Gainesville, Hall schools not making AYP

Cross posted from Take Back Georgia

Well, well, well. Here it is - thirteen Gainesville and Hall county schools didn’t make Adequate Yearly Progress this year.

Are we surprised?

Considering the amount of ESOL anchor babies and illegal population in our county - this is no surprise to most of us who live here. This development is proof positive that we need to eliminate birthright citizenship and close the borders -

ALL of them.

Our schools can’t handle this anymore! Our teachers are overwhelmed and do not have the financial and educational resources to teach these students.

Now thousands of parents - LEGAL, AMERICAN CITIZEN parents, will have to find another school for their child to attend.

It is not fair. It is not right.

Nathan Deal had the right idea -

[he] introduced in this Congress H.R. 1567, the Citizenship Reform Act. Specifically, my proposed legislation would do away with the practice of granting such citizenship by amending the Immigration and Nationality Act to limit automatic citizenship at birth to a child born in the United States to a parent who is a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident.

Now that is common sense legislation. Too bad our Congress doesn’t HAVE any.

13 Gainesville, Hall schools not making AYP
by Ken Stanford

GAINESVILLE - Thirteen schools in the Gainesville and Hall County school systems are listed as not not making “adequate yearly progress” in a report released by the state Tuesday.

However, county school superintendent Will Schofield says six of those in the county - North Hall, East Hall and South Hall middle, and Tadmore, Chicopee Woods and Myers elementary - are “appealable” cases.

Schofield singled out Chicopee Woods, in particular, because it is a new school. “And, we just feel if you look at the fact that they have no baseline data to go by that is an appealable school.”

He puts Myers in the same category because 60 percent of its student population is new because of redistricting.

The five where no appeal is likely are Lyman Hall, Jones, White Sulphur, Sugar Hill elementary and Chestatee Middle. (Two Gainesville schools failed to make AYP - the middle school and the high school. See separate story.)

Hall County’s 33 schools comprise approximately 1,400 potential indicators for AYP purposes. County students made “Adequate Yearly Progress” in approximately 1,365 of the 1,400 potential indicators (almost 98%).

Schofield said, compared to last year, “in terms of the number of schools, it looks like it will be very similar - that won’t make it. In terms of the number of subgroups and indicators, it’s actually an improvement over last year.”

The areas singled out by the state where work is needed and Schofield’s response:

*Record keeping and subgroup size. “We will ensure that we are maximizing schools’ ability to report accurate results.

*English Language Learners (which makes up almost half of the subgroups that are not making AYP). “We must look at new and creative ways of being more effective with this population. Brown University will be a primary source of support. We will continue to partner with Gainesville City Schools in meaningful ways such as the 21st Century Grant.”

*Students With Disabilities. “Again, we must look at new and creative ways of working with this group.”

At a noontime news conference in Atlanta, state Schools Superintendent Kathy Cox said the percentage of Georgia’s schools meeting the standards for AYP dropped this year compared to last year. (See separate story.)

(The Associated Press contributed to this story.)

**This was a production of The Coalition Against Illegal Immigration (CAII). If you would like to participate, please go to the above link to learn more. Afterwards, email the coalition and let me know at what level you would like to participate.**

My evening with the GPD and CAII update…

Cross posted from Take Back Georgia

I’m going to start this post by saying that I had more fun last Friday night than…I-can’t-remember-when.

I took a ride with our local Police Department.

It was so exciting, and I learned so much…four days later and i’m still reeling from it all. If you ever have the chance to experience a ride along for yourselves - DO IT.

Enjoy…

“There are three rules I have in my car: One - when I tell you to do something, just do it – I’ll explain why later, two – don’t touch the buttons, and three – don’t look at my speedometer.”

That is how my night began as a ride along with the Gainesville Police Department.

I have to admit, as part of the local Citizen’s Police Academy, I waited until the last minute to sign up for my first ride along. Coming from a law enforcement family, I knew how dangerous a night with the street patrol could be. Nevertheless, I figured I should quit being a big baby and do it just once – if I didn’t like it, I just wouldn’t sign up for the second one.

