New America Media - Economy

The End of the School Bus - How Taking City Buses Gets CA Students in Trouble

2013-05-23T08:15:00Z

Pictured Above: Students crowd onto a public bus to get to school in the Southern California city of Long Beach. Photo by Summer Culbreth

LONG BEACH, Calif. -- Backpack, check. Breakfast, check. Out the door you go and you’re thinking, “Today will be a good day.” But just as you walk to the bus stop, you see the bus fly by. Why didn’t it stop? It was too full. So you wait. The next bus comes and it’s full too, from the front door to the back. So what do you do? You beg the bus driver to let you on. As you enter the bus people are yelling, coughing and laughing in your ear. Every time the bus stops, 25 people nearly knock you over from the force of stopping.

By the time you do manage to get to school, you’re in a bad mood. On top of that, you’re forced to go to detention because you’re late. These are just some of the things that come with the territory when you’re a young person who relies on public transit in Long Beach.

Taking the city bus has become practically mandatory for many students in Long Beach, even while the number of bus lines serving Long Beach residents has shrunk, due to state and local budget cuts. Over the last four years, the city’s municipal transit agency, LB Transit, has undergone a series of service reductions, route eliminations and fare hikes. And it’s about to get worse, especially for the city’s youth.

Beginning this fall, all school buses – the exception being shuttles for special needs students -- will be cut, forcing more students than ever before to switch over to public transit buses and pay bus fees. The elimination of regular school bus service comes after two years of gradual reductions in “yellow bus” services.

“I live far from my school, so getting there on time is a hassle in the mornings,” said Nia Gastlem, a senior at Millikan High School. “Every now and then I have to take the bus, which never fails to get me to school late. That then causes me to spend my mornings in on-campus suspension, which forces me to miss out on a whole class period.”

Long Beach has a reputation for being bike-friendly and public transit-friendly, with a heavily used bus system and the Metro Blue line. Many people – from students, to elderly, to disabled folks – rely on public transportation on a daily basis to get from one destination to another.

“Every week I’m forced to fight for a seat with roughly 50 other students trying to claim their spot on the bus,” said Osayama Omoruyi, a junior at Millikan High School.

Kevin Lee, customer and relations manager at LB Transit, said the agency is already working to accommodate the influx of new riders, by coordinating its pick-up and drop-off times in accordance with a school’s bell schedule.

"Since they've been eliminating the yellow school buses, we've seen a lot of students come on board our buses and it's not easy to manage," Lee said. "We know it's coming this fall, so within our means, we're going to do the best we can."

Lee said LB Transit's budget does not currently allow them to add extra bus routes but it is constantly looking at its service areas for "creative planning."

The squeeze on the city bus system has been intensifying ever since Long Beach Unified District (LBUSD) ended bus service to one-third of its riders in the fall of 2011, a response to California state budget cuts that did away with home-to-school bus services. At that time, state cutbacks left districts to foot the entire bill for their school transportation services.

A number of other districts in the state, including larger districts like San Francisco and San Diego, have also chosen to reduce school bus services in recent years due to budget restraints.

Despite the impending cuts, there may soon be relief for local school districts. The new funding formula for schools devised by California Gov. Jerry Brown in his revised state budget for fiscal years 2013-14 does include direct funding for home-to-school transportation for two years, according to the Association of California School Administrators.

But if district plans to eliminate the school buses move forward as suggested, Long Beach students won’t be the only ones affected by the overcrowding on city buses. As the buses become more packed, elderly riders risk being crowded out of their priority seating.

“My backpack weighs a thousand pounds and after carrying my backpack and my gym bag for track practice, standing on the bus really isn’t an option. I need a seat,” said Corrina Leblanc, a senior at Millikan.

In some instances, when the bus is too crowded, elderly passengers with walkers or wheelchairs aren’t able to board the bus at all.

With the elimination of school buses now looming, next year might get even tougher for city bus riders.

Summer Culbreth and Kazmere Duffey are contributors to VoiceWaves, a youth and community media project founded by New America Media to inform and engage the diverse communities of Long Beach, California.

Invisible Workforce: Immigrant Domestic Workers Test New Ways to Settle Disputes

2013-05-23T08:00:00Z

On a recent Saturday afternoon, a dozen nannies and housecleaners, many of them immigrants from Brazil, gather with employers in a living room in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They snack on cheese and crackers, breaking the ice a bit before talking about talking and how to settle some of the troubles that can bubble up in domestic work.

Anna Amoral, an immigrant from Brazil and a nanny in Boston shares an issue that she’s been having with her employer.

“They would pay me for gas and mileage,” says Amoral, “they did that the first week and it’s been ten months now but I’m not getting the money.”

As she talks, several women in the room nod their head-and offer advice. Lydia Edwards asks Anna if she’s talked about it with her employer. Edwards is a lawyer at the Brazilian Immigrant Center in Boston.

“They may not remember it as you do, Anna,” says Edwards.

Edwards has seen her fair share of misunderstanding between domestic workers and their employers. After taking countless disputes to court she began to think about ways in which she could end these arguments without the gavel, so she started a mediation program at the Brazilian Immigrant Center.

The process she’s testing out is pretty simple and it’s being closely watched by other immigrant centers like this. A worker brings a complaint to the center about, for example, a wage dispute. The center contacts the employer to see if they’d like to meet with trained mediators to find a solution-instead of taking legal action. And the mediators know these conflicts well because they’re domestic workers and employers themselves.

“I wanted to figure out a way that workers could be a part of the resolution of their own issues,” says Edwards.

Edwards began the project after getting laid off from the downtown Boston law firm where she’d worked. Out of a job, she started volunteering her legal expertise at the Brazilian Immigrant Center, setting up a law office in the center’s kitchen.

“I had no materials,” says Edwards. She worked with donated pens and law books and two file boxes that she had salvaged from the garbage.

Month after month, she met with hundreds of Brazilians at that kitchen table listening to stories about the cracks they’d fall into.

“Fighting over whether trick or treating time is work time or not, I’ve had that fight in court,” says Edwards, “whether making a meal and eating it negates [a nanny] from getting paid [for that time].”

What Edwards realized is that in case after case workers weren’t always seeking out a big settlement but rather, it was something else they were looking for, acknowledgment. That was what nanny Anna Amoral was seeking when she first met with Lydia Edwards at the Brazilian Immigrant Center.
“At the beginning what I was just looking for actually was for an apology,’ says Amoral.

Amoral approached Edwards to get help about unpaid wages, one of the most common claims domestic workers can have. But it wasn’t actually money that upset Amoral, rather how her employer had treated her.

“She lashed out at me at the library in front of other friends, other nannies, and librarians,” says Amoral.

Amoral did go to court in the end where she won the wages owed to her but the issue never felt resolved. These feelings are natural because of the intimacy of domestic work says Edwards.

“They took care of your kids from birth sometimes, it’s an intense bond. I feel like the mediation process there’s a sense of closure,” says Edwards.

Getting the program started hasn’t been easy. In fact, it’s prompted some pretty difficult conversations between the women training as moderators.

“Some people asked innocently, ‘What am I supposed to do if there’s an illegal? Do I call immigration? As a mediator? The person next to her responded, ‘There’s an illegal sitting right next to you who’s been training next to you,’” says Edwards.

For nanny Anna Amoral, these difficult conversations have challenged her as a moderator to leave judgement at the door.

“We cannot take sides. We need to maintain the neutrality. It’s hard but it’s something that’s an exercise.”

So far, the center has successfully mediated five cases, a slow start, Edwards she hopes that’ll change as word spreads.

As Saturday’s course wraps up Edwards gives a final pep talk.

“No one should be undervalued,” she says, “and no one should be working in the dark.”

Shots Not Heard Round the World in NOLA

2013-05-19T10:00:00Z

On Mother's Day, someone decided to shoot into a crowd of parading New Orleanians, injuring 19 people. Video footage of the event indicates that I was just feet away from the shooter. My family and friends think I should stop going to second-line parades or into "bad neighborhoods" (read: black neighborhoods, of course).

And some of them want me to leave New Orleans altogether. But this Sunday I am going to the second line, just as I will go any other Sunday when I wake up feeling like dancing -- which is more often than you'd think. I want people to know why.

New Orleans brass bands play what you might call second-line standards. There are the local favorites, such as "Roll With It" and "It Ain't My Fault"; there are the traditional dirges played to an upbeat tempo, like "I'll Fly Away"; and there are the popular covers that everyone sings in unison. My personal second-line jam is the Stooges Brass Band's rendition of the O'Jays' R&B classic "Back Stabbers."

