Taking Back the Land

Native Americans bid to reclaim what was once theirs.

... To get back to the garden that existed before Europeans ravaged their lands, Native Americans are cultivating with an unnatural resource—casino riches. Across the country, Native American tribes are snapping up property with the cash that's flowing in from slot machines, blackjack tables and roulette wheels. Last year, tribal gaming revenue hit $27 billion. Since Native Americans won the right to build casinos on their reservations in 1988, the lucrative business has caught fire. Of the 562 federally recognized tribes, about 220 have gaming operations. And they're using their newfound fortune to invest in land for housing, businesses, farming, hunting and fishing grounds, grazing lands for cattle and buffalo—or simply returning it to the wild. With earnings from its Wildhorse Resort and Casino, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservations in northeast Oregon spent $20 million to acquire roughly 30,000 acres, about a third of which they are returning to its natural conditions, said Bill Tovey, the tribe's director of economic development. Part of the grounds harbor plants and roots the nation uses for ceremonial purposes. "If you don't have land, you don't have culture," he said. "You don't own your destiny."

Immigrants Are Assimilating Quickly, but Mexicans Lag Most, Report Says

NEW YORK

Despite rapid growth in the immigrant population, newcomers of the past quarter-century have assimilated more rapidly than their counterparts of a century ago, according to a conservative think tank.

However, the report from the Manhattan Institute indicates that Mexican immigrants are not assimilating as fast as other groups, a difference largely attributed to lack of legal status for many. Undocumented status, in turn, limits access to the means of assimilation.

The report, which uses U.S. Census Bureau data to calculate similarities between native and foreign-born adults in the United States, concluded that the degree of similarity has held steady since 1990 but was low by historical standards.

The report, “Measuring Immigrant Assimilation in the United States” by Dr. Jacob Vigdor, an associate professor of public policy studies and economics at Duke University, introduces a quantitative index of the degree of similarity between U.S.-born and foreign-born adults. “It is the ability to distinguish the latter group from the former that we mean when we use the term ‘assimilation,’ Vigdor wrote in the executive summary.

In the index, immigrants are categorized by country of origin, date of arrival, age, and place of residence.

Latinas, Black Girls Respect, Defer to Moms Most

Latinas and African American girls defer to their mothers more than non-Hispanic white girls do, according to a University of Florida study.

“Within African-American and Latino families, children follow a cultural tradition that places a high value on respecting, obeying and learning from elders, and in our study they did indeed show more respect for parental authority,” said Julia Graber, a UF psychology professor.

The girls’ respect for authority was observed through videotaped interactions with their mothers. Daughters were scored on their listening behaviors when their mothers were speaking: attending to them, acknowledging their mothers' comments and not interrupting. They also were evaluated for defiant behaviors, such as disobeying their mothers' requests, being unwilling to cooperate and ignoring their mothers.

When African-American and Latina girls do act up, said Graber, their mothers consider the arguments to be more intense than those reported by white mothers who clash with their daughters. The study was published in the February issue of the Journal of Family Psychology and reported recently by the university.

Work Life and Identity Issues in Hispanic Youth Are Focus of Study

Education is the primary route to security for children of ethnic minorities, a University of Arizona professor concludes in a study that his publisher says is the most-extensive ever done on Hispanic youth.

Dr. Julio Cammarota, an assistant professor in the UA’s Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology and the Mexican American Studies and Research Center, wrote Suenos Americanos, Barrio Youth Negotiating Social and Cultural Identities,( $39.95, University of Arizona Press, July 1, 2008, ISBN-10: 0816525935, ISBN-13: 978-0816525935.) It is based on his observations and extensive interviews of youth living in “El Pueblo,” the name he gives to the barrio along the California coast where he conducted his research.

“In my research I found that education is a primary route to rewarding employment and economic security,” Cammarota said. “And that education is particularly significant for the future prospects of children who are ethnic minorities, were born into disadvantaged economic circumstances, or are dealing with language barriers.

From 1993 to 2000, Cammarota interviewed and observed 40 youth between the ages 17 to 24 and selected six of the youth to investigate in depth for Suenos Americanos, according to the publisher."

Naval Academy Names Sports Complex in Honor of First Black Graduate

Six years ago, Wesley Brown suffered a massive heart attack at his home in Washington D.C.

Like he was told in 1945 of his little-to-no chance of graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy, doctors said he had a slim likelihood of surviving. In both cases, though, he had too much to live for — ambitions that ironically were interrelated. Enduring the former ended up growing his legacy. Surviving the latter allowed him to ultimately see the edifice that will preserve his legacy for many years to come.

Brown, a retired navy lieutenant commander, endured the taunts and the myriad roadblocks to become the first Black person to graduate from the Naval Academy in 1949. And he carried on to when the academy’s new $50 million sports complex was named after him in honor of that trailblazing feat earlier this month.

“I had a massive heart attack a couple of months after I was notified of this plan,” says Brown, referring to six years ago. “So I was hoping that I wouldn’t have another heart attack and miss the ceremony. It certainly felt good to know that I had survived because very, very few people get buildings named for them while they are still alive.”

The honorary banquet on May 9 and the two-hour dedication ceremony to officially open the Wesley A. Brown Field House the following day, both at the field house on the bank of the Severn River in Annapolis, Md., was the end of “a long waiting period,” Brown says.

Study Finds Whites Anxious About Race

The Bryant Park Project, May 28, 2008 · A new study from Northwestern University's Department of Social Psychology finds that many whites worry about inadvertently getting into trouble for seeming biased. As a result, says study author Jennifer Richeson, Caucasians seek to avoid situations where bias might be revealed, such as in the company of black people.

Richeson, an associate professor at Northwestern University, says her research measured biases that 30 white subjects had against black images. She says the biases, even subtle ones, were enough to make those white subjects so afraid of being branded as racist, they indicated a preference for avoiding all contact with black people.

White anxiety, Richeson says, is an ironic byproduct of increased racial diversity on campuses, in offices and within communities. She says people who've had little experience with interracial interactions don't feel comfortable in new, sometimes daunting situations — and that avoidance and anxiety are the unfortunate results. "This anxiety precludes the encounters that would actually let people explore new interactions," she says.

How to make interracial interactions less anxious? "We need to get out of the business of giving the scarlet letter brand of 'bigot,' " Richeson says. That type of label is really not useful, she says, citing the example of Don Imus drawing fire for racially charged comments about the Rutgers women's basketball team in 2007. Imus later met with the Rev. Al Sharpton, one of his most vocal critics, and insisted he's not a racist.

