 Chris Langer / for NBC News Rodolfo Moscosa works in an airplane parts factory in Mentor, Oh. and is taking the HOLA GED program in hopes of earning his GED in the State of Ohio.  Chris Langer / for NBC News Jorge Reynoso (middle) works on math problems at the HOLA GED classes in Painesville, Oh. By Miranda Leitsinger, NBC News The government's new program offering young undocumented immigrants a reprieve from deportation presents an opportunity but also many challenges for an estimated 350,000 youths who didn't finish high school, many of whom may not be able to qualify because the barriers are too high, experts say. The key hurdle is the educational requirement of the deferred action program. Immigrants must be enrolled in school, graduated from high school or have served in the military, and if they haven't, they'll need to get a GED, the equivalent of a high school degree, or enroll in an education, literacy, or career training program. Some of those trying the GED route are hitting roadblocks. Gabriela de Jesus Diaz Bocardo, a 23-year-old immigrant from Mexico living in Phoenix, Ariz., is one of them. She has spent two months trying to find a prep class she could afford since a state law effectively prohibits undocumented immigrants from taking the free courses. One school told her a one-year program would cost her $4,000, which was way beyond her means. "I want to be enrolled in school, but I can't find a way … I'm trying my hardest," said Diaz, who was unable to finish school after giving birth to her son and wants to return. "I would be so happy. … Everyday waking up in the morning going to school, proving to my teachers that I am here early, trying to have a dream." As Diaz and others have learned, merely getting into a GED prep course – let alone taking the test -- won't be easy: Adult education serves about 2 million people nationwide though nearly 35 million don't have a high school diploma or its equivalent. This is mostly because the availability of services can't meet the demand, the Department of Education said in a statement. Some 72 percent of adult education programs had waiting lists in 2010, according to a national survey by the National Council of State Directors for Adult Education. "The federal funding for these kinds of services has been stagnant for years, and … the states have been reducing their funding," said Lennox McClendon, the council's senior advisor. "So the opportunities for adult education in general have been waning." Between 320,000 and 350,000 of the 1.7 million undocumented immigrants who are potentially eligible for deferred action are impacted by the education requirement, according to estimates from the Migration Policy Institute and the Pew Hispanic Center. They are 16 and older and do not have a high school diploma or GED, and are not currently enrolled in school. Overall, the government had received more than 82,000 applications for deferred action as of Sept. 13, with 29 of them completed, according to the latest data. "I think it's fair to say that the immigrant rights movement is discovering the education reform movement … and that they're really coming to understand, first of all, how hard it is to get a GED and secondly, how limited the capacity of adult education programs is," said Margie McHugh, co-director of the Migration Policy Institute's National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy. "Certainly this 350,000 or so young people are the most immediate concern and the most vulnerable for not making it through the process, and that's very much related to both the difficulty of pursuing a GED or completing a GED … and also the lack of availability of programs." Some take exception to undocumented immigrants accessing such programs. "I think it's perfectly legitimate to bar access to them because there are waiting lists," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center of Immigration Studies, a think tank that supports tighter immigration controls. "I mean, there's obviously limited resources and in an environment of limited resources, allowing illegal immigrants to enroll would mean that legal immigrants or American citizens would not be able to get classes ... that's just math. There's no way to avoid that." Others feel it is unfair to set a requirement for some in the group that could be insurmountable. "It offends me as someone who comes from poverty that they have set a system up where – people, you know, that are more likely probably the poorest of the poor -- would never be able to take advantage of it. They give a break to people that are going to college or people that are in the military," said Carol Swain, a professor of politics and law at Vanderbilt University who writes about immigration and did the GED herself after dropping out of high school. "If you're going to give mercy to the group they should set up the criteria in a way that it takes in everybody and not exclude the people that are the poorest of the poor or the ones that would never qualify based on their standards." Spike in requests in some states In Iowa, centers have experienced a 20 percent rise in English as a Second Language attendance for GED prep, while Massachusetts has seen a 25 percent to 50 percent surge in registration for the test through Spanish. In North Carolina, there has been a 5 percent to 10 percent