On Sunday at the Original Big 7 Mother's Day second line, it took me only three or four notes to recognize Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody," another crowd pleaser. People immediately started swaying, the "buckjumpers" trotted out some of their finest footwork and soon enough everyone was cheering, "With somebody who loves me!"

As the brass band pealed out the melody, I sidled up to my husband, a New Orleans transplant of three years and a second-line fanatic. I held his hand as we danced in the street with hundreds of other people -- black, white, Asian, Latino, young, old, native, transplant and all kinds of in-between. I silently rehearsed the only words I have to describe the second line: pure joy.

Only seconds later, just after we turned into the narrower streets of the 7th Ward neighborhood, we heard the all-too-familiar sound of gunfire. I think I heard four shots before I realized that I needed to get to the ground. I dropped to my belly right in the middle of the street, and other people fleeing the violence fell on top of me.

I remember that a soft, white T-shirt brushed my cheek, and I instinctively caressed the shoulder of a stranger, hoping to calm myself as much as her. Three or four more shots rang out before the firing stopped. Only feet from where the shooter had reportedly emerged from the shadows of a family home, we all lay in a silent pile, collectively holding our breath for several seconds more before we felt it safe to run.

When we returned to the corner a minute or so later, the scene was gruesome. People were writhing, bleeding, on every corner, on all sides of the spot where I had just dropped to the ground myself. The shooter had been indiscriminate, and if he had a target, it was impossible to tell who it could have been, because there were children, older ladies and dancing men among the 19 innocent people he callously wounded.

As the days pass and the fear and anger that emerged at the scene release me, a new frustration emerges. I can't help but keep wondering why more people don't seem to care or even know that this happened.

And I am going to say this very clearly: The reason so few people seem to care about this mass shooting is that the victims are assumed to be black.

Not So Normal

Every time I say something like this, I feel as if I'm preaching to the choir, but when I listened for that familiar chorus of affirmation this week, I didn't hear it. Somehow I keep expecting people to stop me on the street to process it, as many did when I was heading home through predominantly African-American neighborhoods right after the event. I expected Facebook and Twitter to be on fire with sympathy for the victims. I suppose I half expected there to be nationally organized fundraisers for the 19 people in the hospital. But all I heard were crickets.

How can so many people in this country -- people for whom violence is not the norm -- resign themselves to violence simply by relegating it to the category of "street violence" or "black-on-black violence"? When people thoughtlessly repeat this refrain, they suggest that everyone in that crowd should equally be considered a perpetrator simply because he or she is black, even though there was only one shooter, maybe two, who took aim at hundreds of innocent, dancing, celebratory black citizens festively enjoying a sunny Mother's Day afternoon.

When white people designate this as a "problem in the black community," the glaring implication is that violence is a problem endemic to the black community, that it is inherent and that it is both impossible to solve and not "our" problem anyway. That is the assumption motivating all the horrendous comments that make blackness the explicit or implicit source of violence instead of laying the blame on one cruel person. And it is that same assumption that silences and repackages our mourning over the violence that occurred in New Orleans this weekend.

Instead, what is endemic, and certainly feels intractable, are the systemic inequalities that persist in New Orleans and in the U.S. overall, injustice for which we are all responsible. Research coming out of the Orleans Parish Place Matters project indicates that life expectancies can differ by 25 years in New Orleans, depending on ZIP code, an indicator of the racial breakdown of a population. Place Matter's work shows that "social, economic, and environmental conditions in low-income and non-white neighborhoods make it more difficult for people in these neighborhoods to live healthy lives."

Furthermore, the study proves what should be clear to everyone: Neighborhoods that lack good schools and worthwhile opportunities are correlated with higher rates of violence. When we know this, we cannot hold individuals solely responsible for violence; we must respond urgently to the inequality in our educational institutions, employment opportunities and health care.

And maybe it is easier for many white and middle-class people to turn a blind eye to violence that happens in black communities because they think it cannot happen to them or to anyone they know. How does an entire race become anonymous to the point of seeming alien? How do white Americans live in this country and pretend that they do not know and are not responsible for their neighbors simply because of race?

Second-Line Community Building

I dance and talk and sing and debate with people of all races and classes and professions on Sunday afternoons. We are friends, neighbors and dancing partners, despite all the differences that may divide us. It is hard for me to imagine how anyone could live in New Orleans and not have relationships across what might seem to be impossible boundaries in some other towns. And it is hard for me to imagine living anywhere else anymore.

Knowing and loving people who are different from us, embracing their talents, joys and jokes, as well as recognizing and responding to their hardships and suffering is what makes us able to fight for and get passionate about justice in this world. Sometimes I get angry when I hear that someone is concerned about breast cancer only after a family member suffers from it or follows news from Ireland because he or she has some imaginary ancestral connection to the place. Why are the people who look like you more valuable than the people who don't? Why do we bother to learn about the suffering of our own community when we completely fail to respond to the suffering in others?

The story of violence and injustice in the black community is not my story to tell. There are many people who know it better than I do and have the most effective strategies (though often not the resources) for responding to it. But it should not be the sole responsibility of the African-American community to inform white Americans of the discrimination and inequality that determine the very life outcomes of the citizens of this nation and world.

It makes me sick to have to write this. I didn't want to say anything about being a witness to violence in New Orleans to anyone. I didn't want to post to Facebook or to Twitter that I had been in the 7th Ward on Sunday because I am afraid that it will be my story, the story of an innocent middle-class white person who was affected by the shooting, that gets picked up.

I am afraid that friends and family and colleagues will only finally believe that this is a significant event because it happened to someone they know. Look at the photos of the shooting that did make the national papers -- there are white folks everywhere in those photos, even though we made up a minuscule segment of the people who were attending the parade, and only a fraction of the people who were harmed. And let me not exonerate myself: After teaching and writing about injustice for years, I am writing about violence in my own community for the first time only after it hit close to home.

I decided that I had to say something, however, because I am a professor, and the way I attempt to effect change is through the words I write and the students I teach. I teach my students that the systemic, racialized inequalities that persist in our community and in the world carry prices and consequences that are much more significant than the cost of effective, ubiquitous education and health care -- basic necessities that we deny the majority of black citizens in my city and many others in the U.S. I teach them that it is the responsibility of every citizen to ensure that every other citizen is provided with his or her right to health and security.

And I insist that every human being deserves far more than the basic necessities. Many have suggested this more eloquently before today, but this event provides us with a moment to reflect again on our commitments. And personally, I suppose I am trying to transform the sadness and anger that grew out of my experience this weekend into something worthwhile.

The mass shooting that occurred on Sunday is not a black problem or a poor people's problem or a New Orleans problem. It is the responsibility of all of us to end the vicious inequality that leads to violence. We must all make a commitment -- regardless of our race or our class -- to the people and organizations that work to increase opportunity, education and well-being for all citizens in New Orleans and around the world.

We must support culturally informed, community-driven and -led conflict-resolution initiatives, like Project Ceasefire, that teach all of us that hatred and violence are the least effective solutions to our problems. We must dedicate ourselves wholeheartedly to addressing the problems that no doubt affect all of us, but affect us unequally.

I will be at next week's second line. I can't wait to hear the opening strains of "Back Stabbers," which I suspect will be met with an unusually emphatic "What they do!" from the crowd. I know my family and friends will be horrified, worrying that I take my life for granted.

But let me explain: The second line is the most vibrant and loving cultural tradition I know of in the U.S. It celebrates life as it commemorates death. I will be there to celebrate and commemorate, alongside all the diverse members of this community who also take that work seriously, because I never feel more alive and more a part of this community than I do when I am at a second line.

Laura Murphy is assistant professor of English and the director of African and African-American studies at Loyola University New Orleans. She is the author of Metaphor and the Slave Trade in West African Literature and editor of the forthcoming Survivors of Slavery: 20th and 21st Century Slave Narratives.

'Why Are There So Many Filipino Nurses in the US?'

2013-05-18T09:25:00Z

This was the question posed to me by a curious TV news reporter on May 7, just three days after a stretch limousine, carrying nine Filipino nurses to a bridal party across the San Mateo Bridge, suddenly burst into flames killing five of the occupants, including the bride.