"I think, in general, we need to be a little bit more generous," Richeson says. "There's nothing wrong with vigilance ... We get stopped at, 'You said this, you said that, you're a racist.' There's no place to go from there."

Court Backs Lawsuits on Retaliation for Bias Allegations - washingtonpost.com

Court Backs Lawsuits on Retaliation for Bias Allegations - washingtonpost.com: The Supreme Court ruled today that two federal anti-discrimination statutes allow lawsuits on claims of retaliation, siding with workers who pursued grievances in separate cases that stemmed from allegations of racial and age bias.

In one case, CBOCS West v. Humphries, the justices ruled in a 7-2 vote that an 1866 law, Congress's first major civil rights act, prohibits retaliation against workers who complain of racial discrimination. The court's two most conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, dissented.

In another case, Gomez-Perez v. Potter, the court ruled 6-3 that the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 bars retaliation based on the filing of an age discrimination complaint. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. dissented in the case, along with Thomas and Scalia.

The court said in both cases that it was bound by previous Supreme Court rulings that allowed retaliation claims under other laws. The respondents in each case had argued that the law in question did not specifically prohibit retaliation.

Housing complaints increase, but fewer charges are filed - USATODAY.com

Housing complaints increase, but fewer charges are filed - USATODAY.com: WASHINGTON — The federal government is filing fewer housing discrimination charges even as consumer complaints against landlords, real estate agents and mortgage brokers have risen steadily.

Most renters and buyers who seek help from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development are unlikely to get relief for their complaints, which can include alleged discrimination by landlords and sellers based on race, religion, sex or disability. The agency is throwing out a growing number of complaints, federal data show.

The housing agency, responsible for investigating and prosecuting cases under the Federal Fair Housing Act, filed 31 discrimination charges in 2007 and 36 in 2006. Charges for those two years combined dropped 65% from the last two years of the Clinton administration — 111 charges were filed in 1999; 82 in 2000.

Complaints during the same period rose from fewer than 7,100 in both 1999 and 2000 to more than 10,000 in both 2006 and 2007.

Study of '94 Adoption Law Finds Little Benefit to Blacks

A 1994 federal law that paved the way for more white adults to adopt black children has left many parents ill-equipped for the situation and has not achieved the goals of giving black children an equal chance of being adopted and recruiting more black adoptive parents, a study concludes.

The study, being released today, found that the Multiethnic Placement Act (MEPA) did succeed in increasing the rate of black adoptions, but only by a small margin, and that black children still disproportionately end up in temporary foster homes.

Because the law forbids discussion of race during the adoption process, it prevents social workers from preparing white parents for the challenge of raising black children in a largely white environment, said the report, titled "Finding Families for African American Children: The Role of Race and Law in Adoption From Foster Care." It cited studies showing that dark-complexioned children in white homes tend to struggle with identity issues related to skin color, self-esteem and discrimination that their new parents are often not equipped to handle.

"To say that we need to be colorblind is an arguable notion," said Adam Pertman, executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute in New York, which commissioned the study. "It's a wonderful notion in a perfect world. But most of us would agree that we're not there yet."

"Color consciousness does not mean you're going to do race-matching with kids," Pertman said. But "if you're white and you're adopting a black kid, maybe you could use a little coaching on that issue as you help your kid grow up. The law says you can't be trained to do that. Are we giving parents the optimal tools to succeed in bringing up their families?"

White valedictorian: A first for historically black Morehouse - CNN.com

White valedictorian: A first for historically black Morehouse - CNN.com: ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Joshua Packwood knows what it's like to be a minority.

This weekend he'll be the first white valedictorian to graduate from the historically black, all male Morehouse College in the school's 141-year history.

Morehouse, in Atlanta, Georgia, is one the nation's most prestigious universities of its kind. For more than a century, the school has prided itself on personifying the dream of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., one of the school's most notable alums, by producing "Morehouse Men" - intelligent and successful black leaders.

"Because I'm one of the only white students, it's easy to call me 'the white boy,' I'm naturally going to stand out," says Packwood.

But Packwood, 22, doesn't stand out solely because he is white or has maintained a 4.0 grade point average. For those who don't know him, what is surprising is that a Rhodes Scholar finalist turned down a full scholarship to Columbia University to attend the all-black men's university.

This came naturally to Packwood, who attended a predominantly black high school.

"A large majority of my friends, like all my girlfriends have been minorities," says Packwood. "So it was very, it was kind of strange that I always kind of gravitated to the black community."

Packwood fit in immediately at Morehouse. His charm, movie-star good looks and chiseled physique made him popular among students. He was elected dorm president and to class council during freshmen year - and was a favorite at campus fashion shows.

On the Reservation and Off, Schools See a Changing Tide - NYTimes.com

On the Reservation and Off, Schools See a Changing Tide - NYTimes.com: HARDIN, Mont. — One of the last traditional chiefs of the Crow Indian tribe, named Plenty Coups, had a vision as the Old West was fading. Education would be the way of the future, he said — a choice to be either the “the white man’s victim” or “the white man’s equal.”

Roberta Walks Over Ice was among those who heard that message, from her grandfather. She then continued the tradition, preaching the value of education to her daughter, Jasmine, 15.

But the zeal for learning that took root in such families is now coming with a cost. Many families like the Walks Over Ices are deciding that off-reservation public schools in this small, mostly white ranching town are a better choice than schools on the reservation.

Hardin High School, 55 percent white in 2000, is now 70 percent American Indian. On the reservation, at Lodge Grass High School, more than a third of the student enrollment in 2000 has melted away.

The stigma that was once attached to sending a child off the reservation — the legacy of forced boarding-school programs in the early 1900s that tried to strip Indians of their culture and language in the name of assimilation — has faded as elders who remember the old days die off.

Bet on It: Race Skews Referee Calls in the NBA

The Bryant Park Project, May 22, 2008 · Last year, Justin Wolfers set the basketball world abuzz when he co-authored a study that showed racial bias among NBA referees. Coaches, players and refs piled on to debate its central conclusion, namely that officials tend to favor players of their own ethnic backgrounds. Over the course of a season, the study reported, a white referee will call more fouls on a black player and vice versa.

Wolfers took that as a call to put up or shut up. The Wharton professor took his statistics to Las Vegas — virtually — and bet on them. He calculated what would happen if you placed money on the outcome of NBA games solely on the racial makeup of the players and the referees.

