Category: Higher Education

ACTION ALERT

Stop Raiding My Child’s Education !!

LULAC Urges its Members to Call and Write Their Senators Now and Let Their Voices Be Heard !

Washington, DC-The League of United Latin American Citizens is outraged
by the House’s latest efforts to cut education funding from critical
programs.
All LULAC members and public officials are strongly urged to
call, write, and email their state senators now demanding to eliminate
these budget cuts before they become law. It is critical that the
members on the U.S. Senate hear from their constituents today to let
them know that they wholeheartedly reject these education budget cuts.

In all, the House adopted a package of three bills that
imposes the largest cut in student aid in history, cutting $12 billion
over the next five years and making it more difficult and expensive for
students to borrow money to attend college.

The defense spending bill and the budget reconciliation bill
were passed in the early morning of December 19th . The defense
spending bill passed decisively by over 200 votes, while the last two
bills were adopted marginally by six votes and two votes respectively.
The third bill, or the Labor-HHS bill, was approved last week.

Talking Points:

* Cuts in funding for ESEA and NCLB of $1 billion, in addition
to bringing the funding down BELOW the level that was provided three
years earlier.

* Disadvantaged public schools will be the hardest hit.
Under-funding will continue by over $27 billion and this proposal will
make further cuts on schools that cannot afford them.

* Threatens to put a college education out of reach for students by making it harder for students to receive aid.

* Cuts in the federal share of special education funding (from
18.6 percent to 17.8 percent), falling well short of the 30-year-old
commitment to fund 40 percent of special education funding.

* For the first time ever federal taxpayer-funded vouchers
will be established disguised as "hurricane relief": The American
people have consistently rejected national vouchers programs. They have
proven to be unaffordable, unproven, and unnecessary.

* Expansion of current loan forgiveness laws to include
private school teachers. Since taxpayer money will be used to fund
private schools with teacher recruitment, public schools around the
country will continue to be under-funded and experience teacher
shortages . Religious schools will be able to accept taxpayer dollars
with little to no accountability in comparison to public schools.

At a time when our children need a greater commitment and
greater investment from our national leaders, we cannot abandon them by
cutting funding in their education.

College tuition is rising every year, making it less
affordable for working class families to financially support their
children’s decision to go to college. If we allow Congress to make cuts
on federal grants, it will prevent poor students from receiving Pell
Grants, thereby making them less and less likely to be able to attend a
college of their choice.

Our children should not be penalized for living in poor
conditions, but rather they should be given the most aid to relieve
their families affected by poverty and Hurricane Katrina. Only through
education can we lift our communities up.

LULAC urges you to contact your Senator now! To get your
Senator’s contact information call the Capitol switchboard at (202)
225-3121 or go to http://www.congress.org or to http://www.lulac.org and email your
Senator.

Tell them:

* Say no to the Education Budget Cuts and to vouchers. Public education is critical to the success of our community.

* Our children need access, better resources, and more funding for their schools. Not cuts to their education.

* Higher education should be made affordable not impossible.

The League of the United Latin American Citizen (www.lulac.org)
advances the economic conditions, educational attainment, political
influence, health and civil rights of Hispanic Americans through
community-based programs operating at more than 700 LULAC councils
nationwide.

Note: Thanks to Angela Valenzuela for forwarding this item.–gm

Ruling Abandons Low-wealth Districts and Upholds Glaring Inequities in the System

PRESS RELEASE

(AUSTIN, TEXAS) More than 16 years after declaring the school finance
system unconstitutional in Edgewood I, the Supreme Court of Texas
refused to remedy persistent inequalities in the present school funding
system. As a result, millions of school children in property-poor school districts
across the state face the prospect of even greater inequities in a new system that will not contain a property
tax cap.

MALDEF represented the Edgewood Districts∗, a group of 22
property-poor school districts, many of which filed the original
landmark school finance suit in 1984. With a trial record consisting of 655
findings of fact and 24 conclusions of law based on over 7,000 exhibits and testimony from dozens of
witnesses, the Supreme Court refused to address the issues and, instead, deferred to the Legislature’s
discretion. Although the Supreme Court found that the State violated the Texas Constitution by forcing
districts to tax at the maximum rate, the Court failed to address the gross inequities in the system. “MALDEF is very disappointed with the Supreme Court’s ruling,”
said MALDEF President and General Counsel Ann Marie Tallman. “This case
is not about money but rather about lost educational opportunities for
the 2 million-plus students attending
schools in property-poor districts. Unfortunately, the
Court’s decision ill-serves the interests of those children and the future of all Texas residents.”

