. It is hard as it is to finish school and with these edtra standards it is removing the hopes of students in completing the most basic education. Istead of creating more barriers and punishing the schools by cutting programs they should focus on more programs to help students instead of holding them back. At the rate that it is going there is going to be a higher drop out rate accross the nation. Iclusion sould be the solution not exlusion. The government needs to rethink their strategy in education.

LET US DREAM!!!

The Dream Act and its benefits:



The dream Act proposes that illegal students would have a chance in attending college at regular cost and after two years of college have a chance at citizenship. his isn't just an amnesty to legalize any immigrants it is a special ACT that would help students to be able to become citizens. It would provide students the opportunity to utilize their degrees to the fulles. It has been stigmatized on how illegals are criminals, but that is not true these students were immigrated by their parents at a young age in which they had no choise in coming here by choice. These students are students with good academic standings that shouldn't be denied to attend college or denied the right to better themselves. Just like any other students they just want the ability to afford college and be able to use the knowledge that is offered to the through universities to better themselves and their family. They also pursuit the "American DREAM" to be successful in a country that allows that to happen much easier than in their home country that they have left behind. There are subjects in which have lived in the U.S. all of their lives and don't know how to speak spanish similar to the book fluid border, were Zali was born in GRO,Mexico, but doesn't speak spanish. If these students were to be deported they could not survive in their native country because they have not aquired the skills to survive in that country. They have aquired the skills to survive in this country which is greatly different. They might even consider themselves Americans because they have no recolection of their native country.

Why deny students to better themselves? Is it because of competition that others might face? Is it the fact of change in policy for immigration? Or is it because the government wants to limit who can succeed and aho can't?

These are questioned that need to be awnsered in order for change to occur in this FREE country.

Prop 187

Proposition 187 was an initiative that had been brought up in the California in 1994. The initiative designed to deny illegal immigrants social services, health care, and public education. Its main supporter was Governor Wilson fighting against Illegal immigrant rights within the U.S. Opponents included State Senator Art Torres, who referred to Prop. 187 as "the last gasp of white America in California."

Several thousands of Latinos protested the proposition in the streets in organized marches to defeat the proposition.

The proposition came before voters in the November 8, 1994 general election, where it was approved. By the next day the law came into affect. The law was challenged to see if it was consitutional or not and to challenege state law with federal laws. There were many appeals for the law and in However, in 1998, before the judges could rule, newly elected Democratic Gov. Gray Davis had the case brought before mediation. Following this, he dropped the appeals process before the courts, effectively killing the law.



In the book, Fluid Borders, it notes that these type of proposition not only attack illegal immigrants, but also considered and anti-latino in cutting off valuable resources to young children that wern't at fault. In the video we watched on wednesday they had said thay they weren't targeting children, but the ones most affected were the children. The resources it was going to remove were health care and public education, but good thing they weren't targeting the children because they are the ones most affected by these resources. Diane; the teacher from the movie said she blamed the family for the all the mishaps that occur within the childs failures. That she wouls do things different if she were in their shoes. I don't believe we could say that because if she legal then there is no way she can be in their shoes nor can she blame the parents that work heavily hours.

In the movie people were led to believe that their Economic problems will be solved if the proposition would pass. Illegal immigrants are also Economic and political refugees fleeing from their countries. The only diffrence between illegal immigrants is that the government gets to decide who is a refugee and who isn't.

It's the government who allows immigrants to come in becuase it is good for the economical labor pool. During the WWII the govenrment had established a program that would allow thousands of Mexicans into the country eith a workers contract. This program was known as the Bracero program as economic aid to the U.S. while soldiers were overseas. Immigrants are blamed for some of societies worst problems that are draining the nations resources acording to the book Walls and Mirrors. Who is at fault the government that allows a certain time when illegals can come in and then try to send them back. The government contrdict themselves in so many ways that they shouldn't blame illegal immigrants for the problems the government has caused.

Bilangual education

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JWCRAWFORD/biling.htm

Issues in U.S. Language Policy

Bilingual Education

Recent Research

Stephen Krashen and Grace McField: What Works? Reviewing the Latest Evidence on Bilingual Education
Jeff McQuillan: An Urban Myth: The 'Poor Quality' of Bilingual Education Research
Josefina Tinajero: Bilingual Education in Texas: Lighting the Path, Leading the Way
James Crawford: 'Science' in Rhetoric and Reality

For many Americans, bilingual education seems to defy common sense – not to mention the Melting Pot tradition. They ask:

If non-English-speaking students are isolated in foreign-language classrooms, how are they ever going to learn English, the key to upward mobility?

What was wrong with the old "sink or swim" method that worked for generations of earlier immigrants?

Isn't bilingual education just another example of "political correctness" run amok – the inability to say no to a vociferous ethnic lobby?

Some English Only advocates go further, arguing that even if bilingual education is effective – which they doubt – it's still a bad idea for the country because bilingualism threatens to sap our sense of national identity and divide us along ethnic lines. They fear that any government recognition of minority languages "sends the wrong message" to immigrants, encouraging them to believe they can live in the U.S.A. without learning English or conforming to "American" ways.

Such complaints have made bilingual education a target of political attacks. One of the most serious to date is now under way in California, a ballot initiative that would mandate English-only instruction for all children until they become fully proficient in English.

No doubt many of the objections to bilingual education are lodged in good faith. Others reflect ethnic stereotypes or class biases. Sad to say, they all reflect a pervasive ignorance about how bilingual education works, how second languages are acquired, and how the nation has responded to non-English-speaking groups in the past.