What would happen, Wolfers reports, is that you'd turn a profit.

"Our estimate is that the outcome of up to 3 percent of all games would have been different with a different refereeing crew," Wolfers says. "Some people feel that 3 percent's not a lot. Some feel outraged that even that many games could be affected by something so arbitrary. But when you talk to team owners, if you could guarantee them another 3 percent of wins, they will tell you directly that's worth millions of dollars to them."

The NBA has questioned the results of the original study. Wolfers credits the referees for being highly trained and dedicated to getting calls right. What he'd like to see is an acknowledgment from the NBA that bias exists in its workplaces, just at it does in others. He'd like to work with the sports league to improve the situation on the court.

Weight discrimination could be as common as racial bias - USATODAY.com

Weight discrimination could be as common as racial bias - USATODAY.com: Weight discrimination, especially against women, is increasing in U.S. society and is almost as common as racial discrimination, two studies suggest.

Reported discrimination based on weight has increased 66% in the past decade, up from about 7% to 12% of U.S. adults, says one study, in the journal Obesity. The other study, in the International Journal of Obesity, says such discrimination is common in both institutional and interpersonal situations — and in some cases is even more prevalent than rates of discrimination based on gender and race. (About 17% of men and 9% of women reported race discrimination.)

Among severely obese people, about 28% of men and 45% of women said they have experienced discrimination because of their weight.

"Weight discrimination is a very serious social problem that we need to pay attention to," says Rebecca Puhl of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University, a co-author of both studies.

The research, based on surveys of more than 2,000 U.S. adults in 1995-96 and 2004-06, is the first to compare rates of weight discrimination with other forms of discrimination, Puhl says.

Institutional discrimination involved health care, education or workplace situations, such as cases in which people said they were fired, denied a job or a promotion because of their weight. Interpersonal discrimination focused on insults, abuse and harassment from others.

New Online School Targets Hispanics, At-risk Students

New Online School Targets Hispanics, At-risk Students: The state’s newest virtual charter school is expected to go online this fall, but only after a strategic campaign to recruit Hispanics and teenagers at risk of quitting or getting kicked out of public high schools.

Cliff Green, executive director of the iSucceed Virtual High School, has spent the past two months stumping in juvenile correctional facilities, cities with significant Hispanic populations and community programs aimed at getting kids off the streets.

The nonprofit online charter school is part of Insight Schools, a Portland-based company that operates one of the largest networks of virtual high schools in the country. With schools in Oregon, California, Washington and Wisconsin, Insight plans to open more this fall in Idaho, Minnesota and Kansas.

If the Idaho school opens in September as scheduled, Green wants to maintain a Hispanic student population of at least 20 percent. As part of their recruiting strategy, administrators bought ads on Spanish radio stations, advertised classes with bilingual brochures and drafted Hispanic community leaders to serve on its board of directors.

Indiana University Approved To Offer Doctorate in Black Studies

Indiana University Approved To Offer Doctorate in Black Studies: Since the Indiana Commission for Higher Education announced the approval of the new doctoral program in African American and African Diaspora Studies (AAADS) at Indiana University Bloomington more than a week ago, John McCluskey Jr. says he has felt both elated and relieved.

This announcement was four years and countless meetings in the making.

“On the one hand I have been elated,” says McCluskey, an AASDS professor who chaired the faculty committee that wrote the proposal for the new degree program. “On the other hand, because we’ve put so much work into it, it is almost anti-climatic.”

The faculty have not celebrated together yet, but in the days since the decision was handed down they’ve already begun recruiting students for their first cohort of five or six students for the fall of 2009, McCluskey says.

“We have a year to recruit, and let students know who we are,” he says. “We are already looking forward to the first class.”

IU became the eighth institution of higher learning in the United States to offer a doctoral degree related to Africana Studies, joining Harvard University, Michigan State University, Northwestern University, Temple University, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Yale University.

Many schools unlikely to meet goals - Education- msnbc.com

Many schools unlikely to meet goals - Education- msnbc.com: WASHINGTON - Pink slips for principals and teachers. School-funded tutoring for poor kids. Schools are increasingly looking at those kind of consequences for failing to raise math and reading scores.

The federal No Child Left Behind law says that by the 2013-14 school year all students must pass state tests in these subjects.

About half of the states have steady annual goals for increasing the percentage of students passing, or working at their proper grade level. But the other half set the bar very low early on, and starting about now expect big annual achievement gains, according to a report being released Tuesday by the nonpartisan Center on Education Policy.

Educators liken the latter strategy to a balloon payment mortgage, in which home owners have a final payment that is much larger than previous ones.

It's unlikely that states that took that approach can make the kind of gains expected, said Jack Jennings, the center's president.

No Crisis For Boys In Schools, Study Says - washingtonpost.com

No Crisis For Boys In Schools, Study Says - washingtonpost.com: A new study to be released today on gender equity in education concludes that a 'boys crisis' in U.S. schools is a myth and that both sexes have stayed the same or improved on standardized tests in the past decade.

The report by the nonprofit American Association of University Women, which promotes education and equity for women, reviewed nearly 40 years of data on achievement from fourth grade to college and for the first time analyzed gender differences within economic and ethnic categories.

The most important conclusion of 'Where the Girls Are: The Facts About Gender Equity in Education' is that academic success is more closely associated with family income than with gender, its authors said.

'A lot of people think it is the boys that need the help,' co-author Christianne Corbett said. 'The point of the report is to highlight the fact that that is not exclusively true. There is no crisis with boys. If there is a crisis, it is with African American and Hispanic students and low-income students, girls and boys.'

Report: Ethnic Pride Has Mixed Impact on Asian Americans’ Ability To Deal With Discrimination

Report: Ethnic Pride Has Mixed Impact on Asian Americans’ Ability To Deal With Discrimination: Strong ties to their ethnicity can reduce the negative effects of racism for some Asian Americans and intensify the negative effects of racism for others, according to a new report published by the American Psychological Association.

Using the first nationally representative sample of Asian adults in the Unites States, three researchers examined the impact of ethnic identity and mental health among various Asian American populations in an effort to find out whether strong racial ties protected them against the negative psychological effects of discrimination.

Asian American adults, ages 18-75 years old, were questioned about any negative feelings they may have had in the previous 30 days. Participants were also asked about their perceptions of racial and ethnic discrimination, how often they felt discriminated against because of their ethnicity and how close they felt their feelings were to others in the same ethnic group.