David Hinojosa, MALDEF Staff Attorney and lead counsel in the
case, added: “Fifty years after Brown v. Board, our undisputed evidence
at trial showed that the quality of education for certain Texas
children still suffers as a direct result of which side of the tracks
they live on. Despite the glaring disparities between the haves and
havenots, the Court refused to confront the issues head on.

He continued: “The saving grace for our districts was that the Supreme Court did not state that the
recapture system needed to be eliminated. With that in mind, there is every reason for the Legislature to
address the inequities in the system when creating its new school finance plan.”

"While the Supreme Court ruled that the financing system is constitutionally efficient, no one should
believe we have a quality school system that can support the economic future of Texas. MALDEF looks
forward to working with the Legislature to provide a funding system that is fair and equitable for all Texas
children," commented Luis Figueroa, MALDEF Legislative Staff Attorney.

A national nonprofit organization found in 1968, MALDEF promotes and
protects the rights of Latinos through advocacy, community education
and outreach, leadership development, higher education scholarships and
when necessary, through the legal system.

∗ The Edgewood District consist of the following Independent School Districts: Edgewood, Brownsville,
Edcouch-Elsa, Harlandale, Harlingen, Jim Hogg County, Kenedy, Laredo, La Feria, La Vega, Los Fresnos,
Monte Alto, Pharr-San Juan-Alamo, Raymondville, Roma, San Benito, San Elizario, Socorro, Sharyland,
South San Antonio, United, and Ysleta.

Note: received via email at noon Nov. 22, corrected version received about 2pm.

Each year, 65,000 undocumented students graduate from our nation’s high
schools. Brought by their parents as young children, many have grown up
in the United States, attended U.S. K-12 schools, and share in our
American culture and values. Some have little memory of their homeland
or their native language. Like their U.S.-born peers, these individuals
share the same dream of pursuing a higher education. Unfortunately, due
to their immigration status, they are typically barred from many of the
opportunities that currently make a college education affordable –
in-state tuition rates, state and federal grants and loans, private
scholarships, and the ability to work legally to earn their way through
college. In effect, through no act of their own, they are denied the
opportunity to share in the "American Dream." If passed, the “Development, Relief, and Education for Alien
Minors (DREAM) Act,” S. 2075, a bipartisan federal proposal led by
Senators Richard Durbin (D-IL), Chuck Hagel (R-NE), and Richard Lugar
(R-IN), would facilitate access to postsecondary educational
opportunities for immigrant students in the United States who currently
face barriers in pursuing a college education. The “DREAM Act” would
also allow hardworking immigrant youth who have long resided in the
U.S. the chance to adjust their status, enabling them to contribute
fully to our society.

The “DREAM Act” was introduced in the U.S. Senate in November
2005. Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) is the sponsor of the bill, and the
lead Republican cosponsors are Senators Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and Richard
Lugar (R-IN). The Senate Judiciary Committee must now consider and
approve the “DREAM Act” before the bill can be considered for a vote by
the full Senate. Similar versions of this bill garnered significant
support from both Democrats and Republicans last Congress when it was
approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee with a 16-3 bipartisan vote.
In addition, last year, 48 senators and 153 representatives signed on
in support of the “DREAM Act” and its companion bill in the U.S. House
of Representatives. The House version of the “DREAM Act”, which has
been championed by Representatives Chris Cannon (R-UT), Howard Berman
(D-CA), and Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA), currently awaits
reintroduction.

NCLR Position

The National Council of La Raza (NCLR)
urges passage of the “DREAM Act,” S. 2075. The “DREAM Act,” which
provides a path to U.S. citizenship for hardworking and talented
immigrant students who have been raised in the U.S., is critical to
improving the pipeline from high school to college and providing
meaningful employment for Latinos.

By Greg Moses

OpEdNews / DissidentVoice / CounterPunch

"Next year Lord we’d love to give thanks for everybody’s freedom and
equality, but in the meantime please accept our appreciation for the
fact that after you adjust for race and class, some of our kids seem
not too pulled down by impossible situations."

Such was the blessing spoken by the Texas Supreme Court this
week as justices released a long-awaited school funding decision just
in time for the American Winter Holiday Season.

To the wealthier school districts of Texas (known as the West Orange
Cove plaintiffs) the court granted permission to raise local tax rates
in behalf of ‘educational excellence’ in all the right neighborhoods.

