News Articles

State's low school spending yields few college graduates
STUDY IDENTIFIES ROADBLOCKS; EXTRA HURDLES FOR POOR MINORITIES

By Becky Bartindale
Mercury News

California sends a lower percentage of its seniors to in-state public four-year universities than any state but Mississippi -- and a report released Wednesday offers an explanation.

Topping the reasons: a shortage of high school counselors, adequately trained teachers and college-prep classes -- largely caused by one of the lowest levels of educational spending in the nation.

The study concludes that these roadblocks to college are present in every corner of the state -- including Santa Clara County. But they are the most prevalent in schools serving high percentages of poor minority students.

The study is the first to allow Californians to see how their schools fare in terms of having some of the most basic resources that influence whether students go on to college, its authors said. (Detailed, searchable information is available at www.ucla-idea.org.) It focuses only on students entering University of California and California State University campuses because the data was readily available and those schools are the main destination for the state's students who attend four-year schools.

``So many students begin high school saying they want to go on to college,'' said Professor Jeannie Oakes, one of the principal researchers and director of the Institute for Democracy, Education and Access at UCLA and the UC All Campus Consortium on Research for Diversity. ``Whether or not they do should be a matter of their decision, rather than being in a school with such a weak college-preparatory infrastructure that the decision is taken away from them.''

At the heart of the problem, concludes the study, is a failure to invest in education.

California is among the states with the highest per capita personal income in the country -- it ranks 11th -- yet when spending is adjusted for regional cost of living differences, it ranks 43rd in education spending, according to the report.

The study found tremendous differences among legislative districts in different areas of the state.

For example, the Midpeninsula region of the Bay Area shows the largest concentration of legislative districts sending the most students to California public universities, said study author John Rogers, associate director of UCLA's Institute for Democracy, Education and Access. Those districts also spend more money per student than the state average, Rogers said, and in some cases, more than the national average.

Among the study's findings:

• Only one-eighth of the California students who entered the class of 2004 as ninth-graders enrolled in one of the state's public four-year universities.

• California has the lowest ratio in the nation of high school students to counselors -- an average of 1-to-790 compared with 1-to-284.

• California's average high school class size is 21 students per teacher, though many classes are much larger. The national average is 15 students per teacher.

The study did not consider attendance at the state's private colleges or two-year colleges. While more California high school graduates attend community colleges than anywhere else, Oakes said the statewide transfer rate to four-year colleges is relatively low.

The lack of qualified teachers and not having enough counselors and college-prep courses is particularly acute in poor districts with large minority populations, Rogers said.

``Counselors are particularly important when we think about immigrant students whose families are not familiar with the California and U.S. higher education systems,'' he said.

Even without major infusions of money, Rogers said, there are things school districts can do to point more students toward college.

He praised the San Jose Unified School District's ``bold move'' to require all students to take college-prep courses to graduate, calling it a good model for other districts.

Contact Becky Bartindale at bbartindale@mercurynews. com or (408) 920-5459.

© 2006 MercuryNews.com and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.mercurynews.com

Educational System Fails Chicana and Chicano Students at Every Level


Date: March 22, 2006
Contact: Letisia Marquez ( lmarquez@support.ucla.edu )
Phone: 310-206-3986

Faced with dismal high school and college graduation rates for Chicana and Chicano students, educators, policy-makers, community leaders and other stakeholders must do more to increase the number of Chicanos attaining high school, college and graduate degrees, according to a UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center report.

Out of 100 Chicana and Chicano students who start elementary school, only 46 graduate from high school, eight receive a bachelor's degree and only two earn a graduate or professional degree, according to statistics based on 2000 U.S. Census Bureau and other educational data sources. Less than one Chicana and Chicano of the 100 earns a doctorate.

In contrast, of every 100 white elementary school students, 84 graduate from high school, 26 graduate with a bachelor's degree and 10 earn a professional degree, researchers said. Compared with other major racial and ethnic groups, Chicanas and Chicanos, who are the fastest growing segment of the student population in California and all major cities west of the Mississippi, have the lowest educational attainment of any group.

"Education is a crucial determinant for success in our society," said co-author Daniel Solórzano, a UCLA professor of education and the center's associate director. "What we see happening for Chicanos and Chicanas, however, is that they drop, or are pushed, out of the educational pipeline in higher numbers than any other group. While it is easy to blame the students, the responsibilities reside in the educational system itself."

Solórzano and Tara J. Yosso, an assistant professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a visiting scholar at the UCLA center, identified several conditions that impede the flow of Chicanas and Chicanos through what researchers termed "the educational pipeline."

"The educational system is clearly failing Chicana and Chicano students at every level," Yosso said. "We can no longer ignore these blatant inequalities. It is of extreme importance to address these issues now."

The researchers recommended focusing on three critical transition points: priming Chicana and Chicano K-12 students for college, community college students for transfer, and university undergraduates for graduate school.

Researchers cited various reasons for the disparities at each educational level. In urban, suburban and rural communities across the United States, Chicana and Chicano students usually attend racially segregated, overcrowded schools. Within poorly maintained facilities, students are often enrolled in classes where undertrained, undercredentialed faculty attempt to teach with minimal resources. Far too many Chicanas and Chicanos continue to be "tracked" into remedial or vocational programs. Rather than addressing structural inequities along the K-12 pipeline, schools continue to rely on standardized curriculum and high-stakes assessments, which yield statistically unreliable, inappropriate measures of student knowledge.

According to the researchers, the community college transfer function also is failing. In California, 40 percent of Latinos who enroll in community colleges aspire to transfer to a four‑year college or university. However, less than 10 percent of these students reach their goal of transferring to a four-year college.

"This is a tremendous talent loss to the state of California and the nation," Yosso said.

