ELL Graduation Rates Often a Mystery (Education Week, September 8, 2009)
Across the country, high school graduation rates are bemoaned with regularity. But many states and districts aren’t even tracking the rate for the fastest-growing population of students, or if they are, they aren’t telling the public how many English-language learners are leaving school with a diploma.

Battle over immigrant schoolchildren continues (Gazette.net, December 4, 2008)
The battle over illegal immigration continues in Frederick County this week, with the latest iteration involving school children who are in the country illegally. At issue is whether or not the Frederick Board of County Commissioners can ask the Frederick Board of Education to count the number of students who cannot document their immigration status.

Blunt Federal Letters Tell Students They’re Security Threats (New York Times, May 14, 2008)
A German graduate student in oceanography at M.I.T. applied to the Transportation Security Administration for a new ID card allowing him to work around ships and docks. What the student, Wilken-Jon von Appen, received in return was a letter that not only turned him down but added an ominous warning from John M. Busch, a security administration official: “I have determined that you pose a security threat.”

Iowa Immigration Raid Called a 'Man-Made Disaster' (Education Week, May 14, 2008)
School officials in Postville, Iowa, were still working Wednesday to cope with the logistical and emotional aftermath of a raid on a local meatpacking plant by federal immigration authorities earlier this week that left some students’ parents in custody and tensions high in the local Latino community.

Cash for School Grades, it Works!  (The Christian Science Monitor, January 22, 2008)
The use of "pay for performance" – linking a financial reward to measurable goals – works in business. But can it also motivate underachieving students? Though cash may at first seem a perverse incentive for education, one study of such a practice shows some promising results.

Minorities in Special Education Studied by U.S. Panel (Education Week, December 6, 2007)
A hearing by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission on minority overrepresentation in special education expanded into a three-hour discussion that touched on parental choice, school officials’ judgment calls on special education placements, and effective early-childhood education. The commission plans to sift through the issues raised at the Dec. 3 hearing and make recommendations on the minority-overrepresentation issue, which has vexed educators for years.

In Md. Suburbs, Police Find Shifting Gang Allegiances (Washington Post, December 5, 2007)
In Montgomery, according to the latest gang assessment by county police detectives, the number of members of predominantly African American gangs such as the Bloods and the Crips recently surpassed the membership of Latino gangs, long the primary target of anti-gang initiatives. Police said the assessment, which said 36 separate gangs were active, is based on self-identifications by suspects, tattoos and clothing, reports from informants and other investigative methods.

Strong English Seen as Key to Immigrants’ School Success (Education Week, November 28, 2007)
English proficiency is the biggest predictor of the academic achievement of immigrant students, and the quality of the overall language arts program at a school—not just programs for English-language learners within the school—is strongly linked to whether they acquire English, an in-depth study has found.

Falling between two worlds (The News Observer, November 26, 2007)
The debate over immigration often dwells on keeping illegal immigrants from slipping into the country, but when it comes to Hispanic youths who are already here, an opposite concern arises -- too many are slipping away.

Language Immersion Prototype Stumbling (Washington Post, November 26, 2007)
In September 1996, Montgomery County started what it promoted as the first Mandarin Chinese immersion program for elementary students in the country. The program at Potomac Elementary School became a national model, and acclaim and fame followed. Today, the original class of first-graders are seniors preparing for college. Many continued to study Chinese in middle and high school, but most dropped out in recent years -- a handful as late as this fall -- citing confusion in the curriculum and difficulties with the instructor. Now, just three of the first 22 students continue to study Chinese at the cluster's high school.

Ed Board faces decision (Clarionledger.com, October 28, 2007)
The board will establish new, more rigorous testing standards in grades three through eight in language arts and mathematics, as well as in English II and Algebra I. These new standards will measure student academic success and will establish a higher bar for measuring school performance on state and national standards.

Reading Aid Seen to Lag in ELL Focus (Education Week (Subscription Only), October 25, 2007)
Educators and experts across the country who work with English-language learners are moving toward a consensus that the federal Reading First program needs to be refined to become more effective for children acquiring English. Administrators in several big-city districts with large numbers of such students are stepping up their training of teachers on how best to teach second-language learners to read under the No Child Left Behind Act’s flagship reading program, which serves grades K-3.

Schools Not Prepping Minorities for College, Report Says (Washington Post , October 25, 2007)
A report by a team of activists and students that concluded that the Alexandria school system fails to prepare its black and Hispanic students for college is being criticized by schools officials as a distorted mix of old data, incorrect assumptions and bad methodology. Despite the criticisms, Tenants and Workers United and the Advancement Project, the groups that sponsored the report, and schools officials said they plan to work together to ensure that minority students are encouraged to take challenging classes and continue their education after high school.

Reading Aid Seen to Lag in ELL Focus (Education Week, October 25, 2007)
The federal Reading First program must be altered to make it more effective for English-language learners, according to educators and education experts across the country who work with these students. A U.S. Department of Education advisory subcommittee will examine whether English-language learners' needs are being met, according to this article.

Bill for Immigrant Students Fails Test Vote in Senate (Washington Post, October 24, 2007)
A bill to grant legal status to illegal immigrants who are high school graduates was defeated Wednesday in a test vote in the Senate, significantly dimming the prospects for any major immigration legislation this year.

A Choice Showdown (Education Week, October 23, 2007)
In a conservative state, where the public schools remain popular, an ambitious new voucher program faces a fierce ballot challenge.

Group Sues City and School System (Washington Post, October 17, 2007)
Manassas and its school system unfairly targeted Hispanic families while enforcing zoning codes, violating the Constitution and several federal and state laws, a group of civil rights advocates said in a lawsuit filed yesterday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria. The mayor, City Council, school system and School Board "engaged in a campaign to target, discriminate against, and evict the city's Hispanic residents . . . to reduce 'overcrowding,' " alleges the suit brought by the District-based Equal Rights Center and eight Hispanic people.

Mongolian Academy Nurtures One Side Of a Culture Clash (Washington Post, October 14, 2007)
The Mongolian School, which was organized last year by parents who want their rapidly Westernizing children to learn about the sounds, sites and customs of their home country. It follows in the footsteps of other weekend or full-time schools in the region that offer language immersion or bilingual education, but, unlike many others, it is parent-led and family-focused. Organizers used a model developed by Bolivian parents who created Escuela Bolivia nine years ago for their growing community in Arlington. The school system supports both efforts by providing classrooms.

Native Language Governs The Way Toddlers Interpret Speech Sounds (Science Daily, October 2, 2007)
Toddlers are learning language skills earlier than expected and by the age of 18 months understand enough of the lexicon of their own language to recognize how speakers use sounds to convey meaning.

School districts seek option to test in Spanish  (Union-Tribune, October 1, 2007)
No Child Left Behind mandates annual math and reading tests. Schools are under pressure to achieve minimum pass rates or face big changes, such as providing transportation for students to attend other schools, replacing staff members or even turning over management to a private company or the state. Many schools have responded by decreasing time spent on other subjects such as science, social studies, music and art. That means English-language testing that produces low scores deny equal opportunities to learn those subjects to students who don't speak English. It also can reduce opportunities for English-speaking students who attend schools that have large populations of students who don't speak English.

Children Of Immigrants Form Ethnic Identity At Early Age (Science Daily, September 29, 2007)
A study of more than 400 children of first-generation immigrants is among the first longitudinal studies to demonstrate that one’s ethnic identity forms prior to adolescence. Furthermore, the three-year study found that a child’s positive sense of ethnic identity is associated with the desire to socialize with children of different racial and ethnic backgrounds.

Immigrant Detention Center Proposed in Va. (Washington Post, September 26, 2007)
Virginia officials are considering a proposal to build a 1,000-bed detention center where illegal immigrants arrested for certain crimes could be held until federal officials deport them. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials said that such a center would be the country's first state-run facility built to hold only illegal immigrants accused of crimes. Currently, illegal immigrants who are arrested are held in local jails, federal facilities and private prisons.

Test a ‘step backward’ for minorities (The News Tribune, September 26, 2007)
Washington’s top education official isn’t going to spend much time celebrating federal test results that show the state’s students are above the national average in reading and math, because it also became clear Tuesday that minority students are losing ground. Although the summary of the National Assessment of Educational Progress – what some call “the nation’s report card” – showed that many minority groups across the country are making progress closing the achievement gap, Washington’s scores did not reflect that trend.

$17.2 Million Awarded in Grants to Help Hispanic-Serving Institutions (US Department of Education, September 26, 2007)
U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings today announced the award of 30 new grants totaling $17.2 million to benefit colleges and other postsecondary schools that enroll a high percentage of Hispanic students. "Thanks to No Child Left Behind, the achievement gap is closing for Hispanic students and academic progress is on the rise," Spellings said. "At the higher education level it's a different story where Hispanic students still lag behind their peers in earning a post-secondary credential. This program will ensure that Hispanic students have access to quality programs at the higher education level to improve their opportunities for success beyond school."

Students learn new ways to communicate (Delaware Online, September 26, 2007)
Silver Lake Elementary School students practiced last week how to greet their server at a Chinese restaurant -- in Chinese. Like all Appoquinimink School District fourth-graders this year, they are taking exploratory classes in four world languages: French, Spanish, Japanese and Mandarin Chinese.

US students score sweeping gains on tests (The Christian Science Monitor, September 26, 2007)
American students – black, white, Hispanic, rich, poor, male, and female – are improving in math and reading, especially those at the elementary level, where most of education reform has focused. Those are the modest but positive results from the most influential test in US education, the 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

Illegal drug use rising among Hispanic teens (MSNBC, September 24, 2007)
Hispanic teenagers used illegal drugs at greater rates than white and black teenagers, according to a report released Monday by a White House drug control policy office. The report, "Hispanic Teens & Drugs," warned that while overall illegal drug use among U.S. teens was down, Hispanic teens' use of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine outpaced use by their white and black peers. The report blamed drug use among Hispanic teens, in part, on their adaptation to new culture in America.

'First Steps' in two languages (Delaware Online, September 24, 2007)
At the new First Steps Primeros Pasos early learning center in Georgetown, lessons are repeated in English and Spanish. Signs and posters around the classroom are bilingual, and two of the three instructors are native Spanish speakers. "We deal with integration here," said Executive Director Lynne Maloy. "We're teaching our Spanish speakers English and our English speakers get to learn Spanish. We want everyone to have an equal chance to succeed, because education is the name of the game."

'First Steps' in two languages (Delaware Online, September 24, 2007)
At the new First Steps Primeros Pasos early learning center in Georgetown, lessons are repeated in English and Spanish. Signs and posters around the classroom are bilingual, and two of the three instructors are native Spanish speakers. "We deal with integration here," said Executive Director Lynne Maloy. "We're teaching our Spanish speakers English and our English speakers get to learn Spanish. We want everyone to have an equal chance to succeed, because education is the name of the game."

Measure Would Offer Legal Status to Illegal Immigrant Students (NY Times, September 20, 2007)
A bill to offer legal status to illegal immigrant students who have graduated from high school was revived this week in the Senate, the first effort to advance a piece of broad immigration legislation that failed in June. The measure would provide a path to permanent legal status for illegal immigrant students who came to the United States before they were 16 years old, graduated from high school in good standing and agreed to serve in the military or attend college for at least two years.

Arlington County Board Affirms Support for Immigrants (Arlington County, VA Press Release, September 18, 2007)
The Arlington County Board today adopted a resolution expressing support for immigrants and calling upon state and federal officials to enact policies that promote the integration of immigrants into society.

Opinion: Schools can't be colorblind (LA Times, September 16, 2007)
The achievement gap between African American and Latino students and their white peers is stark and persistent. It has existed for decades, and it's growing more pronounced. The data refute what would be reassuring explanations. The gaps in reading and math test scores are not due to income disparities, nor are they attributable to parents' educational levels. The simple fact is that most black and brown children do not do as well in school as most whites.

Language Provision in NCLB Draft Plan Criticized (Education Week (Subscription Only), September 5, 2007)
Educators and representatives of groups that follow issues involving English-language learners raised practical concerns last week about how a draft plan to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind Act would affect those students. Particularly troublesome, they said, is a proposal in the “staff discussion draft” released by the House Education and Labor CommitteeRequires Adobe Acrobat Reader to require states with more than 10 percent of ELLs who share the same language to create native-language assessments for that language group.

What Schools in the City Can Learn From the Suburbs (Washington Post, August 30, 2007)
When the chiefs of public schools in Fairfax, Montgomery and the District gathered to talk to education policy wonks about improving their worst schools, the contrast between the suburbs and the city could hardly have been greater. Yet all three schools chiefs seemed riveted by the same persistent problem: the gulf between the achievement of Asian and non-Hispanic white students and that of Hispanic and black students.

For Some Students, SAT Can Open College (Washington Post, August 30, 2007)
Thousands of D.C. students in the Class of 2007 are part of the largest and most diverse group of students ever to take the college-entrance exam. The College Board ascribed this year's results to a more diverse pool of students taking the test.

Va. Republican Bill Would Bar Illegal Immigrants From College (Washington Post, August 30, 2007)
Virginia Republicans announced legislation Wednesday that would prohibit public colleges and universities from accepting illegal immigrants even if they attended a public high school and were brought to the United States at an early age by their parents.

Temporary Immigrants Granted In-State Tuition (Washington Post, August 26, 2007)
Until recently, immigrants with temporary protected status, which provides a permit to live and work in the United States, were ineligible for the tuition break even if they met every other requirement. The decision was fought and as of last month, all Virginia college students with the permit, called TPS, are eligible for the tuition break, officials said.

After Fairfax Misses Target, Officials Cite 'No Child' Flaws (Washington Post, August 25, 2007)
Fairfax County schools boast SAT scores significantly higher than the national average. More than 93 percent of graduates go on to college or trade schools. And the dropout rate is low. But this week, the school system was given a new -- and negative -- label: failure to meet academic goals under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Fairfax educators say the system as a whole, along with 68 of its schools, fell short largely as the result of tighter federal testing requirements for students with limited English skills.

Opinion: Progress depends on all groups of students (Richmond Times-Dispatch, August 24, 2007)
Adequate yearly progress in Virginia is determined by student scores on the state's Standards of Learning tests. Under the requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, the federal benchmark for passing rates increases each year, with the goal of having 100 percent of students passing the tests by 2014. If a school, a school district or a state misses a single benchmark, that school, school district or state does not make AYP.

Struggling Students Sent Back To the Fold (, August 23, 2007)
With 2,100 students, Montgomery County's Evening High School program was bigger than all but six of the county's traditional high schools. But it was hardly flourishing. By 2005, when school officials reevaluated the decades-old program, it had become a dumping ground for struggling students who had failed courses in their neighborhood schools. Four-fifths of the teenage students were black or Hispanic, and the failure rate was much higher than in traditional schools. This fall, the school system will begin to phase out evening study to make way for a new program, High School Plus.

Young, white Americans are happier (MSNBC, August 21, 2007)
According to an extensive survey of 1,280 people ages 13-24 by The Associated Press and MTV, 72 percent of whites say they are happy with life in general, compared with 51 percent of Hispanics and 56 percent of blacks. 28 percent of minorities believe race will hurt them in the quest for a better life. Among whites, 20 percent feel their race will help in getting ahead.

Research shows that non-English-speaking young children learn more quickly with immersion (Richmond Times-Dispatch, August 5, 2007)
Chesterfield County school officials are planning changes for the county's limited-English-speaking students. The current English as a second language program serves students in 18 elementary schools, five middle schools and two high schools. Students attend the ESL school closest to them. But starting with the 2008-09 school year, school officials are going to eliminate those school-based ESL centers and instead send ESL students to their "home" schools. Rsearch shows that young children, such as pre-kindergartners and kindergartners, learn more quickly when immersed in regular education classes where they're learning sounds and symbols along with their English-speaking peers.

English Instruction Touted for Immigrants (Washington Post, August 1, 2007)
Spending on English instruction must be quadrupled to more than $4 billion a year for the next six years to make legal and illegal adult immigrants proficient in skills crucial to their assimilation and the economic future of a country whose population is increasingly foreign-born, a new national report says.

School Recruiters Turn To 'Innovative Places' (Washington Post, July 23, 2007)
Filipino teachers, who are trained in their home country according to U.S. education standards, have increasingly been entering local classrooms. Prince George's County employs 110. Another 100 will arrive in the county the first week in August. They are hired at the school system's starting salary of $43,481, nearly ten times what teachers are paid in the Philippines, Perez said. The stark pay difference makes U.S. teaching slots coveted there.

One new school, three languages (Sacramento Bee, July 23, 2007)
A new charter school that will teach children in three languages -- Mandarin Chinese, Spanish and English -- is scheduled to open in September in the North Sacramento School District with about 120 children in kindergarten through third grade. Students at the Lindsay Global Language Academy, as the charter school is called, will learn all their subjects in the three languages from teachers who are native speakers.

Immigrant parents struggle to keep their children bilingual (Boston Globe, July 22, 2007)
Berges, an immigrant from Peru, is struggling to raise her son to speak English and Spanish fluently, which might not seem like a big challenge in the city with the highest proportion of Latinos in Massachusetts. But researchers say Berges and immigrant parents nationwide are confronting a difficult truth: Their children are losing their languages.

Social Programs to Combat Gangs Seen as More Effective Than Police (Washington Post, July 18, 2007)
In a report being issued today, "Gang Wars," the Justice-Policy Institute says it found overwhelming evidence that cities such as New York and suburbs and rural areas that use extensive social resources -- job training, mentoring, after-school activities, recreational programs -- make significant dents in gang violence. Areas that rely heavily on police enforcement, such as Los Angeles, have far less impact.

State Guidance on English-Language Learners Lags (Education Week (Subscription required), July 17, 2007)
Despite a 5-year-old federal requirement that they create English-language proficiency standards for children who are new to the language, most states—including some with the largest numbers of English-language learners—have yet to give local school districts assistance in how to translate those standards into a curriculum.

School Diversity Based on Income Segregates Some (New York Times, July 15, 2007)
When San Francisco started trying to promote socioeconomic diversity in its public schools, officials hoped racial diversity would result as well. San Francisco began considering factors like family income, instead of race, in school assignments when it modified a court-ordered desegregation plan in response to a lawsuit. But school officials have found that the 55,000-student city school district, with Chinese the dominant ethnic group followed by Hispanics, blacks and whites, is resegregrating.

Immigrants' Access to Schools Is Discussed (Washington Post, July 14, 2007)
As Prince William County supervisors debated a measure last week to restrict government services for illegal immigrants, questions were raised about possible limits on access to public schools. But the county School Board's attorney said the supervisors face significant constraints on their power to intervene in the educational arena.

More is more: Dual language education strengthens children in two idioms. (Houston Chronicle, July 13, 2007)
Given time, every immigrant family in this country will end up with English speakers. Adults may not speak the language, but most of their children will, and their children might not speak anything else. In the process of learning English, though, first- or second-generation children miss other key elements of education. Often, they drop out.

Research Links Summer Break, Achievement Gap  (NPR Online, July 9, 2007)
Research indicates that low-income school kids lose an average of two months of reading achievement over the summer. The achievement gap between whites and minority children is being attributed to this factor.

Education union wants illegals to remain in U.S. (Washington Times, July 5, 2007)
The National Education Association yesterday pledged to support a federal immigration policy that will let illegal aliens remain in the United States and that will reject "criminalization" of them. NEA"s support for immigration reform includes a path to permanent residency, citizenship or asylum for those illegal aliens who have lived and worked in the United States and had background checks. New language also voices support for legislation that smoothes the citizenship process for legal immigrants.

Amid Immigration Debate, Settled Ground (Education Week (subscription only), June 1, 2007)
Twenty-five years ago, the Supreme Court decided the Plyler v. Doe case involving the education of undocumented children in Tyler, Texas. Now, amid debate about illegal immigration, some complain about undocumented Mexican men who often gather in a local parking lot for day labor.

Annual U.S. Data Report Probes AP Trends (Education Week (subscription only), May 31, 2007)
The numbers of black and Hispanic students in public and private high schools who are taking Advanced Placement exams soared from 1997 to 2005, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s latest annual compendium of education statistics.

Fixing D.C. Schools: Test Scores Rise Across The Board In Schools (Washington Post, May 21, 2007)

For Muslim Students, a Drive to Deem Holy Days as Holidays (New York Times, April 29, 2007)
THE movement began last year when statewide tests for elementary school children were administered on Jan. 10, coinciding with Id al-Adha, a holiday that commemorates the story of Abraham and is a time of prayer and feast for the city’s Muslim community. Muslim parents were dismayed that they were forced to choose between supporting their children’s education and observing one of their holiest days as a family.

Voicing Concern for English-Learners in Debate Over NCLB: Peter Zamora brings varied experience to role as advocate (Education Week (subscription only), April 4, 2007)
Peter Zamora—lawyer, former high school teacher, and energetic advocate for the needs of English-language learners—can trace his concern for such students to time spent in a California high school. Over a three-year stint teaching English, before he quit to go to law school, he chafed at what he describes as a “rigid tracking system” that left Latino and African-American students behind.

Forums spotlight minority issues (Baltimore Sun, April 1, 2007)
Whether they had students in the system or young ones whose school days lie years down the road, the parents who gathered in the media center at Eldersburg's Liberty High were asked a common question: How could Carroll County schools be more responsive to their children's needs? Ganjon and Patricia Levroney, the minority achievement liaison who organized the forums, said they hope to sort the concerns and ideas from all five evenings into items they can immediately address, others they can respond to with a short-term plan, and still others they can tackle over a longer period, Ganjon said.

Apparent Gang Initiation Disrupted (Washington Post, March 28, 2007)
A teacher who heard a commotion inside a bathroom at a Fairfax County high school ducked inside and apparently broke up a gang initiation ceremony among five teenagers, the latest of several recent inductions. Those involved in the Hayfield gang activity were from a variety of races and ethnicities: Latino, African American, Middle Eastern and Caucasian. He said that although many gangs are stereotyped as being of a particular racial group, gangs often are multiracial.