For participants born outside the United States, embracing their ethnic identity did not guard against the ill effects of discrimination on psychological wellness. However, for Asians born in the United States, ethnic attachment did affect whether discrimination made people feel more distressed.

Immigrants’ Children Find Better Lives, Study Shows - New York Times

Immigrants’ Children Find Better Lives, Study Shows - New York Times: A decade-long study of adult children of immigrants to the New York region has concluded that they are rapidly entering the mainstream and doing better than their parents in terms of education and earnings — even outperforming native-born Americans in many cases.

But the study also warned of problems that could block upward mobility for members of the “second generation,” including persistent poverty and poor school performance among Dominicans and racial discrimination against black immigrants from the Caribbean.

The results of the $2 million study are detailed in “Inheriting the City: The Children of Immigrants Come of Age,” published this month by Harvard University Press and the Russell Sage Foundation, which finances social science research.

It focused on five groups: Dominicans, Chinese, Russian Jews, South Americans (consisting of Colombians, Ecuadoreans and Peruvians) and West Indians, defined as immigrants from the English-speaking Caribbean, including Belize and Guyana. The researchers also interviewed native-born whites, blacks and Puerto Ricans (those born on the mainland) in the New York area for comparison purposes.

The study identified broad similarities among adult children of immigrants. They were overwhelmingly fluent in English; were less occupationally segregated than their parents; lived longer with their parents than native-born Americans; and were firmly rooted in the United States, with fewer personal and financial ties to their ancestral homeland than their parents.

At U-Va., A Dean Making a Difference - washingtonpost.com

At U-Va., A Dean Making a Difference - washingtonpost.com: More black students graduate from the University of Virginia within six years than from any other public university in the country, and here's why: institutional commitment, an admissions process that selects strong students, generous financial aid and a network of peer advisers.

Not only that, they've got Sylvia Terry, the associate dean of African American affairs, who has, in effect, re-created the high expectations and the support she learned from her parents, her small town and the historically black college her family attended. One by one, she's trying to ensure that these students get the benefits -- intellectual, cultural and economic -- of a college degree. She bakes them cakes, e-mails them poems, gives them hugs -- and expects them to make good. She'll celebrate with a couple of hundred of them Sunday.

"Sometimes you can point to one person who makes such a huge difference," said John Blackburn, director of admissions. "She just nurtures every kid who comes through the door."

Race relations at U-Va. have never been perfect, and in recent years there have been flare-ups over racist graffiti and other issues. But there is an institutional commitment from President John T. Casteen III on down to ensuring that black students stay in school and graduate -- including generous financial aid for needy families, an emphasis on recruiting and academic support and an intense system of peer mentoring that Terry has built up.

Diversity Proves Elusive for Women in Technical Fields - New York Times

Diversity Proves Elusive for Women in Technical Fields - New York Times: BACK in the bad old days, the workplace was a battleground, where sexist jokes and assumptions were the norm.

Women were shut off from promotion by an old boys’ network that favored its own. They went to meetings and were often the only women in the room.

All that has changed in the last three decades, except where it has not. In the worlds of science, engineering and technology, it seems, the past is still very much present.

“It’s almost a time warp,” said Sylvia Ann Hewlett, the founder of the Center for Work-Life Policy, a nonprofit organization that studies women and work. “All the predatory and demeaning and discriminatory stuff that went on in workplaces 20, 30 years ago is alive and well in these professions.”

That is the conclusion of the center’s latest study, which will be published in the Harvard Business Review in June.

Women still trail in tech jobs - USATODAY.com

Women still trail in tech jobs - USATODAY.com: Despite women's advances in the workplace, men still dominate in careers in technology.

That concerns women such as Susan Merritt, dean of the computer science program at Pace University in New York City.

'It certainly is the case, and it's worse than ever,' she said of the current dearth of women pursuing careers in information technology.

Only 10% of computing majors are women, Merritt said. That can be blamed in part on some of the techniques used to interest students in computing, such as gaming, which have great appeal among boys but not girls.

Pace has had better results, she said, noting that typically 25% to 30% of computing students are female. She credited her department's sizable percentage of female faculty, including herself as dean, as a draw.

Chicago Tribune | Exploring race

Chicago Tribune | Exploring race: Dawn Turner Trice: Say you are a white person who's at a dinner party and a subject involving race surfaces. The topic could be about anything: from the comments made by Barack Obama's former pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright to Bill Cosby's cross-country tour promoting personal responsibility and self-reliance.

So what do you do? Engage in the conversation or determine where the booze is being served and cozy up to a cocktail in another room?

A recently published Northwestern University study looks at white people who avoid racial conversations and even interracial interactions primarily because they are so afraid they will say something that's not politically correct and it will make them appear prejudiced.

That someone would avoid a situation that might make them seem racist is not surprising. What was striking about the study's findings was that the participants—taken from a pool of about 300 students—were so incredibly unnerved by these seemingly minor interactions that their responses mimicked those of people who felt anxious about weightier things, such as chronic pain.

Undocumented Students To Be Denied Admission To N.C. Community Colleges

Undocumented Students To Be Denied Admission To N.C. Community Colleges: Upon the advice of the state attorney general’s office, the North Carolina Community College system will no longer admit undocumented students into degree-granting programs.

State Attorney General Roy Cooper advised the 58-campus system to revert to a directive, issued in December 2001, which barred undocumented immigrants from working toward a degree.

“We asked the Attorney General’s Office for clarification of our present policy and will abide by their advice,” said system President R. Scott Ralls in an official statement. “Until we receive further clarification, we will no longer admit individuals classified as illegal or undocumented immigrants to curriculum degree programs.”

Study: Big gaps in foster vs. traditional homes - USATODAY.com

Study: Big gaps in foster vs. traditional homes - USATODAY.com: Children in foster care live in poorer, more crowded and less educated homes than kids in other families, often taking them from one disadvantaged environment into another, new research shows.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation study is the first to analyze 2006 Census Bureau data, the most recent available, for a detailed look at foster parents.

'The gaps were so pervasive,' says demographer William O'Hare.

O'Hare finds foster households have a lower average income, $56,364, than do all households with children, $74,301, even though they care for more kids.

Half of foster households have three or more children compared with 21% of all other households with that many. The study also finds foster parents are more likely than others to be unemployed and lack a high school diploma.