Once at a four-year university, Chicana and Chicano college students tend to experience higher levels of stress than other undergraduate students. They generally balance schoolwork with off-campus employment, which limits the students' time to speak with professors during office hours, ask an academic counselor for guidance, or participate in academic enrichment, tutoring or research programs.

The report further notes that Chicana and Chicano students often describe graduate school as a place where they feel invisible. Most graduate programs tend to be racially exclusive with predominately white students, faculty and curricula that omit Chicano histories and perspectives.

Solórzano and Yasso also made specific recommendations such as:

-Increase access to academic enrichment at K-12 levels including GATE and honors and AP classes.

-Make basic college entrance requirements the "default" curriculum accessible to all high school students.

-Decrease the overreliance on high-stakes, inappropriate testing and assessment.

-Train bilingual, multicultural educators to challenge cultural-deficit thinking and to acknowledge the cultural wealth of Chicana and Chicano student, their families, and communities.

-Reach out to parents as educational partners including making them aware of their rights to opt out of vocational programs and inappropriate standardized testing and opt in to English Language Learner support and academic enrichment programs.

As a first step in addressing these educational disparities, the UCLA center will host "The

Latina/o Education Summit — Falling Through the Cracks: Critical Transitions in the Latina/o Educational Pipeline" on March 24 on the UCLA campus. Los Angeles City Councilman Jose Huizar, who also is past president of the Los Angeles Unified School District board, will give the keynote address at the event.

"What makes this conference unique is that it brings together stakeholders in looking at the entire educational pipeline, not just one segment," said Carlos Haro, the center's assistant director and one of the conference organizers. "Our goal is to facilitate a more comprehensive dialogue about public education, especially in a city where nearly three-quarters of the students are Latino."

The event also will bring together policy-makers, educators, researchers and students. More information can be found at http://www.chicano.ucla.edu/center/events/default.htm.

-UCLA-

Article published Mar 20, 2006

Plight Deepens for Black Men, Studies Warn

By ERIK ECKHOLM
New York Times

BALTIMORE Black men in the United States face a far more dire situation than is portrayed by common employment and education statistics, a flurry of new scholarly studies warn, and it has worsened in recent years even as an economic boom and a welfare overhaul have brought gains to black women and other groups.

Focusing more closely than ever on the life patterns of young black men, the new studies, by experts at Columbia, Princeton, Harvard and other institutions, show that the huge pool of poorly educated black men are becoming ever more disconnected from the mainstream society, and to a far greater degree than comparable white or Hispanic men.

Especially in the country's inner cities, the studies show, finishing high school is the exception, legal work is scarcer than ever and prison is almost routine, with incarceration rates climbing for blacks even as urban crime rates have declined.

Although the problems afflicting poor black men have been known for decades, the new data paint a more extensive and sobering picture of the challenges they face.

"There's something very different happening with young black men, and it's something we can no longer ignore," said Ronald B. Mincy, professor of social work at Columbia University and editor of "Black Males Left Behind" (Urban Institute Press, 2006).

"Over the last two decades, the economy did great," Mr. Mincy said, "and low-skilled women, helped by public policy, latched onto it. But young black men were falling farther back."

Many of the new studies go beyond the traditional approaches to looking at the plight of black men, especially when it comes to determining the scope of joblessness. For example, official unemployment rates can be misleading because they do not include those not seeking work or incarcerated.

"If you look at the numbers, the 1990's was a bad decade for young black men, even though it had the best labor market in 30 years," said Harry J. Holzer, an economist at Georgetown University and co-author, with Peter Edelman and Paul Offner, of "Reconnecting Disadvantaged Young Men" (Urban Institute Press, 2006).

In response to the worsening situation for young black men, a growing number of programs are placing as much importance on teaching life skills like parenting, conflict resolution and character building as they are on teaching job skills.

These were among the recent findings:

¶The share of young black men without jobs has climbed relentlessly, with only a slight pause during the economic peak of the late 1990's. In 2000, 65 percent of black male high school dropouts in their 20's were jobless that is, unable to find work, not seeking it or incarcerated. By 2004, the share had grown to 72 percent, compared with 34 percent of white and 19 percent of Hispanic dropouts. Even when high school graduates were included, half of black men in their 20's were jobless in 2004, up from 46 percent in 2000.

¶Incarceration rates climbed in the 1990's and reached historic highs in the past few years. In 1995, 16 percent of black men in their 20's who did not attend college were in jail or prison; by 2004, 21 percent were incarcerated. By their mid-30's, 6 in 10 black men who had dropped out of school had spent time in prison.

¶In the inner cities, more than half of all black men do not finish high school.

None of the litany of problems that young black men face was news to a group of men from the airless neighborhoods of Baltimore who recently described their experiences.

One of them, Curtis E. Brannon, told a story so commonplace it hardly bears notice here. He quit school in 10th grade to sell drugs, fathered four children with three mothers, and spent several stretches in jail for drug possession, parole violations and other crimes.

"I was with the street life, but now I feel like I've got to get myself together," Mr. Brannon said recently in the row-house flat he shares with his girlfriend and four children. "You get tired of incarceration."

Mr. Brannon, 28, said he planned to look for work, perhaps as a mover, and he noted optimistically that he had not been locked up in six months.

A group of men, including Mr. Brannon, gathered at the Center for Fathers, Families and Workforce Development, one of several private agencies trying to help men build character along with workplace skills.

The clients readily admit to their own bad choices but say they also fight a pervasive sense of hopelessness.

"It hurts to get that boot in the face all the time," said Steve Diggs, 34. "I've had a lot of charges but only a few convictions," he said of his criminal record.

Mr. Diggs is now trying to strike out on his own, developing a party space for rentals, but he needs help with business skills.

"I don't understand," said William Baker, 47. "If a man wants to change, why won't society give him a chance to prove he's a changed person?" Mr. Baker has a lot of record to overcome, he admits, not least his recent 15-year stay in the state penitentiary for armed robbery.

