AntiBVBL

Number of Hispanic Students Enrolled Sept. 30

School System

About the only quantifiers we have as far as immigration goes come from schools. Immigrants generally have children. The Virginia State Board of Education keeps data on ethnicity as set by the federal government.

The above data shows the number of Hispanics enrolled in the 3 school systems on Sept. 30 of the given year. It looks like MC gained 74 more Hispanic students. MP lost 82 students between 2007 and 2008. The county lost 531 students from 2007 to 2008. I can just see Corey Stewart and Greg hi-fiving each other. It appears, however, that Help Save Manassas, didn’t (Save Manassas, that is.)

So much for the great plan that was supposed to save us all that money.  Many of us will be waiting for Corey to turn that savings over to the school system.  Pony  up Corey Stewart!  Where is that money we supposedly saved?

In the grand scheme of things,in a school system that has just under 74,000 students,  losing 531 students is , to quote Mr. Stewart, a ‘drop in the bucket.’

[NOTE:  Many of these students could very well be from families of legal immigrants. Additionally, they very well might not be involved with any LEP classes.  Some could have lived here for generations.  There is no way to tell exactly.]

Since the advent of NO Child Left Behind (NCLB), education in general has become more data-driven. Now students in the Washington, DC area will be able to select a more specific racial destinction. The Washington Post today reports that a new way of classifying students will give parents more options and will give educators and bureacrats at the Dept. of Education more detailed information.

For decades, students have been counted in one of five racial and ethnic groups: American Indian or Alaska native; Asian or Pacific Islander; Hispanic; non-Hispanic black; or non-Hispanic white. The categories date to the 1960s and were standardized in 1977 to promote affirmative action and monitor discrimination in housing, employment, voting rights and education.

Starting in 2010, under Education Department rules approved two years ago to comply with a government-wide policy shift, parents will be able to check all boxes that apply in a two-step questionnaire with reshaped categories. First, they will indicate whether a student is of Hispanic or Latino origin, or not. (The two terms will encompass one group.) Then they will identify a student as one or more of the following: American Indian or Alaska native; Asian; black or African American; native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander; or white.

The new rules will allow students and parents to recognize bi-racial students and not force students to disregard part of their culture. Since so many components of NCLB involve data, it will supposedly be more difficult for certain groups of kids fall between the cracks.

During the 2000 census, approximately 6.8 people were identified as multi-racial. Civil Rights groups feel that reclassifying is needed.

Many civil rights advocates agree that it’s necessary to document the growing number of multiracial students, but they say these categories will mask valuable information about race that could be used to analyze educational challenges some groups face. They say it would be more accurate to report the data in detail, with racial and ethnic combinations.

“If we don’t know that some multiracial, Hispanic and black students are doing worse,” said Melissa Herman, a sociologist at Dartmouth College, “we can conveniently ignore that they are doing worse.”

Not all schools will be using the new categories right away. For now, 15 states plan to use the new system of categorizing.

Does NCLB invade privacy? Should we know if a child is economically deprived? Do we need to track race so closely? When is too much information too much?

A few of us have been revisiting the Powder Keg thread for several days now discussing the fighting on the Gaza Strip. The Middle East just scares me and I am one of those rare birds who see 2 sides to the Palestinian/Israeli on-going issue. Basically I want to scream at both and say STOP DOING THAT!

Usually a war that involves Israel gets top billing on the news. Many people stayed glued to their televisons during the Hezbollah/Israeli conflict 2 years ago However, so much else is going on that the current battle in Gaza is often is taking a backseat to the financial crisis, the Inauguration, and Blagojevich. The Pew Institute provides us with the following chart:

Fewer people are interested in the conflict with Hamas than they were with the conflict with Hezbollah 2 years ago. Now that Hezbollah is firing missiles on towns in northern Israel, perhaps the interest will ratchet up some. It makes for a very dangerous situation in that region.

Blogger Gainesville Resident has referenced 2 very good reading resources on the current conflict. One is from Time Magazine and the other is from The Jewish Voice and Opinion. Don’t be mislead by the title on the later. It gives a variety of points of view. Neither are quick reading but are highly recommended.

Can Israel sustain a 2 front war? What should the United States role be in this conflict? Is our position weakened by a change in the Presidency? Are America’s enemies waiting and watching to see what President Obama will do? When a conflict is going on involving Israel, are we more vulnerable for a terrorist attack? What do you all think?

Click for more information from the Pew Institute on current events.

The Pew Research Center has released some interesting data on the demographics of the election. The teaser is here on the blog with a link to more info to those who want it, via the blue Pew Research Center.

An important bit of data revealed that Obama won the moderate vote. While Democrats have captured the moderate vote for the past 5 elections, this past election the results were dramatic and significantly more moderates were identified as the swing vote. What does all this tell us? Are moderates sick of some of the conservative social values the Republicans always seem to mire in? Are people just voting against the Religious Right?

Inquiring minds want to know and the anti group is never shy about sharing their respective opinions.

[ed note: The chart is small. I attempted to make it larger. It got blurrier. If the print is too small use the link to the original site.]