A few days later, I was set to ride – a Friday night, no less, and I was nervous as Hell. Not only did I not know what to expect, but with my husband adamantly against the idea, I couldn’t help but wonder if I were making a mistake.

As I gave everyone hugs goodbye for the night, I could not help but wonder if this is what it feels like every time an officer leaves for work; are he or she nervous, worried, determined, scared? I figured if they can do this everyday, the least I could do was suck it up for just one night.

I arrived at the Police Station shortly before 10pm and was happy to see that another CPA member was there waiting for her ride too. She helped calm me down a bit, as this was far from her first ride – she goes often and loves it. I thought to myself, ‘ok – maybe this won’t be so bad.’

When my officer arrived, we introduced ourselves and that is when he gave me the ‘rules.’ He may not have known it, but after he went over the safety precautions, any sense of calm I had went out the window, and just before we left the parking lot – we got our first call.

It was the first of several we got that night: fireworks, drug deals, suspicious persons, and a fight. Between each stop, I flooded him with questions: ‘How do you keep up with the radio? How do you know they are talking to you? How long do you look for suspicious people? How big is the district? How do you know whom to pull over? Do you like your job? Is there a lot of paperwork? What is the best part? What is the worst part? I probably drove him nuts with all my incessant questioning, but I could not help it – I was completely fascinated.
Several stops, a tour of the district, a very scary neighborhood, and a few tickets later, we thought our last call of the night was just a typical speeder; but this one took an unusually long time to stop. When the offender finally pulled his car over, the officer quickly understood why there was hesitation. The strong smell of freshly spilled cologne ruminated through the air – the driver attempted to mask the strong stench of alcohol in his car.

He was a just a kid – 22 years old, clean cut, with a brand new sports car. After a failed field sobriety test, and blowing a .20 on the breathalyzer – I quickly realized that this one was going to jail. As we waited for the wrecker to pick up the offenders car, I got out to stretch my legs. That is when the kid decided he wanted to be difficult, causing a lot of noise in the back seat – stomping around and talking to himself. He was not happy, and I got the distinct feeling that this was not the first time he had been in the backseat of a police car.

As the officer was doing a bit of paperwork, the kid continued to spout off at him from the back. I grew angrier with him by the minute and was amazed at how calm the officer remained through the midst of it all. I also could not help but wonder what went wrong with the seemingly clean-cut kid’s life that would make him so damn disrespectful.

Before we set off for the jail, the officer informed me that our future inmate slipped his legs through his cuffs and now his hands were in prime assault position. He also told me that this kid was driving on a suspended license – a confirmation that it was not his first run in with the law.

As we pulled into the sally port, the Deputy’s were there to greet their new inmate – just in case he tried to act foolish. He knew he was overpowered in the parking lot, but continued to show off once inside the building. Spewing his complete distain for the officers, he began hopping around and kicking his jail-issued sandals in the air, eventually falling against the wall. When the kid said, ‘Oh – so you CARE about ME?,’ in the most hateful way possible, all I wanted to do was grab his face and tell him how he should be thanking this officer for saving his life or someone else’s. It was completely maddening.

After the officer finally completed his paperwork, it was past 2am – time for him to finish his shift, and for me to go home. As we pulled up into the back of the police station, I felt disappointed – I did not want the night to end! If there were more bad people out there – I wanted to get them! Nevertheless, I got out of the car and the officer asked me if I had any more questions he could answer, or anything he could do for me. What I wanted to tell him was that I thought he was one of the bravest, kindest, and most professional people I had ever met – but all I could get out of my awestruck mouth was, ‘Thank you.’

Tonight we learn how to clear a building…stay tuned for that update!

In the mean time - check out these posts from the CAII: Morning Coffee , CommonSenseAmerica, and Demediacratic Nation

**This was a production of The Coalition Against Illegal Immigration (CAII). If you would like to participate, please go to the above link to learn more. Afterwards, email the coalition and let me know at what level you would like to participate.