Mr. Baker led a visitor down the Pennsylvania Avenue strip he wants to escape past idlers, addicts and hustlers, storefront churches and fortresslike liquor stores and described a life that seemed inevitable.

He sold marijuana for his parents, he said, left school in the sixth grade and later dealt heroin and cocaine. He was for decades addicted to heroin, he said, easily keeping the habit during three terms in prison. But during his last long stay, he also studied hard to get a G.E.D. and an associate's degree.

Now out for 18 months, Mr. Baker is living in a home for recovering drug addicts. He is working a $10-an-hour warehouse job while he ponders how to make a living from his real passion, drawing and graphic arts.

"I don't want to be a criminal at 50," Mr. Baker said.

According to census data, there are about five million black men ages 20 to 39 in the United States.

Terrible schools, absent parents, racism, the decline in blue collar jobs and a subculture that glorifies swagger over work have all been cited as causes of the deepening ruin of black youths. Scholars and the young men themselves agree that all of these issues must be addressed.

Joseph T. Jones, director of the fatherhood and work skills center here, puts the breakdown of families at the core.

"Many of these men grew up fatherless, and they never had good role models," said Mr. Jones, who overcame addiction and prison time. "No one around them knows how to navigate the mainstream society."

All the negative trends are associated with poor schooling, studies have shown, and progress has been slight in recent years. Federal data tend to understate dropout rates among the poor, in part because imprisoned youths are not counted.

Closer studies reveal that in inner cities across the country, more than half of all black men still do not finish high school, said Gary Orfield, an education expert at Harvard and editor of "Dropouts in America" (Harvard Education Press, 2004).

"We're pumping out boys with no honest alternative," Mr. Orfield said in an interview, "and of course their neighborhoods offer many other alternatives."

Dropout rates for Hispanic youths are as bad or worse but are not associated with nearly as much unemployment or crime, the data show.

With the shift from factory jobs, unskilled workers of all races have lost ground, but none more so than blacks. By 2004, 50 percent of black men in their 20's who lacked a college education were jobless, as were 72 percent of high school dropouts, according to data compiled by Bruce Western, a sociologist at Princeton and author of the forthcoming book "Punishment and Inequality in America" (Russell Sage Press). These are more than double the rates for white and Hispanic men.

Mr. Holzer of Georgetown and his co-authors cite two factors that have curbed black employment in particular.

First, the high rate of incarceration and attendant flood of former offenders into neighborhoods have become major impediments. Men with criminal records tend to be shunned by employers, and young blacks with clean records suffer by association, studies have found.

Arrests of black men climbed steeply during the crack epidemic of the 1980's, but since then the political shift toward harsher punishments, more than any trends in crime, has accounted for the continued growth in the prison population, Mr. Western said.

By their mid-30's, 30 percent of black men with no more than a high school education have served time in prison, and 60 percent of dropouts have, Mr. Western said.

Among black dropouts in their late 20's, more are in prison on a given day 34 percent than are working 30 percent according to an analysis of 2000 census data by Steven Raphael of the University of California, Berkeley.

The second special factor is related to an otherwise successful policy: the stricter enforcement of child support. Improved collection of money from absent fathers has been a pillar of welfare overhaul. But the system can leave young men feeling overwhelmed with debt and deter them from seeking legal work, since a large share of any earnings could be seized.

About half of all black men in their late 20's and early 30's who did not go to college are noncustodial fathers, according to Mr. Holzer. From the fathers' viewpoint, support obligations "amount to a tax on earnings," he said.

Some fathers give up, while others find casual work. "The work is sporadic, not the kind that leads to advancement or provides unemployment insurance," Mr. Holzer said. "It's nothing like having a real job."

The recent studies identified a range of government programs and experiments, especially education and training efforts like the Job Corps, that had shown success and could be scaled up.

Scholars call for intensive new efforts to give children a better start, including support for parents and extra schooling for children.

They call for teaching skills to prisoners and helping them re-enter society more productively, and for less automatic incarceration of minor offenders.

In a society where higher education is vital to economic success, Mr. Mincy of Columbia said, programs to help more men enter and succeed in college may hold promise. But he lamented the dearth of policies and resources to aid single men.

"We spent $50 billion in efforts that produced the turnaround for poor women," Mr. Mincy said. "We are not even beginning to think about the men's problem on similar orders of magnitude."

Scholarly Articles for you to Downoad and Print

Here's the link for Culture and Structure in the truly Disadvantage. Make sure you bring a hard copy to class on Tuesday. I will be checking and will count it as a quiz (a little insentive). We will be watching Slam of Tuesday, make sure you are not absent as we will do some activities around the movies we watch.


http://classes.florycanto.net/CultureStructure.pdf

You will need this article later. Please download and print.

Race and Ethniciy or Racialized Ethnicities?

HR 4437

I borrowed this text from: http://www.ilrc.org/HR4437.html

Legislation Pending in Congress!

Something akin to a panic has descended upon the immigrants’ rights community with the introduction in December 2005 of Republican House Judiciary Committee Chairman Sensenbrenner’s HR 4437, The Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005. Passed last week in the House and poised to move quickly through the Senate, if passed, HR 4437 could signal some of the most sweepingly dramatic changes in immigration law since the now infamous Illegal Immigration Reform and Individual Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) of 1996 and could actually surpass that law in gutting judicial review and eroding due process.

Nothing in the bill provides a comprehensive and realistic plan for our immigration system to enhance border security, support economic growth and provide a legal means to lawful permanent residency for the millions of hardworking undocumented immigrants and their families in the United States. Nearly 500 organizations, including a wide variety of civic, religious and business groups are opposing this legislation. Below is a summary of just a sampling of the areas of greatest concern to the ILRC. See also www.ilrc.org/criminal.html for more information about drastic possible changes regarding immigration consequences of criminal convictions that would result if HR 4437 were passed.

