Minority Groups Raise Voices on Reform - washingtonpost.com

Minority Groups Raise Voices on Reform - washingtonpost.com: In the debate over revamping the health-care system, there are the doctors and nurses, the insurance companies and industry lobbyists, and the patients with preexisting conditions, among others. With so many interest groups, the conversation is loud and getting louder.

Missing from the noise so far: the voices of minorities, who are disproportionately represented among the poor and uninsured and could benefit the most from reform, and who are more likely than others to have chronic illnesses such as diabetes. They are symbols of the failures of the current system.

Starting this week, however, with a new campaign and new ads, their voices will become a larger part of the debate.

Leaders of black and Latino advocacy groups say that because so many of their members favor health-care reform, they are becoming more forceful as the final drafts near, even though they are reluctant to make race and ethnicity a central issue.

In First Lady’s Roots, a Complex Path From Slavery - NYTimes.com

In First Lady’s Roots, a Complex Path From Slavery - NYTimes.com: WASHINGTON — In 1850, the elderly master of a South Carolina estate took pen in hand and painstakingly divided up his possessions. Among the spinning wheels, scythes, tablecloths and cattle that he bequeathed to his far-flung heirs was a 6-year-old slave girl valued soon afterward at $475.

In his will, she is described simply as the “negro girl Melvinia.” After his death, she was torn away from the people and places she knew and shipped to Georgia. While she was still a teenager, a white man would father her first-born son under circumstances lost in the passage of time.

In the annals of American slavery, this painful story would be utterly unremarkable, save for one reason: This union, consummated some two years before the Civil War, represents the origins of a family line that would extend from rural Georgia, to Birmingham, Ala., to Chicago and, finally, to the White House.

Melvinia Shields, the enslaved and illiterate young girl, and the unknown white man who impregnated her are the great-great-great-grandparents of Michelle Obama, the first lady.

Obama awards national science, technology medals | Nation & World Updates | Wichita Eagle

Obama awards national science, technology medals | Nation & World Updates | Wichita Eagle: WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama linked scientific discovery to helping the struggling economy Wednesday as he honored those who invented batteries for implanted defibrillators, mapped the human genetic code and made global positioning systems possible.

Awarding the National Medal of Science and the Medal of Technology and Innovation, Obama said the United States must continue to invest in 'the next generation of discoveries and the next generation of discoverers.' Repeating his pledge to put thousands more students in college classrooms, he committed to spending 3 percent of the gross domestic product to educate future scientists and researchers.

'Because throughout our history, amid tumult and war and against tough odds, this nation has always looked toward the future and then led the way,' he said.

Obama hosts a night of stargazing

WASHINGTON (CNN) — One hundred and forty lucky middle school aged students are headed to the South Lawn at the White House this evening for a night of star gazing with President Obama – but this time, the proceedings have nothing to do with Hollywood royalty.

Tonight's festivities will target a very specific age group, one that typically succumbs to peer pressure and tends to move away from science and technology. According to former astronaut Dr. Sally Ride, who was on the South Lawn for a preview and will be there this evening, 'this reminds them that science is cool, and tonight's event might let them hold onto that interest' going into high school and college.

The students from local middle schools in Washington, DC and Virginia who are coming to the White House tonight will be met by the 'Inflatable Dome,' a virtual universe that displays a realistic virtual show of the galaxies, as well as roughly twenty telescopes scattered about the lawn and pointed toward the heavens.

Cabinet officials, Chicagoans discuss ways to end teen violence - CNN.com

Cabinet officials, Chicagoans discuss ways to end teen violence - CNN.com: CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) -- U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan met Wednesday with a group of teens who were schoolmates of a Chicago youth brutally beaten to death last month.

"I can't tell you how impressed I am. We had a great conversation," Duncan said at a news conference. "These are kids that are overcoming odds that folks in this room have a hard time even comprehending."

He and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder also met with Chicago's mayor and community leaders to discuss possible remedies for violent crimes involving young people.

The Cabinet members' visit, ordered by President Obama, was prompted by the beating death of Derrion Albert, a 16-year-old honors student. Authorities said Derrion was caught, unwittingly, in the middle of a street fight between two factions of students from Christian Fenger Academy High School on September 24.

The beating was videotaped with a cell phone.

His death was not an isolated incident: More than 30 youths died violently in Chicago last school year.