Burkean Reflections - Basic Division: The GOP and Immigration Reform

Cross posted from DeMediacratic Nation

Burkean Reflections, a blog hosted by an Associate Professor of Political Science Donald Douglas posted yesterday with an analysis of the WSJ editorial “Conservatives and Immigration.” This puppy is polished and requires none of my usual muddying of the water.

I greatly appreciate his allowing my posting this on behalf of the Coalition Against Illegal Immigration.

From Burkean Reflections, Basic Division: The GOP and Immigration Reform:

In one of yesterday’s posts I covered how the immigration issue is dividing GOP congressional candidates heading into the fall midterms. It turns out that yesterday’s Wall Street Journal addressed that issue as well, in the paper’s lead editorial, “Conservatives and Immigration.” WSJ indicates that there’s no more divisive issue among conservatives today than immigration, and it’s a topic that generates the paper’s most critical letters to the editor. The essay offers a reminder of the paper’s longstanding tradition of supporting open immigration, a policy position, the editors note, that is in line with those of both President Reagan and President Bush. Here’s more:

Our own view is that a philosophy of “free markets and free people” includes flexible labor markets. At a fundamental level, this is a matter of freedom and human dignity. These migrants are freely contracting for their labor, which is a basic human right. Far from selling their labor “cheap,” they are traveling to the U.S. to sell it more dearly and improve their lives. Like millions of Americans before them, they and certainly their children climb the economic ladder as their skills and education increase.

We realize that critics are not inventing the manifold problems that can arise from illegal immigration: Trespassing, violent crime, overcrowded hospital emergency rooms, document counterfeiting, human smuggling, corpses in the Arizona desert, and a sense that the government has lost control of the border. But all of these result, ultimately, from too many immigrants chasing too few U.S. visas.

Those migrating here to make a better life for themselves and their families would much prefer to come legally. Give them more legal ways to enter the country, and we are likely to reduce illegal immigration far more effectively than any physical barrier along the Rio Grande ever could. This is not about rewarding bad behavior. It’s about bringing immigration policy in line with economic and human reality. And the reality is that the U.S. has a growing demand for workers, while Mexico has both a large supply of such workers and too few jobs at home.

Some conservatives concede this point in theory but then insist that liberal immigration is no longer possible in a modern welfare state, which breeds dependency in a way that the America of a century ago did not. But the immigrants who arrive here come to work, not sit on the dole. And thanks to welfare reform, the welfare rolls have declined despite a surge in illegal immigration in the past decade.

The real claims that illegals make on public services are education, which can’t be withheld because of a 1982 Supreme Court ruling (Plyer v. Doe), and health care, especially emergency rooms. Since denying urgent medical treatment is immoral, the answer again is to legalize cross-border labor flows and remove government obstacles to affordable health insurance. As for education, even illegals pay for public schools through the indirect property taxes they pay in rent. Overall, immigrants contribute far more to our economy than they extract in public benefits.

By far the largest concern we hear on the right concerns culture, especially the worry that the current Hispanic influx is so large it can resist the American genius for assimilation. Hispanics now comprise nearly a third of the population in California and Texas, the country’s two biggest states, and cultural assimilation does matter.

This is where the political left does the cause of immigration no good in pursuing a separatist agenda. When such groups as La Raza and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund push for multiculturalism, bilingual education, foreign language ballots, racial quotas and the like, they undermine support for immigration among even the most open-minded Americans. Most Americans don’t want to replicate the Bosnia model; nor are they pining for a U.S. version of the Quebec sovereignty movement. President Bush has been right to assert that immigrants must adopt U.S. norms, and we only wish more figures on the political left would say the same.

The editorial goes on to say that robust assimilation among newcomers is trumping identity politics, and that polls show bipartisan support for comprehenisive immigration reform focusing on both border security and guest workers.