* HR 4437 criminalizes organizations and individuals assisting undocumented immigrants

HR 4437 greatly expands the definition of “alien smuggling” to include assisting a person to remain or attempt to remain in the United States when the “offender” knows the person is in the United States unlawfully – thereby treating social services organizations, refugee agencies, churches, legal services and others the same as smuggling organizations and imposing criminal penalties for providing such assistance. Even family members and charitable workers could face federal prison time for assisting undocumented immigrants.

* HR 4437 criminalizes undocumented immigration status

Under current law, presence in the United States without valid status is a civil violation, not a criminal act. HR 4437 would create a new federal crime of “unlawful presence” and would define immigration violations so broadly as to effectively include every violation, however minor, technical or unintentional, as a federal crime. In addition to permanently barring the entire undocumented population – including 1.6 million children – from the United States, this would also lead to the tragic separation of families as undocumented members of mixed-status families would never be able to secure lawful immigration status in the United States.

* HR 4437 grants state and local law enforcement agencies “inherent authority” to enforce immigration laws

HR 4437 would grant law enforcement agencies the authority to investigate, identify, apprehend, arrest, detain and transfer to Federal custody immigrants they find in the United States. When police act as immigration enforcement agents, it undermines their ability to keep communities safe because immigrants and their family members will be scared to report crimes, fires, and suspicious activity out of fear of exposing themselves, families or neighbors to police. Inevitably, crimes will be left unsolved and the safety of entire communities will be compromised.

* HR 4437 furthers the erosion of due process

Our immigration laws provide that some individuals in removal proceedings can be granted voluntary departure – essentially leaving the United States on their own, with their own money – at the conclusion of the immigration hearing process. This is an important alternative to receiving a removal order because it allows an immigrant to reenter the United States lawfully in the future, despite having been in removal proceedings in the past. It is only granted to individuals with good moral character at the discretion of an immigration judge. Under HR 4377, noncitizens would be required to waive all rights to any further motion, appeals or petition for review related to removal or protection from removal in order to be granted voluntary departure, essentially barring them from a list with their family in the United States

Currently, various circuit courts have ruled that immigration officials may be prohibited from simply removing an individual from the United States without a hearing, based on the reinstatement of a prior removal order. HR 4437 purges this appellate court precedent. As a result, if passed, HR 4437 would strip the rights of immigrants with prior removal orders to any sort of hearing before being removed again.

HR 4437 would also eliminate the ability of any person who wishes to enter the United States on a nonimmigrant visa (such as a tourist visa, a student visa, etc.) to have a hearing before an immigration judge in the event that he or she is later charged with an immigration violation. This is because HR 4437 would prohibit the issuance of a nonimmigrant visa unless the applicant first waives his or her right to any review or appeal of an immigration officer’s decision.

* HR 4437 expands the costly detention of immigrants

HR 4437 would require the Department of Homeland Security to detain all noncitizens apprehended along the border until they are removed from the United Statues – thus filling up already overcrowded and tremendously costly facilities as detainees wait for final decisions on their cases. To address the overcrowding issue, HR 4437 authorizes an increase in DHS detention capacity by contracting with state and local jails – thus further criminalizing immigrants by placing them in criminal facilities.

* HR 4437 guts the federal courts’ authority to review immigration matters

HR 4437 would prevent courts from reviewing any application for naturalization denied because of a discretionary determination of ineligibility based upon “any relevant information or evidence.” This gives the immigration agency practically unfettered authority to deny naturalization applications with no judicial review.

HR 4437 also completely eliminates judicial review where noncitizens visas are revoked and is a specific attempt to remove courts’ ability to review consular decisions.

For the few remaining immigration cases that could be reviewed by an appellate court, HR 4437 implements an unprecedented system whereby no appellate court review is available unless a single judge certifies that the petitioner has “made a substantial showing that the petition for review is likely to be granted.” The decision of the single judge to deny certification for review would be not be open to appeal or review of any kind.

* HR 4437 turns many minor crimes into aggravated felonies, which carry the worst possible immigration consequences

Because aggravated felonies are supposed to be reserved for the worst and most violent of crimes such as murder and rape, they carry the most serious immigration consequences. HR 4437 would make makes minor offenses aggravated felonies, with same concomitant consequences. As a result, misdemeanor drunk driving offenses, mere presence in the United States without documentation, assisting an undocumented immigrant to reside in the United States, and minor accessory roles in the criminal conduct of others would all qualify as aggravated felonies. Most of these changes would be retroactive, meaning that someone who committed an offense 20 years ago that was not a deportable offense then could be charged with an aggravated felony now. By making these offenses aggravated felonies, HR 4437 seeks to treat those who commit nonviolent, negligent acts or omissions the same as those who have acted with criminal intent to injure. Regardless of whether it is a major or minor crime, the mere characterization as an aggravated felony will trigger the same immigration consequences – mandatory deportation, mandatory detention, disqualification for almost all immigration benefits, permanent banishment from the United States without hope of lawful return, and the inability to present any equities to immigration judges regardless of how long the immigrant has been in the United States and how many ties he or she has here. Those at risk include permanent residents who have lived here lawfully for decades. In addition, because the noncitizen population in the United States is so large and many American families include both immigrants and citizens, these deportations will break up U.S. citizen families without any possibility of reunification.

* HR 4437 expands the consequences of an aggravated felony and other offenses

Despite the current drastic consequences of an aggravated felony, HR 4437 seeks to add more. It would bar an immigrant from establishing good moral character required to become a U.S. citizen if they have an aggravated felony conviction in the past – even if they could prove that at the time the offense occurred it was not characterized as an aggravated felony, and they presently have excellent moral character. Under HR 4437, aggravated felonies would also bar admission to the United States and bar the ability to re-immigrate to the United States via an immediate relative as defense to removal. There would be no waiver available. It would further bar an asylum seeker who has an aggravated felony conviction from ever becoming a permanent resident. These provisions will eliminate the little available relief and benefits for immigrants with aggravated felony convictions who demonstrate rehabilitation and strong family, social and economic ties.