S.F. State University Hosts Conference To Celebrate, Further Explore Ethnic Studies

S.F. State University Hosts Conference To Celebrate, Further Explore Ethnic Studies: At a time when some pundits and critics contend that ethnic studies are no longer needed, the dean of the only U.S. college devoted to the discipline calls the struggle to survive a collective one.

“The current attack on ethnic studies is really one on the public trust in general,” says Dr. Kenneth Monteiro, dean of San Francisco State University's College of Ethnic Studies. “This attack is against public support for accessible health, education, a variety of causes. We in ethnic studies aren't isolated anymore.”

Monteiro's observations coincide with an academic conference kicking off today at SFSU called “Race, Resistance and Relevance.” The four-day event commemorates the 40th anniversary of the founding of the discipline and the founding of SFSU's ethnic studies college, which now boasts 50 full-time faculty teaching 6,000 students annually.

With Olympics Comes Lessons on Race in Brazil

With Olympics Comes Lessons on Race in Brazil: To Dr. Vania Penha-Lopes, the selection of Rio de Janeiro to host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games, the first in South America, is a teachable moment.

“I feel great that the International Olympic Committee recognized that the continent of America has a South,” said Penha-Lopes, a sociology professor at Bloomfield College in Bloomfield, N.J., who was born and raised in Brazil.

“In terms of the United States, it will educate more people that there is a huge country south of the equator. Maybe [Americans] will learn we speak Portuguese and not Spanish.”

However, she’s concerned that the millions spent to host the major sporting events will not benefit all Brazilians.

Wheaton College Was Underground Railroad Stop

Wheaton College Was Underground Railroad Stop: WHEATON, Ill. — An entry buried in a 120-year-old manuscript has confirmed what local historians long have believed: Wheaton College was a stop on the Underground Railroad.

Officials said they knew the college was founded and led by abolitionists. But it was difficult to substantiate the claim that the school, called Illinois Institute at the time, was directly involved with the network of stops and routes that aided escaping slaves.

“We never had the hard evidence that strict historians want to see,” said David Malone, the college's head of archives and special collections.

That changed earlier this year when Wheaton College history professor David Maas was doing research for a book.

Oral histories project turns attention to Latinos - CNN.com

Oral histories project turns attention to Latinos - CNN.com: WASHINGTON (CNN) -- You can learn a lot from people by listening to their stories.

That has been the driving idea behind StoryCorps. Since 2003 the nonprofit project has been collecting oral histories from everyday Americans across the United States.

One copy of the recorded history goes to the participant and one copy to the American Folklife Ceter at the Library of Congress. To date, StoryCorps has recorded more than 27,000 stories, many of which have been broadcast on public radio stations.

The project is now turning its attention to the stories of Latinos -- on Thursday, StoryCorps launched "Historias" ("Stories" in Spanish) as its latest effort.

Historias, funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, aims at collecting the stories of Latinos in the United States, including the territory of Puerto Rico. StoryCorps staffers will be traveling across the country in two mobile radio studios, Airstream trailers with a small soundproof room in the back. Inside each studio there is a table with two microphones and two sets of headphones. Participants sit and share their stories.

Latinos in Suffolk County face racial intolerance, report says - CNN.com

Latinos in Suffolk County face racial intolerance, report says - CNN.com: NEW YORK (CNN) -- Latino immigrants living in Suffolk County, New York, have been living in an environment of intolerance and attacks against them, a report released Wednesday by the Southern Poverty Law Center said.

The atmosphere of intolerance is stoked in part by anti-immigrant groups, an indifferent police department, and county leaders themselves, according to the report.

The law center, which researches and keeps tabs on hate groups, became interested in the Long Island county after the November 8, 2008, murder of Marcelo Lucero, an Ecuadorian immigrant in Patchogue, New York. Prosecutors allege that the killers were a group of teenagers who targeted Latinos as part of a sport they called 'beaner-hopping.'

Undocumented patients wary of offers to return to home countries - CNN.com

Undocumented patients wary of offers to return to home countries - CNN.com: (CNN) -- Going back to Mexico is not an option, said the 43-year-old man, kneeling next to his wife's wheelchair.

His wife, 45, lost her eyesight to diabetes. She also has high blood pressure. And her kidneys are failing.

For years, he has taken her to a dialysis clinic attached to a public hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. The facility that gave her free care plans to close Saturday.