To the rest of us, the court explained how the structure of funding in
Texas does not make it impossible for poor districts to keep themselves
accredited, and therefore the urgent pleadings from the poor districts
for more support cannot be expected to rise to the level of
constitutional concern.
In one sense it was a crisp and clear ruling, cutting through
the panic arguments filed by the state in an attempt to steer the case
away from the godawful facts that had impressed the trial judge. Panic
arguments such as the court has no jurisdiction nor the districts
proper standing were one by one dismissed. After all, the court had
already issued a decade or more of school funding rulings all named
‘Edgewood’ after a famous San Antonio school system.

After cutting through the panic arguments, the court took the facts
boldly in hand and said things like, sure, the buildings look like crap
in these pictures, but what does that have to do with education? The
kids seem to be passing, don’t they? It’s a bad situation, but it’s not
that bad. One fourth of all school districts in Texas have not yet
levied special taxes to support their own school buildings, so the
question of the state’s obligation is beside the point.

This Thanksgiving, we can give thanks to a few attorneys and school
districts who jumped into the lawsuit because they wanted to make sure
the rich districts didn’t run away with all the money. In that
struggle, our longstanding heroes from Edgewood and Alvarado seem to
have maintained a very costly line in the form of a warning from the
Supreme Court that if things get much worse, well there has to be some
limit to the amount of hypocrisy the court will publicly tolerate.

MALDEF was quick to denounce the decision as justice delayed
for the children of Texas. With richer districts now able to ‘enhance’
their schools through higher local taxes than previously allowed, and
with the legislature under no real court pressure to make things more
equal (just don’t let them get much more unequal) the timeline for
justice is matching up a little closer to that previously scheduled
cold day in hell.

“In 2003,” said the court, “Texas ranked last among the states
in the percentage of high school graduates at least 25 years old in the
population.” Fully half the Hispanic students and nearly half the
African-American students drop out during high school. In Texas, Black
and Hispanic students are the majority. By the year 2040, these
‘minorities’ will constitute two-thirds of the population. But the cost
of a just education is difficult to quantify said the court. Glaring
challenges of high school literacy the court could not quite translate
into a single legal reason for constitutional urgency.

There was a dissenting opinion: a heartfelt manifesto for
justice through ‘competition’ duly applied to suggestions for
competition between districts and more tax money for private schools.

BTW, all those anti-affirmative action voices who say we should really
start equalizing education at the elementary level? There were so many
of them hollering when the Hopwood case was news. Today they seem quite
happy to note with the Texas Supreme Court that democracy is still good
enough for constitutional purposes so long as you know how to properly
adjust your expectations for differences of race and class.

Anyway, that’s the news from Texas. Dog bites kid. Pass the turkey please.

See ‘Flyer Archive’ under ‘Downloads’ to get a pdf flyer.

On Wednesday, July 27th, 2005 at 10PM, there will be a rally to condemn
acts of racism, sexism, and homophobia in the Northgate region of
College Station, Texas and encourage Texas A&M University and the local
community to make Northgate and all of Aggieland a safer place.

The
event is titled "Make Aggieland Safe for Everyone," and Faculty and
Staff Committed to an Inclusive Campus (an organization of teachers and
staff members at TAMU) is one of the various groups that are part of
the
MASE Rally Coalition.

Rally participants will meet in front of the campus post office just
off
University Drive and then demonstrate along the campus side of that
street. The recent racist assault on Ravi Mallipeddi, a TAMU graduate
student, spurred the organizers into holding this rally.
On June 1 of
this year, Mallipeddi was assaulted by unknown individuals in a white
van at the corner of Church and College Main Streets in College
Station,
Texas. The individuals struck him with a baseball bat and shouted
racist epithets at him.

That assault, however, was not an isolated
incident. There is a long history of assaults and harassment in
Northgate directed against visible minorities, women, and gay, lesbian,
bisexual and transgender people.

Please get the word out about this rally. Forward this message to your
networks, post the attached flier, and bring a friend to the rally on
July 27th. We need everyone to get involved to Make Aggieland Safe for
Everyone.

Email from Harris Berger
Faculty and Staff Committed to an Inclusive Campus

---

Note: Articles linked below suggests that College Station police were slow to respond,
that they also failed to notify Texas A&M authorities, and that
when A&M authorities were made aware of the incident, they were
reluctant to denounce it in public.-gm

Officials Respond to Assault By Victoria White, The Battalion, June 21, 2005.

Police, University review procedures after June 1 assault By Matthew Watkins, The Battalion, June 22, 2005.