Ann Notarangelo, the reporter who is also the weekend anchor of CBS 5′s Eyewitness News, explained that she was only asking the question because it was on the minds of her viewers. She came to my office to interview me because she thought I might know the answer as I taught Filipino American History at San Francisco State University and I am the legal counsel of the Philippine Nurses Association of Northern California. Plus, I added, I am also married to a Filipino nurse.

She said that she was frankly surprised to learn that 20 percent of all the registered nurses in California are Filipinos, a considerably large percentage since Filipinos number only 2.3 million (officially 1.2 million) out of a state population of 38 million.

“I just never noticed it before,” Ann told me, “because I generally don’t see people in racial terms.” But, she said, in reflecting back on all the times she visited friends and relatives in hospitals all over California, she now recalls seeing Filipino nurses everywhere. Not just in California, I said.

Filipino nurses in the US may be invisible even when they are visible everywhere but not anymore.

Tragedy Sheds Light on Filipino Nurses

The video clip of the fire-engulfed limousine was the top story over the weekend. The fatalities included Neriza Fojas, 31, a newlywed bride who was planning to get married again in the Philippines in June; Michelle Estrera, 35, the bride’s Maid of Honor who worked with her at a Fresno medical facility; Jennifer Balon, 39, and Anna Alcantara, 46, of San Lorenzo, both of whom worked at the Fruitvale Healthcare Center; and Felomina Geronga, 43, who worked at the Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Oakland.

Americans also learned about the nurses who escaped the fire and were treated for burns and smoke inhalation: Mary G. Guardiano, 42; Jasmine Desguia, 34; Nelia Arellano, 36; and Amalia Loyola, 48. In a TV interview, an anguished Nelia Arellano blamed the limo driver for failing to stop immediately and for selfishly refusing to help them get out of the burning limo.

As the San Francisco Chronicle described it, “They came from little towns scattered all over the Philippines, hungry for the good life in America. A nursing degree was each one’s solo ticket over, and once they found each other, they became the best of friends.”

As the TV camera started rolling, the TV news reporter posed the question to me:“Why are there so many Filipino nurses in the US?”

There are push and pull factors that are at play, I explained. The main push factor is the poor Philippine economy where an average Registered Nurse earns only about 5 percent of what an RN is paid in the United States. The main pull factor is the nursing shortage in this country.

But Americans should not to be too surprised at the large number of Filipinos here, I told her. After all, the Philippines was a U.S. colony from 1899 until the Japanese occupation in 1942 and, some would argue, a “neo-colony” for many decades after the Philippines was granted independence by the United States in 1946.

It certainly does not surprise the British to see many Indians and Pakistanis in England, nor does it surprise the French that there are many Algerians in France. They understand that people from the colonized countries generally tend to gravitate and immigrate to their “mother” countries, even after their native countries are granted independence.

Four Waves of Migration

Filipino nurses did not arrive in the United States overnight. They have been immigrating here for more than a century. In fact, there are four distinct waves of Filipino nurse immigration to the United States.

The first wave came after the United States began its colonization of the Philippines and needed local health care professionals to meet the health needs of the subject population which is why the U.S. Army recruited Filipinos to work as Volunteer Auxiliary and Contract Nurses.

Under the Pensionado Act of 1903, Filipino nursing students were among those sent to the United States as government-funded scholars (pensionados) including those pursuing a nursing education. Some of those who stayed for employment as nurses went on to form the Philippine Nurses Association of New York in 1928. The association’s first president was Marta Ubana, who completed her Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Many other pensionado nurses returned back to the Philippines to help set up and manage the 17 nursing schools that were established in the Philippines from 1903 until 1940. Large numbers of the graduates from these nursing schools thereafter immigrated to the United States as, unlike with the Chinese and Japanese, there were no exclusion acts enacted against them since Filipinos were considered “U.S. nationals” and even traveled with U.S. passports.

One of the pioneer Filipino RNs was Isabel L. Mina, who graduated with a nursing degree from the University of the Philippines in 1919 before working at the Mary Chiles Hospital in Manila. Isabel and two other Filipino nurses, Josefa Cariaga and Petra Aguinaldo, boarded a ship in Manila 1921 bound for Hawaii where they worked in a hospital before moving on to California. They then boarded a train and traveled to New York where they worked in a local hospital for several years.

Information about Isabel Mina was obtained by her San Francisco-based granddaughter, Lissa Sobrepena, who learned about her grandmother when she logged on to Ancestry.com. For a fee, the website produced photos of her grandmother in 1921 and her documents including the ship’s passenger manifests and the two passport applications she filled out when she lost her U.S. passport while traveling in the United States.

What stunned Lissa was when she found out that her grandmother’s best friend, Petra Aguinaldo, coincidentally just happened to be the grandmother of her husband, Robert Sobrepena. Neither Lissa nor Robert knew that their grandmothers – who died before they were born – were close friends and that they had traveled together across the United States as RNs.

The second wave of nurses from the Philippines began in1948 when the U.S. State Department set up an Exchange Visitor Program to “combat Soviet propaganda." According to Catherine Ceniza Choy, associate professor of ethnic studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of Empire of Care: Nursing and Migration in Filipino American History (Duke University Press, 2003), owing to the “special relationship” between the mother country and its former colony, a large percentage of the exchange visitors came from the Philippines.

Among these nurses was Maria Guerrero Llapitan who came to the United States in 1948 to take post-graduate nursing courses at Baylor University in Texas. Maria had served as the supervisor of the operating room of a hospital in Bataan before it fell to the Japanese invaders in 1942. After completing her postgraduate studies at Baylor, Maria moved to Chicago to work at the Cook County General Hospital where she met her fiance. She then went to Hunter College for Women in New York to get her nursing degree while working at Sloane-Kettering Memorial Hospital in New York.

Maria married her fiancé in San Francisco where they set up a family in 1951. She later was among the Filipino nurses who formed the Philippine Nurses Association of Northern California in 1961.

The third wave of Filipino nurse immigration to the US came after 1965 when U.S. Immigration laws were liberalized to allow Filipino nurses and other professionals to immigrate to the United States. It also allowed Filipino nurses to come to the United States on tourist visas without prearranged employment and to then adjust their status in the country.

During this period, the number of nursing schools in the Philippines soared from 17 in 1940 to 170 in 1990 to more than 429 at the present time. Many of these nursing schools were diploma mills exploiting the desire of many Filipinos to enter the nursing profession.

Unfortunately, as a result of the inferior education offered by these subpar nursing schools, only 15-20 percent of the Filipino nurses who immigrated to the United States after 1965 could pass the state nursing board exams. This led to the establishment in 1977 of the Commission on Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools (CGFNS) to help prevent the exploitation of graduates of foreign nursing schools who immigrate to the United States to work as nurses but who can’t pass the nursing board exams here.

The CGFNS developed a pre-immigration certification program that consisted of a credentials review; a test of nursing knowledge (CGFNS qualifying examination), and an English-language proficiency examination (TOEFL).

Since 1977, CGFNS has administered more than 350,000 tests to approximately 185,000 applicants in 43 test sites worldwide. From 1978 to 2000, the data showed that 73 percent of CGFNS test takers came from the Philippines, followed by the United Kingdom (4 percent), India(3 percent), Nigeria (3 percent), and Ireland (3 percent).

'Grow Your Own Nurses'

Menchu Sanchez is a 3rd wave nurse immigrant who has worked as an RN for more than 25 years, the last three years at the New York University Langone Medical Center. Menchu was in charge of 20 at-risk infants in the Intensive Care Unit of her hospital when Superstorm Sandy battered New York last October and knocked out the electric power to the hospital. Menchu organized the nurses and doctors to carry the babies in warming pads down 8 flights of stairs to safety. Menchu was invited to sit beside First Lady Michelle Obama at the State of the Union address of Pres. Barack Obama on February 12, 2013.

In his speech, Pres. Obama cited Menchu as a role model: “We should follow the example of a New York City nurse named Menchu Sanchez. When Hurricane Sandy plunged her hospital into darkness, she wasn’t thinking about how her own home was faring. Her mind was on the 20 precious newborns in her care and the rescue plan she devised that kept them all safe.”

Many Filipino nurses who entered the United States on H-1work visas after passing the CGFNS tests benefited from the passage of the Nursing Relief Act of 1989 which provided for their adjustment to permanent resident status if they had H-1 non-immigrant status as registered nurses and had been employed in that capacity for at least 3 years.

But the “sunsetting” of this law in 1995 effectively decreased Filipino nurse immigration to the United States. The passage of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1998 (IIRIIRA) further discouraged nurse immigration.