They are illegal immigrants with no health insurance and, they say they have nowhere to go for his wife's vast medical needs. The closing clinic offered to help return them to Mexico.

The Atlanta clinic is the latest known case of a medical institution that's offering to send illegal immigrants who can't afford treatment back to their native countries -- a practice that critics liken to patient dumping

Commentary: Mexican-Americans have deep U.S. ties - CNN.com

Commentary: Mexican-Americans have deep U.S. ties - CNN.com: (CNN) -- Just about any celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 - October 15) will highlight the diversity among Hispanics.

They come from different parts of the Spanish-speaking world, have settled in various areas of the United States, have distinctive customs and come in all shapes and colors.

But an often overlooked difference among Hispanics relates to how many generations back they trace their roots in U.S. history.

Hispanics are not just immigrants or the U.S.-born children of immigrants. They are also Americans with deep family histories in the United States. This is especially true of the Mexican-origin population, the largest Hispanic subgroup and one that has been continually replenished by immigrant newcomers for a century.

Hispanic and Latin Baby Names Becoming Less Popular - TIME

Hispanic and Latin Baby Names Becoming Less Popular - TIME: In May, the Pew Hispanic Center released a study of first-, second- and third-generation Hispanics in the U.S. — a look at how the Latin-American population has grown and assimilated over the past three decades. As recently as 1980, just 9% of U.S. kids under 18 were Hispanic, compared with 22% today. Only about a tenth of that population are first-generation Latin Americans — meaning they were born outside the U.S. More than half (52%) are second generation — born in the U.S. to at least one foreign-born parent; and 37% were born in America to American-born parents. By 2025, the study estimates that close to 30% of all American kids will have some Latino ancestry.

What happens, of course, when an immigrant group heads toward assimilation, is that each successive generation gets more educated (82% of first-generation Latin-American kids ages 15 to 17 attend school, compared with 97% of second-generation kids — hardly perfect but moving toward parity) and more proficient in the national language (by the third generation, 95% of Latino kids ages 15 to 17 speak English exclusively or very well). Another thing that happens is that parents start moving away from baby names like Guillermo and closer to names like William. "When [immigrant or later-generation] parents name their children, they are combining their own attachments and affinities with their hopes and aspirations for their children," says Guillermina Jasso, a sociology professor at New York University and a second-generation Hispanic American.

Minorities, mostly Hispanics, flock to suburban schools - USATODAY.com

Minorities, mostly Hispanics, flock to suburban schools - USATODAY.com: Minority enrollment in suburban school districts has exploded since the early 1990s, and Hispanic students account for most of that growth, a report released Tuesday finds.

But the data show that while districts outside urban and rural areas have seen remarkable gains in black, Hispanic and Asian students from 1993 to 2007, schools within some of those districts have grown more segregated.

'In spite of the rapid demographic changes at the level of the school district, when you actually look at the schools kids attend, there still might be issues of racial and ethnic balance,' says Richard Fry, a senior research associate for the Pew Hispanic Center and author of the report.

The findings come as enrollment in suburban schools has increased by 3.4 million during the past decade and a half. Meanwhile, the number of white suburban students slipped by 1%, reflecting a shift in the once largely white enclaves that defined suburban schools.

Once accounting for nearly three-quarters of enrollment, white students now make up 59% of suburban districts. At the same time, non-white enrollment rose by 13 percentage points, up from 28% in the 1993-94 academic year.

Hispanic students aspire to higher education but face barriers - USATODAY.com

Hispanic students aspire to higher education but face barriers - USATODAY.com: WASHINGTON — Nearly nine in 10 Hispanics say it's 'necessary' to get a college education to get ahead in life — more than any other ethnic or racial group in the USA. But Hispanic students' plans to get an actual diploma fall well below those of other groups, a survey finds: Fewer than half of Hispanic 18- to 25-year-olds say they plan to get a bachelor's degree, well below the 60% of all young people who say the same.

The findings, reported in a survey released today by the Pew Hispanic Center, suggest several reasons for the divide between aspirations and reality, including language barriers, parents' abilities to play an active role in education and students' desires to help support their families.

Administration Launches $650M Program to Boost Education - washingtonpost.com

Administration Launches $650M Program to Boost Education - washingtonpost.com: The Obama administration on Tuesday announced goals for a $650 million grant competition for school systems and nonprofit organizations with ideas for narrowing achievement gaps, reducing high school dropout rates and improving teacher and principal effectiveness.