Montgomery Aims to Fill In Gaps for Teen Immigrants (Washington Post, March 26, 2007)
Montgomery County school officials announced a pilot program tailored to recent immigrants who have had little formal education although they are reaching the age when most native-born Americans graduate from high school. The program, Students Engaged in Pathways to Achievement, would begin this summer at Wheaton High School, a campus serving a large immigrant population, and focus initially on about 15 students in their late teens. Students would be taught functional English, with an emphasis on career-specific vocabulary.

Students Learn to Seal the Deal, African Style (Washington Post, March 26, 2007)
Students at several county elementary schools in recent weeks have received unusual instruction in the art of bargaining. They've learned how it works in less-developed countries where farmers and fishermen sell their wares in open markets, with a special focus on economic customs of the West African nation of Mali.

ABCs of Change For Latino Children (Washington Post, March 24, 2007)
Latino children nationwide tend to start kindergarten knowing less about letters and numbers compared with their non-Hispanic white peers. Many never catch up. Improving early childhood education is one of the best ways to narrow the achievement gap, educators say, citing such programs as the family book club. But many Latino families face economic, linguistic, educational and even cultural barriers.

Steward School recruiting Latino students for program (Richmond Times-Dispatch, March 23, 2007)
The Steward School has created the Latino Education and Advancement Program, where at least 20 rising eighth-grade students from the Richmond area will spend six weeks this summer taking classes in English-as-a-Second Language, Spanish for native speakers, technology, math, physical education, English and study skills taught by bilingual instructors. The school created this initiative to address the gap that exists for a significant portion of the Richmond minority community.

Supervisors Step Up In 'No Child' Fight (Washington Post, February 6, 2007)
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors sided with school officials yesterday in a showdown with the Bush administration over the federal No Child Left Behind law, accusing the U.S. Department of Education of having a "tin ear" in its policy toward testing immigrant students.

Schools reach out to immigrants  (The Baltimore Sun, February 4, 2007)
Two pairs of Anne Arundel County middle schools are planning to combine classes for students learning English to meet the needs of a growing population of immigrants. In what school officials are calling the county's first "clusters" for students in the English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) program, Marley Middle students in Glen Burnie could be bused across town to Corkran Middle as early as this fall to take the classes together. Fort Meade's MacArthur Middle School would take in students from nearby Meade Middle School.

Most Latino students spurn college loans (LA Times, January 31, 2007)
Some educators have found that Latinos drop out or take extra years to graduate because they won't finance their education the way most college students do: with a combination of work, grants and loans. Educators and financial aid experts said this cultural aversion to loans — considered a sign of a strong work ethic — is common among Latino immigrants and their children. And it creates an odd dilemma in academia.

White House honors Frankford principal (The Daily Times, January 31, 2007)
Among its list of honors, Frankford Elementary in Frankford, DE, has been named a Delaware Department of Education Superior School 2003 through 2006, a No Child Left Behind National Blue Ribbon School in 2004, recipient of The Education Trust Dispelling the Myth Award in 2005, a national Title I school in 2004 and an Intel and Scholastic School of Distinction in 2006. With a significant Hispanic population and 75 percent of the student body coming from low-income families, the fact that Frankford has managed to stack up such a number of distinctions coupled with consistently solid performance on the Delaware Student Testing Program caught the eye of the education-minded first lady.

Editorial: Left Behind (Washington Post, January 30, 2007)
Virginia's showdown with the federal government over the No Child Left Behind Act has no real heroes or even villains, just victims. Children from immigrant families who are struggling to learn a new language while trying to keep pace in school have the most to lose from an impasse.

Fairfax Resists 'No Child' Provision: Immigrants' Tests In English at Issue (Washington Post, January 26, 2007)
The Fairfax County School Board last night defied the U.S. Department of Education -- and challenged the No Child Left Behind Act -- by declining to force thousands of immigrant students to take a federally mandated test because local educators think it is unfair.

School system is encouraging minorities to get involved (Baltimore Sun, January 21, 2007)
Howard County School System recognizes the importance of parental involvement in the decision-making process and has made efforts to encourage ethnic minorities to get involved. They offer a six-week leadership class for international parents, including Hispanics (4.9 percent of the total enrollment) and Asians (14.3 percent). The course is free, and participants meet for two hours once a week. Upon completion of the course, parents are required to pursue a leadership position with a school-based organization.

Schools Seek and Find 'Gifted' Students (Washington Post, January 3, 2007)
Montgomery County's screening process has evolved in a continuing effort to identify more low-income, black and Hispanic students who are gifted. Nonetheless, those groups remain underrepresented, and a coalition of community groups has urged the school board to abandon the gifted label. Evie Frankl, co-chair of the Montgomery County Education Forum and a leader in the movement to do away with officially sanctioned giftedness, believes education leaders award the designation liberally as "a gift to the white middle class, to keep them in the school system," rather than to serve the goals of diversity and inclusiveness.

Educators want to reopen 'Brown v. Board' school (USA Today, December 22, 2006)
Publicly funded but, in most cases, privately run charter schools, first proposed in the 1990s, have become the leading tool of grassroots reformers impatient with districts' slow progress improving poor and minority children's schools. Nationwide, charter schools enroll much larger proportions of poor and minority students than public schools, leading some observers to worry that they could be contributing, in a small way, to a resegregation of public schools.

Hispanic students find fun, support with club (Baltimore SUn, December 17, 2006)
"I basically saw children wandering around the school, being disenfranchised," she said. Students who struggled with English often avoided school activities because they felt uncomfortable or did not know how to join, she said. Ritmo Latino was designed to change that.

In search of more Latino teachers (Philadelphia Inquirer, December 5, 2006)
Holy Family University in partnership with a sister university in Puerto Rico and a local Latino advocacy agency announced a new program yesterday to help the Philadelphia School District cultivate more Latino and bilingual teachers.

Opinion: The Immigration Answer? It’s in Mexico’s Classrooms (The New York Times, November 30, 2006)
Poorly functioning Mexican and Latino educational systems are a central problem behind current immigration dilemmas, and the United States is partly responsible. If the United States took in a higher ratio of legal immigrants, and required more education, the entire North American region would be better off.

Non-Asians Show a Growing Interest in Chinese Courses (NY Times, November 29, 2006)
With its booming economy and aspirations to expand its global influence, China may have achieved a victory in American classrooms. School officials attribute the changes largely to a growing awareness of China as a global economic force, and to a strong sense among parents that learning Chinese could help their children professionally.

Selling Parents On Public School (Washington Post, November 28, 2006)
In the D.C. public schools, where declining student enrollment has long been the rule, Strong John Thomson Elementary in downtown Washington has defied the odds and increased its student population by 20 percent.

Proposal worries educators (Richmond Times-Dispatch, November 28, 2006)
A proposal to require some high school students to take career and technical-education courses is rattling school superintendents and advocates for the arts. The bill includes several exemptions for students, such as some with limited English proficiency.

Chinese instruction coming to some local schools (Herald Dispatch, November 26, 2006)
West Virginia has been chosen to host two of 40 Chinese teachers who will bring their native language and culture to U.S. schools. The expansion of Chinese into West Virginia schools is part of the state Department of Education's effort to promote global awareness and 21st Century learning.

Warner: Va. needs support on NCLB (Richmond Times Dispatch, November 24, 2006)
Sen. John W. Warner is asking the U.S. Department of Education for cooperation as Virginia requests extra time to implement an alternate reading test for students with limited English skills. The U.S. Department of Education had told Virginia officials that the state's substitute Standards of Learning reading test taken by English language learners did not meet the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act.

U.S. Rebuffs N.Y., Va. on English-Language Learners (Education Week (subscription required), November 20, 2006)
Despite requests for leeway, federal education officials are standing firm in requiring New York and Virginia education officials, as of this school year, to stop using scores from English-language-proficiency tests to calculate adequate yearly progress for such students.

School Reaching Out to Latinos (Baltimore Journal, November 19, 2006)
Family nights are one way Annapolis High is trying to overcome low attendance and graduation among its Hispanic students. The school has the highest Hispanic student population in the county school system, with 235 students. Over the past three years, that group of students has had the lowest graduation rate in the school.

Report Maps Schools' Needs (Baltimore Sun, November 17, 2006)
Anne Arundel County middle school pupils aren't making consistent progress on state assessments in reading and math. Black and Hispanic pupils aren't doing as well as others on those tests, and males in those groups have the county's lowest graduation rates.

U.S. Seen as Falling Short on Basic Supports for Children (Education Week - (subscription required), November 15, 2006)
More than two-thirds of American children ages 6 to 17 lack the sustained supports needed to put them on track for adult success, according to a report scheduled for release this week.

Reacting to Reviews, States Cut Portfolio Assessments for ELL Students (Education Weekly (subscription required), November 15, 2006)
Arkansas and Wisconsin have dropped portfolio assessments for English-language learners after receiving letters from the U.S. Department of Education saying the states had to prove those tests were valid or their large-scale assessment systems would be rejected under the No Child Left Behind Act.

Persistent Race Disparities Found (Washington Post, November 14, 2006)
Decades after the civil rights movement, racial disparities in income, education and home ownership persist and, by some measurements, are growing. "Race is so associated with class in the United States that it may not be direct discrimination, but it still matters indirectly," said Dalton Conley, a sociology professor at New York University and the author of "Being Black, Living in the Red."

Melee Puts Parents, Educators on Guard (Washington Post, November 8, 2006)
Fights in P.G. County Public Schools reflect cultural friction as majority-black Prince George's absorbs a rapidly expanding Hispanic population. Hispanic enrollment in the 135,000-student school system has nearly tripled, from 6,500 students a decade ago to 18,600 students now. In some schools, such as Northwestern High in Hyattsville, the black and Hispanic populations are about even.

W.Va. To Celebrate International Education Week Nov. 13-17 (West Virginia Department of Education, November 1, 2006)
West Virginia students will travel the globe without leaving their classrooms during International Education Week Nov. 13-17, 2006. International Education Week, sponsored by the West Virginia Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of State, exposes children to the history, geography, literature and arts of other cultures and the importance of learning a second language.

VA Educators Decry Ruling On Tests for ESL Students (Washington Post, October 29, 2006)
U.S. education officials have concluded that Virginia must toss out some state reading tests used to measure the progress of immigrants learning English, a decision that local educators warn could force them to give thousands of students exams that they are likely to fail.

Korean Parents Get a Taste of SATs, Writing During Seventh Annual Seminar (Baltimore Sun, October 22, 2006)
About 70 Korean parents combed through sample essay questions from the SAT in Centennial High School's media room on a recent evening. Down the hall an additional 60 parents learned about writing techniques for elementary pupils. "Because the dominant language at home might not be English, there is a large gap in writing," said Young-chan Han, a specialist with the system's International Student and Family Outreach Office.

Bill to aid immigrant students could pass in new Congress (Salt Lake Tribune, October 17, 2006)
Legislation that would let thousands of illegal-immigrant high school students attend college or serve in the military has a good chance of passing in a Congress controlled by Democrats, immigration experts say.

Kids shoot for cultural understanding (http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.basketball30oct30,0,1266045.story?coll=bal-pe-maryland, October 10, 2006)
Sneakers squeaked, shouts echoed and hands flew in the air yesterday as the children - dressed in shirts of maroon, green and various shades of blue - dashed between hoops, hoping for that desired swish that would score points for their teams. It was another Sunday afternoon pickup basketball game - with a twist. The players were a rainbow of colors and backgrounds: children from Baltimore City and suburbia, from public, private and home schools. Children who were white, black, Latino, Korean, biracial, Christian, Muslim and Jewish. Children who discovered, over the last four Sundays, that despite their differences, they had much in common.

Report Calls for Improvement in K-8 Science Education (The Washington Post, September 22, 2006)
The report, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and the Merck Institute for Science Education, reiterates concerns that have been expressed for years by business leaders and educators who fear the country is in danger of losing its scientific superiority because of a poorly trained workforce. It also cites the continuing achievement gap between white and Asian students and economically disadvantaged black and Latino students.

Feds Offer States Flexibility in Testing Limited-English Students (CNN.com, September 14, 2006)
The Education Department gave states final permission Wednesday to leave out the test scores of newly enrolled, limited-English kids when grading schools. The goal is to give schools extra time to work with limited-English students before being held accountable for their yearly progress. Schools welcome the offer because it helps them meet their goals—and avoid penalties—under the No Child Left Behind law.

Teacher Charged After Uproar Over Arabic (The Washington Post, September 13, 2006)
A substitute teacher was charged with disorderly conduct Monday after she allegedly lashed out at a group of Gaithersburg high school students for using words in Arabic while practicing a commemorative speech to mark the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

School Forms' Immigration-Related Questions Stir Concern (The Washington Post, September 11, 2006)
Scores of New Jersey school districts are stirring unease among immigrant parents by asking them to provide immigration-related information when they register their children for school. Fourteen years ago, the Supreme Court ruled that cities and towns must provide education for all students, regardless of immigration status.

5th Grader Could Be Deported Without Mom (The Washington Post, September 10, 2006)
The "temporary protective status" program provides legal residency to illegal immigrants from El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, all countries that have suffered devastating natural disasters in recent years. The idea is that they have little to return to and that they can best serve their homelands by working here and sending money home. But only immigrants in the United States when a program starts _ for Salvadorans, after two major earthquakes in 2001 _ are eligible. That means children who come later to join parents don't qualify.

Digital Divide Separates White, Minority Students (The Boston Globe, September 6, 2006)
Many more white children use the Internet than do Hispanic and black students, a reminder that going online is hardly a way of life for everyone, according to a new study released by the National Center for Education Statistics.

A Season of Study In a Strange Land (The Washington Post, September 6, 2006)
Schools in the Washington area these days often look like a miniature United Nations. Nadin's third-grade class at Oakridge Elementary School, for example, includes students from Azerbaijan, Brazil, Ethiopia, Albania, Belize and Mongolia. Often, the influx reflects cataclysms around the world. In the late 1970s and early '80s, waves of students came from Vietnam and Iran after war and revolution in those countries; the 1980s also brought thousands of Salvadorans fleeing war there. Recently, Arlington has enrolled many students from Mongolia and Arab countries; Fairfax has had an increase this year in new students from Lebanon; and Prince William has noted mini-spikes as students flee volatile situations in Ghana and Nigeria.

More Minority Students Take SAT (The Baltimore Sun, September 3, 2006)
Despite the recent news that last year's seniors saw the biggest dip in SAT scores in decades, Carroll school officials latched onto a silver lining in the results: impressive gains locally in the numbers of students, particularly among minorities, taking the college entrance exam.

English Learner Fines Are Dropped (The Arizona Republic, August 25, 2006)
A federal appeals court gave legislative leaders and the Arizona schools chief a major victory Thursday by wiping out $21 million in fines the state faced in a case involving the fate of 160,000 students who struggle to learn English.

Free Preschool will Help Latinos and US (Christian Science Monitor, August 21, 2006)
When they arrive at the schoolhouse door, poor and minority students often lag behind their peers by as much as 18 months. The imperative of reducing this achievement gap has convinced state leaders to invest in toddlers' education. Over half of governors increased spending on pre-K last year. Three states - Oklahoma, Florida, and Georgia - offer free preschool to 4-year-olds, and policymakers in Arizona, Virginia, and Illinois are considering universal programs. In order to deliver on the promise of pre-K, states will need to aggressively reach out to the fastest-growing part of our population: Latino children. Only 40 percent of Latino 3- to 5-year-olds attend preschool, compared with approximately 60 percent of both African-American and white children. Ironically, Latinos are particularly in need of early intervention: They often live in poverty, their parents generally have low levels of education, and in recently arrived immigrant families, children's exposure to English can be minimal.

When Language is No Barrier (The Baltimore Sun, August 13, 2006)
Kunja Ra moved to the United States from Korea three weeks ago with limited English skills and was apprehensive about registering her 11-year-old son, Andrew Cho, for elementary school. But after a quick trip to the Howard County school system's International Student Registration Center, all of her questions were answered. With help from an interpreter, she completed all of the necessary paperwork required for the enrollment. And she learned that her son's years of English-preparatory classes had paid off: Andrew would not have to enroll in English for Speakers of Other Languages, or ESOL. The procedure took less than an hour.

Education Quality for Minorities Faulted (San Francisco Chronicle, August 11, 2006)
Most states have shirked the law by failing to ensure that poor and minority students get their fair share of qualified teachers, a new analysis contends.

Gates Foundation Expands Scholars Program (The Baltimore Sun, August 7, 2006)
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation says it will add $58 million to expand its $1 billion Millennium Scholars program to target low-income and minority students seeking a graduate degree in public health. It's the first time the foundation has added money to the scholarship program since it was established in 1999. The program has already given scholarships to more than 10,000 students for undergraduate education in their choice of major and for graduate work in public health, education, science, math, engineering and library science.

Black Colleges Vie for Hispanic Surge (The Washington Times, August 6, 2006)
Pressed by stiff competition for their traditional students, historically black colleges are making a push to recruit Hispanics. The campuses are hiring Hispanic recruiters, distributing brochures featuring Hispanic students and establishing special scholarships for Hispanics in an attempt to tap the nation's largest and fastest-growing minority.

Minority-Run Firm Sues Over City Schools Contract (The Baltimore Sun, August 4, 2006)
The city school board's decision to declare an "emergency" so it could award a no-bid food contract to an Ohio firm has sparked a lawsuit from a local minority-run firm that was the low bidder. The lawsuit alleges that the school board illegally awarded the contract to Clovervale Farms Inc., a firm that is not minority-owned and has no experience in food distribution.

Chesco Teachers Visit Mexico to Bridge Cultural Divide (The Philadelphia Inquirer, July 31, 2006)
Some teachers in Chester County are traveling to Guanajuato state, where most of their Latino students come from, to learn more about their lives there. Several dozen have been part of a weeklong West Chester University graduate school class that started in 2001 called Humanizing Teaching and Learning: Integrating a Mexican Perspective.

Hispanic Children Targeted for 'Shots' (The Washington Times, July 29, 2006)
D.C. health officials will focus on the city's Hispanic population in the latest campaign to immunize children before school begins next month. Dr. Gregg A. Pane, director of the D.C. Department of Health, said he is most concerned about Hispanics and other immigrants who recently moved to the District and who often do not comply with vaccination requirements. He said a few thousand "new kids" come to the District every year.

Medications a New High for Hispanic Teenagers (The Houston Chronicle, July 28, 2006)
Hispanic teenagers are using prescription medicine to get high more than other teens in the country, federal drug-prevention officials said this week as they announced a national campaign aimed at curbing the problem.

Virginia to Review School Assessments (Richmond Times-Dispatch, July 28, 2006)
Virginia is one of 20 states that will participate in a partnership with federal education officials to improve proficiency testing and assessments for students with limited English skills.

Teacher's Job On Line Due to Korean Accent (The Washington Times, July 28, 2006)
Soon-Ja Kim has taught third grade at Lakewood Elementary School in Rockville for the past 20 years, to the acclaim of her students and their parents. Her students routinely rank in the higher percentile among their classmates, and she has been nominated many times for teaching awards. And today, Mrs. Kim, 62, could find herself out of work because she says she has been told by a former boss that her strong Korean accent is a hindrance in the classroom. She is scheduled to meet with Montgomery County public school officials for a hearing this morning.

State Schools Plan Courses in Chinese Language, Culture (The Charleston Gazette, July 17, 2006)
Teachers from China could be in West Virginia’s schools in the next couple of years, instructing students how to write and speak their language. State Superintendent Steve Paine, who recently returned from a weeklong trip to China, said he wants to start working out details to bring instructors here as soon as possible. Ultimately, he hopes it can help West Virginia’s students compete in today’s world.

Gender Gap on Campus Widens (The Baltimore Sun, July 12, 2006)
Women are increasingly outnumbering men at America's colleges, a gap that is widest - and most troublesome - among low-income and minority students, researchers said in a report released yesterday. The share of males age 24 and younger dropped to 45 percent in 2003-2004, from 48 percent in 1995-1996. The gap is even wider for students older than 25, and among African-Americans and Latinos, particularly those from low-income families.

Event Tailors College Prep Advice to Hispanic Teenagers (The Washington Post, July 8, 2006)
Wilberg, 16, said his construction-worker dad persuaded him to go to college by dragging him to a work site a few years back. But when it comes to applying, he said, his parents -- Salvadoran immigrants who never studied beyond high school -- are at a loss.

Program Focuses on Tolerance (The Baltimore Sun, July 2, 2006)
About a year ago, Liberty High was the first school in Carroll County to host a two-day leadership workshop called, "Student Problem Identification and Resolution of Issues Together." More commonly known as SPIRIT, the program is a collaboration of the U.S. Department of Justice and local schools. It is aimed at increasing understanding across racial and ethnic lines to alleviate tensions among students and help them develop better relationships.

Steering Minority Teens Into Teaching (The Washington Post, June 29, 2006)
In an attempt to entice more minority and disadvantaged students to become educators, Prince William County school officials are launching a partnership with a New York-based nonprofit organization that will help high school graduates earn significant college scholarships if they decide to become teachers. Prince William school officials hope to begin the program in the fall with about 50 students from the freshman, sophomore and junior classes. Once the students are accepted, the nonprofit organization, Today's Students, Tomorrow's Teachers, will link them with paid mentoring teachers in their schools, place them in SAT preparation courses and help them apply to a select group of colleges that promise to reduce the students' tuition by at least 50 percent.

Students Fight to Keep Teachers in the U.S. (The Washington Post, June 26, 2006)
The teacher, Luz Chamorro, is a native of Colombia who came to the United States in 2000 on a cultural exchange visa. The visa stipulated that she had to return to her country after three years, and the U.S. government is telling her that it is time to go.