The passage of nativist legislation was fueled by fears of foreign nurses taking American jobs as former Washington DC Mayor Marion Barry complained : “it’s so bad, that if you go to the hospital now, you find a number of immigrants who are nurses, particularly from the Philippines,” Barry told the Examiner. “And no offense, but let’s grow our own teachers, let’s grow our own nurses — and so that we don’t have to be scrounging around in our community clinics and other kinds of places — having to hire people from somewhere else.”

Grow your own nurses, that’s what the United States did. According to the National Council of State Boards of Nursing, U.S. nursing schools produced close to a million nurses from 2006 to 2011.

While the demand for Filipino nurses may have waned in the United States, the demand for Filipino nurses in the rest of the world did not diminish. Filipino nurses working for the National Health System (NHS) in England drew international attention last February when Britain’s 91-year-old Prince Philip, while on a tour of a new cardiac centre in Bedfordshire, England, turned to a Filipino nurse and said: “The Philippines must be half-empty – you’re all here running the NHS.”

Not quite, not by a long shot, your majesty.

According to Reuben Seguritan, general counsel of the Philippine Nurses Association of America (PNAA), the Philippines is the world’s largest supplier of foreign-trained nurses with 429 nursing schools and 80,000 nursing students.

To place this number in context, City College of San Francisco, with 89,000 students, does not have the resources to accept more than 75 students into its nursing program. The nursing students are chosen by lottery from a list of about 500 students who otherwise qualify for acceptance, a selective system practiced by community colleges all over California.

Is there a fourth wave of Filipino nurse immigration to the US?

Yes, but it hasn’t arrived yet. According to recent CNN report, “Demand for health care services is expected to climb as more baby boomers retire and health care reform makes medical care accessible to more people. As older nurses start retiring, economists predict a massive nursing shortage will reemerge in the United States.”

The CNN report adds: “We’ve been really worried about the future workforce because we’ve got almost 900,000 nurses over the age of 50 who will probably retire this decade, and we’ll have to replace them,” [economist and nurse Peter] Buerhaus said.”

The fourth wave may come as early as 2014 when the U.S. Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, comes into effect and about 30-40 million Americans without any health insurance will finally be covered by health care insurance.

LPG Marketer’s Association party-list Rep. Arnel Ty believes that Obamacare will “stimulate” the U.S. hiring of foreign nurses. “This will hopefully spur U.S. demand for new foreign nurses and other health practitioners such as pharmacists, physical therapists, medical technologists, radiologists, and speech pathologists,” Ty said.

To another question posed by TV reporter Ann Notarangelo, I answered that I do not know the exact number of Filipino nurses in the United States. All I know is that number, whatever it is, was significantly reduced by 5 on the evening of May 4, 2013.

New Report Looks at How Foreclosure Undermined Black and Brown Wealth

2013-05-17T22:15:41Z

Despite recent headlines trumpeting a return of America’s real estate market to its boom-time highs, a report released today by the Alliance for a Just Society shows how little of that has trickled into communities of color. The document, entitled “Wasted Wealth,” is a sobering reminder of the gap between top-line economic cheerleading and the reality of what’s happening on the ground.

As “Wasted Wealth” lays out, close to 2.5 million families lost homes in just three years. Communities that were majority people of color saw foreclosures take place at almost twice the rate as white communities, with an average loss of wealth 30 percent higher per household.

This foreclosure tidal wave is why wealth for blacks and Latinos is at the lowest level ever recorded. Housing is the leading wealth asset for these two communities.

Although the real estate market overall has regained $16 trillion in wealth lost during the recession, these gains are largely driven by a frenzy for high-end properties at the very top of the market. “Wasted Wealth” contrasts these highs with the fact that more than 13 million homes continue to remain at risk for foreclosure. Read more here.

Data Reveals Immigrants’ Financial Contribution to States

2013-05-16T07:00:00Z

LOS ANGELES – In California, Asian and Hispanic immigrants pay nearly $30 billion in federal taxes, $5.2 billion in state income taxes, and $4.6 billion in sales taxes each year.

In New York, immigrants are responsible for $229 billion in economic output in the state. Even in Alabama, a state not known for having a large immigrant population, the purchasing power of Asian and Latinos in Alabama totaled $5.8 billion since 1990.

The Immigration Policy Center released last week a partial state-by-state analysis highlighting the importance and economic impact of Asians and Latino immigrants in the United States.

The release of the data comes at a crucial time as the bipartisan “Gang of Eight’s” comprehensive immigration reform legislation that would provide a pathway to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented people living in the US, makes its way through Congress.

Introduced on April 17, the bill, S.744, formally known as the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act, currently sits in the Senate Judiciary Committee where they will next discuss it on Tuesday, May 14.

The Immigration Policy Center data cites several eye-popping numbers about the contributions of Asian and Hispanic immigrants in the country.

For example, in California, which is home to 10.2 million immigrants (more than the total population of Michigan), “the average immigrant-headed household contributes a net $2,679 annually to Social Security, which is $539 more than the average US-born household,” the research shows.

Acclaimed professors and researchers Marshall Fitz and Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda, reveals: If all unauthorized immigrants were removed from California, the state would lose $301.6 billion in economic activity, decrease total employment by 17.4 percent, and eliminate 3.6 million jobs.

And if unauthorized immigrants in California were legalized, it would add 633,000 jobs to the economy, increase labor income by $26.9 billion, and increase tax revenues by $5.3 billion, added Fitz and Hinojosa-Ojeda.

“Immigrants comprise more than one-third of the California labor force. They figure prominently in key economic sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing and services. Immigrants provide leadership and labor for the expansion of California’s growing economic sectors – from telecommunications and information technology to health services and housing construction,” according to the Immigrant Policy Center data.

In places like Alabama, where undocumented immigrants comprise 4.2 percent of the state’s workforce, these workers paid $130.3 million in state and local taxes in 2010, according to data from the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy.

They cited a report by the Perryman Group, an economic and financial analysis firm. If all undocumented immigrants were removed from Alabama, the state would lose $2.6 billion in economic activity, $1.1 billion in gross state product, and approximately 17,819 jobs.

In Rhode Island, Perryman research reveals that the state would lose $698 million in economic activity, $310 million in gross state product, and 3,780 jobs.

In Texas, if all undocumented immigrants were removed from the state, it would lose $69.3 billion in economic activity, $30.8 billion in gross state product, and 403,174 jobs.

The data released on Thursday only highlights 10 of the 50 states. The Immigration Policy Center said they will plan the rest in the next few weeks.

(www.asianjournal.com)

Early Education Advocates Disappointed with Revised Budget

2013-05-15T15:47:27Z

Early education advocates in California were hoping for increases in preschool and child care funding in the governor’s revised budget, released Tuesday. No such luck.

“The governor talks a lot about educational equity and equality of opportunity,” said Scott Moore, policy analyst for the early education advocacy group Early Edge California. “He is really missing the boat when it comes to preschool.”

The funding change that is most likely to affect a child under 5 next year is the proposed decrease to funding for a child care program known as CalWorks 3. This program for the children of the working poor is meant to help parents keep their jobs by providing child care for young children and after-school care for children up to age 12. That program would operate on $4.4 million less next year than it is in the current year if the governor’s revised budget is adopted, according to Rachel Ehlers at the Legislative Analyst’s Office.

Read the rest at EdSource Today

In May Revise, Gov. Brown Raids Fund to Tackle Climate Change

2013-05-15T15:14:39Z

SAN FRANCISCO -- For months, hundreds of community members and advocates participated in workshops throughout California to figure out how to spend millions generated through the state’s cap-and-trade program. Just when the groups finally hammered out an investment plan that would start to pump money back to communities, Gov. Brown proposed Tuesday to divert that money to the general fund.

Part of Brown’s May budget revise, advocates say the move is a setback for communities facing the greatest health threats from climate change.

“Communities of color were the ones that defeated Prop 23 [the so-called Dirty Energy Prop], carried margins electing Gov. Brown. This is the wrong time to not be making good on the promise of improving environment, health and job creation in these communities,” said Ryan Young, legal counsel for the Greenlining Institute, which sponsored legislation (SB 535) that directs a quarter of the cap-and-trade auction proceeds to disadvantaged communities.

The governor is proposing a one-time loan of $500 million from a greenhouse gas reduction (GHG) fund – where auction money is deposited – to the general fund. The figure is the projected auction revenues for 2012 to 2014. So far, the first two auctions – one last November and one in February – generated about $140 million.