* HR 4437 eliminates key safeguards concerning evidence used to prove that an immigrant is deportable for an aggravated felony

Since 1990, the United States Supreme Court has established guidelines, called the “modified categorical analysis,” for how a court can characterize a prior conviction. While this may sound technical, the categorical analysis is a vital safeguard that protects immigrants from wrongful deportation. It ensures that immigration judges consider only the most reliable information and documents from a prior conviction – and not from facts that were not established at the original criminal trial – to identify the offense for which the person was actually convicted. HR 4437 seeks to eliminate these guidelines for those accused of being aggravated felons in immigration proceedings. This means that immigrants could be deported for a conviction of an offense that is not actually an aggravated felony, simply because the offense is listed in the same state criminal statute that also includes an aggravated felony. Eliminating the categorical analysis is a radical violation of basic fairness that seeks to overturn years of established judicial precedent.

* HR 4437 reverses the burden of proof

Historically, the burden has been on the government to prove deportation, because the hardship of deportation is so great. Analogous to the criminal “innocent until proven guilty” standard, the longstanding rule has provided that the government may not simply arrest a long-time permanent resident, allege that she is deportable, and force her to prove that she is not. HR 4437 reverses this burden of proof for those charged with aggravated felonies. This would be an extreme blow to deeply-rooted and longstanding notions of fairness. The result in practice is that once the government decides to charge the person, the low-income, unrepresented, detained immigrant will be required to obtain the public records and to produce the extremely complex legal arguments required to disprove the government’s assertion. If the person cannot meet this nearly impossible burden, he or she will face mandatory detention, deportation, and permanent exclusion and separation from family and friends in the United States.

* HR 4437 makes an immigrant associated with any street gang deportable and ineligible for any immigration benefits

Under HR 4437, immigrants who have never committed any crimes whatsoever and who have obeyed all of our laws can be deported, denied admission and the ability to obtain lawful status, subjected to mandatory detention, and denied all forms of protection such as asylum and temporary protected status, simply because the Attorney General has determined that they are associated with a designated street gang. The Attorney General, through a secret process that provides no notice or opportunity to be heard to the immigrant, can designate any formal or informal group of three or more persons who have committed two or more enumerated gang crimes a “criminal street gang.” As a result of this designation, many immigrants who never committed or supported a single criminal act may be punished severely for exercising their right to association – they may be deported to a country where they face interrogation, torture, detention and even death.

* HR 4437 undermines state court decisions regarding the reversal or vacation of convictions in immigration proceedings

HR 4437 would allow immigration authorities to ignore certain reversals and vacations of criminal convictions by state courts, such as the failure to advise the immigrant of the immigration consequences of the guilty plea. This provision will seriously undermine the concept of “full faith and credit” due to state courts. This is particularly so, in states like California, where the state Supreme Court and other lowers courts have ruled that the failure to advise and defend of the immigration consequences and giving affirmative misadvice as to the immigration consequences constitute ineffective assistance of counsel, meriting vacation of the conviction.

* HR 4437 imposes mandatory minimum sentences for many offenses

HR 4437 adds dozens of new mandatory minimum penalties to current law. It imposes the same sentences upon persons who aid or assist certain immigrants to enter the United States as the immigrants themselves would receive. The bill would also impose one to 10 year mandatory minimum penalties for those who reenter the United States after deportation. These mandatory minimum sentences punish arbitrarily and strip judges from the discretion to make the punishment fit the crime, while also increasing the cost of incarceration to American taxpayers.

***************************************************************************

To inquire about ILRC technical support on these and other immigration law issues, please contact our consultations program by email, ilrc@ilrc.org.

Quiz Thursday

Historical Materialism:
"Historical materialism is the application of Marxist scienceto historical development. The fundamental proposition of historical materialism can be summed up in a sentence: 'it is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence that determines their consciousness.'" (Marx, in Preface to A Contributino to the Critique of Political Economy)

"Historical materialism looks for the causes of development and changes in human history in economic, technological, and more broadly , material factors, as well as the clashes of material interests among social classes." (From Wikipedia) Important to remember is that historical materialism provides a class analysis to history.

No Class Thursday.

No Class Thursday. Please the articles below in addition to the homework. Thanks.

Women's History Month Facts

Women’s History Month: March 2006
In 1981, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution establishing National Women’s History Week. The week was chosen to coincide with International Women’s Day, March 8. In 1987, Congress expanded the week to a month. Every year since, Congress has passed a resolution for Women’s History Month, and the U.S. president has issued a proclamation.

149.1 million
The number of females in the United States as of July 1, 2004. That exceeds the number of males (144.5 million). Males outnumbered females in every five-year-age group through the 35- to 39-age group. Starting with the 40- to 44-age group, women outnumbered men. At 85 and over, there were more than twice as many women as men.
Motherhood
82.5 million
Estimated number of mothers of all ages in the United States. (From unpublished data.)
1.9
Average number of children that women ages 40 to 44 had given birth to as of 2004, down from 3.1 children in 1976, the year the Census Bureau began collecting such data.

Education
31%
Percent of women ages 25 to 29 years who had attained a bachelor’s degree or higher in 2004, which exceeded that of men in this age range (26 percent). Eighty-eight percent of women and 85 percent of men in this same age range had completed high school.

85.4%
Percent of women age 25 and older who had completed high school as of 2004. High school graduation rates for women continued to exceed those of men (84.8 percent).