Performance Gap on Tests Uneven for Black Students (The Washington Post, June 22, 2006)
Black students trail white students more in mathematics than in reading, especially in middle school grades, an analysis of Maryland test scores shows. But the achievement gap for Hispanic students is virtually the same in both academic subjects, a contrast that perplexed some school testing experts. Maryland School Assessment data made public this week show that the state's two largest school systems -- in Montgomery and Prince George's counties -- continue to face enormous racial and ethnic disparities in educational achievement.

Encouraging Diversity (The Baltimore Sun, June 17, 2006)
Joy Johnson, who came to the United States from her native China 17 years ago, was apprehensive about taking an active role in her child's school because she was not familiar with the American educational system. Thanks to a six-week leadership class for international parents in the Howard County school system, Johnson now plans to join the PTA and work with a school improvement team. She is also considering joining an advisory committee when her 6-year-old son, James, begins first grade in the fall.

Role of Special Education Questioned (Richmond Times-Dispatch, June 16, 2006)
The Virginia Department of Education recently issued a study that says about 90 of Virginia's 132 school districts have shifted a disproportionately large percentage of minority students to some special-education classes.

Bilingualism Issue Rises Again (Christian Science Monitor, June 13, 2006)
Increased attention to immigration on Capitol Hill is again putting focus a growing immigrant population. In schools, the issue has been primarily how to rapidly get non-English speakers—whose academic performance is measured under the No Child Left Behind law—up to speed in English-speaking classrooms. But educators are divided about whether immersion or bilingual programs work best, and many are starting to focus on the quality of instruction rather than the type of program.

Minorities Call School a Hostile Place, Poll Finds (The Seattle Times, May 31, 2006)
The findings suggest that many minority kids are struggling in the equivalent of a hostile work environment, according to Public Agenda, a nonpartisan opinion research group that tracks education trends. Minority children in public middle and high schools are more likely than white children to describe profanity, truancy, fighting, weapons and drug abuse as "very serious" problems.

Older Students Who Need Basics Pose Challenge (The Washington Post, May 29, 2006)
Although many immigrant students excel in school, a few, such as Velasquez, have so little education in their native language that they pose a special challenge when they enter local schools. They lack the basic skills necessary to benefit from traditional programs -- known as English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) -- that are designed to acclimate immigrants to the U.S. educational system.

Downstate Education: Expanding Horizons; Teachers bringing world home (Delaware State News, May 27, 2006)
Downstate teachers are bringing an international flavor to their classrooms. Most teacher preparation programs are "very Euro-centric," said Dr. Shuhan Wang, education associate for world languages and international education at the Delaware Department of Education. But individual teachers driven to take advantage of professional development opportunities and share their unique cultural knowledge are stretching the boundaries of their students' minds.

Schools Attempting to Help Arab Families (The Baltimore Sun, May 21, 2006)
It took Nader Abuhassan two years before he realized that it was acceptable for him to go on field trips with his children's classes. The Ellicott City father of three, who moved to the United States from Syria in 1997, said that parents in many Arab countries play an active role in their children's education at home, but they interact less with the schools than do American parents.

Foreign Students Foster a Promise (The Washington Times, May 20, 2006)
Liberty's Promise is an Alexandria-based nonprofit that helps low-income legal immigrants in Northern Virginia ages 15 to 21 become politically active in America through internships and civics classes. Students born in the U.S. to immigrant parents also are eligible. Executive Director Robert M. Ponichtera said he created the group in response to the growing immigrant population in the U.S.

3 Schools Close Achievement Gaps Among Students (Richmond Times-Dispatch, May 18, 2006)
Three Richmond-area schools have been recognized by Standard & Poor's for narrowing achievement gaps between black, Hispanic or economically disadvantaged students and higher-performing peers. And the schools did it while raising the average proficiency rates for all of those groups. The schools -- Henrico County's Varina Elementary School, Hopewell High School and Richmond's Albert Hill Middle School -- were among 69 schools from 41 districts in the state.

Immigrant Students Lag, but Less So in U.S. (San Francisco Chronicle, May 15, 2006)
Immigrant 15-year-olds in the United States don't do as well in math, reading or science as native-born children, and many have only basic skills, a study finds. But immigrants aren't as far behind in the U.S. as they are in some other major nations.

Of U.S. Children Under 5, Nearly Half Are Minorities (The Washington Post, May 10, 2006)
Nearly half of the nation's children under 5 are racial or ethnic minorities, and the percentage is increasing mainly because the Hispanic population is growing so rapidly, according to a census report released today. Hispanics are the nation's largest and fastest-growing minority group. They accounted for 49 percent of the country's growth from 2004 to 2005, the report shows.

U.S.-Born Hispanics Drive Growth (USA Today, May 10, 2006)
Hispanics remain the USA's fastest-growing minority group, but most of their population increase comes from births here rather than immigration, according to Census Bureau estimates released Tuesday. As debate over immigration policy roils the nation, government numbers show that 60% of the 1.3 million new Hispanics in 2005 are citizens because they were born here.

Science Teaching Gets Weak Diversity Grade (USA Today, May 9, 2006)
A survey of 100 top technology executives gives the nation's public schools a C-minus for efforts to encourage girls and minorities to pursue science and technology careers.

300,000 Children in U.S. Found to Have Autism (The Washington Post, May 5, 2006)
About 300,000 American children have been diagnosed as having autism, according to the first comprehensive national surveys of the developmental disorder. Boys were four times more likely than girls to have the disorder, which is characterized by verbal, social and emotional problems. White families with higher incomes were also more likely to report having children with the disorder, a fact that federal experts said probably reflected unequal access to medical services.

Montgomery Is Criticized Over Credit for Students (The Washington Post, April 8, 2006)
The Montgomery County, Md., schools' decision to grant students community service credit for attending Monday's immigration rights protest is raising concern among some parents as well as activists who say officials should focus on education, not political advocacy.

Some Stories Hard to Get in History Books (USA Today, April 5, 2006)
Most high school students in the USA probably don't know that tens of thousands of Mexican-Americans — many of them legal residents or even U.S. citizens — were forcibly sent to Mexico during the depths of the Depression. That's because few history books even mention it.

Immigration Bill Proposes In-State Tuition for Illegals (The Washington Times, April 3, 2006)
The immigration bill now under consideration in the Senate would grant even a broader amnesty to illegal aliens than similar legislation did in 1986, conservatives say, and would make hundreds of thousands of illegal residents eligible for in-state tuition at public colleges and universities. Backers of the current legislation say it's not amnesty because the illegals would be fined $2,000. But opponents say it is amnesty because the illegals won't be sent home as required under current federal law.

Houston Students Protest (The New York Times, March 31, 2006)
Dozens of students were arrested or cited on Thursday and a principal was disciplined for flying a Mexican flag in front of the school as protests continued in Texas over immigration legislation in Congress.

Student Protests Grow, Spread to Md. (The Washington Post, March 31, 2006)
Demonstrations among high schoolers and middle schoolers spread yesterday as 1,500 students in Northern Virginia and a smaller group in Maryland poured into the streets to protest proposed federal legislation that would crack down on illegal immigrants.

Daily Fines Hit $1 Million in English-Learner Impasse (The Arizona Republic, February 27, 2006)
As daily fines against Arizona hit $1 million Friday, there is no apparent end to a political stalemate over how to improve instruction for Arizona's more than 154,000 non-English speaking children.

For Latinos, Tips on Financial Aid (The Baltimore Sun, February 27, 2006)
Organizers of the Fells Point session of College Goal Sunday, held at the headquarters of Education Based Latino Outreach, wanted to focus on helping immigrants, a group that often finds the aid-application process daunting.

After Policy Change, Thomas Jefferson High Makes Small Gains in Student Diversity (The Washington Post, February 26, 2006)
Minority enrollment at Fairfax County's Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology has increased only slightly under a new admissions policy intended to ensure greater diversity at the selective school. In this year's freshman class, the first to use the new admissions procedures, 19 Hispanic students were admitted, compared with 10 the year before. Twelve black students were admitted, compared with 11 the year before. A total of 495 students were accepted.

State Strips Schools of $3.5 million  (Chicago Sun-Times, February 24, 2006)
State Board of Education officials, led by an angry Mexican-American chairman, stripped Elmwood Park School District 401 of all state funding Thursday, saying officials there had illegally asked at least two potential students about their immigration status.

Explaining Graduation Requirements in Spanish (The Baltimore Sun, February 24, 2006)
Howard County school officials hope that providing new graduation requirements to Hispanic parents in their native tongue will help create comfort and awareness during a workshop tomorrow at Wilde Lake High School.

Ariz. Racking Up Court Fines Over Schools (The Washington Post, February 21, 2006)
Roughly six years after a federal judge ordered Arizona's governor and lawmakers to improve programs for students learning English, the two sides are at a potentially expensive impasse. Since Jan. 25, the U.S. District Court in Phoenix has fined the state $500,000 each day the sides do not reach an agreement. The bill is already $12 million. But whether the state will actually pay—and even where the money would go—is still unclear.

If They Are Accepted, They Get a Free Ride (The Philadelphia Inquirer, February 19, 2006)
Graduate scholarships, which total as much as $25 million, were arranged by U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.) in conjunction with 17 Pennsylvania colleges, the State System of Higher Education and the Educational Advancement Alliance Inc., a Philadelphia nonprofit devoted to aiding underrepresented students. Several elected officials said the scholarships will help bridge a racial disparity in higher education, helping African American, Latino and other minority students get a foothold in graduate school.

District Panel OKs Two Charter Schools (The Philadelphia Inquirer, February 16, 2006)
The Philadelphia School Reform Commission yesterday approved two charter schools to open in September 2007 and granted renewals and expansions for several others. Planet Abacus Charter School, which will focus on science, math and technology, is to be constructed in the central-east area and enroll students in kindergarten through eighth grade. Its applicant, June Hairston Brown, runs two other charters in the district. Planet Abacus will open with 400 students and grow to 700. Also approved was Antonia Pantoja Community Charter School, to be built at 4101 N. American St. The school will eventually enroll 700 students spanning kindergarten through eighth grade. The school will be run by the Latino advocacy group Aspira Inc., offer its curriculum in both Spanish and English, and infuse lessons with the historical and social experiences of Puerto Ricans living in the United States and in the Caribbean.

Senate OK's Immigrant Tuition Bill (Richmond Times-Dispatch, February 15, 2006)
The Senate passed a bill yesterday that would make it easier for children of illegal immigrants to receive in-state tuition in Virginia. The sponsor, Sen. Emmett W. Hanger Jr., R-Augusta, said he initially favored a bill much tougher on immigrants but changed his mind after Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said he would not accept such a bill and after hearing the stories of children of illegal immigrants.

Bush Education Policy Called 'Uneven' in Study (The Houston Chronicle, February 14, 2006)
President George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind education policy has in some cases benefited white middle-class children over blacks and other minorities in poorer regions, a Harvard University study showed on Tuesday.

DISD to Discuss Hiring Illegal Immigrants (The Dallas Morning News, February 7, 2006)
Dallas' school district has a shortage of bilingual teachers. DISD trustee Joe May knows where he can find a lot of people who speak Spanish fluently and are already in the country. And he'd like to put them to work. But there's at least one big hurdle: The school district cannot knowingly hire illegal immigrants because it's against federal law.

Helping Foreign Students Fit In (The Washington Times, February 4, 2006)
The Prince George's County school system is trying to help Stella and other foreign-born students overcome such obstacles with its Newcomer Groups, classes designed to help them break cultural barriers and adjust to life in a new world.

Reaching Students' Families on Their Terms (The Washington Post, January 24, 2006)
How do you translate "authentic assessment" into Urdu? "Stakeholders" into Spanish? "Paradigm shift" into Cambodian? Translation is a notoriously difficult task, but in the world of education, which often employs a language all its own, the job can be even more daunting. After all, in education, parents aren't just parents, they're "stakeholders." A test isn't a test—it's an "outcome-based assessment." Increasingly, education is not just about how to reach students in the classroom—it's about how to communicate and connect with their families outside of school.

Opinion: Program Immerses in Foreign Language (The Washington Times, January 23, 2006)
"In my last column, I described Rosetta Stone, a language-learning software program that helps students learn through immersion and visual cues. In a subsequent interview with the company's director of learning, Duane Sider, and the director of home-school sales, Nick Ropp, I learned the history behind the software."

D.C. Diocese Will Open 1st New School Since '51 (The Washington Times, January 20, 2006)
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington plans to open next year its first new high school in 55 years as part of an effort to serve low-income families and an influx of immigrants in the metropolitan area.

Interpreters Sought to Help ESL Families (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, January 19, 2006)
Gateway School District is seeking interpreters to help families learning to speak English get past the language barrier and enable students to adjust academically and socially. Ruth Strausser, the Gateway special education language supervisor, said there are roughly 65-80 families in the district who speak Korean, Urdu, Hindi, Polish, Japanese, Mandarin, and Spanish, among others, as their primary language.

School Segregation Growing in California, Study Finds (San Jose Mercury News, January 17, 2006)
California's schools are among the most segregated in the nation—and they are becoming even more divided, with Latino and African-American students clustered together and isolated from whites, according to a study released this week by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University.

Spanish At School Translates to Suspension (The Washington Post, December 9, 2005)
Most of the time, 16-year-old Zach Rubio converses in clear, unaccented American teen-speak, a form of English in which the three most common words are "like," "whatever" and "totally." But Zach is also fluent in his dad's native language, Spanish -- and that's what got him suspended from school.

Parents Urge District: Hire Bilingual Teachers (The Philadelphia Inquirer, December 8, 2005)
When the Philadelphia School District opened a new prekindergarten program in a Latino community this year, it advertised for bilingual instructors. But no one applied, district officials said. So the Head Start program at Luis Muñoz-Marin School is staffed by English-speaking teachers - and that has enraged parents in the North Philadelphia community.

Building Ties Across Cultures (The Philadelphia Inquirer, November 6, 2005)
Latino, white and African American students mingle in easy camaraderie, playing Ping-Pong and practicing break-dancing. In the computer lab, students research the life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Called the Garage, the center on South Union Street once sheltered cars. Now it shelters and cares for Kennett Square's youths.

Minding the Gap in Gifted and Talented Programs (The Washington Post, October 27, 2005)
At board meetings and public appearances, Superintendent Jerry D. Weast speaks often about closing the achievement gap, but a recent report on the system's gifted and talented program demonstrates that the school system still has a ways to go if it hopes to ensure that all students have access to the kind of higher-level courses that are important to their success in school. The issue of minority representation in gifted and talented, or GT, programs surfaced earlier this year when a group of black parents began asking why so few black and Hispanic students were identified as gifted and talented. Members of African American Parents of Montgomery County said school officials needed to rethink their identification process.

Students Improve on State Testing  (The Baltimore Sun, October 23, 2005)
Harford County students improved on statewide standardized tests last year, following a trend of better performance around Maryland. However, four of the county's schools are struggling to address the needs of some children who did not reach annual targets on these exams.

Minority Students Are Closing Gap in Math and Reading (The Baltimore Sun, October 20, 2005)
Black and Hispanic students are narrowing the achievement gap with whites in reading and math, but overall the nation's progress is small or slipping.

Report: Federal Law Could Force Schools to Change Language Programs (San Francisco Chronicle, October 1, 2005)
The No Child Left Behind Act offers new opportunities for immigrant children and those whose first language is not English to learn the language more quickly, but it poses extra challenges for school districts trying to keep up, according to a new study by the Urban Institute.

School Chief to Congress: Minorities Closing Gap (Richmond Times-Dispatch, September 30, 2005)
Black and Hispanic students in Richmond are achieving at rates approaching those of their white peers, Deborah Jewell-Sherman told a congressional committee yesterday. Jewell-Sherman, Richmond's school superintendent, testified before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce during a hearing on "Closing the Achievement Gap in America's schools: the No Child Left Behind Act."

Schools Directed to Expand History Courses (The New York Times, September 28, 2005)
State legislators across the country are increasingly directing their schools to teach students more about the struggles and triumphs of different races and ethnic groups -- a move critics say amounts to politically correct meddling.

Students Examine Who Has a Place In 'We the People' (The Washington Times, September 18, 2005)
New York has joined Texas as the second state since early August to become the target of discrimination complaints for laws allowing illegal aliens who live in those states to go to college cheaper than out-of-state students who are U.S. citizens.

From Baltimore to Hopkins (The Baltimore Sun, September 8, 2005)
Things are changing for Baltimore public school students at Hopkins. In fact, one of the reasons why Strange applied to Hopkins is it guaranteed her a full ride upon acceptance, enrolling her as one of the first participants in its inaugural Baltimore Scholars program. The Baltimore Scholars are Hopkins-bound, high-achieving students from Baltimore public schools who in the past may have been overlooked by the university.

Blacks and Hispanics Show Progress on SAT (The Baltimore Sun, September 4, 2005)
With Howard County's average SAT score at its highest ever, school officials are encouraged by what they see as a gradual improvement among the school system's black and Hispanic students, who have consistently lagged behind their white and Asian counterparts.

Students in the Shadows (Richmond Times-Dispatch, September 3, 2005)
Illegal immigrants' children have right to education here, but they still face hurdles.

Deal Allows Charter to Open on Time (The Philadelphia Inquirer, August 10, 2005)
The settlement of a federal lawsuit will allow the Erin Dudley Forbes Charter School to open for students later this month in Oxford Borough and move to new quarters in January, school officials said yesterday. In late June, after negotiations broke down on whether the school would be allowed to stay in Oxford until its new quarters were ready, the Forbes school sued the borough. The school accused Borough Council of "illegal and racial animus" in its challenge of the school's zoning status last year. The school is 80 percent African American and Hispanic. A Headstart center and a day-care center that have mostly white students have been allowed to operate in the borough, the lawsuit said.

International Students Gain English And Academic Skills Through Summer Program (West Virginia Department of Education, August 4, 2005)
Learning English as a second language can prove challenging for both the student and the teacher, but with the assistance of the summer professional development program offered by the West Virginia Department of Education, it was made a little easier and much more fun. Last month, nearly 100 students from across the Kanawha Valley began a month-long summer educational program. Representing nearly 20 different language and cultural backgrounds, these students attended the Ninth Annual Summer English as Second Language program designed to improve their English language and academic skills. Students ranged in ages from four to 64.

Initiative Goes After More Support, State Funds for Schools (The Philadelphia Inquirer, August 2, 2005)
A statewide campaign aimed at giving struggling students more classroom support and directing more state money to 80 percent of all school districts was launched yesterday with the release of two reports. The Education Law Center, a legal aid and advocacy group based in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, said it would use the two reports to back up its Closing the Gaps initiative. Recent moves by Gov. Rendell and the legislature to look at improving funding equity and academic standards have encouraged law center officials.

More Minority Students in State (Richmond Times-Dispatch, August 2, 2005)
In 15 years, the proportion of Hispanics graduating from Virginia's public high schools is expected to quadruple, from 4 percent of the total to 17 percent. The percentage of blacks is expected to slip from 23 percent to 21 percent. Together, the two minority groups will constitute nearly 40 percent of Virginia's high school graduates. If current patterns persist, many of those graduates aren't expected to go on to get a college degree. In 2002, Hispanics represented only 2 percent of Virginia students earning bachelor's degrees and blacks only 14 percent.

Hispanic Kids Go 'Home' for Summer (The Christian Science Monitor, July 29, 2005)
For many families, sending children abroad for school breaks is a way to counter what some call a lack of cultural and linguistic sensitivity in public schools. Students hold on to their heritage and perfect their Spanish by living and often working with family abroad.

U.S. Health Study Spurs Concern for Hispanic Children (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 20, 2005)
Hispanic children are less likely than other children to have health insurance or recommended vaccinations, disparities that a government study says will be magnified in the coming years by the nation's changing demographics.

An Effort to Boost Hispanic Children's Health (The Philadelphia Inquirer, July 19, 2005)
The Hispanic population - the largest minority group in the United States - is growing, and so are its children's health woes. Hispanic children experience a broad range of chronic and infectious diseases more often than children from other racial and ethnic groups, even when economic status is taken into account.

Latino Preschoolers Shortchanged on Quality Programs, Group Argues (The Philadelphia Inquirer, July 18, 2005)
Latino children account for one in five children of preschool age, but too few have access to high-quality programs, leaders at the annual conference of the National Council of La Raza said yesterday.

Immigrants Hit An Education Wall (The Philadelphia Inquirer, July 17, 2005)
Every year, about 65,000 students who entered the United States illegally graduate from U.S. high schools. They are a tiny segment of the country's booming population of undocumented immigrants - and they have become poster children for an emotional debate brewing nationwide about how to handle migrants who broke laws to get here. Will they get caught in the grind of the underground economy that lured their parents here, with them in tow? Or will they be able to advance their education beyond high school, transcending the decisions made for them, as children, to enter the United States illegally? The National Council of La Raza, the Latino civil rights and advocacy group now holding its annual convention in Philadelphia, will rally today in Center City to support federal legislation that would allow certain students to become legal immigrants.

Black, Hispanic Students Closing Race Gap (The Boston Globe, July 15, 2005)
African-American and Hispanic students at the elementary school level are catching up with their white counterparts in reading and math, but there has been little closing of the achievement gap in the higher grades, according to a study released yesterday.

For Latino Teens, a Taste of College and Money to Go (The Washington Post, July 13, 2005)
"We will be able to open doors all over. . . . We need to change the stereotype of the Hispanics that are illiterate. The Hispanics who don't go to school," said the Prince William County high school student. "The dishwashing Hispanics." Alberto's message would have made George Cushman proud. It is the same message Cushman, the development director of the Hispanic College Fund, and scores of volunteers want to send to the 164 Latino teenagers from across the Washington region who attended a three-day Hispanic Youth Symposium at Marymount University in Arlington.

U.S. Schools Lack Adequate Chinese Language Skills (CNN.com, July 13, 2005)
U.S. schools lack resources and teachers to meet the demand for Chinese language and culture studies, despite the growing importance of China's economic and political relationship with the United States, according to a study released by the Asia Society on Tuesday.