The competition dovetails with a $4.35 billion grant program for states that the administration calls 'Race to the Top.' The combined $5 billion in seed money for fixing or improving schools amounts to one of the largest federal investments to date in educational entrepreneurship.

Funding comes from the economic stimulus law, which gives the Education Department unusually wide latitude to pick grant winners.

In the $650 million venture, three types of grants would be awarded next year to school systems and nonprofit partners: up to $5 million for developing promising ideas; up to $30 million for reforms that already have a good track record; and up to $50 million for proven innovations that could help hundreds of thousands of students regionally or nationally. Applicants would be required to obtain public or private matching funds.

Out-of-School Activities Play Role in Helping Close Achievement Gap, Experts Say

Out-of-School Activities Play Role in Helping Close Achievement Gap, Experts Say: WASHINGTON— Public policies that help communities provide the spaces and activities for after-school play, exploration, and social interaction should help close racial, ethnic and economic achievement gaps, according to experts at an Educational Testing Service (ETS) conference Monday.

Researchers and educators said in the current system, children are showing deficiencies in both cognitive skills like literacy and noncognitive ones, such as goal-setting, that bolster academic success. As enriching playtime and after-school programs are reduced, they have called for reform not only inside the classroom but outside as well.

Dr. Edmund W. Gordon, a leading researcher of supplemental, or complementary, education, said during the opening session of the ETS 12th Addressing Achievement Gaps Symposium that improving student achievement includes reaping the benefits of nonschool activities that stimulate learning beyond the brick and mortar.

“We cannot depend so heavily on schools,” Gordon said, adding that education reform should be viewed as a public health issue that challenges the public to respond to growing education needs at every level of society.

Mass. Legislation Could Authorize Study of Slavery’s Economic Legacy

Mass. Legislation Could Authorize Study of Slavery’s Economic Legacy: BOSTON — Massachusetts, which boasts a history of abolitionism, is considering legislation to determine how much the state and local institutions profited from the African slave trade.

A bill before the legislature would require some of Massachusetts oldest banking, financial and insurance companies to look deep into their history — and the histories of subsidiaries and predecessor companies — to uncover links to the slave trade, as a condition of doing business with the state.

It also would authorize the secretary of state to produce a book documenting to what extent the state, since the times of the Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth colonies, benefited from slavery, whether through taxes or economic growth.

Federal Eye - Eye Opener: Latinos in the Federal Government

Federal Eye - Eye Opener: Latinos in the Federal Government: "Latino Americans may be the nation's fastest-growing minority group, but they're also the most underrepresented among civilian federal employees,' yours truly writes in Tuesday's Federal Diary column. 'As of last September, Hispanics accounted for about 8 percent of the total civilian federal workforce, according to the Office of Personnel Management. That's well below the 13.2 percent of Hispanics in the national civilian labor force, according to Labor Department statistics.'

More: 'Of the 25 largest government agencies, 17 saw modest increases in Hispanic hires in fiscal year 2008 over fiscal 2007, with most being made at the lower- and mid-level general schedule levels. At higher levels of government, Hispanics accounted for 3.6 percent of the Senior Executive Service during fiscal year 2008, according to OPM figures.

'The overall Latino hiring disparity is equivalent to more than 100,000 jobs or roughly $5.5 billion in salaries, according to Gilbert Sandate, chairman of the Coalition for Fairness for Hispanics in Government. His group has met with White House and OPM officials to discuss the issue.

When Perception Becomes Reality

When Perception Becomes Reality: The perception of barriers prevents Mexican-American students from achieving their ultimate educational goals, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Missouri.

“The data tells us this group is at risk of not fulfi lling their dreams,” said co-author Dr. Lisa Flores, associate professor of educational, school and counseling psychology at the University of Missouri’s College of Education. “Mexican-American students have high aspirations in terms of educational goals. But what they actually achieve, and expect to achieve, is lower than what they aspire to.”

Flores surveyed 186 Mexican-American high school students with an average age of 16.14 years in a Texas-Mexico border town. Flores says she believes her study is the first to fi nd a direct link between perception and results. Perceived barriers include lack of support among family and community to continue education, family responsibilities and fi nances.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 57 percent of Mexican-American students graduate from high school. Only 11 percent receive college degrees.