Schools address black students' suspensions

Under pressure to reduce the suspension rate of black students, Anne Arundel County is making progress by training staff in how to work with people of different backgrounds and giving troublesome students more support.

Experts say such training is a key to keeping African-American students throughout Maryland in school. Last year, 13.9 percent of black children were suspended statewide, compared with 5.8 percent of white kids. Studies have linked suspensions and expulsions to lower academic achievement and higher dropout rates.

Teachers and administrators may misinterpret the body language and occasional confrontational behavior that some African-Americans learn in their neighborhoods and use at school as a way of standing up for themselves, veteran educators say. They will often back down if they're made to feel safe.

"Being rude means one thing to you and another to me," said Ella White Campbell, a retired city school teacher and an education advocate in Baltimore County.

Anne Arundel schools have been suspending black students at a much higher than average rate - nearly 20 percent in each of the past two years. The NAACP and a group of parents filed a complaint with the federal Office of Civil Rights alleging discriminatory treatment of black students. In response, the county signed an agreement in September 2005 that, among other things, required schools to act to reduce suspension rates.

Shaping the Leaders of Tomorrow

Group Picks Students From Diverse Areas, Backgrounds for Hands-On Training

Joseph Boone, a junior at Anacostia High School in the District, and Natalie Wainger, a sophomore at Thomas S. Wootton High School in Rockville, do not travel in the same social circles.

Besides the physical distance between them, Boone's high school is predominantly black, as are his friends, and Wainger's school is predominantly white, as are her friends.

But through a program aimed at finding the leaders of tomorrow among the high school youths of today, the teenagers have become buddies. And that's part of what Youth Leadership Greater Washington is all about.

"I thought everyone else [in the program] would be different from me, but I found out they're actually a lot like me," said Boone, 16, captain of the drum line and an aspiring varsity football player. "I've made friends with a lot of them."

"My school is not that diverse," said Wainger, 16, a member of the Wootton pom squad. "I've never met anyone from Southeast [Washington] before. Joe and I talk a lot."

The Youth Leadership Greater Washington program, which runs from January to June, brings together a diverse "class" of 35 to 45 high school sophomores and juniors from across the Washington region each year. The program looks for teenagers who demonstrate leadership qualities -- at school, at home, at church or in any other arena.

"There are some very obvious leaders, remarkable, amazing kids who might be on everybody's radar screen," said Tim Kime, president and chief executive of Leadership Greater Washington, the adult group on which the youth group is modeled. "But then there are others who are not necessarily the student body president but a child from a single-family home who's taking care of younger siblings or one doing terrific things in their church, their neighborhood, their family or their school."

"We're looking for aspiring leaders who we can inspire and enlighten," said Kenneth Barrow, the program's coordinator. "We hope to foster community involvement and show them how they can contribute to the region."

For one day a month for six months, the group delves into one topic -- such as public safety, diversity or the media -- through field trips, interactive exercises and guest speakers.

Whose Problem Is Poverty?

It's no cop-out to acknowledge the effects of socioeconomic disparities on student learning. Rather, it's a vital step to closing the achievement gap.

In my work, I've repeatedly stressed this logical claim: If you send two groups of students to equally high-quality schools, the group with greater socioeconomic disadvantage will necessarily have lower average achievement than the more fortunate group.

Why is this so? Because low-income children often have no health insurance and therefore no routine preventive medical and dental care, leading to more school absences as a result of illness. Children in low-income families are more prone to asthma, resulting in more sleeplessness, irritability, and lack of exercise. They experience lower birth weight as well as more lead poisoning and iron-deficiency anemia, each of which leads to diminished cognitive ability and more behavior problems. Their families frequently fall behind in rent and move, so children switch schools more often, losing continuity of instruction.

Poor children are, in general, not read to aloud as often or exposed to complex language and large vocabularies. Their parents have low-wage jobs and are more frequently laid off, causing family stress and more arbitrary discipline. The neighborhoods through which these children walk to school and in which they play have more crime and drugs and fewer adult role models with professional careers. Such children are more often in single-parent families and so get less adult attention. They have fewer cross-country trips, visits to museums and zoos, music or dance lessons, and organized sports leagues to develop their ambition, cultural awareness, and self-confidence.

Each of these disadvantages makes only a small contribution to the achievement gap, but cumulatively, they explain a lot.

Student diversity tongue-ties some graduation speakers - USATODAY.com

Student diversity tongue-ties some graduation speakers - USATODAY.com: A week from Saturday, 453 new graduates will cross the commencement stage on the lawn of Macalester College in St. Paul Among them: Nokuthula Sikhethiwe Kitikiti, Udochukwu Chinyere Obodo, and Baitnairamdal Otgonshar.

Jayne Niemi will be ready.

No-oo-TOOL-a SEE-kay-tee-way Ki-tee-ki-tee. Oo-DO-chu-koo CHIN-yea-ray Oh-boe-doe. Bat-NAI-ram-dal OT-gone-shar.

Niemi's job is to read out the graduates' names without mangling them.

'People invest a lot of time and money and commitment to be here at Macalester and get this education, and they get one day of celebration in the end,' says Niemi, a college registrar who will spend several days studying pronunciation cards submitted by students. 'Their families are here from all over the world. I don't want to embarrass them or the college.'

Niemi is part of a cadre of deans, professors and even outsourced professional public speakers that is gearing up to perform one of academia's quirkier, and tougher, jobs — getting every name right, so nobody leaves campus feeling angry or ungenerous toward his or her alma mater.

School districts face sanctions under landmark law - USATODAY.com

School districts face sanctions under landmark law - USATODAY.com: THERMAL, Calif. — At Las Palmitas Elementary School, nestled between rundown homes and fields of grapes, peppers and dates in Southern California, 99% of students live in poverty and fewer than 20% speak English fluently.

Las Palmitas and other schools in the Coachella Valley Unified School District are just the type policymakers had in mind when Congress passed the federal No Child Left Behind Act in 2001 to shed light on the disparities facing poor and minority children.

Nineteen of the district's 21 schools — including Las Palmitas — have not met the federal law's performance benchmarks for four years. Now the entire district faces sanctions for the first time.

'We have hardworking, dedicated, trained teachers like everybody else. They've got to teach a language, they've got to teach the content, and they've got to counter poverty,' said Foch 'Tut' Pensis, the district's superintendent. 'We are the poster child for NCLB.'

California has 97 school districts that failed to meet their goals under the law for four years, more than twice as many failing districts as any other state so far. Kentucky has the next highest number facing sanctions, with 47.