This is a excellent editorial: It hits most of the main points of contention in the debate, and it accurately denounces the radicalism found in the multicultural left’s immigration agenda. I don’t think, however, the editors have given enough consideration to the lawbreaking element of the debate. The essay rightly notes that we need to increase the legal quotas for those seeking to come here, but there’s not enough condemnation of the flagrant legal violations of the law as it stands. WSJ can critique the federal government for not securing the borders all it wants. But the fact remains that there’s an entitlement mentality that’s built up among migrants, immigration activists, and alien rights groups clammoring for the reconquista, and it’s likely no immigration policy will make them happy until our sovereign borders become meaningless. Continued record high rates of illegal immigration will likely make such anti-U.S. demands even more pronounced, despite the WSJ’s claim of easy generational assimilation. Other sources on assimilation are far more critical on this point, for example, Samuel Huntington, and Business Week’s article, “Hispanic Nation,” both citing the dramatic difference between this generation of Mexican migrants and 19th century European immigrants (especially in terms of the former’s geographic contiguity and the development of Mexican ethnic enclaves resistant to English language acculturation).

Moreover, the question of whether illegals benefit the economic system — contributing more than they take out — remains unsettled (see James Goldsborough in Foreign Affairs, for example, or Jorge Borjas, Heaven’s Door: Immigration Policy and the American Economy). In the end, though, pragmatism indicates that a variable-pronged approach to immigration reform will be necessary, with both stepped-up border enforcement and an increase in legal immigration quotas (but minus the guest worker program, which will likely encourage more aliens, outside of that process, to come to the U.S. illegally). Hopefully, the passage of such a policy would contribute to what Americans really want, an immigration process that is firm, fair, and equitable, and one that contributes to continued American vitality and dynamism.
**This was a production of The Coalition Against Illegal Immigration (CAII). If you would like to participate, please go to the above link to learn more. Afterwards, email the coalition and let me know at what level you would like to participate.**

Karl Rove Teams Up With La Raza!

Cross posted from The Uncooperative Blogger

I watched with horror on the news as Karl Rove toook the podium at a La Raza meeting. He actually said he needed their help to defeat the Congresss on immigration. He claims we Have to have a Guest Worker program.

We have to Karl? The country will be crushed without it Mr. Rove? Sir, I consider you a traitor at this point and time. La Raza is a racist anti-American organization that believes in reconquista! That means they want to take U.S. territory away from us, by attrition or force! Why do people even talk to these people? La Raza actually means the race!

I am fed up with President Bush on the issue of illegal immigration, he is officially my enemy now. The Senate “comprehensive” Bill will destroy this country!

Since he signed the North American Union agreement in 2005 that would change our southern border to that of Mexicos border with Central America we should not be surprised by this move, now should we.

**This was a production of The Coalition Against Illegal Immigration (CAII). If you would like to participate, please go to the above link to learn more. Afterwards, email the coalition and let me know at what level you would like to participate.

Republicans are losing the respect of Hispanic Americans

Cross posted from DeMediacratic Nation

(the White House and the Republican Senate have) “slapped me and every immigrant who came into this country legally in the face. They can call it what they want, but their ‘comprehensive guest worker program’ is nothing but amnesty for people who willingly broke the law, while myself and millions of others who wanted to be part of this great country paid our dues, did our paperwork, played by the rules and obeyed the law. I can tell you one thing, when I do get to vote for the first time in November, it won’t be for the Republican Party.” - legal immigrant from S.A.

Not much can be added to the comments in this opinion piece, but I will say that this is such a no brainer that you really don’t have to wonder where these pols keep their heads. If they ever remove them I can suggest a couple of conditioners that will help them getting their hair back in shape.

You have to wonder why they think segment of the hispanic population they are pandering to is the right one. No brainer, one is legal the other illegal.

Very worthwhile (but not news to CAII), quick read from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

What I am hearing — quite loudly — from two distinctive Hispanic-American camps is that my party, the Republican Party, has lost the respect and future votes of untold millions from that community.
On one side, there are people like my wife. She is a highly educated lawyer from South America who recently became a newly minted, and very proud, U.S. citizen. Her lifelong positions on family, the sanctity of life, law and order, education and a host of other issues of national importance had her aligning with the GOP. At least, that was the case until the question of illegal immigration came to be used as cannon fodder by our warring politicians.