More Adult English Training Is Urged (The Washington Post, July 7, 2005)
Forty-one percent of Montgomery County students identified as having limited proficiency in English were born in the United States, and the county needs to find more efficient ways to help their parents, according to a report by the County Council's Office of Legislative Oversight. The 100-page report found that more than 13,000 students -- 9 percent of the total student population -- are enrolled in the school system's English for Speakers of Other Languages program. That number represents an increase of 83 percent in the past decade. Countless others may speak English proficiently but have parents or guardians who do not.

Foreign Speakers Swamp Schools (The Washington Times, June 19, 2005)
School enrollment growth of immigrant non-English speaking students in 18 states through mid-America has surpassed 200 percent since 1990. Teachers and administrators in those states have faced a surprising demographic reality as enrollment of students who don't speak English, mostly Hispanic, has grown more than 10 times faster than the overall rise in school enrollment in the past 15 years, according to a biennial report to Congress by the Education Department.

Maryland Boy Wearing Bolo Tie Denied Diploma (The Boston Globe, June 13, 2005)
Thomas Benya wore a braided bolo tie under his purple graduation gown this week as a subtle tribute to his Native American heritage. Administrators at his school in Charles County, Md., decided that the string tie was too skinny. They denied him his diploma, at least temporarily, as punishment.

Racial Gaps a Focus for New St. Mary's Schools Chief (The Washington Post, June 12, 2005)
Michael J. Martirano, who will take over in July as superintendent of the St. Mary's County public schools, said one of his priorities will be to continue efforts to close the achievement gap between white and minority students.

Diversity Committee Flunks Barney Video (The Miami Herald, June 12, 2005)
A video that aims to teach tolerance to schoolchildren has been canceled for Broward County schools after critics said it could confuse preschool and elementary kids about the difference between family members and strangers and open the door to discussion about sexual orientation.

She's Speaking Their Language (The Washington Times, June 10, 2005)
Montgomery County began keeping track of English as a second language (ESL) students in 1981. Since 1986, the number of students whose primary language is not English has increased every year. During the 1981-82 school year, 3,349 students were in ESL classes. This year, that number is 13,025. School officials say the district is working hard to address the needs of its ESL population, but these students are finding guidance from others who speak their language.

Diversity Tints New Kind of Generation Gap (USA Today, June 9, 2005)
Generational differences highlighted in Census Bureau population estimates released today add complexity to everything from politics to marketing. Even segments of society that once seemed homogeneous are far more difficult to define today.

More Pupils Meet Achievement Goals, but Hispanics, African-Americans Lag (The Baltimore Sun, June 8, 2005)
More children in Anne Arundel County scored well on recent Maryland School Assessments than last year, although African-American and Hispanic pupils still lag behind their white and Asian-American counterparts. Yesterday, Superintendent Eric J. Smith attributed the success at nearly all grade levels to expert teachers executing a new phonics-based reading curriculum and a new math program, which were established countywide in 2003.

Opinion: In Virginia, Reopening the Gap (The Washington Post, June 6, 2005)
"NCLB's accountability provisions are sparking progress. Many states, including Virginia, are narrowing previously stubborn gaps and boosting overall achievement. While the law certainly isn't perfect, these early results are too encouraging to allow the clock to be turned back on NCLB's accountability provisions. But a proposal from Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) would do just that. Allen's bill would allow states simply to walk away from their responsibility to educate African American, Latino and low-income students."

States Worry Over Immigrant Kids (Salt Lake Tribune, June 5, 2005)
While Congress and the White House wrangle over federal policy on illegal immigrants, states and cities are wrestling with ways to accommodate their U.S.-born children - most of them American citizens, all with full rights to public education. The debate is often bitter and unpredictable as politicians argue whether to expand or cut health care for these families, whether to bolster immigrant-oriented school programs, and whether to offer in-state college tuition rates to children of illegal immigrants.

Opinion: Filling the Racial Gap in Academia (The Washington Post, May 31, 2005)
A report released last week by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation reveals that while the numbers have been improving with regard to university enrollment, still a small fraction of the doctoral degrees granted by those universities go to blacks or Hispanics -- about 7 percent in 2003. And most of that tiny number is awarded in a small range of disciplines, such as education.

School Law Spurs Efforts to End the Minority Gap (The New York Times, May 27, 2005)
Spurred by President Bush's No Child Left Behind law, educators across the nation are putting extraordinary effort into improving the achievement of minority students, who lag so sharply that by 12th grade, the average black or Hispanic student can read and do arithmetic only as well as the average eighth-grade white student.

Montgomery Parents Rally for Black Students (The Washington Post, May 24, 2005)
A group of black parents in Montgomery County yesterday resumed its campaign to pressure the school system to take more aggressive steps toward narrowing the achievement gaps between black and Hispanic students and their white and Asian counterparts.

Need a Tutor? Call India. (Christian Science Monitor, May 23, 2005)
Americans have slowly grown accustomed to the idea that the people who answer their customer-service and computer-help calls may be on the other side of the globe. Now, some students may find their tutor works there, too.

New U.S. Program to Make Students Fluent in Chinese (San Jose Mercury News, May 4, 2005)
The federal government, alarmed by the lack of expertise in languages considered critical to national security, announced Tuesday that it wants to establish a comprehensive Chinese language instruction program for students in kindergarten through college.

Course's Goal is 'Not Only Bilingual But Biliterate' (The Baltimore Sun, April 25, 2005)
Peggy Wheeler's Spanish class is different from most foreign language classes because the language isn't foreign to her students. Her 14 charges at Annapolis High School speak Spanish fluently. They don't need to learn to count in Spanish or to practice rolling their R's. Instead, they are honing their ability to read and write their native language in Wheeler's "Spanish for Heritage Speakers" class.

Achievement Gap Report for 2004 Released (Delaware Department of Education, April 21, 2005)
The Delaware State Board of Education released the 2004 achievement gap report entitled Awareness to Action Revisited: Tracking the Achievement Gap in Delaware Schools. The report was compiled by the Research and Development Center at the University of Delaware.

SOL Tests Affecting Minority Seniors (The Washington Post, April 18, 2005)
A study commissioned by the Virginia Department of Education has found that high school graduation rates held steady for white students in 2004 -- the first year in which Standards of Learning exams were required for a diploma -- but dropped significantly for black and Hispanic students. According to researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University, the on-time graduation rate for white students last year was 77.4 percent, compared with 61.3 percent for black students and 66.5 percent for Hispanics. Those figures represented a drop of 4.9 percentage points from 2003 for black students and of 11.6 percentage points for Hispanics.

Wiping Stereotypes Of India off the Books (The Washington Post, April 17, 2005)
Fairfax County businesswoman Sandhya Kumar teaches her three daughters about other countries, cultures and religions. She wants them to take pride in their Indian heritage and Hindu faith -- and to respect and understand other views. But when Kumar of Lorton scanned several world history textbooks recommended for Fairfax County schools, she worried that students would come away with a distorted and negative impression of her homeland's culture.

Balto. Co. Students Progress, But Gaps Remain (The Baltimore Sun, April 12, 2005)
Baltimore County students of all races are making academic progress by many measures, but wide gaps in the achievement and suspension rates between whites and minorities remain, according to a report released yesterday.

Action Urged to Add Minority Teachers (The Philadelphia Inquirer, April 6, 2005)
The Philadelphia School District, teacher preparatory colleges, and the state should work together to increase the number of minority teachers in city schools, a community organizing group urged yesterday. Although the district serves a largely black and Hispanic student population, only a third of its teachers are black and just 3 percent are Hispanic. Much of the disparity is caused by a short supply of minority teachers, according to a report from the Pennsylvania Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (Acorn).

Spanish Class Caters to Native Speakers (Richmond Times-Dispatch, April 5, 2005)
At Meadowbrook High in Chesterfield county last year, Gonzalez and fellow teacher Ditza Rodriguez, a native of Puerto Rico, developed Spanish for Native Speakers, a course that offers grammatical and analytical skills and cultural lessons for fluent students.

Foreign Teachers a Quick Fix (The Washington Post, April 3, 2005)
Gilmar Mejia and two others -- his wife, Spanish teacher Gleidy Clavijo, and Irish-born French teacher Janet Livingstone -- are about to complete their tours of duty at Stonewall Jackson in the Visiting International Faculty program, a North Carolina-based nonprofit organization that recruits teachers worldwide to work in U.S. schools. School officials say that the foreign teachers' departures reflect the difficulty facing many suburban Washington school districts, which fight each other for the best educators, especially in math, science and foreign languages. These fields typically do not have large pools of applicants because they are specialized, and often such specialists can command higher salaries in the private sector.

$655 Million School Budget Approved in Pr. William (The Washington Post, March 31, 2005)
The Prince William County School Board adopted a $655 million operating budget last night that includes an expanded all-day kindergarten program designed to help meet requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act and narrow the achievement gap between minorities and whites.

Native Americans Criticize Bush's Silence (The Washington Post, March 25, 2005)
Native Americans across the country -- including tribal leaders, academics and rank-and-file tribe members -- voiced anger and frustration Thursday that President Bush has responded to the second-deadliest school shooting in U.S. history with silence.

Some Asian Americans Say Colleges Expect More From Them (The Washington Post, March 22, 2005)
Asian American students have higher average SAT scores than any other government-monitored ethnic group, and selective colleges routinely reject them in favor of African American, Hispanic and even white applicants with lower scores in order to have more diverse campuses and make up for past discrimination. Many Asian Americans and some educators wonder: Is that fair? Why shouldn't young people of Asian descent have more of an advantage in the selective college admissions system for being violin-playing, science-fair winning, high-scoring achievers?

More Swastikas Found at Lower Merion High School (The Philadelphia Inquirer, March 15, 2005)
Three new swastikas have been found etched into doors at Lower Merion High School, and administrators say they will work with the Anti-Defamation League to participate in its "No Place For Hate" program.

Young Students Make Gains In Reading (The Washington Post, March 8, 2005)
More than 70 percent of Montgomery County (Md.) students in kindergarten through second grade are reading at their grade level, with black and Hispanic children making the biggest strides, according to data released yesterday by school officials.

Opinion: Chinatown Isn't the Site for New Charter School (The Philadelphia Inquirer, March 8, 2005)
"Let's take a look at South Philadelphia. City data show that in the 19148 zip code there are 5,200 Asian residents. There are almost 700 ethnic Chinese school-age children living in the neighborhood. This Asian population is underserved and is in need of more tailored bilingual education programs. A charter school would have a much larger impact in South Philadelphia, I believe, and should only be one of many initiatives to improve education services."

Lost in Translation (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, February 26, 2005)
They may be passing through, temporarily enrolled in a school district while their parents work for an area employer or continue their education at a local university. They may speak little or no English, and hear little or none in their homes. But when they register at a public school in America, the law mandates that non-English-speaking students learn the nation's native tongue. English as a Second Language instructors are their guides.

Teacher Raises Dwindle in State Formula (The Washington Post, February 18, 2005)
Explaining that gap between promised and actual teacher raises reveals certain realities about how Virginia funds school districts—and why teacher salaries still lag behind the national average, despite years of talk from Richmond about improving the state's standing.

Ban on Illegals in College Rejected (The Washington Times, February 18, 2005)
A Virginia Senate panel yesterday defeated a measure that would have banned illegal aliens from attending state colleges and universities. The Senate Education and Health Committee rejected the bill 12-3. The House had passed the measure 67-28 earlier this month.

Chinatown School Plan (Philadelphia Daily News, February 17, 2005)
A proposal to open a public charter school in Chinatown this fall has divided segments of that community, and yesterday led school officials to postpone voting on the proposal until next month.

Translating School Traditions (The Baltimore Sun, February 14, 2005)
With the help of the Megaphone Project, a local nonprofit group that makes films about social and economic issues, a group of students at Patterson High School in Baltimore made a film for Spanish-speaking immigrant parents. The 13-minute movie, subtitled in English, sheds light on certain aspects of the U.S. education system difficult for some non-natives to understand, such as the prom, community service and extracurricular activities.

Pa. Is Investigating Avon Grove School's Use of Federal Grant (The Philadelphia Inquirer, February 10, 2005)
The Pennsylvania Department of Education is investigating whether $563,441 in federal grant money - part of $1 million earmarked for the Avon Grove Charter School - was spent to help low-income Hispanic children and their families. Much of the grant's plan, which called for area Hispanic children to join after-school and summer camp programs at the school's London Grove Township campus, was not implemented. After one successful summer program in 2003, few children from outside the mostly white, mostly middle class school were served by the grant.

Bill Bars Illegals From Colleges (The Washington Times, February 4, 2005)
The House yesterday passed a bill that would forbid illegal aliens from attending Virginia colleges, a measure that would put the state at the forefront of immigration reform.

In Pa., Racial Gap in Scores Shrinks (The Philadelphia Inquirer, January 28, 2005)
A divide persists between white and minority student achievement in the Pennsylvania suburbs, but more than half of the schools have narrowed that gap, based on the most recent test results.

Chinatown Group Lobbies to Get School (The Philadelphia Inquirer, January 13, 2005)
Several members of a Chinatown group proposing to open a charter school in their neighborhood in September lobbied the Philadelphia School Reform Commission yesterday to approve the plan. "There needs to be a school that has the needs of immigrant children in mind," said Helen Gym, of Asian Americans United, the group proposing the school. "It's a service gap that the school district has." She added: "It will be the first public institution ever given to Chinatown."

Reliving History Raises Test Scores (Richmond Times-Dispatch, January 6, 2005)
A $565,000 federal grant has allowed schools to work with area museums and the National Council for History Education to help teachers in these grades make history more relevant and interesting. So far the project appears to be helping raise the history scores of minority and low-income students on Virginia's standardized testing program, said Jane Bailey, coordinator for the federal Foundations of Freedom grant received by schools in 2002. The grant lasts until 2006.

A Better Chance Supports High-Achieving Students (The Philadelphia Inquirer, January 1, 2005)
Since its founding in 1963 in Boston by officials from 23 private preparatory schools seeking more minority students, A Better Chance has expanded educational opportunities for nearly 11,000 high-achieving young men and women.

Tutors Help Native Spanish-Speakers Translate Their Thoughts into English (The Baltimore Sun, December 28, 2004)
With the help of Palabras to Words (palabras is Spanish for "words") - a tutoring program started by a group of McDaniel College students this semester - Moises Estrada has learned to carry on basic conversations in English with co-workers at the construction company where he works.

Tribes Turn to Charter Schools for Help (Richmond Times-Dispatch, December 21, 2004)
Throughout Indian country, tribal officials are turning to charter schools as their best opportunity to reach a generation of Indian students who've dropped out or drifted through traditional public schools.

ESL Enrollment Slows in Inner Suburbs (The Washington Post, December 20, 2004)
The once-rapid enrollment increase in classes for non-English speakers has slowed suddenly in most of the area's inner suburban school systems, and puzzled educators are trying to figure out why. Education officials know that many immigrant families, priced out of the gentrifying close-in neighborhoods, are moving to less expensive communities farther out. Some officials suggest that recent economic doldrums could have tamped down the number of new arrivals. One expert wonders whether some foreign students are graduating more quickly from English classes.

An Evolution in Teaching Nonnative Speakers (The Washington Post, November 29, 2004)
Esther Park could see a bit of herself in the little boy from Ethiopia who sat beside her and opened a storybook called "Packing My Bag." He turned the pages, eager to please his new teacher, but she could tell that the words were a mystery.

Opinion: Preserving Culture Preserves Diversity (The Washington Times, November 29, 2004)
". . . children of diverse and wonderful cultural backgrounds are more often convinced that their parents' language, culture and traditional values are old, non-American, restrictive and embarrassing. Their home language is lost; their customs are jettisoned; and they seek to identify with the peer culture of experimentation, sexualized appearance and contempt for faith and ethics. Now, home-schooling is being seen by certain ethnic minorities as the way to preserve the history and culture of their people and to build their children's sense of honor and tradition."

Opinion: Language, Culture: Local Schools Broaden Global Reach (Richmond Times-Dispatch, November 28, 2004)
The National Commission on Excellence in Education and The College Board have recommended expanding basic skills to include foreign-language education for all students, in part because of the tremendous academic benefits students derive in the areas of reading, writing, and mathematics.

10% Fewer Foreigners Attend Area Colleges (The Washington Post, November 27, 2004)
The number of foreign students attending colleges in the Washington area has fallen by about 10 percent since September 2001, according to a report by the Institute of International Education that shows the first nationwide decline in three decades.

Enforcement of Civil Rights Law Declined Since '99, Study Finds (The New York Times, November 22, 2004)
Federal enforcement of civil rights laws has dropped sharply since 1999, as the level of complaints received by the Justice Department has remained relatively constant, according to Justice Department data analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University.

Hispanic Advocate Named to School Board (The Washington Times, November 21, 2004)
The Montgomery County School Board yesterday appointed a Hispanic community advocate to its District 5 seat. Nancy Navarro, a married mother of two who runs an economic-and-educational development organization for the Hispanic and immigrant community, will serve the remaining two years on the seat of retiring board member Henry Lee, a Derwood dentist.

MHS Teens Share Language; Banneker Students Benefit From Experience (Milford Chronicle, November 17, 2004)
Denise Waples' second-grade classroom at Benjamin Banneker Elementary School is crowded and busy.Senior Spanish language students from Nancy Burkett's class at Milford High School join the second graders to share their foreign language skills with the youngsters. The students use flash card activities focusing on commonly used expressions.

The Language of School (The Baltimore Sun, November 14, 2004)
A Howard school program helps immigrant parents fill out forms, assist with homework, and better understand their rapidly assimilating children.

Opinion: If Every Child Were My Child . . . (Richmond Times-Dispatch, November 11, 2004)
Public School students in Chesterfield, Hanover, Henrico, and Richmond are collectively 55 percent white and 45 percent children of color, according to state Department of Education data. Yet the average white student in the county schools is exposed to a student body that is less than 10 percent students of color, while the average student of color in the city schools is ex- posed to a student body 5.5 percent white.

Groups Push for Teacher Diversity (CNN.com, November 9, 2004)
A small but growing body of research shows minorities tend to do better in class and face higher expectations when taught by teachers from their racial or ethnic group, says the National Collaborative on Diversity in the Teaching Force, a partnership led by six groups.

A Growing Latino Population Brings New Education Needs (The Baltimore Sun, November 8, 2004)
The number of Baltimore students with immigrant parents has doubled since 2000, increasing to about 1,500 this year, according to Jill Basye-Featherston, who is head of a school system program for those students.

Latino to Add His Voice To District School Board (The Washington Post, November 4, 2004)
Victor Reinoso understands all too well the struggles of many Latino families in the District. The new D.C. Board of Education member was born to Peruvian immigrants who arrived in this country speaking no English. Growing up, he shared a bedroom with his four brothers. Now, he is the first Latino to win a major elected post in the city, according to local Hispanic activists.

Two Approaches to School Accountability (Christian Science Monitor, November 1, 2004)
US taxpayers spend more than $500 billion a year on K-12 education, but American student achievement lags behind that in many other industrialized nations. Not even 1 in 3 American fourth and eighth graders meets US proficiency standards in reading and mathematics. Black and Hispanic students still often score several grade levels below their white counterparts.

Study Says White Families' Wealth Advantage Has Grown (The New York Times, October 18, 2004)
The enormous wealth gap between white families and black and Hispanic families grew larger after the most recent recession. White households had a median net worth of greater than $88,000 in 2002, 11 times that of Hispanic households and more than 14 times that of black households, according to an analysis of government data by the Pew Hispanic Center.

Parents' Language Issues Hurt Immigrant Kids, Study Says (San Francisco Chronicle, October 5, 2004)
Children of immigrants must often navigate the nation's complex health and education systems alone because of their parents' poor English skills, according to a report to be released today by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

Va. Student Unsure Of His Standing (The Washington Post, September 25, 2004)
In February, a federal judge ruled that Virginia colleges have the right to deny admission to illegal immigrants. Now, some colleges are rejecting undocumented immigrants, and others acknowledge that they are turning a blind eye to immigration status in the admissions process.

Strong Gains Made In Every Category Of HSA Testing (The Baltimore Sun, September 15, 2004)
Howard County high school students showed solid gains in every category of the Maryland High School Assessment tests, with more than 70 percent passing the English, algebra, biology and government exams. Howard's scores surpassed the state average and most of its counterparts' in the Baltimore region, according to results released yesterday by state education officials. While black teens still lag behind their white classmates, they made significant strides in each test. Other student population groups also showed improvement on the tests, including Hispanics and those receiving free and reduced-price meals, a measure school systems use to identify students from low-income families.

Influx Of Families Has Some Schools 'Bursting' (The Philadelphia Inquirer, September 15, 2004)
Throughout the Philadelphia School District's East Region and some areas of the adjacent Northeast Region, many public schools have had dramatic enrollment increases in recent years, although the total population of the 185,000-student district is down sharply. District officials cite a steady influx of young families with school-age children, including immigrant families from Asian countries, Russia and elsewhere.

Enrolling Few Minorities, A College Wonders Why (The Baltimore Sun, September 14, 2004)
With a student body that is 89 percent white, St. John's College in Annapolis pushes for a better racial mix on campus.

TJ Will Cast A Wider Net For Applicants (The Washington Post, September 11, 2004)
Students applying to become next year's freshmen at the elite Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology will be the first affected by a new admissions policy adopted by the Fairfax County School Board, a school official said. The new policy is meant to ensure that the school admits more minority students. School staff members must now work out details and write new regulations reflecting the board's wishes.

On The Eve Of A New Journey (The Washington Post, September 6, 2004)
About 1,500 new students beginning school in Fairfax County this fall who will have to learn English even as they are learning science and math. Students in the program called ESOL -- English for Speakers of Other Languages -- make up the fastest-growing segment of the school district's student body, increasing 70 percent since 2000 to a projected 22,868 students this school year, in a student population expected to number about 166,000.