increase in testing requests, including to take it in Spanish, prompting adminstrators to order more such tests for next year. McLendon, who reviewed the GED Testing Service survey and conducted his own of state directors, said it's been "a mixed bag" so far. "In some states there seems to be an impact. In other states there doesn't seem to be very much," he said. "It's going to be spotty. In some areas they will … have easy access and some areas they won't. They will just have to wait for months, perhaps." In Painesville, a community of 18,000 outside Cleveland, an immigrant rights' group knew the educational requirements would be a problem for those youth who were not the undocumented college graduates often seen leading the campaign for getting legal status. "We've always known that the Latino dropout is very high here in northeast Ohio," said Veronica Dahlberg, executive director of Hola, a grassroots group focusing on Latino advocacy and community organizing. "We immediately knew this was going to be an issue and started raising the money right away. We knew there was no way the local (adult education) program would meet the need in our town and I'm sure this is true in other areas as well." Dahlberg contacted the local Adult Basic and Literary Education (ABLE) program, which told them they'd be happy to partner but had already allocated their annual budget. So Hola began a fundraising drive, which included raffling off a car donated by a local pastor. The group raised about $6,000 to pay for two ABLE teachers and four tutors, some of whom are bilingual. On Sept. 10, they began with eight students in makeshift classrooms in the Hola center. Today, they have 29. Some students are proficient in English and completed a lot of school, but a majority will have to take the test in Spanish. "I never thought this would be as big as it's become. It's really great that the students … want to learn, want to do better, want to get a better job," said Carol Darr, ABLE coordinator in Painesville. Juan Maldonado, 20, and the oldest of six brothers who dropped out of high school after his dad was deported to Mexico two years ago, said many of the students were excited about having another option to get their diploma. "You feel like now there are no limits to what you can do," he said. Maldonado, who likes math but has trouble with grammar, said returning to school has taken on a whole different meaning since his first go-around. "It actually feels really good knowing that I am doing something good for myself," he said. "It is really important for me because I would like to be able to go back to some kind of career, so I could start my life."  |
10/15/2012
Undocumented hit GED barrier in quest for legal status
Voters doubt either candidate can help economy
| By Allison Linn, NBC News The big question in this presidential election has been which candidate – President Barack Obama or challenger Mitt Romney – can do the best job fixing the ailing national economy. But new research suggests that nearly half of all Americans think neither candidate will have much effect on their personal financial situation. The new survey, released Monday by Bankrate.com, finds that 45 percent of adults nationwide don't think the choice of president will make much of a difference to their finances. Another 29 percent said they thought their personal situation would be better under Obama, while 20 percent said their personal situation would be better if Romney wins the election. The survey of about 1,000 people, which was conducted Oct. 4-7 and has a margin of error of 3.7 percent, shows a significant shift in favor of Obama since June. Back then a similar Bankrate poll found respondents were equally split, at 21 percent, on whether they'd be better off financially with Obama or Romney. In the June poll, slightly more people also said it didn't matter much to their personal finances who won. The pessimism about the ability of the president to affect one's personal finances is surprising, said Erik Snowberg, professor of economics and political science at the California Institute of Technology. "I'm surprised because they're right," said Snowberg, who has done extensive research on people's perceptions of the economy and their voting habits. He said research has shown that the president's party affiliation has a minimal effect on the stock market, a key vehicle for improving financial measures like retirement savings. Politics also don't seem to make a huge difference in moving the unemployment rate, he added. Still, the Bankrate poll did show a contradiction: Despite their skepticism about whether the president can help them personally, more than six in 10 people said their personal economic situation is a key factor in their voting decision. Claes Bell, a senior analyst for Bankrate.com, said he thinks there is widespread pessimism about whether anything will help after five years of difficult economic times. "I think people are maybe feeling a little bit discouraged at this point and wondering whether either candidate has a policy prescription that's going to work, or even if a policy prescription can do anything at all to improve the financial position of the average American," he said. Those who said they were doing better financially than a year ago were more likely to say they'd do better under