Gov. Brown’s office deferred questions to the state Dept. of Finance and the California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA).

In a statement, the Dept. of Finance called the loan “appropriate” and “fiscally prudent,” saying the agencies need more time “to design and develop their programs to ensure that … [they] maximize long term greenhouse gas reductions.”

“We felt it was premature,” said CalEPA spokesperson Jim Marxen. “We don’t know how much money we’re going to have. [The $500 million] is a projection … plus three additional auctions. As [the money] comes into [the GHG reduction fund] it will be loaned to the general fund.”

He added that the Air Resources Board (ARB), the agency tasked with implementing A.B. 32, will update the “Scoping Plan” by the end of the year.

“We can make a better decision with that info,” he said.

Mari Rose Taruc, state organizing director for the Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN), said she was “heavily disappointed” by the governor’s move.

“I don’t know what more vetting they could have done,” said Taruc, referring to the ARB’s process to craft an investment plan. “[They held] three workshops across the state … multiple hearings on this issue. [There were] lots of opportunities for public comment. It doesn’t make sense.”

APEN advocates on behalf of Southeast Asians and other residents in Richmond, Calif. who live near the Chevron oil refinery and face health impacts from pollution. Taruc said community members were very “excited about” and engaged in the ARB’s workshops to craft an investment plan, because they want healthy and prosperous communities.

She said the governor is diverting funds that are specifically intended to address climate change and “toward pollution reduction.” The impact of those funds would be diluted in the general fund, she said.

The state says it will pay back the loan with interest, but has not specified when it would do so.

“There were some win-win programs [in the investment plan],” said Young, the lawyer for the Greenlining Institute, including “low income energy efficiency…[and] restoring transit options for low income communities.”

Young said the governor’s decision isn’t necessary, pointing to the state’s budget surplus of $2.8 billion this fiscal year, and he called it “the wrong move.”

“We want to see tangible benefits starting now when the program is starting off. It’s precedent setting to do that,” he said. “Buy loaning these monies out, it really shortchanges these communities.”

Whites Record Wealth Six Times Greater Than Blacks

2013-05-15T08:30:00Z

WASHINGTON (NNPA) — — Whites had an average wealth of $632,000 in 2010 while Blacks had about $98,000 and Hispanics had $110,000, according to a recent study by the Urban Institute.

“Such great wealth disparities help explain why many middle-income Blacks and Hispanics haven’t seen much improvement in their relative economic status and, in fact, are at greater risk of sliding backwards,” the report says.

Blacks start out at a disadvantage.

Whites begin with about 3.5-4 times more wealth than their Black and Hispanic counterparts in their “wealth-building years,” defined as 32 to 40 years old. By age 60, the wealth of whites increases to seven times the amount of wealth Blacks are able to accrue over the same amount of time.

Levels of homeownership and retirement savings are shown to contribute to the differences in wealth among races. In 2010, less than half of Black families owned homes, while more than three quarters of white families did.

Algernon Austin, director of the program on race, ethnicity, and the economy at the Economic Policy Institute, says that Blacks were more likely to have loss their homes during the recession because they couldn’t keep up with ballooning mortgage payments.

“What we’ve seen recently is a dramatic loss of wealth for African Americans because there has been a dramatic loss of homeownership,” Austin explains. “Blacks were more likely to be given high-priced sub prime loans and were hit much harder by unemployment. Both factors—more loans, losing a job– makes it more difficult to keep up with mortgage payments.”

The recession has had a dire impact on the wealth of all Americans, with Hispanic families reporting their wealth declined by 40 percent between 2007-2010, according to the report. Blacks experienced a 31 percent decline while whites’ wealth declined by 11 percent.

Austin calls the loss of wealth experienced by the Black community a “symptom of high levels of unemployment and low wages, but particularly unemployment.”

Today, 27 percent of Blacks live in poverty. In March 2013, Blacks experienced an unemployment rate of 13.3 percent, compared to the national rate of 7.6 percent.

“Homeownership is a really important factor in terms of wealth, but so is unemployment,” Austin says. “If you’re going through frequent spells of unemployment, you’re either going to be losing wealth or going into debt.”

He adds, “The issue of jobs and income are important to address. The higher your income, the easier it is for you to build wealth. The government needs to enact policies that allow for Blacks to get greater income and get better job opportunities.”

Blacks represent about 11 percent of the total workforce, but 14 percent of the poverty-wage workforce, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

According to the Urban Institute findings, Black families saw the most dramatic decrease in their retirement assets, experiencing a 35 percent decline in retirement savings between 2007-2010.

“This ﬁnding is consistent with research that suggests lower income families are more likely to withdraw money from retirement savings after a job loss or other adverse event,” according to the Urban Institute report. “The high rates of unemployment and other ﬁnancial needs that took hold with the Great Recession appear to have led to larger declines in retirement savings for Black families.”

While the Great Recession can account for much of the loss of wealth, there are other contributing factors to African Americans’ low-wealth, including policies designed to help Americans accrue wealth and policies aimed at low-income families, a large proportion of whom are African-American.

“There’s lots that the federal government does that if it was targeted to lower income Americans it could impact the wealth gap, “ Austin adds. “However, unfortunately, it’s a difficult battle because current policies benefit people who have significant political power and influence.”

In 2009, the federal government spent about $384 billion on policies that help families buy homes, start businesses, put their children through college, and retire.

Many of these policies, however, are administered through the tax code and “subsidize wealth building for the wealthiest among us, rewarding them for the size of their homes and investment portfolios,” according to a 2010 report by the Corporation for Enterprise Development titled “Upside Down: The $400 Billion Federal Asset-Building Budget.”

“The federal asset building budget provides a variety of things—opportunities for families to buy homes, start businesses, and prepare for retirement,” says Jermie Greer, the director of government affairs for CFED. “Yet, this $400 billion budget is skewed to benefit the very wealthy.”

According to the report, a middle-class family making $50,000 annually receives less than $500 in benefits from federal asset building policies, while families that make $100,000 receive $2,000 in benefits.

Tax payers who make in excess of $1 million, however, can see more than $92,000 in asset building support through mortgage and property tax deductions and investment tax breaks. Over half of the nearly $400 billion in benefits, according to the report, goes to the top five percent of tax payers.

“Conversation around tax reform so often focuses on the relationship between revenues for deficit reduction, but missed the mark on what is the social policy we want to address through the tax code,” Greer says.

“They can take some of the tax benefits that go to the very wealthy and bring them back down to people that are trying to build wealth and scratch their way out of poverty,” Greer adds.

Most lower- and middle-income families use homeownership to build wealth. In fact, homeownership accounts for the largest proportion of wealth among lower and middle-income households.

Yet, homeowners with lower incomes often don’t receive enough of a deduction to make a difference. According to the CFED report, nearly 80 percent of the value of mortgage and property tax deductions went to the top 20 percent of taxpayers.

“Social policy is really focused on income and the income people earn,” Greer says. “While people need jobs and it’s important that people are able to earn income, but that’s not the only piece of puzzle when you think about wealth.”

“We need to think not only about income, but providing benefits and incentives that help people build wealth through starting businesses, buying homes, being protected from predatory lenders.”

For low-income families in particular, federal programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, help ensure families have basic necessities, but don’t assist in helping to develop economically stable households.

“Many safety net programs even discourage saving: Families can become ineligible if they have a few thousand dollars in savings,” he Urban Institute report says.

Individuals who receive benefits from assistance programs can only have savings that equal up to $2,000 before risking losing their benefits. States currently have the flexibility to wave these limits, which keep people from accumulating money that can help them start a business or build wealth that can lead them out of poverty.

Thirty-six states currently waive limits to the SNAP and Temporary Assistance to Needed Families programs.

There are also programs, such as the Self-help Homeownership Opportunity Program (SHOP), which helps low- to moderate-income families purchase homes, that can help low-income families build wealth through homeownership, but the programs received less funding than low-income rental programs in 2010.

Austin says that through implementing more policies that benefit a wider range of people from varying socioeconomic backgrounds, we could begin to see the wealth gap “start shrinking instead of watching it grow.”

“It’s possible to prevent [the wealth gap] from growing larger and even shrinking it, but none of the policies that will ensure that will happen by themselves,” Austin says. “With all of these things, they aren’t likely to happen overnight.”

This article was originally published in the May 13, 2013 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.