25.4 million
Number of women age 25 and older with a bachelor’s degree or more education in 2004, more than double the number 20 years earlier.

26%
Percent of women age 25 years and over who had obtained a bachelor’s degree as of 2004. This rate was up nearly 7 percentage points from a decade earlier.

845,000
The projected number of bachelor’s degrees that will be awarded to women in the 2005-06 school year; women also are projected to earn 350,000 master’s degrees during this period. Women would, therefore, earn 59 percent of the bachelor’s and 60 percent of the master’s degrees awarded during this school year. See tables 27 and 28.
Businesses
6.5 million
The number of women-owned businesses in 2002, up 20 percent from 1997. (The increase among all businesses was 10 percent.) An estimated 916,768 such firms had paid employees, with receipts of $804 billion.
$940.8 billion
Receipts for women-owned businesses in 2002, up 15 percent from 1997.
7.1 million
Number of Americans employed by a women-owned firm in 2002.
117,069
Number of women-owned firms with receipts of $1 million or more.
7,240
Number of women-owned firms with 100 or more employees, generating $275 billion in gross receipts.
Nearly 1-in-3 women-owned firms operated in health care and social assistance, and other services such as personal services, and repair and maintenance. Women owned 72 percent of social assistance businesses and just over half of nursing and residential care facilities.

Wholesale and retail trade accounted for 38.3 percent of women-owned business revenue.
43%
Rate of growth in the number of women-owned firms in Nevada between 1997 and 2002, which led the nation. New Hampshire, however, led the nation in the increase of sales and receipts of women-owned firms, at 53 percent.
Nearly 30%
The percentage of nonfarm businesses owned by women in 2002.
Source for the statements in this section:

Earnings
$31,223
The median annual earnings of women ages 15 and older who worked full time, year-round in 2004. After adjusting for inflation, earnings for these women declined by 1 percent between 2003 and 2004.
77 cents
The amount women age 15 and older, who worked full time, year-round, earned for every $1 their male counterparts earned in 2004. This amount is up from 76 cents for every dollar in 2003.
91 cents
The amount women in the District of Columbia, who worked full time, year-round, earned for every $1 their male counterparts earned in 2004. D.C. led all states or state equivalents in this category.
$56,585
Median earnings of women working in computer and mathematical jobs, the highest for women among the 22 major occupational groups. Among these groups, women’s earnings as a percentage of men’s earnings were about 90 percent or higher in installation, maintenance and repair; community and social services; construction and extraction (such as those drilling for oil); and healthcare support.

Voting
65%
Percentage of women citizens who reported voting in the 2004 presidential election, higher than the 62 percent of their male counterparts who cast a ballot.

Jobs
59%
Percent of women 16 and older who participated in the labor force in 2004. Men in this age range had a participation rate of 73 percent.
72 million
Number of women age 15 and older who worked in 2004. Of this number, 59 percent worked year-round, full time.
37%
Percent of women 16 and older who work in management, professional and related occupations, compared with 32 percent of men. (Source: American FactFinder)
20.4 million
Number of female workers in educational services and health care and social assistance industries. More women work in this industry group than in any other. (Source: American FactFinder)
Military
212,000
Total number of active duty women in the military, as of Sept. 30, 2004. Of that total,
35,100 women were officers and 177,000 were enlisted.
(Source: Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2006, Table 501.)
15%
Proportion of members of the armed forces who were women, as of Sept. 30, 2004. In 1950, women comprised fewer than 2 percent.
(Source: Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2006, Table 501.)
1.7 million
The number of military veterans who are women.
(Source: Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2006, Table 510.)

Marriage
63 million
Number of married women (including those who are separated or have an absent spouse). There are 54 million unmarried (widowed, divorced or never married) women.
53%
Percent of unmarried and single Americans who are women.
5.6 million
Number of stay-at-home mothers nationwide.
Computers
84%
Proportion of women who used a computer at home in 2003, 2 percentage points higher than the corresponding proportion for men. This reverses the computer use “gender gap” exhibited during the 1980s and 1990s. Women’s Internet use at home also exceeded men’s (83 percent versus 81 percent).
Sports and Recreation
2.9 million
Number of females who participated in high school athletic programs in the 2003-04 school year. In the 1972-73 school year, only 817,073 females were members of a high school athletic team.
(Source: Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2006, Table 1237.)
162,752
Number of women who participated in an NCAA sport in 2003-04.
(Source: Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2006, Table 1239.)
83%
Among those who purchased aerobic shoes in 2003, the proportion who were women. Women also comprised a large majority (61 percent) of those who bought walking shoes.
(Source: Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2006, Table 1242.)
57%
Percentage of women who participated in gardening at least once in the last 12 months, compared with 37 percent of men. Women were also much more likely than men to have done charity work (32 percent versus 26 percent), attended arts and crafts fairs (39 percent versus 27 percent) and read literature (55 percent versus 38 percent).
(Source: Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2006, Tables 1226, 1227 and 1228.)

US Intervention in Venezuela

Published on Saturday, March 4, 2006 by CommonDreams.org
US Intervention in Venezuela
by Medea Benjamin

It never ceases to amaze me, in the middle of the massive failure of the war on Iraq, that the Bush administration still has time to mess up our relations with other countries. Yet it seems like that’s exactly what they’re doing with our neighbor Venezuela.

Last month, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld compared Hugo Chávez to Hitler, noting that “He’s a person who was elected legally — just as Adolf Hitler was elected legally — and then consolidated power and now is, of course, working closely with Fidel Castro and Mr. Morales and others.” The assault was timed to push the celebrations marking the 7th anniversary of the Chávez government off the front page of the opposition-controlled media in Venezuela.

In early February, Venezuela expelled the US military attaché in Caracas when he was caught red-handed bribing Venezuelan officers for military secrets. Instead of admitting to the spying, the US “retaliated” by expelling the Venezuelan Ambassador’s chief of staff.