Obama. Those were reported being worse off financially than a year ago were more likely to say they'd do better under Romney. "You're seeing the effects of people's own personal financial outcomes influencing their vote," Bell said. Snowberg, the Caltech professor, said that when pollsters ask about economic issues like this so close to the election, people's more general feelings about the candidates tend to come through. "They know that what you're actually asking them is a political question and so they answer them as if you're asking them, 'Do you like Obama or Romney better?'" he said. Snowberg doubted that last Friday's unemployment report, which showed a substantial drop in the unemployment rate to under 8 percent, is having a big impact on people's feelings. His research has shown that people tend to judge the employment situation based on their own experience, rather than more general data. For example, they tend to think the unemployment is higher if they are unemployed themselves, or if they are in a group, such as low-skilled workers, that has more trouble finding work. "Really what matters for people is how they perceive the economy is going," he said. ]]> |
Texas schools using chips to track students
 Nightly News Students wear IDs embedded with electronic chips. Charles Hadlock, NBC News writes SAN ANTONIO, Texas -- Two San Antonio schools have turned to radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to help administrators count and track the whereabouts of students on campus. Students at Anson Jones Middle School and John Jay High School are required to wear ID cards imbedded with electronic chips, similar to highway toll tags, which allow schools to more accurately record daily attendance. Public school funding is often tied to the number of students attending class each day. The Northside Independent School District in San Antonio receives about $30 per day in state funding for each student reporting present. The RFID tracking system can help schools count students who are in the school building, but may have missed the morning roll call. On a recent morning at Anson Jones Middle School, where 1,200 attend, the traditional roll call counted 71 students absent. But the RFID system indicated that eight of those 71 were actually in school that day. A map indicated several students were in the band hall, where practice was running late, while others were near the office. That's eight times $30 or $240 the school would have lost that day in funding. Pascual Gonzalez, Northside's communications director, estimates the entire district has been losing about $1.7 million a year because of underreported attendance. He says the RFID system, which costs $261,000, should pay for itself in the first year. "The revenues that are generated by locating kids who are not in their chairs to answer 'present,' but are in the building – in the counselor's office, in the cafeteria, in the hallway, in the gym – if we can show they were, in fact, in school, then we can count them present," he said. Principal Wendy Reyes says the system has the added benefit of allowing her to find a particular student instantly. "Sometimes it's difficult to locate a student in a sea of 1,200 others, so this helps locate them in an emergency," she said. The ID tags can only be read on campus, so students cannot be tracked outside the building. Some parents and students fear the radio ID tags are just too much Big Brother. Steve Hernandez, whose daughter is a sophomore, objects to the tags on Biblical grounds. He compared the badges to the "mark of the beast" as described in the Book of Revelations. "My daughter," he says, "should not have to compromise (her) religion just because Northside Independent School District wants to get paid." The American Civil Liberties Union calls the RFID tags "dehumanizing." "What kind of lesson does it teach our children if they're chipped like cattle and their every movement tracked?" asks Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst with the ACLU's Washington, D.C. office. "It doesn't create the kind of independent, autonomous people that we want in our democratic society." Gonzalez, Northside's spokesman, says school administrators have no intention of spying on students. "There's a misconception that somebody's sitting in a room with a bank full of monitors looking at where 1,200 kids are here at Anson Middle School. That's not true," he said. "It's not even feasible. We're not staffed nor are we interested in knowing where all the kids are at a particular moment." What the RFID system does do, according to Gonzales, is provide an accurate, daily census of students, which helps the district make money. Based on early results, the district may consider expanding the RFID system to its other 109 schools, encompassing nearly 100,000 students. |
2 U.S. economists win Nobel Prize