Record Number Of Minorities Take SAT (USA Today, September 1, 2004)
More than a half-million minority students in the high school class of 2004 took the SAT — a record and a sign that the nation's college-bound population is growing more diverse.

Behind Top Student's Heartbreak, Illegal Immigrants' Nightmare (The New York Times, September 1, 2004)
A legal ceiling holds down an estimated 65,000 high school graduates each year—undocumented immigrants who have spent most of the educational lives in American schools and yet are effectively denied in-state tuition at their respective public colleges.

Mexican-American SAT Scores Continue Steady Rise (The Baltimore Sun, September 1, 2004)
College Board officials praised the performance of Mexican-Americans on the SAT this year, whose scores have been rising steadily. "Improved performance on the SAT is one indication that these students are focusing on the skills they need to succeed in college. And the majority of Mexican-American and other Hispanic SAT-takers are the first in their families to go to college," said Gaston Caperton, president of the College Board. Sixty-nine percent of Mexican-Americans who took the test this year will be first-generation college students, Caperton said, and 37 percent of all SAT-takers this year are minorities.

School System Plans To Study, Document Acts Of Discrimination (The Baltimore Sun, August 22, 2004)
Anne Arundel County school officials plan to better document discriminatory acts as community leaders try to build support among parents concerned about inequities within the schools. Starting this academic year, school staff will submit reports about incidents that may be motivated by bias based on religion, disability, sexual orientation, race or nationality, so district officials can track where and when they occur.

Schools Change ESOL Program (The Baltimore Sun, August 19, 2004)
Starting this fall, Anne Arundel County students who previously took classes for non-native English speakers at their local high schools will attend one of three "international academies" - an effort by the school system to offer what it views as more efficient, specialized instruction.

Bilingual Students Get New Attention (The Philadelphia Inquirer, August 12, 2004)
The Philadelphia School District is poised to begin upgrading its programs for students whose first language is not English.

Immersion Better For Students Than Bilingual Classes, Study Says (The Arizona Republic, August 6, 2004)
Students in Arizona's Structured English Immersion classes learn at a faster pace than students who take bilingual education classes, according to a study released Thursday by the Arizona Department of Education.

Opinion: Seven Myths About Diverse Schools (The Washington Post, August 3, 2004)
"Diverse can mean a nice blend of all ethnicities, but can also mean lots of low-income black and Hispanic children, and to many people who have not thought about this very deeply, that is a bad thing. They are wrong, and their failure to understand what is actually happening in many heavily minority schools is aggravating both our racial problems and our education problems."

Teen Worker Never Tried To Enroll, Schools Say (The Washington Post, July 23, 2004)
After Michael Francisco Barrios died in a workplace accident on a Tuesday in May, his relatives suggested that the Wheaton teenager would be alive had his efforts to register for school not been thwarted. Yesterday, Montgomery County public school officials released their own finding: He never tried to enroll. But even he tried to enroll, he might not have made it into school by May. The school system investigation concluded that after Villeda first met with the system's International Student Admissions Office in January about her daughter, Angela Calderon, three months passed without Angela being cleared to attend school because her mother didn't provide all the required documents.

Illegals Backed At State Schools (The Washington Times, July 16, 2004)
Virginia Republicans and Democrats agreed yesterday that state colleges should enroll illegal aliens but they disagreed on whether illegals be required to pay the much higher out-of-state tuition rates.

Book Readership Slips In U.S. (The Washington Times, July 9, 2004)
Fewer Americans are reading books, with rates declining the fastest among younger and Hispanic readers,according to a survey by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).

Minority Enrollment Up At U.Va. (Richmond Times-Dispatch, July 2, 2004)
The University of Virginia's Class of 2008 will include more African-Americans, more Asian-Americans, more Hispanic and Latino students and more academically qualified entrants than last year, according to the school's admissions office.

Education Level Continues To Rise In United States (Houston Chronicle, June 29, 2004)
More U.S. residents than ever have high school and college diplomas, although rates still vary greatly by race and ethnicity, the Census Bureau says. More than 89 percent of whites graduated from high school, compared with 88 percent of Asians, 80 percent of blacks and 57 percent of Hispanics. Nearly 50 percent of Asians hold a college degree or more, compared with 30 percent of whites, 17 percent of blacks and 11 percent of Hispanics.

Kerry Vows To Help Low-Income Students (The Boston Globe, June 29, 2004)
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry says if he's elected president, 1 million more students will graduate from college during his first five years in office and he will bring a special focus to boosting opportunities for low-income and minority students.

Latinos Lag In Finishing College, Report Says (The Los Angeles Times, June 24, 2004)
Latino college students drop out of school far more frequently than their white counterparts and earn bachelor's degrees less than half as often, according to a new national report the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of USC's Annenberg School for Communication.

North Philadelphia Charter School Gets A State Grant (The Philadelphia Inquirer, June 24, 2004)
Multi-Cultural Academy Charter School in North Philadelphia has received a $50,000 grant from the state Department of Education to help it share its successful practices with other charter and public schools in Pennsylvania and beyond.

Diversity Called An Advantage In Student Politics (The Baltimore Sun, June 23, 2004)
Why do students at Wilde Lake High School do so well in government?Assistant Principal Marcy Leonard attributes their success to the school's "very diverse student body." "That diversity is ethnic; it's socio-economic; it's a political diversity," Leonard said. "The student member can't possibly represent every student in Howard County. They [Wilde Lake students] are able to have input from their experiences with students from diverse backgrounds."

New State Program Targets Schools' Chronic Achievement Gaps (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 23, 2004)
Public education officials hope the seeds planted yesterday during discussions will eventually bear fruit in the form of reducing the chronic achievement gap between white, middle-class students and minority students from low-income families. Sixteen schools statewide were chosen last month to take part in the Pennsylvania Achievement Gap Effort, or PAGE1.

Gifted Break Barriers (The Arizona Republic, June 22, 2004)
Schools across the country are beginning to seek out money to train teachers to sharpen the leadership and academic skills of the brightest English-language learners. Given a push, research shows these gifted kids not only excel, they then lead other students out of what can be a paralyzing fear of a new language and culture.

Ticket To Nowhere (The New York Times, June 20, 2004)
Hulda Mazariegos was valedictorian of her class, but because she is an illegal immigrant, she cannot attend college and works part time at a delicatessen.

DSTP Scores Please Officials: ‘Achievement Gap' Not Closing (Delaware State News, June 18, 2004)
Although DSTP scores have risen this year, there is still a concern about whether the achievement gap between upper-income white students, students with disabilities, and minority and low-income students is closing. Secretary of Education Valerie Woodruff said that while the scores of minority and low-income students are rising, they aren't rising much above the rate of other students' performance, still leaving a gap.

Fighting A Race Gap In Colleges (The Philadelphia Inquirer, June 16, 2004)
Only about 46 percent of black students and 47 percent of Hispanic students graduate within six years of entering college, according to U.S. Department of Education data.

Accident Victim Was Denied School (The Washington Post, June 16, 2004)
The Montgomery County school system should share the blame for the death of a 15-year-old boy in a landscaping accident last month, Latino advocates and family members said yesterday, detailing how his mother tried unsuccessfully for four months to enroll the boy in school. Rigid residency requirements kept the boy -- and scores of other foreign-born students -- from enrolling in classes.

Typecasting Is Out On High School Stage (The Washington Post, June 13, 2004)
As schools throughout the Washington area diversify, drama teachers say they are casting across cultures, creating racially eclectic families and forcing audiences to stretch their imaginations a bit more. But colorblind casting, as the practice is known, has its challenges: Scripts often need to be retooled to eliminate references to tans or hair color, and students of different backgrounds have to be persuaded to try out for shows not written for them.

Getting Students Into The Sciences (The Philadelphia Inquirer, June 11, 2004)
NASA last month announced that Shaw Middle School in Philadelphia is one of 50 U.S. schools selected to participate in a three-year partnership designed to interest more students in math, science and technology careers. Woodbury Junior-Senior High School in Gloucester County also was selected for the program, called NASA Explorer Schools. Eighty percent of the schools are based in high-poverty areas, with 75 percent representing predominantly minority communities. Teachers will receive training at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, and NASA personnel will visit the school periodically. The school also will receive $30,000 over three years from NASA to upgrade computer hardware and software, and for other expenses to advance science, math and technical programs.

Protesters Claim Principal Biased Against Asians (Philadelphia Daily News, June 9, 2004)
Yesterday morning, about 50 children, teens and adults from the Asian-American community protested outside Southwark Elementary School to demand that Principal Anna Jenkins punish students who attack Asian-American children, and that she report all such incidents.

Schools Will Not Report Illegals (The Washington Times, June 9, 2004)
Montgomery County public school officials said yesterday they will not report to federal authorities illegal immigrants whom they discover in a new residency verification effort.

Poor Schools Sue For Funding (The Washington Post, June 7, 2004)
According to experts who track the lawsuits, half the states in the country are now involved in litigation over education funding. Similar lawsuits arguing for education equity between rich and poor districts were filed frequently in the 1980s. The more recent lawsuits, which seek sufficient funding for poor districts rather than parity with affluent ones, have been fueled, in part, by the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind initiative, which is designed to make every child in the country proficient in math and reading by 2014. Many poor school districts that fail to meet the targets established by the law have gone to court to argue that they lack the resources to compete with their richer neighbors. These "educational adequacy" complaints have largely replaced desegregation lawsuits as the focus of legal efforts to ensure equality of opportunity between different social and ethnic groups.

Schools Receive Total Of $92,097 For Performances On State Tests (The Baltimore Sun, June 6, 2004)
Harford County public schools will receive $92,097 in awards for the performance of elementary and middle schools on the first Maryland Schools Assessment, administered last spring. Thirty of 40 eligible schools in the county will be awarded between $2,900 and $4,000, based on achievement or improvement on the exams among subgroups, which include minorities, English as a second language students and special-education students. High schools are not eligible for monetary awards, but three of the nine high schools in the county received certificates of achievement.

Class Of Diversity Gets Diplomas (The Washington Post, June 6, 2004)
Jerry D. Weast, superintendent of Montgomery County schools, spent last week watching graduating seniors traverse stages to receive their diplomas -- including students who got their starts in Kenya, El Salvador, Vietnam, Iran and many other countries. "It" is the most racially and ethnically diverse graduating class the county has seen, and likely the last to be majority-white, according to school system data. Since the seniors graduating this month started kindergarten, the student body of Montgomery County public schools has grown larger by 16,000 Hispanics, 12,000 blacks, 7,000 Asians and 100 Native Americans. The number of non-Hispanic white students has declined by 3,000.

Study Faults Colleges On Graduation Rates (The New York Times, May 27, 2004)
As growing numbers of Americans enter college, most colleges and universities have failed to ensure that those students will graduate, according to a study released yesterday by the Education Trust. Graduation rates are especially low for minority students and those from low-income families, the trust said. Only 46 percent of black students, 47 percent of Latino students and 54 percent of low-income students graduate within six years.

Opinion: Like It Or Not, The Future Is Multicultural (The Baltimore Sun, May 26, 2004)
"American demands for uniformity won't stem the rising tide of linguistic diversity."

Diversity On Schools' Agenda (Philadelphia Daily News, May 26, 2004)
Female and minority contractors have received 17 percent of the school district contracts awarded this year, up from 5 percent at this time last year, said Karen Burke, the Philadelphia school district's chief operating officer. But she confirmed that 72 of the 77 people that the school district employs in the painter/masonry area white and that only five are African-American.

Kansas Gives Illegal Aliens Tuition Break (The Washington Times, May 24, 2004)
Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius has signed legislation that will allow some illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition at state colleges and universities, instead of the higher out-of-state rate.

Seeking To Close Gaps In Student Achievement (The Philadelphia Inquirer, May 20, 2004)
Three local schools were among 16 named yesterday to take part in a state initiative aimed at eliminating low academic achievement among poor, minority and special-education students. The participating schools are Elkins Park School in Cheltenham, Montgomery County; Strath Haven High School in Wallingford, Delaware County; and Fairhill Elementary in North Philadelphia.

Helping Grade-Schoolers Over A Language Barrier (The Baltimore Sun, May 19, 2004)
For the past three years, pupils struggling to overcome the language barrier have received help through the Bookworms Club, an after-school program that helps newly immigrated English Speakers of Other Languages with tutorial support.

'Bunk' In Eye Of Governor A Longtime Schools Priority (The Baltimore Sun, May 18, 2004)
It might be "bunk" to Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., but multiculturalism has been a priority in Maryland public schools since 1970s, when the State Board of Education first issued regulations addressing the contributions of other cultures, which Ehrlich is sworn to uphold.

In School, Latinos Find Fewer Resources, Ethnic Isolation (The Boston Globe, May 17, 2004)
At Garfield High in East Los Angeles, 99 percent of nearly 5,000 students are Mexican-American. Similarly, Latinos across the country largely miss out on the experience of going to school with classmates of different races and cultures.

'Cohort' Tackles Tougher Courses As A Team (The Washington Post, May 11, 2004)
The "Cohort" program at Wakefield High School unique effort to persuade adolescent black and Hispanic boys that they could, if they pushed hard enough, get their high school -- and eventually the world beyond their school -- to take them seriously.

Va. Students, Educators Await Results From First Year Of SOL Tests (The Washington Post, May 9, 2004)
Educators said it looks as though the number of seniors who won't graduate because of SOL tests will be lower than they once feared -- and low enough to avoid the kind of public uproar that has roiled Florida, California and other states as they have approached similar deadlines. Many of those who have not cleared the hurdle are students for whom English is not their first language, school officials said. Others are special-education students who are struggling to pass regular tests or qualify for the alternative offered to them, a modified diploma that requires passing eighth-grade exams.

Kansas Passes Tuition Bill Aiding Illegal Immigrants (USA Today, May 5, 2004)
A bill offering some illegal immigrants a tuition break at Kansas' public colleges and universities cleared the Legislature on Tuesday and headed to Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who plans to sign it.

Accent On Language (The Washington Times, April 26, 2004)
The teaching of foreign languages at the elementary school level is alive and well — and even thriving — in the Greater Washington area. In Fairfax County, students have been learning Japanese in a voluntary immersion program begun in 1989. The county also offers Spanish, French and German at the elementary level. Immersion characteristically prescribes that academic lessons are conducted entirely in another language.

Community Colleges Facing A 'Capacity Crisis' (USA Today, April 25, 2004)
With their low cost, open-door policies and mandates to serve local needs, community colleges have prided themselves on being a key point of access to higher education. It's a role they've maintained as the number of people seeking higher education has risen, and the percentage of minorities has risen. But there is a marked difference by race/ethnicity: From 52% to 55% of traditional-age Hispanic college students start at community colleges, compared with 37% to 38% of whites, blacks and Asians.

Immigrant Students Rally For Tuition Benefit (The Washington Post, April 21, 2004)
Dressed in satiny caps and gowns, about 70 high school students gathered on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol yesterday, looking like any other radiant springtime graduates -- except for the signs they wore on the front of their gowns. "Now What?" they read. The students were holding a mock graduation ceremony to highlight the difficulties they faced as illegal immigrants hoping to go on to higher education. And they hoped to drum up support for legislation that would make it easier to extend in-state tuition rates at public colleges to students without legal U.S. residency.

'No Child' Advocate Scores Points With Facts (The Washington Post, April 6, 2004)
PowerPoint presentations at educational conferences usually are a good time for a snooze. The lights are low. No one is going to call on you. Close your eyes and let the jargon about budget priorities and test validation lull you to sleep. Unless, conference veterans say, Kati Haycock is the speaker.

Immigrant Students Challenge Schools (The Baltimore Sun, April 5, 2004)
Unlike school districts in the Washington region, which serve larger, well-established foreign-born populations and three times as many ESOL students, school systems around Baltimore are just awakening to the needs of immigrant students.

Beyond Black And White (The Washington Post, April 4, 2004)
An account of the racial and ethnic diversity at Montgomery Blair High School.

Latinos Unaware College Aid Available, Researchers Find (San Francisco Chronicle, April 1, 2004)
Most Latino families do not know there is financial aid available for college, leaving them greatly underrepresented in higher education, according to a nationwide survey released Wednesday.

The WV Department of Education Rolls out West Virginia Achieves Test for Limited English Proficient Students (press release) (West Virginia Department of Education, March 29, 2004)
West Virginia’s limited English proficient (LEP) students will be participating in an assessment of their English language skills during April and May 2004. This assessment, the West Virginia Test of English Language Learning, (WESTELL), has been developed to meet the requirements of Title I and Title III of West Virginia Achieves, the state’s No Child Left Behind implementation plan.

Demonstrators Swarm Around Rove's Home (The Washington Post, March 27, 2004)
Several hundred people stormed the small yard of President Bush's chief political strategist, Karl Rove, yesterday afternoon, pounding on his windows, shoving signs at others and challenging Rove to talk to them about a bill that deals with educational opportunities for immigrants.

Democratic Study Hits Tuition Bill (The Washington Times, March 27, 2004)
The House has passed a bill that would allow illegal aliens to pay in-state tuition, despite a study conducted for the Democratic-controlled chamber that showed most Marylanders oppose such a measure. The unscientific study, obtained by The Washington Times, was paid for by Democrats in the General Assembly's Montgomery County delegation.

House Votes To Give Illegals Tuition Break (The Washington Times, March 26, 2004)
The House of Delegates voted yesterday to provide in-state tuition rates to illegal immigrants, but only if they have graduated from Maryland high schools, can prove their family has paid state taxes and intend to become U.S. citizens.

Opinion: After Holding Back Third Graders, What To Do? (The New York Times, March 17, 2004)
Pledging to end social promotion is politically appealing, a vow invoked in recent years by elected officials as diverse as Bill Clinton, Rudolph W. Giuliani, George W. Bush and, of course, Mr. Bloomberg. But promising that all children will be proficient in reading and math is much more complicated, education experts say.

Minority Statistics Tell Two Stories At Temple (The Philadelphia Inquirer, March 17, 2004)
Temple University officials have been proud to talk up the school's impressive enrollment jump over the last five years. But some students and alumni say the university has lost touch with its traditional mission to offer a low-cost college education to the city's underserved.

Official: 'No Child Left Behind' Law Harms Students (The Philadelphia Inquirer, March 15, 2004)
The superintendent of the Quakertown Community School District told a Senate hearing in Washington yesterday that the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act had been "destructive" to the children of Pennsylvania. Superintendent James R. Scanlon said that special-education students and non-English speakers had been especially hurt by the law.

Minority Students' Rights Violated, Complaint Says (The Philadelphia Inquirer, March 9, 2004)
Minority students in Philadelphia's public schools are more likely to be taught by inexperienced and uncertified teachers, which violates their civil rights, according to a federal complaint filed yesterday.

Funding Education's Changing Face (The Washington Post, March 5, 2004)
The small city of Harrisonburg in the Shenandoah Valley is best known as the home of James Madison University. But now its public schools are drawing attention: They have the highest percentage of Virginia students who aren't fluent in English.

First Hispanic Named To Board Of Education (Richmond Times-Dispatch, March 4, 2004)
Gov. Mark R. Warner yesterday appointed the first Hispanic member of the Virginia Board of Education. Isis M. Castro, former chairwoman of the Fairfax County School Board, replaces Ruby W. Rogers, whose four-year term expired in January.

Law's Language Flaw Left Behind (The Baltimore Sun, February 29, 2004)
An overdue change to the federal act gives children who don't speak English a year to learn before they have to take standardized tests written in it.

'No Child' Tests For Schools Relaxed (The Washington Post, February 20, 2004)
The Bush administration moved yesterday to defuse mounting criticism of its landmark No Child Left Behind law by announcing a significant relaxation of testing requirements for students with limited knowledge of English.

Bill Barring Illegals From College Expected To Pass (The Washington Times, February 5, 2004)
The House today is expected to pass a bill that would prohibit Virginia's state-sponsored colleges and universities from enrolling illegal aliens. The bill, authored by John S. Reid, Henrico Republican, moved forward yesterday during its second reading by a voice vote along party lines. The bill is expected to pass because of the Republican majority.

Schools Chiefs Seek Changes In Testing Law (The Washington Post, January 31, 2004)
School superintendents representing 17 Washington area districts and two Catholic school systems presented a plan yesterday to fix what they consider the most damaging part of the federal No Child Left Behind law -- the annual testing of nearly all disabled and limited English-speaking students. In a proposal to the U.S. Department of Education, the superintendents asked that students with limited English skills be given less demanding tests at the beginning of their schooling and that special education students be given tests judged appropriate to their disability.

Hispanic Enrollment Up (USA Today, January 29, 2004)
With Hispanics graduating from high school in numbers that will keep increasing for years, the head of a higher education group that released a report on the trend says colleges need to step up efforts to accommodate the nation's largest minority.

State Test Translation Plan Raises Concerns (The Philadelphia Inquirer, January 29, 2004)
Administrators and student advocates are concerned about the fairness and effectiveness of a plan for helping Pennsylvania school children with limited English ability score better on the PSSA, the statewide student assessment test.

WV Board of Education Seeking Comments on New Test for Limited English Proficiency Students (press release) (West Virginia Department of Education, January 21, 2004)
The West Virginia Board of Education placed Policy 2417 out on public comment during its January meeting. Revisions to Policy 2417 are being recommended so that the first annual standards-based assessment of Limited English Proficiency students can be implemented statewide.

In Fighting Stereotypes, Students Lift Test Scores (The New York Times, January 20, 2004)
Girls and low-income minority students are more likely to improve their scores on standardized tests when they are taught ways to overcome the pressures associated with negative stereotypes, according to a new study of seventh graders.

Area High Schools Stretch To Include Adult Immigrants (The Washington Post, January 20, 2004)
The growth of Washington's immigrant communities has prompted public schools to focus attention on young men and women who are several years older than their classmates in algebra. Many fled nations in Africa, Latin America and Asia, where war or poverty forced them out of school, and they arrived in the United States lacking the English skills or academic backgrounds to go straight to college.