African Americans Shift Spending in Tight Economy

2013-05-13T16:14:28Z

According to the data found in a new report, “The Buying Power of Black America,” now may be the most opportune time ever for businesses to develop a strategy for increasing their share of the Black American market. With the nation slowly recovering from recession, Black consumers represent the margin of profitability in most consumer product categories.

“What the recession did to Black America’s buying habits is to give them a reason to re-evaluate how they spent the billions of dollars they earned collectively,” said Ken Smikle, president of Target Market News and editor of the report. “Before tight economic times, companies felt they could afford to take their loyalty—especially to top brands—for granted. That changed during the downturn. Price was a bigger factor driving purchasing decisions. Now brands have to earn the loyalty of Black consumers all over again. Black consumers are asking brands, ‘what have you done for me lately.’”

For the past 17 years, Target Market News has published the only report that breaks down in dollars the impact of the Black Consumer Market. Now approaching a trillion dollars in spending, the earned income of Black America is already the 16th-largest market in the world, and is on the verge of surpassing the gross national income of Mexico.

Read the rest at the Louisiana Weekly

SSA: Immigration Reform Will Increase Tax Revenue

2013-05-10T21:30:00Z

Will the immigration reform bill create millions of jobs, boost GDP, and help balance the budget? A new report by the Social Security Administration says that it will, by putting undocumented immigrants on the tax rolls and allowing them to participate fully and legally in the U.S. economy.

The Chief Actuary of the Social Security Administration estimates that the proposed bipartisan immigration reform bill will allow about 8 million undocumented individuals, many of whom already work in the underground economy, to become legal and pay taxes.

Read more

Career Academies Baffle, Even as They Boost Coachella Valley Grad Rates

2013-05-10T08:35:00Z

Image: Teacher Simon Moore speaks with a student at Coachella Valley High School's Health Careers Academy.

Ed. Note: In 2011, California’s legislature passed AB 790, a statewide initiative aimed at addressing the growing number of high school graduates unprepared or under-prepared for either college or a career. Studies document that up to 70 percent of high school seniors fall into one of these two categories. The initiative targeted 20 school districts and some 600,000 high school students across California. Schools implementing the Linked Learning Pilot Program – one of a number of school reform efforts in the state – integrate academic rigor with a demanding technical curriculum geared toward a professional field. In its first two years, the program has met with promising success. This is the third and final installment of a series of reports by New America Media’s ethnic media partners on how Linked Learning and similar programs are being applied in some of the state’s most underserved communities.

THERMAL, Calif. – This June, Stephany Madrigal will not only be graduating high school, but will be doing so as a certified medical assistant, qualified to enter the workforce and earn about $25,000 annually.

But she won’t be doing that.

Instead, she will attend California State University at San Marcos where she plans to earn a bachelor’s degree in nursing. She hopes to work part-time as a medical assistant. She credits her academic success to Coachella Valley High School’s (CVHS) Health Careers Academy (HCA), a classroom-career training hybrid program often misunderstood even on its own campus.

“Other teachers and counselors that don’t have the buy-in or don’t have the understanding of what happens in the academies are some of our biggest problems, if you will, as we try to be more successful,” says Simon Moore, lead teacher for the HCA.

Academy students participate in a curriculum that includes job shadowing, internships, college visits, and regular progress checks with teachers – a luxury at a school with only nine counselors for its 2,300 students. While not part of the statewide Linked Learning Pilot Program, established in 2011, HCA's template is demonstrative of the success such programs are having in fostering both career and college readiness.

CVHS also offers academies in Hospitality, Tourism & Recreation, a Public Safety Academy, and a Digital Design & Production Academy. According to John Noonan, who oversees the academy programs, they graduate 99 percent of their students, far exceeding the 70 percent graduation rate of the school as a whole. There are about 900 students in the school’s academies.

Even so, Moore says the biggest misconception is that the academies are strictly vocational and do not prepare students for college.

Madrigal says this is not the case. Even though she was a straight-A student, she was not on the college track until she joined HCA. “It was one of my academy teachers that told me about the SATs,” she says. “My counselor never told me.”

In addition to close relationships with teachers, academy students develop close bonds with one another due to their mutual career interests. “Everyone in the health academy says this is like a big family. It sounds cliché, but it’s actually what happens,” says Madrigal. “We are with each other every day, we get to know each other and our teachers; we have all their support.”

She adds that students help one another fulfill the academy’s community service requirement, 30 hours each school year, and that together they apply for scholarships and attend SAT workshops.

“All my friends are going to college,” says Madrigal.

It’s About Jobs

Along with other high schools in the region, Coachella Valley High School’s career academies are part of a broader collaborative economic development program.

“In order for our region to have a healthy, thriving economy, we must have great jobs,” says Kim McNulty, director of Next Generation Learning at the Coachella Valley Economic Partnership (CVEP). “In order to attract and grow companies who offer high-wage, high-growth jobs, you've got to have a smart, well-educated, well-trained workforce.”

In Coachella, high dropout rates and low college attendance have been the norm with just over 25 percent of residents having a four-year college degree.

While each of the area’s three school districts oversees their individual academy programs, CVEP supports their work with a regional strategic plan, community outreach efforts, and by bringing together the career academy teams with partners in the business community.

The academies take learning outside the classroom; job shadowing and hands-on exposure are powerful learning tools for students interested in exploring a specific field. Non-Academy teachers, however, are not as enthusiastic.

“We have teachers that complain about students being out of class one day a week for job shadowing … [but] they don’t get it. They think [students] are missing information – and they are – but you have to understand what they are gaining as well,” says Moore. “I hear students say their goal is to go to college. That’s not the goal. The goal is to get a job after finishing college in a career you want to work in.”

Before coming to the Health Careers Academy, Moore had a lengthy career in emergency medical services.

The academies are able to achieve their graduation rate even with an academically diverse student makeup. According to Moore, high academic achievers are programmed by educators to believe the academies will not help them reach their goals.

“A lot of teachers have this misconception because they don’t understand this [career] exposure,” says Moore. “[Academy students] are literally working with doctors, literally working with nurses, in laboratories, in all these different positions.”

But more and more of the school’s top students are enrolling in the academies. Two of last year’s top 10 graduates, including the salutatorian, were HCA students. “Every year we have had someone in the top 10. This year we have the potential to have three, which would be a record,” says Moore.

He estimates that half of his graduates go on to higher education, while the other half go directly into the workforce. California mandates that a minimum of 55 percent of students enrolled in career academies are “at-risk.”

Julia Salazar was one of these students.

Replicating the Family

“As a freshman, I didn’t do any work,” says Salazar. “My dad didn’t care if I went to college or not. [The Academy] helped me focus. I learned it’s important to get a college education.”

Salazar will graduate in June and plans to enroll at the local community college and become a Licensed Vocational Nurse.

“We have all types of students,” says Kent Braithwaite, a teacher in the HCA. “We have students who might not be graduating from high school and are now going to have professional careers as certified nursing assistants, all the way to future surgeons.”

According to Coachella Valley High School, only four percent of academy students have parents who have graduated from college. About 48 percent of students have parents who did not graduate from high school.

“I believe [these numbers] are an important factor as to why the academies’ small learning communities are important,” says Noonan, the school’s academy director.

“The academy program is absolutely perfectly suited for this type of community because the academy structure replicates the family,” says Braithwaite, who has been teaching here for 34 years. “In our community, in the Coachella Valley Unified School District, we are dealing with many shattered families who are challenged economically. The priorities are keeping a roof over the head and food on the table.”

Academy teachers are used to going to bat for their students and defending a program they believe prepares their students for the real world.

“To the naysayers, I say I challenge you to match the students who are only book smart with some of our health academy students that are 3.0 and above and have all these other skills, these interpersonal skills, interacting skills,” says Moore. “Our kids blow them out of the water 90 percent of the time.”

Brenda Rincon is a writer and the editor of Coachella Unincorporated, a youth-led community media project founded by New America Media to serve the rural communities of the Eastern Coachella Valley, an agricultural region in Riverside County, California. This story was made possible through a grant from the California Education Policy Fund.

Related:
In Oakland Classrooms, Students ‘Learn to Work’

Film Project on LA Street Vendors Brings Community into the Classroom 

Film Project on LA Street Vendors Brings Community into the Classroom

2013-05-08T08:00:00Z

Traducción al español

Image: Instructor Jacqueline La Torre (left) , students (left to right), Monica Rodas, Heidi Maqueos, Dahlia Perez, Magaly Ordonez and Tiffany Sosa.