Call Me Mister

Call Me Mister: The mission of the Call Me MISTER (acronym for Mentors Instructing Students Toward Effective Role Models) National Initiative is to increase the pool of available teachers from a broader more diverse background particularly among the State's lowest performing elementary schools. Student participants are largely selected from among under-served, socio-economically disadvantaged and educationally at-risk communities.

The Call Me MISTER program is contributing to the talent pool of excellent teachers by identifying and supporting students like Mr. Mark Joseph, who are literally 'touching the future' by teaching children. Mark's teaching degree was made possible through the Call Me MISTER program.

Keep Boys And Girls Together In The Classroom To Optimize Learning, Research Suggests

Keep Boys And Girls Together In The Classroom To Optimize Learning, Research Suggests: Boys and girls may learn differently, but American parents should think twice before moving their children to sex-segregated schools. A new Tel Aviv University study has found that girls improve boys’ grades markedly at school.

“Being with more girls is good for everybody,” says Prof. Analia Schlosser, an economist from the Eitan Berglas School of Economics at Tel Aviv University. “We find that both boys and girls do better when there are more girls in the class.” She investigated girls and boys in mixed classrooms in the elementary, middle, and high-school grades of the Israeli school system.

In an unpublished paper, Prof. Schlosser concluded that classes with more than 55 percent of girls resulted in better exam results and less violent outbursts overall. “It appears that this effect is due to the positive influence the girls are adding to the classroom environment,” says Prof. Schlosser. She carried out the study while on a post-doctoral fellowship at Princeton University, and will study the effects of gender in higher education lecture halls next.

This is one of few studies of its kind to use scientific data to address the question of gender effects in school.

Slow economy hits Hispanics hard - USATODAY.com

Slow economy hits Hispanics hard - USATODAY.com: WASHINGTON — Unemployment is rising faster among Hispanics than the rest of the U.S. population as the economy slows, a development that has ripple effects across the nation and into Latin America.

The steep, continuing U.S. housing downturn has had a disproportionate impact on the Hispanic workforce, which is highly concentrated in construction. Because homeownership is also the major source of wealth for Latino families, falling house prices have made it harder for small-business owners to use their residences as collateral for needed loans to run or expand their firms.

Further, the weakening job market, and state and federal crackdowns on illegal immigrants, have reduced the number of Hispanics wiring money to Latin America. Millions of families who depend on so-called remittance payments could be pushed into poverty if current trends continue, according to the Inter-American Development Bank.

The U.S. Hispanic unemployment rate jumped to 6.9% in April from 5.5% in April 2007. The African-American unemployment rate is higher, at 8.6%, but has risen less sharply in the past year. The white jobless rate was 4.4% in April.

Majority Latino South Texas Town Abolishes Decades-old Segregation

Majority Latino South Texas Town Abolishes Decades-old Segregation: A South Texas town has abolished an anti-Hispanic segregation law more than seven decades after it was enacted.

The Board of Aldermen unanimously voted Monday to abolish an ordinance that banned ``Spanish or Mexican'' residents who were not servants or maids from occupying ``any building on the American side or portion'' of the once-divided town of Edcouch.

``We should have gotten rid of it a long time ago,'' Alderman Rojelio Garcia said.

When the rule was enacted Dec. 9, 1931, a virtual line was drawn through the center of the city. The ordinance prescribed a fine of up to $100 U.S. for violators.

``It was discriminatory,'' Mayor Jose Guzman said. ``At the time, our city leaders didn't believe in equal rights.''

Now, the town is majority Hispanic and the segregation line no longer exists. The 2000 Census found more than 97 percent of Edcouch's population was Latino.

Native American Boarding Schools Haunt Many

For the government, it was a possible solution to the so-called Indian problem. For the tens of thousands of Indians who went to boarding schools, it's largely remembered as a time of abuse and desecration of culture.

The government still operates a handful of off-reservation boarding schools, but funding is in decline. Now many Native Americans are fighting to keep the schools open.

'Kill the Indian ... Save the Man'

The late performer and Indian activist Floyd Red Crow Westerman was haunted by his memories of boarding school. As a child, he left his reservation in South Dakota for the Wahpeton Indian Boarding School in North Dakota. Sixty years later, he still remembers watching his mother through the window as he left.

At first, he thought he was on the bus because his mother didn't want him anymore. But then he noticed she was crying.

"It was hurting her, too. It was hurting me to see that," Westerman says. "I'll never forget. All the mothers were crying."

Survey: Nearly 60 Percent of Hispanic and Black Children Can’t Swim

Nearly 60 percent of Hispanic and African-American children cannot swim, almost twice the figure for White children, according to a first-of-its-kind survey that USA Swimming hopes will strengthen its efforts to lower minority drowning rates and draw more minority children into the sport.

USA Swimming is teaming with local governments, corporations, youth and ethnic organizations to expand learn-to-swim programs across the United States. One of the key participants is Black freestyle star Cullen Jones, who hopes to boost his role-model status by winning a medal this summer at the Beijing Olympics.

USA Swimming’s motives are twofold, executive director Chuck Wielgus said.

“It’s just the right thing to do making an effort so every kid can be water-safe,” he said. “And quite frankly it’s about performance. We’re something of a niche sport and for us to remain relevant, considering the changing demographics of the population, it’s important we get more kids involved at the mouth of the pipeline.”

Black children drown at a rate almost three times the overall rate. And less than 2 percent of USA Swimming’s nearly 252,000 members who swim competitively year-round are Black.

As part of the initiative, USA Swimming commissioned an ambitious study recently completed by five experts at the University of Memphis’ Department of Health and Sports Sciences. They surveyed 1,772 children aged six to 16 in six cities two-thirds of them Black or Hispanic to gauge what factors contributed most to the minority swimming gap.

Conference Highlights Successful Schools

When Ricardo Esparza became principal of Granger High School in South Central Washington state nine years ago, he walked into an environment where gangs roamed the halls, fights were common and academic performance was less than impressive.

“We had a 30 percent graduation rate about five or six years ago and 20 percent passing in reading (on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning) and 8 percent in writing,” Esparza said. “It (the school) was definitely demoralized.”

In the past three years, academic and social improvements made at Granger have started to take root. In 2007, the school — which is about 86 percent Latino, with 92 percent of students enrolled in the federal free- and reduced-price lunch program — posted a 90 percent graduation rate, Esparza said.