Arundel Schools Met Goal On Buying From Minority Companies (The Baltimore Sun, January 8, 2004)
The Anne Arundel County school system exceeded its goal of buying 14 percent of its supplies and services last year from businesses owned by women or racial minorities, but spent less with such businesses than in previous years, according to a report presented to the school board yesterday.

Hearing To Focus On County School Contracts For Minority Firms (The Baltimore Sun, January 7, 2004)
An Anne Arundel County schools task force will hold a public hearing Saturday on recommendations aimed at increasing the share of school contracts that go to minority-owned firms. The task force's draft report, released yesterday, states that the school system struggled to meet goals for minority participation in 2002.

Grants Up For Grabs By Hispanic Pupils (Philadelphia Daily News, January 6, 2004)
Hispanic high school seniors in the Philadelphia area have a chance to win educational grants and other benefits by entering the 2004 Hispanic Heritage Awards Foundation competition.

Md. High School Test Scores Barely Improve (The Baltimore Sun, January 3, 2004)
Maryland students scored poorly on the new high school competency examinations again last year, and officials said they expect no improvement until passing the tests is required for graduation. About half of 65,000 students failed the 2003 algebra and biology tests, about the same rate as 2002. Four in 10 failed government, and six in 10 failed English, including a large majority of poor and minority students and those with disabilities.

Colleges Cut Back Minority Programs (San Francisco Chronicle, December 30, 2003)
The Supreme Court's June rulings on racial preferences in University of Michigan admissions were widely interpreted as a victory for affirmative action. Six months later, the impact looks considerably more ambiguous.

Diverse Schools More Likely To Be Labeled As Failing, Study Says (The New York Times, December 25, 2003)
Public schools with diverse student populations are far more likely than those with homogeneous populations to be labeled as failing under President Bush's education law, according to a new California study.

School Board Losing Most Of Minority Voice (The Washington Post, December 17, 2003)
Tomorrow, Robert Frye, 67, will end a long chapter of his public life, attending his last meeting as a member of the Fairfax County School Board. He and fellow board member Ernestine C. Heastie (Providence), who also is retiring, became the county's first black elected officials in 1995. Two other minority members also are stepping down: retiring board Chairman Isis M. Castro (Mount Vernon), Virginia's first elected Hispanic official, and Rita Thompson (At Large), an African American who did not win reelection. Their departures leave one minority member, newly elected Korean immigrant Ilryong Moon (At Large), on the 12-member board at a time when Fairfax is continuing to diversify. Nearly one-third of county residents are minorities, and county officials project that minority students soon will outnumber whites.

Minority Students Trail In Suburbs (The Philadelphia Inquirer, December 14, 2003)
Across the Pennsylvania suburbs, high-achieving and well-funded schools are facing sizeable gaps in achievement between white and minority students.

The New Generation Gap (San Francisco Chronicle, December 14, 2003)
What is Generation 1.5? These are immigrant children who, born abroad, they speak their native language at home, and know just enough English to get by the public school system.

Schools Help Latino Parents Beat Illiteracy (The Washington Post, December 11, 2003)
At Brightwood Elementary School last week, Latino parents and their children appeared to be engaged in one big play date: They listened to a teacher read "The Giving Tree," then clustered around tables to make colorful gift jars of bath salts -- or sales de colores, as the recipe read in Spanish. But this was not just storytelling time or arts and crafts. This was a lesson in literacy for Hispanic families. The project at Brightwood, in Northwest, is one of three new family literacy programs in District schools aimed at boosting the reading and writing skills of Hispanic parents and their children. The other programs are at Bruce-Monroe and Cleveland elementary schools, also in Northwest. All three schools have rapidly growing Latino student populations. Of Brightwood's almost 500 students, for example, 70 percent are Hispanic.

Group Bridges Cultural Divide (The Baltimore Sun, December 8, 2003)
United Hands of Carroll County is an advocacy group whose mission is to help recent immigrants from Spanish-speaking countries navigate Carroll's education, social and economic systems.

Media Blitz Aimed At Hispanic Parents (The Miami Herald, December 7, 2003)
A new Spanish-language media campaign touting the No Child Left Behind Act is expected to reach 90 percent of Hispanic parents nationwide, federal education officials said Saturday.

Schools Chief Shifted Fairfax District's Focus (The Washington Post, December 7, 2003)
At Cameron Elementary School in the Alexandria section of Fairfax County, more than half of the 650 students receive free or reduced-priced lunches, an indication of low family income. Nearly one-third are learning English for the first time. Yet Cameron, like many other previously low-performing schools in the county, has posted steady increases on Virginia Standards of Learning tests.

Opinion: Annapolis Principal Stares Into The Faces Of The Gap (The Baltimore Sun, December 3, 2003)
"Students' grades are only as good as their parents expect. Asian parents expect no less than an A-minus from their children. White parents settle for a B-minus, while black and Hispanic parents become concerned if the grade is below a C-minus."

Public Schools Try To Bridge Cultural Divide For Immigrants (The Baltimore Sun, November 30, 2003)
During the past seven years, the number of foreign-born students and non-native English-speakers in Howard County has more than doubled, forcing schools to search for ways to better acclimate children and their families to American life. So administrators are devising programs to explain the basics and quirks of their schools' academic programs and extracurricular activities.

Mexico's Dropout Economy (The Washington Post, November 24, 2003)
According to government education officials, at least 300,000 Mexican children each year drop out of school after the sixth grade. Some last a year or two more, but the average Mexican has left school by age 14.

Poor, Minority Kids Face Long Odds (USA Today, November 23, 2003)
Before they're even born, poor and minority children are at risk of doing poorly in school, a new report suggests. In one of the most in-depth looks ever at the achievement gap between poor and minority students and their white and middle-class peers, researcher Paul Barton of Educational Testing Service cites 14 factors. These include low birth weight, poor nutrition, family mobility and too much television, as well as school factors such as unqualified or inexperienced teachers and unsafe schools.

Minority Educators Back Bush Initiative (The Hartford Courant, November 19, 2003)
Many of the nation's black and Hispanic school superintendents, including four from Connecticut, lashed out at critics of President Bush's school accountability law Tuesday, saying the criticism is misguided.

Getting To Root Of School Discipline Disparities (The Baltimore Sun, November 19, 2003)
"The folks at the Maryland Justice Policy Institute -- a pretty liberal outfit dedicated to finding alternative ways of dealing with crime and punishment -- dared to wade in where many fear to tread. Their Web site listed data for the 1998-1999 school year, breaking down suspensions in Maryland public schools by race. The data showed that 11.2 percent of Maryland's 307,906 black students received suspensions, a higher rate than other groups: 5.8 percent of the state's 463,280 white students, 8.8 percent of 2,840 Native American students, 5 percent of 33,580 Hispanic students and 2.2 percent of 34,065 Asian students. Maryland State Department of Education figures for the school year 2000-2001 show a black suspension rate of 56.76 percent, a white rate of 38.63 percent, a Hispanic rate of 3 percent and an Asian rate of 1.8 percent."

Where the Toot, Toot, Tootling Is in Earnest (The Washington Post, November 18, 2003)
At Ella Baker School on New York City's East Side. Music teacher Stern introduces a repertoire to youngsters from the Bronx and Harlem that reaches back centuries and around the world, to cultures where the students have their roots. There are songs from the Caribbean, Asia and Africa, as well as American spirituals, pieces from the 12th century and, coming soon, Renaissance works -- all selected to be rhythmically and melodically interesting enough to appeal to children who know only hip-hop.

Schools' GT Program Seeks Wider Appeal (The Baltimore Sun, November 16, 2003)
When African-American teens from nine of Howard County's 11 high schools systematically stood up at a recent forum and outlined a disparity of minority representation in gifted-and-talented programs, their words - though impassioned - weren't shocking to school officials.

School Districts Struggle With English Fluency Mandate (The New York Times, November 5, 2003)
Under the No Child Left Behind law, school districts must show improvement in many categories of students, including those who have limited English proficiency. When the students improve enough, though, they are taken out of the limited-proficiency category, making it virtually impossible for districts to demonstrate progress, many educators say.

Balto. Co. Schools Get Mix Of Scores (The Baltimore Sun, November 5, 2003)
Baltimore County school officials reviewed a mixed bag of test results last night - showing strong elementary school scores and a major increase in Advanced Placement exam participation in recent years amid gloomy news of sagging math scores and a persisting minority achievement gap.

Helping Latino Kids Develop Their Dreams (The Baltimore Sun, November 5, 2003)
A Hispanic group -- Conexiones -- and faculty at Oakland Mills middle and high schools are trying to help Spanish-speaking students succeed.

City Schools Adapting To Hispanic Growth (The Washington Post, November 2, 2003)
Superintendent Sidney W. "Chip" Zullinger predicts that by the end of this school year, ethnic minorities will constitute the majority of students in Manassas city public schools, with many of them needing English as a Second Language (ESL) classes. Less than two years ago, Manassas had no program to teach ESL.

Speaking To Student Heritage (The Washington Post, October 30, 2003)
Prince William County's Woodbridge High School has a new course for teaching Spanish to native speakers. Classes such as this one are popping up across the nation as educators conclude that children who hear and speak a language other than English at home should study that language differently from those learning it for the first time.

Wanted: Men, Hispanics For PTA Duty (CNN.com, October 27, 2003)
Outreach is happening across the country as the PTA aims to recruit members and develop leaders among groups not widely represented, particularly men and Hispanics.

Opinion: Education For The Undocumented (The Washington Post, October 27, 2003)
"The Virginia General Assembly has approved a bill denying illegal immigrants the benefits of in-state college tuition rates. But at least seven other states specifically allow the reduced tuition for undocumented immigrants who meet other residency requirements. Which is the saner policy?"

Bill A Dream For Students `Stuck In Immigration Hell' (The Miami Herald, October 26, 2003)
The plight of young undocumented immigrants has resonated in Washington, D.C., where a bill to smooth their path to college is winding its way through the Senate with Democratic and Republican support.

Achievement Among Latinos (Richmond Times-Dispatch, October 24, 2003)
Since 1990, closing of the educational "achievement gap" between Latinos and their white counterparts has stagnated and even become wider in some subjects, according to a study by the Education Trust.

Education Reform Highlights Scoring Gap (The Washington Times, October 20, 2003)
The No Child Left Behind Act is forcing many schools to examine why there is such a large achievement gap between white and minority students, according to a new national study by the Education Trust.

Montgomery Schools At Diversity Landmark (The Washington Post, October 14, 2003)
The Class of 2003 is the last group of graduating seniors in Montgomery County public schools to be majority white, according to enrollment projections the superintendent will present to the Board of Education today.

Pursuing Happiness, Through Hard Work (The Washington Post, October 14, 2003)
After 19 years at Hobart Boulevard Elementary School in the Mid-Wilshire district of Los Angeles, Rafe Esquith has proven that a teacher who thinks very big -- much harder lessons, larger projects, extra class time -- can help disadvantaged children in ways most educators never imagine.

Learning To Teach In 200 Foreign Languages  (The Washington Times, October 13, 2003)
The growing number of immigrants and U.S. citizens who are not fluent in English has teachers trying to figure out how they can teach subjects to children who may be having trouble understanding them. Currently, schools in Maryland and the District teach students who combined speak more than 200 foreign languages. More than 11,000 of 140,000 students in Montgomery County are enrolled in the English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) program. Those students come from more than 160 countries, and they speak more than 120 languages. Nearly 16,000 of 130,000 students in Prince George's County schools speak about 130 languages. In the District, more than 8,000 of the school system's estimated 67,000 students are enrolled in the city's bilingual education program. Those students speak 113 different languages.

New Order In The Court: Popularity Is Out, Diversity In at Homecomings (The Washington Post, October 12, 2003)
As most homecoming traditions -- from bonfires to pep rallies to football games -- have endured, the criteria for selecting who's cool in school has not. Indeed, high SAT scores and grade-point averages are in -- maybe more than athletic prowess at some schools.

Md. Faults U.S. Law For Poor Scores (The Washington Post, October 10, 2003)
Thirty Maryland elementary schools -- most from the Washington area -- failed to meet standards required by the No Child Left Behind law because they assisted thousands of children who have disabilities or limited English skills on a key standardized test, state and local officials said yesterday. The officials said they and educators in other states are being squeezed between two sets of federal rules: one that invalidates the scores of children who had the test read to them and another that requires schools to provide such help.

Parents Study The Language Of Learning (The Washington Post, October 6, 2003)
An outreach program for immigrant families in Howard County teaches practical English used in the classroom and helps bridge cultural differences.

Greater Mix Is Urged In Schools (The Baltimore Sun, September 28, 2003)
When poor children attend school with students from wealthier backgrounds, they perform much better on standardized tests, according to a new study of Baltimore-area schools written for the Abell Foundation by economist and urban policy authority David Rusk.

Education Chief Says Schools Failing Minorities (The Boston Globe, September 25, 2003)
Education Secretary Rod Paige said yesterday that many minority children are so badly served by public schools that their circumstances can be compared to apartheid.

Breaking Language Barriers (The Baltimore Sun, September 17, 2003)
During Back-to-school nights this year, Howard County is providing new interpretation services for parents who are not proficient English speakers -- to allow them to hear what is being said in their own languages.

Latino Leaders Want Pr. George's Charter (The Washington Post, September 17, 2003)
A small group of Latino community leaders announced yesterday that it will seek approval for a charter school in Prince George's County designed to help immigrant students.

U.S. Officials Pull Questions From Surveys About Children (The New York Times, September 16, 2003)
The board that oversees national achievement tests has moved to curtail sharply the background surveys of students, teachers and principals that accompany the examinations, alarming researchers and others who rely on the surveys as an important source of information.

Schools Try To Build Bridges To Immigrant, Poor Parents (The Seattle Times, September 15, 2003)
As suburban areas become more diverse, school districts are facing a challenge urban educators have long struggled to meet: building trust and involvement from immigrants and low-income parents of color.

Breaking The 'Math Whiz' Stereotype (The Baltimore Sun, September 2, 2003)
Asian-Americans, long known for their soaring math scores, are cheering the fact that they are finally above average verbally. This is the first year Asian-Americans collectively scored above average, according to the College Board, which oversees the SATs, the college entrance exams.

Poor, Others Fall Short On New Md. Test (The Washington Post, August 23, 2003)
Children living in poverty, those with limited English skills and special education students failed as groups to meet state standards on a new reading and math exam that will be used to hold Maryland's public schools accountable for the next decade.

States Pay $7.4 Billion To Educate Illegals (The Washington Times, August 21, 2003)
Educating illegal immigrants in public schools costs states at least $7.4 billion annually, according to a study by the Federation for American Immigration Reform that argues American children are being hurt by the drain on resources.

High-School Exit Exams Show Their Staying Power, Study Says (The San Diego Union-Tribune, August 13, 2003)
High-school graduation now hinges on exit exams for more than half of public school students, a number on the rise despite some messy consequences -- unexpected costs, greater failure rates for minorities and maybe more dropouts -- according to a study by the Center on Education Policy study.

Fairfax Official Laments Magnet's Scant Diversity (The Washington Post, August 9, 2003)
Of the 1,689 students enrolled at the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology -- Fairfax County's elite magnet school -- only 40 are Hispanic.

Opinion: Berated Law Can Benefit Kids Who Most Need Help (The Baltimore Sun, August 3, 2003)
"THERE ARE a lot of negatives about the No Child Left Behind Act, the federal measure that has the schools of America scrambling. It has unrealistic rules, regulations and timetables. It's a huge financial burden for states and school districts. Even its title is negative. Why didn't they call it the "Every Child Progressing Act"? But then you think about its purpose."

For Staff, Building School Spirit Is Just The Beginning (The Washington Post, July 24, 2003)
Arlington's newest school -- Claremont Immersion Elementary School, or Escuela Primaria de Immersion -- will be Arlington's second dual-language (Spanish and English) immersion school.

Majority Of Students Pass Md.'S New Tests (The Baltimore Sun, July 23, 2003)
Half to two-thirds of students who took the state's new tests in March performed at a "proficient" - or passing - level under scoring standards approved yesterday by the state Board of Education. But the overall proficiency of the 260,000 children in grades three, five, eight and 10 who took the tests in reading and math masked a poor performance by minorities, children from families in poverty and those with disabilities. In third-grade mathematics, for example, fewer than half of black children scored at the proficient and advanced levels, while four of five white children met that target. Among special education children, a little more than a third in grades three and five and a fifth in grade eight passed the reading test, while 8.4 percent of eighth-graders passed the math exam.

Hispanic Education Partnership Formed (CNN.com, July 10, 2003)
The White House and leading Hispanic organizations have teamed up to try to improve the educational performances of the largest U.S. minority group.

Translation Transformation (The Washington Post, July 9, 2003)
Once performed by volunteers, as a luxury or an afterthought, translation is now seen as a necessity in many jurisdictions. School districts and local governments are hiring professional translators for printed material -- and interpreters for meetings -- to ensure competent communication between institutions and growing immigrant communities. This month, Alexandria public schools introduced Spanish interpreters to provide simultaneous translation at School Board meetings; Alexandria city government is expanding translation services to all of its agencies this year. Arlington, Fairfax and Montgomery county schools and governments have hired full-time translators. The D.C. Council is considering a bill that calls for more translation services.

Law Redefines Va.'S Approach To SOL Exams: Federal Test Standard Labeled Unreasonable (The Washington Post, July 3, 2003)
Children at Fairfax County's Holmes Middle School have been acing the state Standards of Learning exams. But Holmes, along with hundreds of other Virginia schools, will likely be told in August that it "needs improvement" because under the federal government's No Child Left Behind law a school is performing adequately only if every subgroup -- including minority children, special education students and those who speak little English -- progresses on the tests at the same rate as a school's total student body.

Agency Will Look At Pa. Students' Language Barrier (The Philadelphia Inquirer, July 1, 2003)
The U.S. Department of Education will investigate complaints that the Pennsylvania Department of Education does not adequately accommodate students with limited English-speaking ability taking the PSSA, the state's school assessment test.

Latino Parents Shaking Off Timidity (The Washington Post, June 23, 2003)
Montgomery County school system's Latino Family Empowerment Program teaches new immigrants to take part in their children's education.

D.C. Puts Best Face On School Report (The Washington Times, June 21, 2003)
The superintendent of D.C. public schools yesterday said he had found some good news in a new national report that ranks D.C. schoolchildren as the country's worst readers and only slightly better than some non-English-speaking children in the U.S. territories. Superintendent Paul L. Vance said the achievement gap between white, black and Hispanic students has narrowed.

In Kindergarten, Celebrities du Jour (The Washington Post, June 20, 2003)
In the heart of Prince George's County is an island of little Francophiles -- children who learned to read and count in another language not long after they learned to read and count in English. At Shadyside Elementary in Suitland, 200 of the school's 495 students are enrolled in a French immersion program.

A Study in Diversity, Making a Difference (The Washington Post, June 19, 2003)
When Brian Lamb, president and chief executive of C-SPAN, interviewed 27 high school students from Einstein High School in Kensington, MD, he not only elicited stories of courage and persistence, but also uncovered a culture of tolerance and sheer niceness that is often thought not to exist among high school students.

Hispanic Dropout Rate More Complex Than High (Chicago Sun-Times, June 13, 2003)
Hispanics in their late teens born outside the United States are twice as likely to drop out of high school as U.S.-born Latinos, according to an analysis of census data released Thursday.

An Unusual Path (Richmond Times-Dispatch, June 10, 2003)
A Better Chance Scholars Program identifies academically talented minority students living in situations that leave them at risk of failing in school, and places them in more motivating and supportive academic environments.

Diverse View Of College Diversity (The Philadelphia Inquirer, June 9, 2003)
The Philadelphia Inquirer interviewed 45 students, chosen randomly, at seven selective colleges in the Philadelphia area region, for their opinions on how affirmative action and diversity these affect the college experience.

Race Unity Day Comes to Legislative Mall in Dover, Delaware, This Weekend  (Delaware State News, June 6, 2003)
Local residents from varying cultural and ethnic backgrounds will gather at Legislative Mall on Sunday for Dover's 14th annual Race Unity Day celebration.

Hispanic Students Bring New Challenges (CNN.com, June 3, 2003)
The nation's schools must get ready to serve students who are changing the face of public education. Hispanic youths are growing in number faster than whites or blacks, mirroring an overall population surge that has made Hispanics the nation's largest minority.

For Salvadoran Grad, An Uncertain Future (The Baltimore Sun, June 3, 2003)
A 17-year- old's dreams of attending the University of Maryland ended with the veto of the in-state tuition bill.

Languages Classes Leave Students Tongue (The Washington Post, June 3, 2003)
How is it that year after year, in school after school, many students try to burn into memory the structure, vocabulary and sound of another language, only to graduate unable to converse in it?

Test Scores Rise At Montgomery 'Focus' Schools (The Washington Post, May 30, 2003)
Montgomery County's poor and immigrant schoolchildren, the focus of an initiative that includes all-day kindergarten and smaller classes, increased their scores in nearly all subjects on the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills, according to data on second-graders to be released today. The results highlight the progress of this year's second-graders at 17 "focus" schools, the first pupils to be served since kindergarten under Superintendent Jerry D. Weast's initiatives.

Immigrant Parents Finding A Voice (The Washington Post, May 28, 2003)
Increasingly, the school districts in the Washington, D.C. metro region are developing innovative programs -- from culturally specific booklets in Montgomery County to breakfast gatherings in Arlington -- to encourage immigrants to take an active role in their children's education.

NAEP Exclusion Rates Continue To Bedevil Policymakers (Education Week, May 28, 2003)
The board that sets policy for the National Assessment of Educational Progress continues to grapple with how to report scores for states that exclude large numbers of students from naep because they have disabilities or limited fluency in English.

Hispanic Students: Growing Numbers, Growing Expectations (San Francisco Chronicle, May 26, 2003)
The nation's schools must get ready to serve students who are changing the face of public education. Hispanic youths are growing in number faster than whites or blacks, mirroring an overall population surge that has made Hispanics the nation's largest minority.