Then on February 16th, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice chimed in with her sharpest criticisms yet of Venezuela, remarking at a Congressional hearing that Chávez is a leading a "Latin brand of populism that has taken countries down the drain.” She then urged a “united front” against Chávez, remarking that "the international community has just got to be much more active in supporting and defending the Venezuelan people.”

These comments are not new, but follow a pattern of increasing hostility and verbal aggression towards Venezuela. Rice’s concerns are allegedly based on her argument that Chávez isn’t a democrat, despite having won three elections.

But according to the 2005 survey by Latinobarómetro, an independent polling firm, Venezuelans are more likely than citizens of 18 other Latin American nations polled to describe their government as “totally democratic.” And Venezuelans have the second highest level of satisfaction with the way their own democracy functions. In addition, recent independent polls show President Chávez holding an approval rating of over 70% - a number that our president could only dream of. While there are policies in Venezuela, like in all countries, that people could certainly question or disagree with, the administration’s aggressive behavior towards Venezuela is totally unreasonable and violates that nation’s sovereignty. So why is the Bush administration so antagonistic towards Venezuela’s democratically elected government?

To answer this question, I recommend a report entitled “US Intervention in Venezuela, A Clear and Present Danger,” written recently by Venezuela expert Deborah James of Global Exchange and available on our website at http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/americas/venezuela/USVZrelations.pdf. The report tells a shocking tale of US intervention in Venezuela’s democratic process, examines a series of myths about Venezuela, and offers an explanation of the real concerns underlying the Bush administration’s antagonism towards Venezuela. Fortunately, it also offers US citizens some concrete ways we can get involved.

US Intervention: A Documented Fact, Not Allegations

According to the report, since 2002 the Bush administration has embarked upon a new strategy each year to oust and/or destabilize the democratically elected government of Venezuela. In 2002, the US Administration supported a military coup that briefly ousted the democratic government; in 2003 it used an economic sabotage campaign; in 2004 it supported the political strategy of the referendum; and in 2005 it waged a diplomatic battle.

Many of the US destabilization tactics parallel the maneuvers used against progressive governments such as Chile in 1973, including massive financial and other support to develop an oppositional civil society and shape and unify political party opposition; a media campaign against the government designed to impugn the government and create a sense of instability; and illegal espionage activities.

In 2002, the Bush administration knew that a coup against Chavez was in the offing before it happened, including the fact that dissident military officers would “try to exploit unrest stemming from opposition demonstrations slated for later this month or ongoing strikes at the state-owned oil company PDVSA.” They also knew about the coup in advance because the US government was funding many of the groups that took part in the coup. In fact, grants by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and USAID to opposition groups skyrocketed right before the coup.

To this day, Bush Administration officials routinely deny their involvement in the coup, in spite of official US documents that prove otherwise. But the truth is widely known in Venezuela, and forms the basis for the antagonism that plagues the US-Venezuela relationship. To be fair, Chávez engages in regular verbal tirades again Bush and Rice which overreach presidential diplomacy. But imagine how the US government would treat a foreign government that had financed domestic groups that participated in a coup against the US government…

Instead of abating in the post-coup period, US government collusion with anti-democratic forces continued during the following year. Groups such as NED and USAID actually continued to fund groups that had participated in the coup. This includes some groups that organized an insurrectionary managers’ strike at the end of 2002 and beginning of 2003 that cost the Venezuelan economy about $10 billion, resulting in a severe economic contraction and putting millions of workers and thousands of small businesses out of their jobs. The strikers’ goal was maintaining control over the national oil company so they could keep the wealth to themselves, and getting Chávez out of office. They lost, and Venezuela’s oil wealth now benefits the entire country instead of a traditional elite.

In 2004, I witnessed the referendum in Venezuela, which had been organized by the opposition as a way to get Chávez out of office legally (after so many illegal attempts had failed.) Here the US was active in demanding that the referendum take place, whether or not the legal criteria had been met. The NED even financed the opposition’s political platform! In the end, Chávez won the referendum in a landslide of 59% in a process that was certified as free and fair by the Carter Center and the Organization of American States (OAS).

The next year, both Rice and Rumsfeld toured Latin America, urging leaders there to criticize Venezuela in an attempt to isolate Chávez in the region. In her confirmation hearings in January 2005, the Rice named Chávez a “negative force in the region.” Fortunately, many regional leaders have rejected the pressure, including Brazil’s Lula, Uruguay’s Vazquez, Chile’s Lagos and even Colombia’s Uribe.

Though the extensive exposés about US government meddling in the internal affairs of Venezuela have raised a furor within Venezuela, US officials still not only deny involvement, but under the guise of supporting democracy they have actually expanded support for opposition groups, including groups that have refused to accept the results of the democratic referendum of 2004.

Myths and Facts: What is Really Happening in Venezuela

Since all of Venezuela’s elections - in which an overwhelming majority of citizens have voted for Chávez or his governing coalition - have been certified as free and fair by international monitors, US officials have turned to accusing Chávez of “being democratically elected but governing undemocratically.” Yet Venezuelans resoundingly approve of their democracy, and are experimenting with innovative ways to build participatory democracy in addition to the representative form. A detailed analysis of Venezuelan democracy is available in the report. It’s also ironic that this accusation should come from a US administration that has usurped unprecedented presidential power.

Another basic myth is that Chávez has limited freedom of speech and eroded civil rights. Yet whenever I go to Venezuela, I hear the private media spend enormous amounts of time criticizing the President, something I wish our media would do a little more of. Access to community media production – both radio and television – has vastly expanded in recent years. And no serious human rights group has alleged that civil rights have eroded under the Chávez administration, and civil rights compare favorably to past governments and to countries in the region.

