<p>No worries. :)</p>
<p>I don’t know why any of you still argue about illegal immigration: GW Bush is solving that problem by driving the American economy into the ground… pretty soon no one will want to come here to work because the greenback will be worthless.</p>
<p>I just received an email from an Eastern European friend who is planning to come to America TO GO SHOPPING. “You guys are unbelievably cheap.” His own currency, the currency of a little second-world country still ravaged by the effects of 60 years of communism – is now worth half of an American dollar!! </p>
<p>Thank you W.</p>
<p>Thank Wall Street–which BTW has many friends high in the Democratic Party. The economy was doing very well the last 5 years coming out of the CLINTON recession of 1999-2000. First they brought us the housing mess and now they are helping speculate oil prices through the roof. Then some of them will lose a ton of money in oil and come begging for another bailout.</p>
<p>Yeah. You can’t blame Bush any more than you could give credit to Clinton. The Prez has precious little to do with the economy.</p>
<p>Oh PUHLEASE – Bush had a surplus when he started.</p>
<p>Oh please. The surplus or lack thereof has very little economic impact.</p>
<p>More breaking news:</p>
<p>[Newsom</a> says underage illegal immigrant criminals are courts’ problem](<a href=“http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/01/BAEC11I71H.DTL&tsp=1]Newsom”>http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/01/BAEC11I71H.DTL&tsp=1)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Education, etc. are investments – they generate returns.</p>
<p>There is a limit to how much any group can invest. We are at or beyond that limit now. Many schools are already underfunded and overpopulated. Time to learn the difference between theory and reality. Let Mexico and Central America and China and Vietnam invest in their schools. US citizens are tapped out. We have an aging infrastructure in so many ways we will be lucky to maintain what we have.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>From a narrow-minded perspective it seems that way.</p>
<p>A voucher school system would not have this problem.</p>
<p>As usual, the poster in 90 makes no sense. From whose “narrow-minded perspective?” What is narrow-minded (small-minded, actually), is to import poverty and perpetuate illiteracy. Speaking strictly to the upward mobility of poor immigrants, (not to any economic or other practical effect on the ‘non-immigrant’ population), public schools in my region are not committed to the full oral & written fluency of the immigrant student/parents. The schools are still stuck in the unenlightened PC-world of the early 70’s, stressing a patronizing multi-culturalism which maintains the immigrant’s class (sub-class), as opposed to a respectful, challenging, affirming integration of the new immigrant into a way of life quite different from the student’s origins.</p>
<p>I haven’t done a statistical state-wide survey, but I’ll tell you that in some metropolitan pockets, the K-12 public schools are dominated by Latin American immigrants not being assimilated into the language & academic expectations of their new country. Is that their fault? No, actually. It’s the result of PC-passivity by educational administrators, who allow illiteracy to flourish in the name of multiculturalim. That is beside the point, btw, of the neglect of low-income Asian and Black students in the same schools, which are now numerically minorities, and have lost, in those pockets, whatever voice or priority they might have had in those schools. The latter population is being forced to attend classes often conducted in Spanish. Needless to say, they do not understand the material. But hey, there’s “progress” for you.</p>
<p>Yes, but your argument rests on the current state of the public school system.</p>
<p>If we followed the Libertarian platform and mass-implemented school vouchers, we wouldn’t have this problem.</p>
<p>Galosien, do you not get a hint?</p>
<p>If school vouchers are the answer then the question must be wrong…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It is the parents of these students to whom I’ve devoted thousands of hours over decades in helping to teach literacy. Let me tell you, it’s tough and gotten much tougher in recent years. It used to be that people coming through were literate in Spanish, but that’s less the case now. Many have no history of literacy in any language and speak neither English nor Spanish. Anecdotally, many of those also don’t want to be in America at all and don’t want to assimilate, they feel that their only choice is to be here or to starve at home. I find that heartbreaking. Also anecdotally, it’s the young black kids who are really getting lost. At the elementary school level, they are not Spanish speakers, so that hurts. At the high school level, they’re losing those entry level jobs to illegal immigrants. Not a good thing.</p>
<p>“Many have no history of literacy in any language and speak neither English nor Spanish.”</p>
<p>Yes. (Although, they may speak Spanish but not write/read it. ) What’s happening --I’ve often taught & supervised in those schools – is that the young immigrants are often being “taught” by similarly illiterate or semi-literate immigrants, in Spanish, not in English or in both languages. Thus, no progress in English literacy & precious little in Spanish literacy.</p>
<p>Re Post 95: Yes. Post 92 is O/T. (Not surprising.)</p>
<p>epiphany, the type of problem you alluded to is not confined to school districts that are dominated by lower income immigrant family but reflects more or less problems encountered in all such school districts across the country. Just visit a K12 system in an economically depressed rust belt state. Go into a school in Detroit or in Flint Michigan. The kids there do speak English but they may as well not to anyone who suffered from having the disadvantage of a good education (my dig to the other thread). </p>
<p>The reason that immigrants, legal or illegal, congregate in certain areas and exacerbate the problem of our K12 system could be alleviated if they are spread more widely across the country. There are a number of areas that could benefit from an influx of laborers, and such place could be the destination if there is a work visa system that enables workers to go there.</p>
<p>
THat’s true, but I was really referring to Indians who don’t speak Spanish, either! That particular group has increased in the last five years or so. Just in my experience, I mean. People with whom I’m personally acquainted.</p>
<p>Vouchers–another nice theory that fell apart in practice. The private sector had no magic answer where it has been tried. Many of the schools ran into staffing and financial problems and failed leaving real people with no school. It was a nice idea but in practice was pretty much a flop.</p>
<p>Post 97. I know that. However, since the topic was immigration, more than education, the education of those immigrants (& their upward mobility, or lack thereof) is relevant to the OP. I’m well acquainted with the funcitonal illiteracy of economically compromised groups in non-immigrant locations & populations as well. </p>
<p>Again, I was not bashing the immigrants for congregating. Also, I’ve advocated for greater disbursement for a variety of reasons (esp. for assimilation reasons), but we live in a free country, & people are free to self-restrict if they choose, based on whatever needs they have. Some incentives for migration have occurred due to narrowing economic opportunity in impacted areas (read, too much competition among the same class of unskilled, illiterate workers). Clearly the problem of First Language in the schools being Spanish would vanish if there were more even disbursement of Hispanic immigrants. However, existing economies & communities in the west, southwest continue to attract them to congregate in these same large numbers. There is greater disbursement than there used to be, but the eastward/northern migration has not significantly reduced the language & other obstacles in the schools.</p>