Tracking Latino Progress (San Jose Mercury News, May 22, 2003)
Latinos climb the economic and educational ladder across generations as quickly as European immigrants, according to a study released by the Rand Corporation.

Immigrant Advocates Say Fight Isn't Over (The Washington Post, May 22, 2003)
Gov. Ehrlich vetoed a bill passed by the General Assembly last month that would allow Maryland high school graduates to pay in-state rates regardless of their immigration status. Ehrlich (R) said he was concerned that the measure, by tacitly accepting illegal immigration, was part of a trend of "slowly chipping away at the central goal of citizenship." He also said he was worried that the bill might violate a 1996 federal law barring states from providing illegal immigrant residents with low tuition rates not available to U.S. citizens who do not live in the state.

Opinion: Sit In For School Equality (The Washington Post, May 19, 2003)
"Originally intended to be a social equalizer, public schools more often than not perpetuate the inequalities that exist in our society . . . Imagine, though, that children could once again lead us to see the absurdity of this injustice. Imagine that next fall, all across the country, children forced to attend poorly equipped and failing schools showed up at the doors of good suburban schools and simply sat down . . . A sit-in movement that targeted good, suburban schools obviously would not on its own solve the problem of educational inequality, but it just might make that problem impossible to ignore."

A Scarcity Of Minority Teachers (The Baltimore Sun, May 18, 2003)
Reflecting racial diversity is a problem districts across the nation are facing as the pool of minority teacher applicants dwindles while the country becomes more and more nonwhite.

Raising Hope For Better Life, Citizenship (The Baltimore Sun, May 13, 2003)
In 47 states, students who do not have proper immigration documents are not allowed to pay in-state tuition at state colleges. Two bills in Congress would grant immigrant students who have graduated from high school, lived in the United States for at least five years and have not committed major crimes the chance to apply for citizenship.

Opinion: Liberal Orthodoxy Vs. Minority Students  (The Washington Times, May 12, 2003)
"D.C. Mayor Tony Williams — whose support for school choice for city students doesn't sit well with congressional Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton — isn't the only local black leader ruffling some feathers by challenging the canons of orthodox left-liberalism. In neighboring Maryland, the state chapter of the NAACP is urging Gov. Robert Ehrlich to delay signing a bill that would give lower in-state college tuition rates for illegal immigrants. Although the great majority of black lawmakers in the General Assembly voted in favor of the bill during this year's legislative session, black Marylanders seem to be having second thoughts, to the displeasure of the staunchest liberal ideologues in Maryland's Legislative Black Caucus, like Delegate Salima Marriott of Baltimore."

D.C.'S Latino Youth Face Barriers, Study Says (The Washington Post, May 10, 2003)
Latino children, Washington's fastest-growing population, are poorer, less likely to have health insurance and more likely to drop out of school, become teenage mothers and face language and cultural barriers than other youngsters, according to "The State of Latino Kids in the District of Columbia," an 85-page report compiled by the Council of Latino Agencies in Columbia Heights.

Tuition Issue Makes For Unusual Alliances (The Washington Post, May 9, 2003)
An unusual set of coalitions has emerged to lobby Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) on one of the more controversial measures passed by the General Assembly this past session: a bill to allow illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition rates at Maryland colleges. Conservative Republicans and groups favoring curbs on immigration have been joined by some African American lawmakers and the state NAACP. They argue that the measure would unwisely reward illegal immigration and come at the expense of Maryland's underprivileged citizens, who would face increased competition for slots at state colleges and universities.

Immigrants Caught In Tuition Limbo (The Washington Post, May 3, 2003)
Maryland legislators recently passed a bill that would let such immigrants qualify for in-state tuition if they had spent at least three years at a Maryland secondary school, although Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) has not yet decided whether to sign it into law. Across the river, Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner (D) this week vetoed new legislation that would have explicitly prohibited the state's illegal immigrants from paying in-state tuition. Yet in both states, there are no clear estimates on how many students are in a position to need such help or whether the recent legislative efforts would have a significant or visible impact on enrollment at public colleges.

Immigrant Tuition Bill Blocked (Richmond Times-Dispatch, May 1, 2003)
In a swipe at ruling Republicans in the General Assembly, the governor yesterday killed legislation intended to ban undocumented immigrants from obtaining in-state tuition at state colleges and universities.

Va., U.S. Differ On Tests For Special-Ed Students (Richmond Times-Dispatch, April 30, 2003)
Virginia and the U.S. Department of Education do not agree on how to implement the federal No Child Left Behind Act. At issue is the federal department's insistence that virtually all children with disabilities and those who do not speak English as their first language be subject to the same Standards of Learning tests as other students.

Virginia's SAT Scores Show 1992-2002 Improvement (Richmond Times-Dispatch, April 27, 2003)
Between 1992 and 2002, Virginia was one of only four Southern states to narrow the "achievement gap" between Hispanic and white students on the SAT test.

Testing Gaps Still Big In City Schools (The Washington Times, April 23, 2003)
Eight of the nation's 10 top-spending, inner-city school systems, including District of Columbia Public Schools, have made marginal improvements in the achievement gap between whites and minorities during the past two decades, according to a report issued by the Council of the Great City Schools.

Latino Groups Urge Veto Of In-State Tuition Limits (Richmond Times-Dispatch, April 22, 2003)
Leaders of Virginia's growing Latino community have called on Gov. Mark R. Warner to veto legislation denying in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants.

Latinos Push Warner To Veto Tuition Bill (The Washington Post, April 22, 2003)
Latino leaders urged Gov. Mark R. Warner today to veto legislation barring illegal immigrants from receiving in-state tuition rates at Virginia colleges. Administration officials and Warner's fellow Democrats said he favors vetoing the bill before a May 2 deadline for such action.

Gates Vows Billions To Boost Minority Education (The Washington Times, April 21, 2003)
Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates is committing billions of dollars to radically redesign failing public high schools into smaller, more academically rigorous institutions in predominantly black and Hispanic communities in which less than half the students graduate.

Wider Fallout Seen From Race-Neutral Admissions (The Washington Post, April 19, 2003)
According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, if its member schools relied strictly on academic measures for admissions, the proportions of black, Hispanic and Native American medical students would fall from the current 11 percent to no more than 3 percent. The situation is similar for the nation's law schools, particularly highly selective ones, the Law School Admission Council said.

Raise The Bar For Poor, Minority Kids, Paige Urges Educators  (The Los Angeles Times, April 13, 2003)
Education Secretary Rod Paige urged hundreds of educators gathered for a conference in Anaheim to raise their expectations of poor and minority children.

College An Elusive Goal For Illegal Immigrants (The Philadelphia Inquirer, April 8, 2003)
In Pennsylvania and New Jersey, illegal immigrants aren't able to go to college - even though the U.S. Supreme Court gives them the right to a high school cap and gown.

Missing On Top Campuses: The Poor (The Seattle Times, April 7, 2003)
The most under-represented group of Americans at the nation's top colleges and universities is not blacks or Hispanics, but students from low-income families, according to a report released last week by the Educational Testing Service.

Immigrant Tuition Bill Passes In Md. (The Washington Post, April 6, 2003)
The Maryland General Assembly yesterday passed legislation to extend in-state tuition benefits to illegal immigrants attending state colleges and universities, but the Senate and House still must resolve a related effort to help military personnel with tuition costs if the bill is to become law.

Language Of Success (The Washington Post, April 6, 2003)
According to the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Vocational and Adult Education, there are more than 2 million adults enrolled in state-administered ESL classes in the United States. Beyond those federally funded programs, which are often taught in public schools and community colleges, ESL is also being offered in church basements, community centers and private homes by instructors with varying degrees of training. Some volunteer just a few hours a week; some patch together jobs at various sites. Very few find full-time work.

Language Barrier Hinders Test-Takers (The Philadelphia Inquirer, April 4, 2003)
Lori Lattanzio says that most of her fifth-grade students at Mary D. Lang Elementary School in Kennett Square are smart and motivated. But, she laments, they will probably fare poorly on the state's most critical standardized test, the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA). That's because English is a second language for them.Some have been in the United States so briefly that they barely know it at all.

Warner Weighs Next Step On Tuition (Richmond Times-Dispatch, April 4, 2003)
The General Assembly should have allowed about 100 of Virginia's illegal immigrants to obtain in-state tuition at public colleges and universities, Gov. Mark R. Warner said yesterday. But the House on Wednesday overwhelmingly rejected the governor's proposed changes to a measure the assembly approved last winter.

Language As A 'Vehicle Of Peace' (The Baltimore Sun, March 30, 2003)
The people who teach English to non-English speakers around the world met in Baltimore last week. Some 6,000 educators, researchers and linguists from 96 countries considered such topics as "Perception of final consonants by Hmong speakers" and "Using multimedia tools in collaborative learning."

Assembly Guts Ehrlich Plan On Charter Schools (The Washington Post, March 25, 2003)
The Maryland House of Delegates gave final approval yesterday to bipartisan legislation intended to expand the number of charter schools in the state, but it falls short of the reforms sought by Republican Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., and senior aides threatened a veto.

Minority Students Narrow Test Gap (Houston Chronicle, March 24, 2003)
Black and Hispanic students in Houston schools are closing in on their Anglo counterparts on standardized tests, according to a new study by the Council of Great City Schools.

For Kindergartners, A Day Well Spent  (The Washington Post, March 20, 2003)
Minnieville and five other Prince William schools, are providing extended-day kindergarten programs for children who need more language experience.

Families Learn New Languages (The Washington Post, March 17, 2003)
As more parents enroll their children in immersion programs, hoping to prepare them for life and work in a global economy, some are confronting a slightly unnerving challenge: how to help a child study various subjects -- not just reading and writing but science and math -- in a language they themselves neither speak nor understand.

Lorton School Brings Deep Division (The Washington Post, March 16, 2003)
Since the order was given to close the century-old prison by the end of 2001, rapid development has created a new Lorton -- and a debate about who should attend the elementary school that will open in September to serve it . . .in this case, the parents least displaced by the new Lorton plan -- those whose children will stay put or move to schools even closer to home -- were its most vocal opponents . . . Nobody, it seems, wants the kids from Route 1. More than half of them receive free or reduced-price lunches, which is the only indicator of socioeconomic status in school enrollment data. More than one-third are immigrants or the children of immigrants, learning English as a second language.

Va. Tech Bars Bias By Race, Gender (Richmond Times-Dispatch, March 12, 2003)
Virginia's Tech's governing board has officially prohibited the consideration of race and gender in its admissions process, following the advice of the state attorney general.

Reexamining Minority Admissions (The Washington Post, March 12, 2003)
As the Supreme Court prepares to hear a challenge to race-conscious admissions at the University of Michigan, the internal maneuverings at William and Mary point to a gap between the words and actions of many elite colleges. Even as they assert their right to continue considering the ethnicity of applicants in the pursuit of diversity, several schools have subtly changed the way they make those decisions in an effort to stay beneath the radar of affirmative-action foes.

Shouldering A Language Burden (The Philadelphia Inquirer, March 9, 2003)
As old as immigration itself, interpreting by children can help parents survive but subvert family roles with ulcer-causing pressure. It can edify children but stall adults from learning English. It can relieve community services but exacerbate all kinds of ills, from truancy to medical errors.

Schools' Diversity Outreach Seeks To Share The Language Of Learning (The Baltimore Sun, March 5, 2003)
Cultural diversity is more than just a popular educational theme in Howard County - it is a reality. More than 1,500 county students receive ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) services. These children come from 81 countries and speak 73 languages. Many of them have parents who speak little English and are unfamiliar with how an American school system operates.

Washington House Oks In-State Tuition For Illegal Aliens (The Washington Times, February 26, 2003)
House members in Washington state have overwhelmingly passed a bill allowing illegal aliens — mainly Hispanics — to attend the state's public colleges and universities at resident-tuition rates, provided they agree to take civics or citizenship courses.

Schools Seek Gifted Among Minorities (The Washington Times, February 24, 2003)
Maryland school districts and nonprofit groups are trying to address the underrepresentation of minority children in programs for the gifted.

In-State Tuition No Longer Applies; Senate Passes Bill Aimed At Illegals (Richmond Times-Dispatch, February 20, 2003)
The Senate passed 27-13 yesterday - just enough to override a potential gubernatorial veto - a bill that makes illegal aliens ineligible for in-state tuition rates at Virginia's colleges and universities.

English-Language Learners Called At Risk (The Washington Post, February 18, 2003)
Emma Violand-Sanchez, who heads the English as a Second Language program in Arlington County, is mad about the federal No Child Left Behind Act because it requires expensive standardized tests not aligned with Arlington's ESL curriculum, and demands that students take the exams in English before she believes they are ready.

To Reach Minorities, Schools Rethink How To Calculate 'Gifted'  (The Baltimore Sun, February 16, 2003)
School districts and nonprofit groups from California to Georgia - including some in Maryland - are taking steps to address the under-representation of minority children in gifted programs.

Warner Asks For Time To Study Alien Tuition (The Washington Times, February 14, 2003)
Gov. Mark R. Warner said yesterday he needs more time to consider - and perhaps amend - a bill requiring illegal aliens to pay out-of-state rates to attend Virginia public colleges and universities.

Opinion: Bowing Before The Altar Of Diversity (The Washington Times, February 12, 2003)
"When justifying his recent stand against race preferences at the University of Michigan, President Bush felt compelled to place a generous pinch of incense at the politically correct altar of diversity. This obligatory ritual, practiced ostentatiously by virtually all public figures, is not only vague and redundant. It subverts equal opportunity and tears at our social fabric. America is diversity, the world's melting simmering with past and present immigrants."

Admissions Studies Find Flaws (The Los Angeles Times, February 11, 2003)
College admissions "percent plans," which guarantee admission to top high school students, do not make a significant difference on their own in maintaining ethnic diversity, according to two reports released Monday by Harvard University's Civil Rights Project.

MIT Drops A Policy For Minorities (The Boston Globe, February 11, 2003)
Under investigation by the federal Office for Civil Rights, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has scrapped the minority-only admission policy for two summer programs designed to build science and math skills in high-school students and incoming college freshmen.

Princeton to End Minority Program (Richmond Times-Dispatch, February 7, 2003)
Princeton University will stop offering a summer enrichment program for minority students because of concerns that it could be targeted in an affirmative action lawsuit. Administrators of the Woodrow Wilson School Junior Summer Institute made the decision earlier this week after Princeton's lawyers determined the program's race-based admissions policy could not be defended in court.

Even After English Lesson, Foreign Kids Lag On Tests (The Miami Herald, January 31, 2003)
Immigrant high school students learning English score better on tests given in their native language, even two years after the district labeled them proficient in English, according to a Miami-Dade County schools study.

Opinion: Hispanic Population Gains Fail To Translate In Classroom (USA Today, January 30, 2003)
"Last week's Census report that Hispanics are now the USA's largest minority group came as no surprise to Los Angeles schools, where 71% of the students fall in that category. But if the district is at the cutting edge of a national demographic trend, Hispanic children face a bleak educational future. In Los Angeles, one in four Hispanics drop out of school, and the average Hispanic third-grader reads at the 31st-percentile on a test used nationally to measure basic reading skills. That's well below the 50th-percentile norm for all U.S. students. Those educational disadvantages for Hispanics are mirrored nationally, where 62% of fourth-graders read below grade level on standardized federal tests, the dropout rate far exceeds that for whites and blacks, and a smaller percentage attend four-year colleges than the other two groups."

Bilingual Education, Race To Collide In California Recall (The Washington Times, January 28, 2003)
California voters are bracing for a showdown over bilingual education next week between a Silicon Valley millionaire and a Hispanic activist described as the Al Sharpton of Orange County.

Blackfoot Tells School Of His People's History (The Baltimore Sun, January 22, 2003)
The Going-to-the-Sun Institute is an educational organization, founded in 1994, whose its goals are to preserve the knowledge and oral traditions of the Plains Indians, sharing them with Indians and non-Indians.

Hispanics Are Now Largest U.S. Minority (The News Journal, January 22, 2003)
Hispanics have surged past blacks and now constitute the largest minority group in the United States, a status Latino leaders are sure to use to push for political and economic advances. The Census Bureau released estimates Tuesday showing the Hispanic population rose 4.7 percent between April 2000 and July 2001, from 35.3 million to 37 million. During the same period, the non-Hispanic black population rose about 2 percent, from 35.5 million to 36.1 million.

Balto. Co. Group Offers Ideas On Achievement (The Baltimore Sun, January 17, 2003)
Baltimore County's Minority Achievement Advisory Group urged principals at poorly performing schools yesterday to observe classes more frequently and limit the number of students in hallways to help improve standardized test scores. The group submitted the ideas to Superintendent Joe A. Hairston and the Board of Education as part of a package of recommendations.

Illegal Immigrants' Kids Catch A College Break (USA Today, January 14, 2003)
Recently proposed legislation, dubbed the Dream Act, would make it easier for states to exempt undocumented students from non-resident tuition if they choose to, and provide a pathway for those students to become legal U.S. citizens.

Education Act Ties Cash To Exams (San Francisco Chronicle, January 9, 2003)
By 2014, it will be illegal to do poorly in school. That's essentially what the new federal Education Act says, requiring every student group—blacks, whites, Latinos, English-learners and the disabled—to do well in school or jeopardize federal Title I funding for poor students.

First Comes The Language (Richmond Times-Dispatch, January 7, 2003)
Nationwide, about 78 percent of ESL students speak Spanish as their native language, said Maria Hernandez Ferrier, director of the U.S. Department of Education's Office of English Language Acquisition.

Question & Answer: Maria Hernandez Ferrier (Richmond Times-Dispatch, January 7, 2003)
An interview with the director of the federal Department of Education's Office of English Language Acquisition, Language Enhancement and Academic Achievement for Limited English Proficient Students.

Latinos Ready Wish List For Md. (The Washington Post, December 29, 2002)
Maryland's Latino advocates, who helped elect three Latinos to office this fall and drew unprecedented attention from both political parties, are now seeking to translate their newfound political presence into legislative results. Crafting an ambitious agenda for the General Assembly session that begins Jan. 8, activists say they will focus on three goals: establishing a state health insurance plan for the more than 600,000 Marylanders who are not covered; allowing undocumented students who attended Maryland schools to pay in-state tuition rates at state colleges and universities; and permitting undocumented immigrants to obtain driver's licenses.

Opinion: Can Maryland Close The Achievement Gap? (The Washington Post, December 24, 2002)
"Recent statewide reports on academic performance by race and ethnicity are dismal . . . the Maryland Department of Education's report on the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program exam reported that black and Hispanic students achieve academically at just half the rate of their white and Asian classmates . . . The good news is that there is a growing national consensus about how to mitigate the academic achievement gap. The preponderance of research demonstrates that high-quality preschool programs not only prepare children for later success in school but also produce tremendous social and economic benefits, including reduced crime rates, lower remediation costs and increased income levels over time."

More Skip Ethnicity Declaration On Tests (The Baltimore Sun, December 17, 2002)
Rising numbers of teens who do not declare their ethnicity on college prep tests might be missing out on thousands of dollars in education aid set aside for minorities. In Maryland, the number of students not identifying their race on last year's PSAT more than doubled from the year before, to 1,134 students. There was a similar increase nationally.

Inspired To Do Their Part For Diversity (The Baltimore Sun, December 16, 2002)
Students from 17 Baltimore area private schools attended a recent Student Diversity Leadership Conference at New Psalmist Baptist Church in West Baltimore.

Signs Of The Achievement Gap (The Washington Post, December 12, 2002)
Howard County's (Md.) public schools share at least one serious problem with schools across the country: The achievement gap for minority students is pervasive here.

Hispanic Elementary School Students Win Funds (The Philadelphia Inquirer, December 12, 2002)
Futuro Educacional Inc., a nonprofit scholarship organization, has awarded $80,000 in scholarship funds to 110 Hispanic elementary school students from the North Philadelphia and Kensington areas, officials announced this week.

County's High Schools Score Poorly On New Test (The Washington Post, December 12, 2002)
Prince George's County students posted dismal scores on a new state exam that high school students will be required to pass before earning a diploma starting in 2007. The first-ever results of the Maryland High School Assessment, released by the Maryland State Department of Education last week, also showed that black, Hispanic and Native American high school students are more poorly prepared to pass the exam than their white and Asian counterparts in Prince George's and statewide.

African American, Hispanic Students Gain In Tests (The Philadelphia Inquirer, December 9, 2002)
African American and Hispanic fifth graders across Pennsylvania improved in reading on this year's state assessment tests, according to data released this week by the state Department of Education.

Minorities' Scores Lag On Revised Md. Exam (The Washington Post, December 6, 2002)
Thousands of low-income and minority high school students in Maryland are poorly prepared to pass a new state exam that will be required for a diploma by 2007. The first-ever results of the Maryland High School Assessment, released yesterday, provide a stark reminder of a racial achievement gap that educators across the country are wrestling with at every grade level. As a group, Asian and non-Hispanic white students consistently scored higher than black, Hispanic and Native American students in each of the five Maryland High School Assessment test subjects: English, biology, geometry, government and algebra.

More Latinos Completing College (CNN.com, December 5, 2002)
Many more Hispanic immigrants are completing high school and earning college degrees, but the education gap with native-born Americans remains wide, according to a report by the Pew Hispanic Center.

Immigrant Education Levels Rise (The Washington Post, December 5, 2002)
Education levels among Latino immigrants have sharply improved in recent decades, according to a report released by the Pew Hispanic Center. The report suggests such Hispanics will begin to close the yawning gap they have with native-born Americans.

Families Send Children Back Home For Traditional Education (The Los Angeles Times, December 3, 2002)
Immigrants say it's worth the sacrifice in time and money for their youngsters to learn the culture and values of Mexico.