Suddenly, this very conservative wife of mine, who has long admired George W. Bush for his principled stands, is ready to throw him and the Republican Senate overboard. Why? According to her, the White House and the Republican Senate have “slapped me and every immigrant who came into this country legally in the face. They can call it what they want, but their ‘comprehensive guest worker program’ is nothing but amnesty for people who willingly broke the law, while myself and millions of others who wanted to be part of this great country paid our dues, did our paperwork, played by the rules and obeyed the law. I can tell you one thing, when I do get to vote for the first time in November, it won’t be for the Republican Party.”

As various politicians and members of the media focus on this now critically important issue, it seems to me that they are greatly undersampling people like my wife — that being naturalized, “white-collar” U.S. citizens from Spanish-speaking countries who vote.

With that in mind, I decided to call a number of my friends and family members who met that criteria. Almost to a person, they agreed with my wife. Not only that, but they shared her growing anger at the White House and the Republican Senate. They felt that since the GOP clearly understands that the Hispanic-American vote is going to play an increasingly crucial role in our upcoming elections, it is shamefully pandering to the “undocumented” workers and their allies in the Democratic Party and the media to capture more of that vote.

The equal and opposite reaction to that pandering is to alienate a large number of educated Hispanic-American voters who feel the GOP is betraying and insulting them by basically saying, “You played by the rules for nothing.” Ominously for the Republican Party, there are also a large number of Korean, Indian and other educated naturalized Americans who are equally troubled by this about-face by the GOP.

Next, I turned my attention to less-educated Hispanic-American voters who are no less vocal than my wife and friends, albeit for totally different reasons. Over the course of the last month, in Spanish and English, I have spoken to as many of these people as possible. And what my discussions with these various “blue-collar” workers have told me, is that, at least for the near future, the GOP is dead to them.

I directed my questions only at legal, lower-wage-earning Hispanic U.S. citizens. What I learned seems to be potentially catastrophic for GOP hopes to “grow” the Hispanic-American vote in November and in 2008.

Most of those I spoke with who favored “amnesty” felt greatly empowered by the massive marches seeking citizenship for illegal aliens, participated in the May 1 boycott and got much of their “news” from Spanish-speaking radio stations. More than that, with each passing day, regardless of the overtures made by the White House and Republican Senate, they are coming to see the GOP as the obstacle to their assimilation into the United States — an assumption that is being fueled by various left-wing Hispanic and liberal organizations.

The third component to this equation is the conservative base of the Republican Party. It, like my wife and many other play-by-the-rules Hispanic Americans, feels betrayed by the White House and the Republican Senate — so much so that many insist they are going to sit out the elections in November and 2008.

So, while Republican senators like Bill Frist, John McCain and Lindsey Graham may actually believe their political rhetoric about losing the Hispanic-American vote forever if they don’t pass their “comprehensive guest worker” program, in reality what they and the White House may have done is create a perfect storm that is going to batter the GOP on three fronts, for years to come.

In 2000, George W. Bush received approximately 34 percent of the Hispanic-American vote. In 2004, he got around 40 percent. While the White House and the Republican National Committee hope to add at least 1 million to that 40 percent for the 2008 presidential election, my feeling, based on the firsthand information I’m getting, is that the Republican nominee for president in 2008 may actually drop below the 34 percent Mr. Bush got in 2000.

While seemingly impossible to do, in the course of a few months, the Republican Party has managed to push away “white-collar” Hispanic-American voters, “blue-collar” Hispanic-American voters and the conservative base it needs to win local and national elections.

As we say in Spanish, “Felicitaciones!”

**This was a production of The Coalition Against Illegal Immigration (CAII). If you would like to participate, please go to the above link to learn more. Afterwards, email the coalition and let me know at what level you would like to participate.**