Asked to grade his school today in terms of academic rigor and student support, Nick Guerra, a junior at Granger, gave it a “B ” noting that “We’ve come a long ways. We’ve probably been an “F” at one time, but we’ve shown a lot of progress over the years.”

Granger was one of several schools across the country with high-minority and high-poverty enrollments that have been labeled a success because of factors highlighted recently during a three-day conference on high school equity held in Washington, D.C."

Report Measures Levels of Campus Inclusivity at Three Colleges and Universities

Intolerance, threats and verbal insults pervaded the campuses of three predominately White institutions, the University of California, Berkeley, Michigan State University, and Columbia College, according to a student survey in the recently released report, “If I’d Only Known.”

The report reveals that more than 60 percent of students at MSU reported witnessing or personally experiencing such incidents of violence based on intolerance, followed by 49 percent of students at UC Berkeley and 43 percent of students at Columbia.

Detecting low levels of social tolerance in the climate of some institutions for minorities, women and students with religious differences or alternative lifestyles is often difficult. To assist parents and students in evaluating the degree of inclusivity at a university the Campus Tolerance Foundation, a nonprofit organization designed to combat racial intolerance, surveyed more than 1,000 undergraduate students at the three universities to measure the current level of inclusivity at those institutions.

The study is not intended to be representative of all campuses, but represents a starting point in gauging campuses for an often overlooked factor that is important to many students.

Research shows that comfortable environments play a major role in minority persistence. Scholars agree that isolation and racial violence contribute to the high minority drop-out rates at some institutions.

“This research did document reports of bias toward members of minority groups,” says Marcella Rosen, founder of the Campus Tolerance Foundation. Since 2002, Rosen and her staff have been working to establish a tolerance rating for universities, as a service to parents and students.

New Reports Illustrate Racial Disparities in Criminal Justice System

Marking the 35th anniversary of New York’s controversial Rockefeller drug laws, the tough mandatory minimum sentencing laws for drug offenders, three new reports were issued by the Human Rights Watch (HRW), The Sentencing Project (TSP) and the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) that highlight the alarming racial disparities that exist in drug-related arrest and imprisonment.

Over the past decade, New York City alone has arrested more people of color for possessing small amounts of marijuana (less than one ounce) than any city in the United States, researchers found.

Nowhere in American life are racial disparities more pervasive than those in the criminal justice system where Blacks, nationally, are incarcerated at a rate seven times higher, usually on drug offenses, than their White counterparts, according to national data.

Under the Rockefeller drug laws passed in 1973, an offender found guilty of selling two or more ounces of heroin, crack-cocaine, or marijuana was sentenced to a minimum of 15 years to life or a maximum of 25 years to life in prison.

“It’s hard to know how much of the disparity [in arrests] is explicable by discrimination,” says Ryan S. King, policy analyst for The Sentencing Project and author of the report, Disparity by Geography: The War on Drugs in America’s Cities. “However, it would be naïve not to think that some portion of it is race.”

New Law Takes Step To Latino Museum - washingtonpost.com

New Law Takes Step To Latino Museum - washingtonpost.com: President Bush signed legislation yesterday establishing a commission to study the feasibility of a National Museum of the American Latino.

The measure, part of a larger legislative package, creates a 23-member bipartisan panel that will give the president and Congress recommendations about the scope of the project.

Over a two-year period, it will consider the location, the cost of construction and maintenance, and the presentation of art, history, politics, business and entertainment in American Latino life.

Quiet Va. Wife Ended Interracial Marriage Ban - washingtonpost.com

Quiet Va. Wife Ended Interracial Marriage Ban - washingtonpost.com: Mildred Jeter Loving, 68, a black woman whose refusal to accept Virginia's ban on interracial marriage led to a U.S. Supreme Court decision in 1967 that struck down similar laws across the country, died of pneumonia Friday at her home in Milford, Va.

The Loving v. Virginia decision overturned long-standing legal and social prohibitions against miscegenation in the United States. Celebrated at the time, the landmark case sunk to obscurity until a 1996 made-for-television movie and a 2004 book revived interest in how the young, small-town black and white couple changed history.

A modest homemaker, Loving never thought she had done anything extraordinary. "It wasn't my doing," Loving told the Associated Press in a rare interview a year ago. "It was God's work."

Today, according to the Census Bureau, there are 4.3 million interracial couples in the nation.

Shankar Vedantam - The Candidate, the Preacher and the Unconscious Mind - washingtonpost.com

Shankar Vedantam - The Candidate, the Preacher and the Unconscious Mind - washingtonpost.com: ... To break the mental associations that white voters have between him and Wright, in other words, Obama will probably have to work much harder than if politician and preacher were also white.

This also explains why black voters seem to have little trouble distinguishing Obama's views from Wright's views -- people rarely have trouble seeing that people from their own groups can have a wide range of views.

Mental associations work in positive and negative directions: Experiments show, for example, that men and women seen in the company of beautiful partners are perceived as being more attractive than when they are seen in plainer company.

But there is some evidence our minds are especially attuned to negative associations: At Arizona State University, for example, social psychologist Steven Neuberg once found that heterosexual men seen in the company of gay men had some of the stigma attached to homosexuality rub off on them. The same holds for other prejudices -- social approbation seems to be directed not only at the victims of prejudice but also at those seen in their company.

Neuberg believes that these biases arise because we often see similar people in one another's company. If you see two men in suits talking to each other and you know one of them is a lawyer, it is plausible to think the second person is a lawyer, too. Prejudice follows similar mental heuristics, or shortcuts.

Racial Disparities Found to Persist as Drug Arrests Rise - New York Times

Racial Disparities Found to Persist as Drug Arrests Rise - New York Times: More than two decades after President Ronald Reagan escalated the war on drugs, arrests for drug sales or, more often, drug possession are still rising. And despite public debate and limited efforts to reduce them, large disparities persist in the rate at which blacks and whites are arrested and imprisoned for drug offenses, even though the two races use illegal drugs at roughly equal rates.

Two new reports, issued Monday by the Sentencing Project in Washington and by Human Rights Watch in New York, both say the racial disparities reflect, in large part, an overwhelming focus of law enforcement on drug use in low-income urban areas, with arrests and incarceration the main weapon.

But they note that the murderous crack-related urban violence of the 1980s, which spawned the drug war, has largely subsided, reducing the rationale for a strategy that has sowed mistrust in the justice system among many blacks.

In 2006, according to federal data, drug-related arrests climbed to 1.89 million, up from 1.85 million in 2005 and 581,000 in 1980.