Indian Students' Protest Turns Into Fundraiser (The Washington Post, December 2, 2002)
What started out as an attempt to shame a local high school into dropping a mascot name viewed as racist has raised at least $100,000 for scholarships for American Indian college students. The effort began last winter when a group of American Indian students at the University of Northern Colorado asked officials at nearby Eaton High School to change the school's mascot from "Fighting Reds" because the name was offensive. When the school refused, members of a Northern Colorado intramural basketball team, made up of Indians and whites, decided to take action. They named themselves the "Fightin' Whites" and began wearing T-shirts bearing the name. After getting national media attention they began selling the shirts, which also bear the slogan "Every thang's going to be all white," from their Web site. More than 15,000 shirts and hats have been sold, raising at least $100,000.

School Plan Seeks 2nd Language For All (The Sacramento Bee, December 1, 2002)
In rapidly changing California, where minority students are the majority, a new master plan for education would change academic standards to signal that learning to speak and read only English isn't good enough anymore.

Scholarship Created For Students With Hepatitis C (The Philadelphia Inquirer, November 22, 2002)
The Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund and Hispanic Scholarship Fund have created a New Horizons Scholars Program to provide college scholarships to Hispanic and African American students who have hepatitis C or are dependents of someone with the disease. The program is funded by the Roche Foundation. The scholarships are designed to improve African American and Hispanic student enrollment in higher education. The program will provide 50 scholarships per year to students planning to enroll for the first time in a four-year college during the 2003-2004 or 2004-2005 academic years.

Trading Places In the Cafeteria (The Washington Post, November 22, 2002)
Across the country this week, schools tried to shake up the invisible boundaries -- race, class, clothes, sports -- that come into stark relief in the shifting social structure of the school cafeteria. Mix It Up was the first nationwide activity sponsored by Teaching Tolerance, a program of the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center.

Study: Minority Students Equally Driven (CNN.com, November 20, 2002)
Black and Hispanic students have as much desire to succeed in school as their white and Asian peers, according to a study by the Minority Student Achievement Network. The conclusion is based on a survey of 40,000 high school students in 15 school districts across the country.

Board Backs Smith's AP Expansion Plan (The Washington Post, November 14, 2002)
AP classes have, in the past, been courses open only to students who write essays or get teacher recommendations. For the most part, only the smartest and hardest-working college-bound students sign up to take them. Anne Arundel Public Schools Superintendent Eric Smith has insisted that a signature element of his tenure will be opening up AP opportunities to all students -- including poor students, black and Hispanic students and students who perform in the middle of the pack. The Anne Arundel school board has voted unanimously to support this "cornerstone" of the superintendent's vision for the school system.

Activist Forces Retitling Of Play (The Washington Times, November 12, 2002)
A Montgomery County high school has agreed to change the name of its fall play, "Ten Little Indians," after a local Native American activist complained that the title was offensive.

Weak Pupils Rise Above 'Summer Slide' (The Washington Post, November 11, 2002)
A new Montgomery County summer school program that sought to accelerate struggling students, rather than concentrate on tedious review, appears to have stemmed the academic free-fall that many poor and non-English-speaking children experience during the summer, according to a recent study.

Dissecting Bilingual Education's Poll Defeat (The Boston Globe, November 10, 2002)
Mass. officials hadn't even finished counting all the ballots when local bilingual education e-mail groups began crackling about how and why probilingual efforts were crushed on Election Day.

Fallout Begins On Bilingual Vote: Reform May Face Challenges, Cost Millions (The Boston Herald, November 7, 2002)
Question 2 rippled across the state's education landscape yesterday, a few hours after 68 percent of the voters approved the measure replacing bilingual education with English immersion instruction. School superintendents fear it. State education officials aren't quite sure what to do with it. Opponents say they expect a legal challenge to it. Proponents say they'll fight to preserve the historic voter-mandated education policy shake-up.

Bilingual-Ed Backers Found Ally In Parents (The Denver Post, November 7, 2002)
Upsetting white voters and keeping Latino activists quiet were the keys to saving bilingual education in Colorado, according to the consultants who helped defeat Amendment 31 on Tuesday.

Conversion To Immersion (Christian Science Monitor, November 6, 2002)
Should the education of immigrants be entirely in English? As voters in two states weigh in, the Monitor looks at a Massachusetts city that's just beginning a conversion to immersion.

Ban On Bilingual Education Wins Big In Massachusetts (The Washington Times, November 6, 2002)
Massachusetts voters overwhelmingly approved a ban on bilingual education, but Colorado voters were rejecting the same measure.

Victory For Bilingual Ed (Rocky Mountain News, November 6, 2002)
Coloradans minced no words with the message they sent by voting down a constitutional amendment that would have changed the way non-native children learn the English language.

English Immersion Plan Wins Over Bilingual Ed (The Boston Globe, November 6, 2002)
Massachusetts voters overwhelmingly rejected bilingual education and replaced it with all-English classes, defying educators and politicians who had warned the contentious measure would spell disaster for thousands of students struggling to learn English.

School Teaching In Chinese Is A Lure For Black Children (The New York Times, November 2, 2002)
At Shuang Wen Academy -- a public school on the Lower East Side of Manhattan where much of the day is spent learning Mandarin -- most of the students are children of Chinese immigrants, but almost 10 percent of the students are black, and many of them come from the outer reaches of the city, enduring long trips for the chance to attend a school that has developed a reputation for excellence.

Meeting On Revising Sols To Be Next Week (Richmond Times-Dispatch, October 31, 2002)
A hearing on proposed changes to two sets of Standards of Learning - English and limited English proficiency - has been scheduled for Wednesday, November 6th.

A Retreat From Foreign Languages? (The Christian Science Monitor, October 29, 2002)
As testing increases in core academic subjects, languages are an issue on a number of states' agendas. A few months ago, the New Jersey legislature made it easier for high-schoolers to have their foreign-language requirements waived.

Opinion: Bilingualism: A Burning Issue (The Washington Times, October 26, 2002)
The author defends efforts to replace failing bilingual education programs with English immersion classes.

Hispanics, Blacks Do Better On SOL Tests (The Washington Post, October 24, 2002)
The percentage of African American and Hispanic students who passed their Standards of Learning tests in Virginia increased again this year, although their scores continued to lag behind those of white students.

Black Students Narrow Test Gap (Richmond Times-Dispatch, October 24, 2002)
While students from all races have posted improvements on most Standards of Learning tests in the last five years, an "achievement gap" persists between minority students and their white counterparts. According to results released yesterday by the Virginia Department of Education, black students narrowed this gap in most tests, while the difference between Hispanic and white students has widened in most cases.

Jefferson High's Test-Prep Course Is Overly Popular (The Washington Post, October 19, 2002)
So many students signed up for a new test-preparation course for eighth-graders interested in attending Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology that some educators say it is diluting the initial intent -- to encourage applications from black and Hispanic students.

Panel Says Schools Fail Indians (The Salt Lake Tribune, October 16, 2002)
American Indian education officials met Tuesday to design solutions to the trend of alarming dropout rates, low test scores and the high rate of Indian children labeled learning deficient. The Indian Education Strategic Planning Task Force, with participants from Utah, Arizona and New Mexico, said all seven of Utah's Indian tribes continue to face daunting education challenges. They want the state to make Indian education a top priority.

Some Parents Of Bilingual Students Say English Vital For Future, Pan Bilingual Classes  (San Diego Union-Tribune, October 14, 2002)
Some Hispanic immigrants are blaming bilingual classes for slowing children's progress in English. An amendment on the Nov. 5 ballot (California) would require 70,000 children to learn English in an intense program aimed at getting them into regular classrooms after one year. A similar measure is on the ballot in Massachusetts.

Census: Hispanic Dropout Numbers Soar (CNN.com, October 11, 2002)
Hispanics make up an increasingly disproportionate share of the nation's high school dropouts, a trend that presents an especially tough task for many small-town and rural school districts searching for better ways to educate rising numbers of immigrant Spanish-speaking students.

Court Upholds English-Only Instruction In California (The Washington Times, October 9, 2002)
A federal appeals court has ruled that California voters acted constitutionally when they scrapped bilingual education and ordered that children be "taught English by being taught in English."+

Bilingual-Ed Ballot Items Target Teachers (The Salt Lake Tribune, October 7, 2002)
Bilingual-Ed Ballot proposals in Colorado and Massachusetts would hold educators personally liable—with the possibility of being barred from teaching and public office—if parents later make a case that their child was damaged by being kept out of a mainstream classroom.

Schools To Target Non-English-Speaking Children, Parents (The Washington Post, October 2, 2002)
Montgomery County School Superintendent Jerry D. Weast vowed yesterday to revamp programs for children who speak little or no English and to push for a center where their parents can also begin to learn the language.

GOP Not Supporting English Measures (The Washington Times, September 30, 2002)
Voters are embracing the anti-bilingual-education initiative on the November ballot in Colorado and Massachusetts. The question is, why won't Republicans?

Helping Hispanics Make The Grade (The Baltimore Sun, September 22, 2002)
Howard County's small but fast-growing Hispanic community presents a challenge to educators in a county obsessed with education. Language and cultural barriers can combine to make education less of a priority. Many Hispanic parents are hesitant to communicate with teachers. And because of the economic pressure they face, they may value workers more than scholars in the family. Some see advantages to teen-agers dropping out to take a minimum-wage job.

Immigrants Rewriting the Book at Libraries (The Washington Post, September 15, 2002)
Today's patrons at dozens of libraries in suburban Washington are less likely to be American-born than hail from a league of nations from Central America to Asia and the Middle East. The newcomers, simply by virtue of their needs, are quickly turning these libraries into community centers that function as job centers, English-language schools, keys to the mysteries of a new culture and even babysitters. And the libraries are carrying out this new mission even as they serve their traditional base of educated, English-speaking, often-affluent patrons.

Education Study Finds Hispanics Both Gaining And Lagging (The New York Times, September 8, 2002)
A new report released by the Pew Hispanic Center concludes that Hispanic high school graduates enroll in college at a higher rate than non-Hispanic whites, at least by some measures, but are far less likely to earn a four-year degree, which has long been regarded as the single most important key to good jobs and high earnings.

Report Cites Problems For Latinos In College (The Washington Post, September 6, 2002)
U.S.-born Latino high school graduates enroll in college at nearly the same rate as whites but are much less likely to earn college degrees, according to a report released by the Pew Hispanic Center.

SAT Scores For Blacks Drop Again (The Washington Post, August 29, 2002)
Despite overall gains, the achievement gap between white and Asian students and other minorities on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) remains substantial. White students and Asian students posted their highest-ever average scores, 1159 for white students and 1138 for Asian students. Hispanic students showed a modest increase -- from 949 to 950 -- but remained 45 points below the average of five years ago. The average scores of African American students -- which have dropped steadily in the past five years -- declined another five points this year, from 911 to 906.

SAT Scores Dip Slightly Overall (The Washington Post, August 29, 2002)
High school students in Anne Arundel County scored four points lower on the recent round of SAT scores, dipping from a total score of 1052 to 1048 out of a possible 1600. But while the overall drop in scores was minor, there is major concern in the county about the widening gap between the performances of African Americans and white students who took the college prep test.

Area Students Did The Math, SAT Scores Show (The Washington Post, August 28, 2002)
Washington, D.C. area schools generally reflected a national trend that pushed SAT math scores to a 32-year high, but the growing number of test-takers with limited ability to speak English contributed to stagnating verbal scores, according to figures released yesterday.

At East L.A.'S Garfield High, An Advanced Placement Program Worth Studying (The Washington Post, August 26, 2002)
This past school year, Garfield High School in East Los Angeles, one of the most successful inner-city high schools in the United States, gave college-level courses and 693 AP tests in 17 subjects, more tests than given at 99 percent of American high schools.

English Language Classes In Short Supply  (The Boston Globe, August 15, 2002)
Immigrants to the United States have flooded into schools, local learning groups, and community colleges nationwide in their efforts to learn English -- but there are not enough classes to satisfy the crowds.

New Middle School Ready to Show True Colors (The Washington Post, August 15, 2002)
Liberty Middle School -- the only new one to open in Fairfax this year -- will have a diverse student population. 42 percent of the students are minorities. About 13 percent are on free or reduced lunch, an indicator of poverty. An estimated 130 special education students will attend Liberty, with 15 enrolled in a program for emotionally disabled students and 15 enrolled in a program for students with autism. Students not fluent in English number 95.

Exit Tests Hurt At-Risk Students (The Washington Post, August 14, 2002)
As more states adopt high school graduation tests, an increasing number of poor, black and Latino students are at risk of being denied diplomas because schools do a bad job of preparing them for the high-stakes exams, according to a report by the Center on Education Policy.

Opinion: Bilingual Schooling (The Christian Science Monitor, August 13, 2002)
"to boost performance of English-deficient youngsters is one of education's longer-running debates. It boils down to two approaches: (1) immerse students in English instruction in order to move them quickly to mainstream classes; (2) as they learn English, teach them basic subjects in their native language so they don't fall behind and are able to make a better transition to English-language classes . . . Both approaches have had some success . . . A crucial need is for more teachers trained to teach English to nonspeakers, or whose language skills are sufficient to handle a transitional bilingual program.

St. Mary's Takes Aim at Shortfalls in Achievement  (The Washington Post, August 11, 2002)
The St. Mary's County public schools will present for the first time next week a draft of a five-year plan for eliminating the achievement gap among its students.

Schools Partner Up (The Washington Post, August 8, 2002)
Staff members from nine standout schools in Northern Virginia began forging alliances to help schools in Portsmouth and Richmond that have similar demographics -- namely, large enrollments of poor and Hispanic students -- but are on the verge of losing their state and federal accreditation because of low student test scores.

Schwartz Trumpets Bill For ESOL Teacher Certification  (Philadelphia Daily News, August 7, 2002)
Sen. Allyson Y. Schwartz, D-Philadelphia and Montgomery counties, contends that Pennsylvania is the only state in the nation that still does not have a certification program for educators who teach English to foreign-born students - a specialty known as ESOL or, outside the city, ESL.

Wave Of Pupils Lacking English Strains Schools  (The New York Times, August 5, 2002)
The number of students with limited English skills, most of them Hispanic, has doubled, to five million in the last decade, data from the United States Department of Education show. That is more than four times the rate for the general student population, according to the National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition, a federally financed nonprofit organization. The number of qualified teachers for bilingual or English-as-a-second-language classes — already in chronic short supply — has not kept pace. Market Data Retrieval, a group that keeps national education statistics, has counted 50,000 such teachers in the United States, or one for every 100 students with limited English skills.

Summer Forces Choices, Sacrifices (The Washington Post, August 1, 2002)
Summer used to be the season when low- and middle-income immigrant families could count on their teenagers to help out financially or at home. Now it fills up with internships, summer school and music camps -- the same enriching activities other American teenagers have long pursued to prepare for careers and impress college admissions committees. Such activities rarely bring in cash, and for many immigrant families, that introduces an additional conflict into daily life, with children and parents uncertain how to balance the need for family unity and financial stability with their desire for a better future.

A Diploma: New Ticket For Immigrants?  (Christian Science Monitor, July 25, 2002)
The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act would give illegal-immigrant minors who graduate from high school permanent resident status if they're at least 12 at the time the bill passes, have been in the US at least five years, and apply before they are 21. It would make it easier for states to allow these immigrants to pay in-state tuition—permitted now only in California, New York, Texas, and Utah.

Critics: New Essay Could Hurt Some Asian-Americans, Hispanics  (San Diego Union-Tribune, July 23, 2002)
The decision to add a written essay to the widely taken SAT college entrance exam has raised new questions. Can someone from a home where another language is spoken whip out polished prose in English in 25 minutes? If not, does that mean he or she doesn't deserve to go to a competitive college?

Language Barrio  (Richmond Times-Dispatch, July 23, 2002)
Elementary school ESL classes are offered at four of Chesterfield County's schools this summer - Bensley, Crestwood, Falling Creek and Watkins elementary schools. There are about 80 students enrolled. Henrico County gathers all of its ESL elementary summer school pupils at Crestview Elementary School, with an average attendance of 283 in ESL courses. Hanover County and Richmond city schools don't offer elementary-level ESL summer courses but allow the ESL kids to enroll in regular summer school classes.

New Montgomery Program Aimed At Nonnative English Speakers  (The Washington Post, July 16, 2002)
Unlike typical summer school programs designed to help kids catch up, Montgomery County's inaugural Summer Adventures in Learning -- a four-week program designed to jump-start the school year for children in the county's 18 poorest elementary schools -- introduces the first month's curriculum for the upcoming school year to students preparing to enter kindergarten through third grade.

Latino Parents Often Lack College-Entry Savvy  (The Los Angeles Times, July 12, 2002)
Making sense of the college admissions scramble--SAT, early decision, financial aid forms--is enough to frustrate any parent. But that challenge is compounded when parents don't speak English or when their child is the first in the family to attend college, as is the case with many Latinos, according to a study released Thursday by the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute's Center for Latino Educational Excellence.

Study Notes More Children With Immigrant Parents  (The Washington Post, July 12, 2002)
The number of children in America with at least one parent who is a first-generation immigrant has risen by a third in the last seven years, with potentially serious implications for health and education policy, according to a federal report released today. Nearly 1 in 5 children live with at least one parent who was born outside the United States, and they are much more likely to live below the poverty line and have other risk factors for ill health and poor educational development. This concern was among the troubling aspects of a generally rosy portrait of American youth in the annual report, "America's Children: Key National Indicators of Wellbeing 2002." The report, a compilation of child welfare statistics, was produced by the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics.

Hispanic Kids Face Health Crisis  (The Detroit News, July 3, 2002)
The nation's surging population of Hispanic children has a disproportionate share of asthma, obesity and other health problems that are not being adequately treated, according to a new report published in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.

Minorities Swell Pool Of Gifted In Fairfax  (The Washington Post, July 3, 2002)
Years of criticism that Fairfax County's classes for the gifted and talented were filled primarily with white and wealthy students provoked a campaign this year to change that pattern. As a result, in September, there will be 168 percent more Hispanics, 41 percent more African Americans and 53 percent more Asians in the elite program. But school officials in Fairfax -- the Washington region's biggest and most cramped district -- say they don't have enough space for the new students.

A Struggle in Any Language  (The Washington Post, June 27, 2002)
That Montgomery County's program for students who speak little English needs to change, school officials have no doubt. A recent report by outside experts showed such students started behind and stayed behind years after leaving the program. But the biggest challenge is deciding how the program for English for Speakers of Other Languages, or ESOL, should change. Not only has the number of students in ESOL jumped dramatically, doubling every decade to its present 10,712, but the students themselves come from vastly different backgrounds. No one approach will fit the students who speak 115 languages and come from 140 countries.

Program To Recruit Hispanics To PTA  (CNN.com, June 24, 2002)
The National PTA is starting a program to attract more Hispanic parents to the education advocacy group.

A Degree, Then What?  (The Arizona Republic, June 20, 2002)
Growing numbers of illegal immigrants are attending schools in Arizona, but they face a dead end after graduation, educators say. Proposed federal legislation granting them green cards would make it easier for them to work or go to college, supporters say, but opponents argue that would be unfair to immigrants who come legally and follow immigration rules.

Report: Hispanic School-Age Population Booming  (CNN.com, June 20, 2002)
According to a new report by the Senate Education Committee and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the Hispanic school-age population is booming, but spending on programs for those students has lagged and they are four times as likely as non-Hispanic white students to drop out. The report faults the Bush administration for failing to provide more funding to teacher training, bilingual education programs and immigrant education.

Non-English Speakers Neglected, Weast Says  (The Washington Post, June 10, 2002)
Children who speak little or no English have been largely invisible in Montgomery County schools and easily ignored, officials concede. And a new report has found that that neglect has meant that these children who start school behind, stay behind.

Trapped Between 2 Languages: Poor and Isolated, Many Immigrants' Children Lack English  (The Washington Post, June 9, 2002)
In Montgomery and Fairfax counties, about 35 percent of students in English for Speakers of Other Languages, or ESOL, classes are U.S. citizens, a dramatic increase from the mid-1990s. In the District, 37 percent are Americans; and in Prince George's and Arlington counties, nearly half of the children in the specialized classes are.

Indian School Privatization Shelved  (The Washington Post, May 30, 2002)
The Bush administration won't try to privatize a number of failing Native American schools this year after its plan failed to win support from Congress.

Opinion: Teachers' Cultural Ignorance Imperils Student Success  (USA Today, May 29, 2002)
The author writes: "Minority students are plagued by the fact that most teachers aren't trained to overcome cultural stereotypes and classroom misunderstandings. As a result, students of color are subjected to harsher disciplinary procedures than white students, and are routinely banished to the academic wastelands."

Study: Latinos Putting Work Before School (The Salt Lake Tribune, May 26, 2002)
According to a report about multiple generations of Latinos in the United States from the Washington-based Pew Hispanic Center, millions of young Latino immigrants are going to work instead of completing high school or college, which could create a future generation of Americans stuck in low-paying jobs.

At A Diverse School, Pupils Celebrate Cultures With Ease (, December 31, 1969)
About 12 languages are spoken among the more than 100 ESOL pupils at Hollifield Station Elementary School in Ellicott City. Korean is the most prevalent. Urdu, a language spoken in Pakistan and India, is second among ESOL pupils. Other languages include Arabic, Chinese, Greek, Lithuanian, Russian, Turkish and Vietnamese.

Rules Changed for Florida Schools (, December 31, 1969)
An Education Department decision that favored Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the president's brother, weakened a key accountability goal of the federal No Child Left Behind Act on behalf of minorities, a former department official said.

Local schools eliminate foreign language instruction (The Phoenix Online, December 31, 1969)
In order to allocate money for improving the science curriculum, funding for Swarthmore-Wallingford School District’s Foreign Language in Elementary School program has been eliminated from the school district’s budget for next year. The school board said it is constrained by the need to demonstrate acceptable Pennsylvania System of School Assessment test results under the No Child Left Behind Act.

Is It Good for the Kids? (ASCD, December 31, 1969)