Ed. Note: In 2011, California’s legislature passed AB 790, a statewide initiative aimed at addressing the growing number of high school graduates unprepared or under-prepared for either college or a career. Studies document that up to 70 percent of high school seniors fall into one of these two categories. The initiative targeted 20 school districts and some 600,000 high school students across California. Schools implementing the Linked Learning Pilot Program – one of a number of school reform efforts in the state – integrate academic rigor with a demanding technical curriculum geared toward a professional field. In its first two years, the program has met with promising success. This is the third and final installment of a series of reports by New America Media’s ethnic media partners on how Linked Learning and similar programs are being applied in some of the state’s most underserved communities.

LOS ANGELES – High school student Heidi Maqueos never thought much about the street vendors scattered about her neighborhood in East Los Angeles. That all changed, though, when she and several classmates produced a documentary about them as part of a class project.

The experience, she says, opened her eyes to the forces shaping her community.

"The problem of street vendors comes from having no immigration papers, [finding work in] the bad economy and being poor," says Maqueos, a senior at the Los Angeles School of Global Studies.

The school is part of a statewide initiative known as the Linked Learning Pilot Program – established in 2011 under AB 790 and involving 63 districts and roughly 600,00 high school students across California. Advocates say Linked Learning programs not only address the needs of the state’s rapidly changing economy, but also help boost student performance.

"We had to research the pros and cons of doing business in the street, and the health, public health, law or potential economic impact of legalizing their businesses," Maqueos explained.

She and four classmates produced the documentary, “A Forbidden Life: Plight of the Street Vendor,” for their Digital Media and Design class. Students in the class, says teacher Jacqueline La Torre, “learn technical skills in making visual media by getting involved in issues that affect their community and their environment."

One of those skills, La Torre adds, is communication. Many of the students she works with initially struggle to engage with people outside their immediate circles, she says, noting that through the course of the program she has seen some “impressive strides.”

Reversing Trends

One-third of California high school students drop out before graduating, according to ConnectEd, one of several education reform groups that helped craft the pilot program. For those who do graduate, nearly one-third are unprepared for college or a career.

For California’s economy, those are disturbing figures. A 2012 report put out by the group California Competes notes that by 2025, the state’s workforce will suffer a shortage of about 2.3 million qualified workers who lack either a college or vocational degree.

Supporters of Linked Learning and similar models say their approach to education can help reverse these trends. Particularly for traditionally underserved populations, including African American and Latino students, the model has shown to be effective in boosting graduation rates.

Rosa Maria Hernandez is the Los Angeles Unified School District’s (LAUSD) Linked Learning program director. She says the benefits for students and the state are clear. "We know that today's students need to be ready with the skills that employers are demanding,” she says, “whether they plan to go to college or choose a vocational career.”

Hernandez’ office oversees Linked Learning programs in 11 high schools across the district. Only two, Global Studies and Los Angeles High School of the Arts, are Linked Learning certified, meaning the entire curriculum is modeled on the Linked Learning approach. That approach consists of four key components: academic, technical, work-based – internships and work shadows – and finally a support structure that includes counseling and supplemental instruction.

"There are no requirements for students [or] schools that want to participate,” Hernandez says, apart from an administration that is “ready and willing to implement the program."

At Global Studies, where over 90 percent of the school’s 350 students are Latino, attendance rates have surged to over 95 percent since it implemented the Linked Learning program two years ago. It has also seen gains in its Academic Performance Index (API) score, a measure of the school’s annual progress.

“Absolutely, [Linked Learning] has contributed to a higher graduation rate,” says Principal Christian Quintero. “When [the school] started 7 years ago we had a graduation rate of 38 percent and an API of 520. Over the years, we have increased our graduation rate to over 89 percent and the API to 653 in 2011.”

As for the 50 percent of graduates who do not go on to college, Quintero says the majority are “career ready” by the time they leave school.

Engaging Students and the Community

Hernandez says her office is looking to add another 10 Linked Learning programs in schools across the district over the next two years. That effort received a boost when the LAUSD board announced a resolution in late April calling for the expansion of Linked Learning programs.

The resolution also stressed the importance of gaining wider support from local employers and community-based organizations. One of those, the social justice nonprofit East Los Angeles Community Corporation (ELACC), worked with Maqueos and her classmates on their film project.

"I was surprised to see their commitment,” says Janet Favela, a community organizer with ELACC. “[They] worked on Saturdays, [and showed a] strong interest in the cause of social justice. I was really impressed with the presentation of their final project.”

That presentation was the result of long hours spent compiling and editing raw material. Monica Rhodes was another of the students working on the film. She admits it wasn’t easy. "There were times when we worked up to 12 hours at a stretch editing the interviews," she recalls.

Like her classmates, she says the experience gave her a broader understanding of her own capabilities and how they can be applied beyond the classroom.

"Times have changed,” notes Hernandez. “Today, a good student isn’t someone who learns by sitting down and not saying anything, but is someone who is involved in their own learning."

Esmeralda Fabian is a Los Angeles-based education reporter with La Opinion newspaper. This story was produced by New America Media and made possible through a grant from the California Education Policy Fund.

Related: In Oakland Classrooms, Students ‘Learn to Work’

In Oakland Classrooms, Students ‘Learn to Work’

2013-05-06T13:13:05Z

Ed. Note: In 2011, California’s legislature passed AB 790, a statewide initiative aimed at addressing the growing number of high school graduates unprepared or under-prepared for either college or a career. Studies document that up to 70 percent of high school seniors fall into one of these two categories. The initiative targeted 20 school districts and nearly a third, or some 600,000 high school students across California. Schools implementing the Linked Learning Pilot Program – one of a number of school reform efforts in the state – integrate academic rigor with a demanding technical curriculum geared toward a professional field. In its first two years, the program has met with promising success. This is the first of three stories by New America Media’s ethnic media partners on how Linked Learning is being applied in some of the state’s most underserved communities.

OAKLAND, Calif. -- On a Thursday afternoon, Da’Vahn Frazier greets customers at a downtown Berkeley restaurant. Frazier may pass as wait staff at Café Platano, a family-owned Salvadoran eatery, but he’s not — the high school senior is an intern and is being graded on his work.

Frazier is a student at Oakland’s MetWest High School, where internships with the local business community are a cornerstone of the curriculum.

“We know that students are dropping out because they are not engaged or challenged enough, so this is a piece to address that and keep them in school,” says Diana Kampa, a program manager at Oakland Unified School District’s College & Career Readiness Office.

Kampa’s office oversees 24 career pathway programs implemented across this mostly low-income district. The programs, with themes ranging from information technology to health care and green energy, incorporate college prep work with exposure to skills needed in a given profession.

The impact on student achievement is noteworthy.

Students enrolled in one of OUSD’s career pathway programs have a graduation rate of 84 percent, versus 58 percent for non-pathway students. A-G completion rates with a grade of C or better — required for admittance into either the University of California or California State university systems — is 52 percent for career pathway students, compared to the district average of 31 percent, according to data from the 2011-2012 school year.

“It’s a struggle (for my son) to do academic work,” admits Chad Thompson, whose son is currently a junior at MetWest, which has a student population of less than 150. Based on The Big Picture Learning model, the curriculum there involves participation in internships, with advisors who work with small groups of students to monitor their progress on the job and in the classroom.

“Internships give them a place for them to be their best selves,” says Marisa Traylor, a Humanities teacher and advisor at the school. “They feel motivated and accountable, and they feel successful.”

Thompson says his son “would have been lost” at a larger, more traditional school. “The biggest thing is that he needs motivation, and he likes to be useful.”

Leticia Garcia transferred her son from a large high school to MetWest as an 11th grader because of falling grades. “He was so distracted. We didn’t think he would graduate on time.” Not long after, he began getting A’s and B’s and is currently active in Upward Bound, several internships, an after school Raza Studies program, and is taking a science course at Laney College, just across the street.

Nationwide Trend

Across the country school districts are working to keep up with rapid changes in the economy. Many are adopting career-focused curriculums as a way to both prepare students for an evolving workforce and to better engage them in their studies.

In California — where nearly one third of high school students drop out and another third graduate unprepared for either college or work — the state legislature in 2011 passed AB 790. The bill established so-called “Linked Learning” pilot programs in 63 districts and county offices of education statewide — not including Oakland — reaching nearly a third of all high school students in the state.

