Segregation in Woodbridge, Virginia

link to image*

The school says they do it to help those kids learning English.  But it sounds like something out of Jim Crow days.

from the NYT, March 14, 2009:

Walk with immigrant students, and the rest of Hylton feels a world apart. By design, they attend classes almost exclusively with one another. They take separate field trips. And they organize separate clubs.

Student Amalia Raymundo, originally from Guatemala tells a NY Times reporter 

“I feel they hold me back by isolating me.”

Student Jhosselin Guevara says: 

"Maybe the teachers are tring to protect us...There are people who do not want us here at all."

The Spanish-speaking kids are placed in a separate "academic track" -- over the years there have been multiple reports that separate tracks is bad for students.  

Here is an 1983 article from the NYT/AP that discusses a Rand Corporation Report on tracking: 

Racial Harm Is Found in School 'Tracking'
Published: Thursday, September 20, 1990
New York Times

Black and Hispanic students are falling behind in math and science partly because they are more likely than other students to be put into classes for those with lower abilities, according to a Rand Corporation study released yesterday.

Furthermore, students in those classes tend to have less-qualified teachers and lower-quality equipment and curriculum materials, the nationwide study concluded. It cited the ''nearly universal practice'' of schools' placing their least-qualified teachers in classes of students with the least ability and best-qualified teachers in classes of brighter students...link to complete article

-A News release from Stanford University concludes that academic tracking is harmful to a student's success:

03/02/94

CONTACT: Stanford University News Service (415) 723-2558
SCHOOL TRACKING HARMS MILLIONS, SOCIOLOGIST FINDS

STANFORD - A new study on tracking in high schools shows the system of placing some students in college preparatory courses and others in easier math and science courses is "harming millions of students in American society," says Sanford Dornbusch, the Reed-Hodgson Professor of Human Biology, who holds joint appointments in the Department of Sociology and the School of Education at Stanford University.

Tracking doesn't limit opportunities for the top tenth or so of students but is particularly disastrous for students whose abilities fall in the middle range, Dornbusch said...link to entire news release

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While Comprehensive Immigration Reform has nearly dropped out of sight, the NYT has been steadily bringing conversations about immigrants to its front page.  Today it is a series titled "Remade in America:  the newest immigrants and their impact."  At least they are not endorsing the expansion of the nasty 287g local immigration enforcement program that has been highly criticized by the U.S. Government Accounting Office.  They present "academic tracking" in such a way that makes you think they believe it is OK.

Why all the focus on immigration reform?  The only people really bothered by immigration are those that want the immigrants out.  Considering our current economic disaster, Congress may go into convulsions if Comprehensive Immigration Reform came up.  

What the NYT needs to be doing is helping get the DREAM Act passed.  They could use a few good DREAMers on their staff.  It might give them some insight into their investigations on immigration.

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*The image above is from the Dept of Education of N. Carolina.  There are no kids of color in this picture.  I guess they were all "tracked" out.