(CNN) -- Alvin E. Roth of Harvard University and Lloyd Shapley of UCLA have been awarded the Nobel Prize in economics, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced Monday. The economics prize is the sixth and final of the annual awards that spotlight the world's top scholars and peacemakers. The economics award was not among the original prizes created in 1895 by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel to honor work in physics, medicine, chemistry, literature and peace. It was added as a category in 1969 by the Swedish central bank in memory of the industrialist. Nobel Prize in physics: Frenchman, American joint winners Nobel Prize in medicine: Awarded to Sir John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka Nobel Prize in chemistry: Win for Americans As such, the economics prize is given by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences -- following the same principles used to determine the other Nobel Prize winners, according to the Nobel committee. The monetary award that accompanies the Nobel Prize was lowered by the foundation this year by 20% from 10 million Swedish kronor ($1.5 million) to 8 million kronor ($1.2 million) because of the turbulence that hit the financial markets. The economics selection follows last week's awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union, a selection that surprised many and drew scorn from Italian and Greek demonstrators who took to the streets to protest austerity measures. Opinion: Nobel Committee wasted an opportunity in its Peace Prize The 27-nation union was honored for its work in promoting democracy and reconciliation following World War II, even as it grapples with a financial crisis that threatens to break the EU apart. Opinion: Why Europe deserved Peace Prize "The Nobel committee is a little late for an April fools joke," Martin Callanan, leader of the Conservatives and Reformists party in the European Parliament, said. While Callanan called the Nobel committee "out of touch," others applauded the selection. Another surprise was the Nobel committee's selection of Chinese writer Mo Yan as the winner of the Nobel Prize for literature. The Chinese author -- whose pen name means "not talking" -- has captivated his countrymen by intertwining fantasy and gritty everyday life. Mo, a Communist Party member, is considered a writer within the system and has embraced official party restrictions on writing. He also was elected by the Communist Party to a vice-chairman spot in the state-sanctioned China Writers Association. Unlike the news blackout in China two years ago when Chinese dissident Liu Xiabo won the Nobel Peace Prize, state-run media reported Mo's win immediately following the announcement. Patrick Poon of the Independent Chinese Pen Center said the award by the Nobel committee appeared to be a recognition -- or attempt to please -- the Chinese government. This year's prize for economics will be selected from among hundreds of nominations, the Nobel committee said. Two Americans shared the prize last year for their study of the cause-and-effect relationship between government and economic policy. Thomas Sargent, a professor at New York University, and Christopher Sims, a professor at Princeton University, carried out their research independently, though their work was considered complementary of one another. Sargent and Sims received their doctorates from Harvard in 1968. Read more: Nobel Peace Prize winner rips into fellow laureate over corruption CNN's Ben Brumfield and Joe Sterling contributed to this report.  |
Musician in Jerry Lee Lewis' band shot dead
| By WMCTV.com A member of music legend Jerry Lee Lewis' band was shot and killed in a Memphis shootout on Sunday morning, police told WMCTV.com. An unidentified 16-year-old was killed at the same time. B.B. Cunningham, 70, was moonlighting as a security guard at an apartment complex when he heard a shot and went to investigate, police told The Commercial Appeal newspaper. Both Cunningham and the teen were dead by the time police arrived on the scene. "I don't know much about him but he was always nice to me we always talked a lot and sometimes he helped me out when I was having trouble with my vehicle," apartment complex resident Judy Baladez told WMCTV.com about Cunningham. Cunningham most recently toured with Sweden's The Cadillac Band in July. He was a member of the Memphis group "The Hombres" in the mid-1960s and co-wrote the group's hit song in 1967, "Let It Out, Let it All Hang Out." He joined Lewis' band in 1997. More content from NBCNews.com: |
Woman loses second grandchild to Chicago violence
| By NBCChicago.com Two Chicago teens were shot dead Saturday night - one of them the second grandchild of a south side woman to die in just six months, NBCChicago reported. Richard Modell, 17, and his 18-year-old friend were on their way to meet a friend at the time. Modell may have been targeted due to a fight between rival gangs, authorities believe. Read the full story at NBCChicago.com The 18-year-old with him was shot multiple times and was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in critical condition. Police don't believe he had any gang ties. The teens were among the youngest shot over the weekend. Since Friday, five people have been killed and at least 25 wounded in separate shootings across the city. Some are gang related, but many just innocent people caught in the cross fire. Modell is the second grandchild of Florine Monroe to be shot and killed within just six months. After a deadly holiday weekend in Chicago, the city's mayor says young people need an alternative to gangs and violence. NBC's Kevin Tibbles reports. "They've got to get these guns out of young people's hands," she said. "He was trying to get a scholarship for football." More content from NBCNews.com: |