Closing The Achievement Gap In Math And Science

Closing The Achievement Gap In Math And Science: The latest results from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Math and Science Partnership (MSP) program show not only improved proficiency among all elementary and middle school students, but also a closing of the achievement gaps between both African-American and Hispanic students and white students in elementary school math, and between African-American and white students in elementary and middle-school science.

Since 2002, the MSP program has supported institutions of higher education and K-12 school systems in partnering higher education faculty from science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) disciplines with K-12 teachers. Through the program, STEM faculty provide professional development and mentoring to math and science teachers to deepen their content knowledge in their field of expertise--all with the goal of better preparing students in these subjects.

The MSP program currently supports 52 such partnerships around the country that unite some 150 institutions of higher education with more than 700 school districts, including more than 5,200 schools in 30 states and Puerto Rico. More than 70 businesses, numerous state departments of education, science museums and community organizations are also partners.

Poetry Man: Victor Hernández Cruz Uncovers the Richness of Diversity in his Verses

Victor Hernandez Cruz visited Harlem recently to read from his latest collection of poems, The Mountain in the Sea (Coffee House Press, 2006). He also treated the 20 or so guests, who gathered at the home of fellow poet Quincy Troupe and his wife, Margaret, to a selection of favorite verses from his previous books.

The gathering was also in honor of Cruz being named the chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, the first Latino to hold the post since the Board of Chancellors was established in 1946. The American Academy of Poets was the impetus behind the creation of National Poetry Month, observed each April, which was started in 1996 to raise the visibility and importance of poetry in American culture.

“I’m still trying to figure out what being in this position affords me,” he says, laughing. “But this appointment is for six years, and I’m looking forward to working with this fine group of poets.”

“We get to read lots of manuscripts and judge who gets the prestigious Academy of American Poets Fellowships and the Wallace Stevens Awards,” he adds. “We get to celebrate poets who are already published and highlight rising poets, the ones waving manuscripts around, going to readings and still having to pay their dues.”

PBIs Make Gains in Washington

PBIs Make Gains in Washington: Predominantly Black institutions are recognized with a new federal grant program and proposed funding in the new HEA bill.

After years of lobbying for more federal aid and visibility, predominantly Black colleges and universities — many of them located in northern cities — are gaining a greater foothold in Washington.

These colleges, which enroll large numbers of Black students but are not historically Black institutions, will divide $15 million over two years through a new grant competition expected to be formally open for applications soon. Approved under the College Cost Reduction Act, the competitive grants can provide predominantly Black institutions, or PBIs, with a minimum grant of at least $250,000.

“We’ve got a foot in the door. That’s significant,” says Dr. Edison Jackson, president of Medgar Evers College in New York, who long has argued for aid to PBIs. With a Black enrollment of about 94 percent, Jackson’s college would qualify for the new funds.

Precise eligibility rules for the competition are still pending.

African-U.S. University Partnerships Among Collaborations Urged By Global Leaders

African-U.S. University Partnerships Among Collaborations Urged By Global Leaders: WASHINGTON – In this globalized society, the need for intellectual collaboration across continents, cultures, institutions and disciplines is imperative in solving the scientific and technological mysteries that lie ahead, said panelists during the opening session Wednesday of the Higher Education Summit for Global Development at the Department of State.

Further explaining the need for collaboration among universities, business and foundations, Secretary of the Department of Energy Samuel Bodman said, “We are faced with a remarkable paradox. We need science and innovation to provide solutions to the problems that lie ahead, [yet] interest in science is waning. Reigniting the enthusiasm among young people in the areas science and mathematics is critical to a prosperous global future.”

The Higher Education Summit, sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), a government agency that provides foreign assistance and humanitarian aid to foreign countries, allows higher educational institutions in developed and underdeveloped countries, foundations and private-sector businesses to build partnerships.

NACME: Growing ‘Opportunity Gap’ Exists in the Number of Minority Students Pursuing STEM Degrees

NACME: Growing ‘Opportunity Gap’ Exists in the Number of Minority Students Pursuing STEM Degrees: WASHINGTON
Interest among American students of all races and ethnicities in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) has dissipated over the last several years. As a result, the pipeline of American engineers has dwindled. In a new report, the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME) asserts that the rates of participation among underrepresented minorities in STEM fields have flat-lined, and in some cases declined.

The report titled “Confronting the ‘New’ American Dilemma” reveals that fewer than 12 percent of baccalaureate engineering graduates in the United States are underrepresented minorities, suggesting that only a meager few will matriculate through the various levels of graduate academia to become faculty members or STEM professionals.

Certainly, since the Civil Rights Movement underrepresented minorities have made some progress in gaining access to engineering, however engineer colleges continue to produce a majority of graduates who are White and male despite the proportion of ethnic minorities among college-going students.

60 percent of black children can't swim - Kids and parenting- msnbc.com

60 percent of black children can't swim - Kids and parenting- msnbc.com: NEW YORK - Nearly 60 percent of African-American children cannot swim, almost twice the figure for white children, according to a first-of-its-kind survey which USA Swimming hopes will strengthen its efforts to lower minority drowning rates and draw more blacks into the sport.

Stark statistics underlie the initiative by the national governing body for swimming. Black children drown at a rate almost three times the overall rate. And less than 2 percent of USA Swimming's nearly 252,000 members who swim competitively year-round are black.

USA Swimming is teaming with an array of partners — local governments, corporations, youth and ethnic organizations — to expand learn-to-swim programs across the United States, many of them targeted at inner-city minorities. One of the key participants is black freestyle star Cullen Jones, who hopes to boost his role-model status by winning a medal this summer at the Beijing Olympics.

Nearly 25 Percent of Children Younger Than 5 Are Latino, Census Says - washingtonpost.com

Nearly 25 Percent of Children Younger Than 5 Are Latino, Census Says - washingtonpost.com: Hispanics, the nation's largest and fastest-growing minority group, now account for about one in four children younger than 5 in the United States, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates released today.

The increase from almost one in five in 2000 has broad implications for governments, communities and schools nationwide, suggesting that the meteoric rise in the Hispanic population that demographers forecast for mid-century will occur even sooner among younger generations.

'Hispanics have both a larger proportion of people in their child-bearing years and tend to have slightly more children,' said Jeffrey S. Passel, senior demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center and co-author of a recent study predicting that the Latino population will double from 15 percent today to 30 percent by 2050.