Then there’s the accusation that Chávez is mismanaging the economy, nationalizing businesses and turning Venezuela’s economy into a “Castro-style Cuba.” Yet Venezuela is one of the fastest growing countries in the region. Per capita income growth was a whopping 17.9% in 2004, when the economy rebounded from the opposition’s economic sabotage, and continued to grow 9% last year as well. And while it’s true that most of this growth is due to the skyrocketing price of oil, the government is making great efforts to diversify the economy.

One of the most ridiculous assertions common to Ms. Rice is that Chávez is a “negative force in the region.” Venezuela has initiated an impressive array of programs to support Latin American and Caribbean nations, from supplying low-cost fuel to starting a new regional television channel, to buying bonds to help stabilize Argentina’s economy.

Venezuelans find the US government’s completely unsubstantiated assertion that their government supports terror the most absurd, especially coming from a country that not only illegally invaded Iraq, but is also harboring Luis Posada Carriles, a terrorist who escaped from jail in Venezuela after the 1973 bombing of a Cuban plane that killed 76 people. In a maddening double standard, the US has thus far refused to extradite Posada to Venezuela, for alleged fears that he will be “tortured.”

But the administration seems to overstep the bounds of rationality in its attempts to stoke fears that Chávez is about to cut off oil supplies to the US. Venezuela provides about 15% of US oil consumption, and is far more democratic than close US allies like Saudi Arabia by any stretch. It’s true that Chávez has threatened to cut off oil supplies to the United States – but only if the US invades Venezuela, or attempts to assassinate Chávez. Since US officials have repeatedly denied those intentions, what are they so concerned about?

The only change in Venezuelan oil supply to the US in the past three years has been this year’s program to provide 40% discounts on 49 million gallons of heating fuel for poor people in Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware, and soon Vermont and Connecticut. How bizarre that Texas Republican Congressman Joe Barton has launched an investigation into this humanitarian offering, instead of investigating the US multinational oil companies that posted over $100 billion in corporate profits last year due to soaring gasoline prices.

So Really, Why Does Chávez Make them so Crazy?

As “US Intervention in Venezuela” makes clear, the Administration’s concerns about Venezuela are not fundamentally about these issues but relate to a deeper concern about the erosion of support for the neoliberal “free market” system promoted by the US government in Latin America for decades. The Chávez government is currently leading one of the fastest growing economies in the region, bringing down unemployment through the use of a dynamic set of policies that combine the assets of the private sector with, strategic government investment in specific industries, and incentives for cooperatives and small and local businesses.

Most importantly, the Chávez administration is funneling billions of dollars of the country’s oil wealth into social programs for the poor. These programs have succeeded in eradicating illiteracy in Venezuela; vastly increasing school enrollment; providing subsidized food and housing to the poor; and implementing a national system of preventative, community-based health care. Call it the threat of a good example!

In addition, the concerns of the Bush Administration stem from Chávez’s promotion of regional integration, because it interferes with the US attempts to impose the failed model of corporate globalization embedded in projects like the stalled Free Trade Area of the Americas, the top US priority in Latin America for the past decade.

But one of the most interesting hypotheses in the report is the notion that the fundamental antagonism between the US and Venezuela stems from the tension between the imperial designs of the Bush administration and an underlying goal of the entire Venezuelan project: a change in the global balance of power from a “uni-polar” world dominated by US economic and strategic interests, to a “multi-polar” world of real economic and political independence for the global South.

This helps put in perspective Venezuela’s recent decision to support Iran in the International Atomic Energy Association, because Iran is an historic ally of Venezuela in the building of OPEC decades ago (when the countries first came together to ensure that oil producing nations shared in some of the oil wealth along with the oil multinationals.) It also explains the increasing diversification of Venezuela’s foreign relations, deepening its alliances in Latin American and the Caribbean but also reaching out to China, Russia, and Spain.

And it explains why team Bush seem so irrationally focused on antagonizing an economic ally and democratic neighbor: in essence, because of the neocons’ unwavering ideological commitment to a corporate-oriented global economy dominated by US strategic interests. Chávez seeks to challenge that vision, and build a more balanced geopolitical map. And to the chagrin of the Bush administration, his vision has met with tremendous support both within Latin America and globally.

Where Do We Go From Here

The facts outlined in this report point to the need for a rethinking of US-Venezuela relations. They call out for a shift to a policy based on both the US and Venezuela’s shared economic interests, and respect for each country’s sovereignty and democracy.

A good start is learning about what’s really happening in Venezuela. Good resources include www.venezuelanalysis.com and www.venezuelafoia.info. The Venezuela Information Office offers a concise weekly listserve at www.rethinkvenezuela.org. Better yet, go and see for yourself. Check out Global Exchange’s amazing travel opportunities to Venezuela at http://www.globalexchange.org/tours/byCountry.html#100003.

In addition, you can promote more balanced coverage of Venezuela in the US press by writing letters to the editor and urging your local paper to be truly “fair and balanced.”. And if you buy gas, you can support Venezuela’s distributive oil policies by buying from the Venezuela-owned company Citgo. To find a local Citgo station, go to www.citgo.com/CITGOLocator.jsp.

Most important will be our collective efforts to pressure the Bush administration to steer a new course with Venezuela. This is unlikely to happen without concerted pressure from Congress, and congresspeople are only going to go out on a limb if they hear from their constituents. Especially crucial at this time is fighting House Resolution 328, introduced by Florida Republican Connie Mack, intended to condemn the government of Venezuela for all of the myths debunked in the report.

Let’s not let our government commit another grave error of “regime change”. Let’s act now to demand respect for Venezuela’s duly elected government, before it’s too late.

Medea Benjamin is cofounder of Global Exchange, a San Francisco-based human rights organization and CODEPINK: Women for Peace. She has traveled several times to Venezuela, most recently for the World Social Forum, and is reachable at medea@globalexchange.org.