The James Irvine Foundation has donated $51 million in support of the initiative, which is slated to run through to 2017.

For students like Frazier, the experience has proven to be life changing.

Soon after he began 9th grade at another Oakland school, Frazier’s grades began to fall. He would often get into trouble for things like getting out of his seat and wandering around the classroom. Today, he is on track to graduate in June and hopes to attend college to study political science, culinary arts and acting.

His 10th grade advisor, Carolyn Norr, attributes that turnaround to the success of his internship, which she says allowed him to reconnect to school. “He needed that chance to really shine,” Norr explains.

Frazier’s work at Café Platano involves setting out tortillas and salsa, smashing boxes for recycling, washing dishes and restocking the refrigerator. But he’s also learning the ins and outs of running a business through his mentor, Nicolas Sanchez, who co-owns Café Platano with his brother Juan.

“As the owner, the first thing you want to see is the hunger to learn,” Sanchez says. “I want to make sure they [interns] are capable and they want to do it.” He adds, however, that his own time pressures make offering internships a challenge. “It’s hard,” he admits.

It’s challenging for students too. Frazier called about 20 places before he found his first internship, with a local puppeteer.

Can the Model be Replicated?

In recent years, OUSD has closed several career academies for reasons mostly due to restructuring. MetWest has also struggled with budget issues, in part because the school’s model calls for small class sizes — currently at around 20 students per class — that are more expensive to operate.

Coordinating internships also requires real peoplepower. MetWest has a Learning Through Internship Coordinator, Greg Cluster, who manages internship placements and sustains partnerships with about 500 nonprofits, businesses, public agencies and professionals. Though internship placement is not always perfect, “We found that if their interests are genuine, they’ll always find an adult who can take them in,” Cluster said.

In addition, the model itself may not be replicable across the district. Kampa says there’s no way to place every one of the district’s 10,000 high school students in an internship, integral to the overall success of the program. Summer internships, shadow days, field trips and guest speakers — all of which are also part of the work-based learning model — are ways the district is attempting to expose students to the professional world.

Still, that hasn’t deterred Timothy Bremner, founder, director and teacher of the Sustainable Urban Design Academy (SUDA), a part of the larger Castlemont High School in East Oakland.

“We want to expose students to a lot of different careers,” says Bremner, whose program is in its first year and received a grant from the CA Department of Education in partnership with the CA Energy Commission.

SUDA partners with numerous environmentally focused non-profits, including PUEBLO, Youth Uprising (next door to the school), Urban Releaf and Kijani Grows. About 20 students have after school green jobs, such as working the school’s farmers market. And for the first time, all of Castlemont’s 140 seniors have internships as part of their senior thesis project.

Ronye Cooper, 16, went on her first camping trip at a sustainable farm as part of SUDA. She says she wants to go into medical psychology. “My other [choice] would be to help the environment and my community. Maybe an urban forester.”

Cooper also says she’s picked up a recycling habit, and has begun to question the conditions in her neighborhood. “I think about how I live in East Oakland, and the pollution … it made me think, ‘Why are we living like this?’”

One of SUDA’s upcoming projects is “Guns to Gardens,” transforming the school’s former JROTC rifle range into an aquaponics garden, using fish to grow plants.

With a growing number of such success stories, officials seem to be paying attention. In the last two years, the district has launched SUDA and Project Lead the Way, two STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) academies at McClymonds High School and Oakland High School.

“Our focus is to continue building out the fledgling academies,” says Kampa, “and also to increase enrollment in the other [existing] academies.”

Momo Chang is a freelance journalist based in Oakland, CA. She previously taught English and Social Studies in Oakland. This story was produced by New America Media and made possible through a grant from the California Education Policy Fund.

Lifeline Program Adapts to Cell Phone Age

2013-05-04T08:05:00Z

Traducción al español

Vietnamese Translation

Chinese Translation

A program that provides discounted telephone service to low-income Californians is facing a new challenge in an age of cell phones: Many residents no longer just have a landline.

For the first time, California’s Lifeline telephone assistance program will include discounted wireless service – modernizing a program that has been around for nearly 30 years.

Low-income consumers will have the opportunity to shape the upcoming changes to the program at a series of public hearings across the state. The California Public Utilities Commission is urging low-income residents to attend the hearings so that the updated program will reflect their needs.

CPUC Public Hearings
4:00-7:00

Rancho Cordova, May 14 Rancho Cordova City Hall Council Chambers 2729 Prospect Park Drive

San Francisco, May 15 Commission Courtroom State Office Building 505 Van Ness Avenue

San Diego, June 12 Al Bahr Shriners Center 5440 Kearny Mesa Road

Riverside, June 17 City Hall 3900 Main Street, Riverside

Los Angeles, June 18 Caltrans District 7 HQ Rm. 01.040 A and B 100 S. Main Street

Eureka, July 17 Board of Supervisors 825 5th Street

Fresno July 31 Fresno City Hall Council Chambers 2nd floor 2600 Fresno Street

Salinas, August 13 Laurel Inn and Conference Center 801 West Laurel Drive

“We have the opportunity to actually create a California wireless Lifeline program that could be different from any other program in the nation,” Ana Montes, organizing director of The Utility Reform Network in San Francisco, told ethnic media reporters on a telebriefing co-hosted by her organization, The Center for Media Justice and New America Media.

But making the program work for wireless consumers raises new questions. The PUC will be looking for input from consumers on the monthly amount residents can afford to pay, the necessary number of minutes, and whether services such as texting, data/Internet access, and emergency phone calls should be included.

Tina Cheung, a community organizer at Chinatown Community Wellness Center in San Francisco, said the phone assistance program is especially valuable for “California’s most vulnerable in low-income communities, including those that are monolingual, new immigrants, and folks that have limited English speaking capacity.”

“It really connects families who are often far away,” she said. “Not everyone lives by each other anymore.”

“As its name indicates, it’s actually intended to be a safety net for people in times of need, whether that need is to seek employment, or education, or health care,” explained Steven Renderos, national organizer for The Center for Media Justice.

“Lifeline was always meant to reduce the economic barriers for families in need of telephone service,” said Renderos, “and over the years, in today’s rapidly evolving economy, those communication needs are now mobile.”

According to the Pew Research Center, 87 percent of adults own a cell phone. As of 2011, 27.9 percent of California households are wireless only.

“When you think about that, in contrast to computers or the Internet, Latinos and African-Americans, and communities of color in general, are actually using cell phones that are adapting the use of smart phones at the same rates as whites,” said Renderos.

The New Millennium Research Foundation conducted a survey of about 5,500 Lifeline wireless subscribers, which asked subscribers what they used their cell phones for.

“The number one reason was to stay in touch with family, but the number two reason was to be in touch with their employer,” said Renderos. “In communities of color and low-income communities, the cell phone is not just a means to communicate. It’s also a means to improve their financial situation.”

According to Renderos, the Lifeline cell phone program can be seen as an economic tool.

“For low-income cell phone users, [Lifeline] generates an average of $259 a year,” he said.

Currently, 13.5 million households subscribe to Lifeline nationally. Another 50 million households that are eligible for the program are not enrolled.

Although wireless cell phone usage has proven to be vital in California’s low-income communities, many residents face obstacles in obtaining cell phones for reasons as minor as a recognized physical address – a problem in both rural and urban settings.

“There have been many challenges,” admitted Priya Sawhney, a community organizer at the Central City SRO Collaborative in San Francisco. For those residing in low-income permanent residential hotels, she said, “Their physical address at the hotel is not recognized as a permanent address.”
“Service providers more than often don’t recognize these addresses, hence the population who needs these services the most is not able to get them,” said Sawhney.

L.B. Tatum, a minister working with Congregations Organized for Prophetic Engagement in San Bernardino, is concerned that some who need the program may not even know about it.

“We certainly see where it is needed and those who need the service are not always afforded the opportunity to learn about it or to receive assistance in filling out applications,’ said Tatum. “We want to make sure that information about the program is marketed to those who are disenfranchised, those who are suffering economically.”

Lifeline’s new wireless program is expected to be implemented within a year.

The California Public Utilities Commission will seek input from customers in pubic hearings in May and June in cities throughout California, including Fresno, Riverside, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, and Salinas. To attend a PUC hearing in your area, contact the Public Advisor’s Office at public.advisor@cpuc.ca.gov or toll free at 866-849-8390.

Ivan Delgado is a reporter for Coachella Unincorporated. ]]>