Reinforcing popular fallacies requires less space than deconstructing them. That's why my writing on these issues grew from a handful of newspaper articles into a 310-page book, Bilingual Education: History, Politics, Theory, and Practice (3rd ed., 1995). Nevertheless, a few points:

Science is often counterintuitive. Its breakthroughs tend to upset common-sense notions, not to mention cherished myths. Linguistics is no exception. In fact, it invites more than its share of opposition from nonspecialists – witness the "Ebonics" controversy – because most people feel like experts when it comes to language. Our reactions are often visceral. Perhaps that's because our speech defines us ethnically, socially, and intellectually. It's tied up with a sense of who we are – and who we are not – evoking some of our deepest emotions.

What once seemed obvious about bilingualism – for example, that it handicaps children's cognitive growth – has usually proved unfounded. Since the 1960s, research has shown that multiple language skills do not confuse the mind. Quite the contrary: when well-developed, they seem to provide cognitive advantages, although such effects are complex and difficult to measure (Hakuta 1986).

Another discredited notion is that children will "pick up" a second language rapidly if "totally immersed" in it. For generations, this philosophy served to justify policies of educational neglect – assigning minority students to regular classrooms, with no special help in overcoming language barriers. Disproportionate numbers failed and dropped out of school as a result. The sink-or-swim approach was ruled illegal by the U.S. Supreme Court in Lau v. Nichols (1974).

Research has shown that the quality – not the quantity – of English exposure is the major factor in English acquisition. That is, the second-language input must be comprehensible(Krashen 1996). Otherwise, it's just noise.

English as a second language (ESL) is best taught in natural situations, with the second language used in meaningful contexts rather than in repetitious drills of grammar and vocabulary. One variant of ESL, known as "sheltered subject-matter instruction," adapts lessons to students' level of English proficiency. This approach is common in bilingual education programs, coordinated with lessons in students' native language.

Native-language instruction also helps to make English comprehensible, by providing contextual knowledge that aids in understanding. When children already know something about dinosaurs, a lesson on the subject will make more sense when instruction shifts to English. Not only will they learn more about dinosaurs; they will also acquire more English.

The same principle applies when it comes to acquiring literacy. Teaching in the native language can facilitate the process, as the linguist Stephen Krashen (1996) explains:

• We learn to read by reading, by making sense of what we see on the page. ...
  
• If we learn to read by reading, it will be much easier to learn to read in a language we already understand.
  
• Once you can read, you can read. The ability to read transfers across languages.

"Language is not a unitary skill, but a complex configuration of abilities" (Hakuta and Snow 1986). Social communication skills – a.k.a. playground English – should not be confused with academic English, the cognitively demanding language that children need to succeed in school. While playground English tends to be acquired rapidly by most children, academic English is typically acquired over a period of five to seven years (Cummins 1989).

Research on the effectiveness of bilingual education remains in dispute, because program evaluation studies – featuring appropriate comparison groups and random assignment of subjects or controls for pre-existing differences – are extremely difficult to design. Moreover, there is considerable variation among the pedagogies, schools, students, and communities being compared. While numerous studies have documented the benefits of bilingual programs, much of this research has faced methodological criticisms – as noted by an expert panel of the National Research Council (August and Hakuta 1997a).

Certain critics of bilingual education have interpreted the NRC report to mean that, despite a generation of research, "there is no evidence that there will be long-term advantages or disadvantages to teaching limited-English students in the native language" (Glenn 1997). This conclusion – widely circulated by the so-called READ Institute – has been rejected by the NRC study directors. To the contrary, they say, the expert panel concluded that "a great deal has been learned from the research that has been conducted on English language learners." Moreover, there are "empirical results . . . support[ing] the theory underlying native language instruction" (August and Hakuta 1997b). According to the panel's chairman, the "attempt by READ to place its own political spin" on the report hardly advances the cause of objective research (Hakuta 1997).

Other critics continue to deny that such empirical support exists. A recent "review of the literature" (Rossell and Baker 1996) reports that bilingual education is inferior to English-only programs of all kinds, including sink-or-swim. Yet these conclusions owe more to the manipulation of program labels than to student performance in the classroom. Critiques of Rossell and Baker by Cummins (1998) and Krashen (1996) show that, among other distortions, the researchers rely heavily on studies of French immersion in Canada – bilingual or trilingual approaches that they portray as monolingual "immersion" or "submersion" models. Meanwhile, a meta-analysis of the same body of research reviewed by the critics, but using a more rigorous methodology, found quite different results: a significant edge for bilingual education (Greene 1998).

The most sophisticated evaluation study to date – a four-year, longitudinal study of 2,000 Spanish-speaking students in five states – found that "late-exit," developmental bilingual programs proved superior to "early-exit," transitional bilingual and English-only immersionprograms (Ramírez et al. 1991). That is, in programs that stressed native-language skills, students' growth in English reading and mathematics continued to increase long after it had leveled off among their peers in the other programs. While this study has been praised by many, others have rejected the comparison as invalid because all three programs were not tested in the same school districts.

Nevertheless, a consensus of applied linguists recognizes that the following propositions have strong empirical support:

• Native-language instruction does not retard the acquisition of English.
  
• Well-developed skills in the native language are associated with high levels of academic achievement.
  
• Bilingualism is a valuable skill, for individuals and for the country.

Bilingual education was adopted by many local school districts in the 1960s and 1970s to remedy practices that had denied language minorities an equal educational opportunity. Yet it was hardly a new invention designed to replace the Melting Pot with the Salad Bowl or some other model of ethnic pluralism. There is a long bilingual tradition in the U.S.A., in which minority-language schooling has played a central, albeit largely forgotten, role.
For a more detailed analysis of the research controversies over bilingual education, see my book Hold Your Tongue (1992). For a response to some common canards see Diane Ravitch on bilingual education.

For a more detailed analysis of the research controversies over bilingual education, see my book Hold Your Tongue (1992). For a response to some common canards see Diane Ravitch on bilingual education.