National immigration policy, local high school students - The Education Report - Katy Murphy's blog on Oakland schools

National immigration policy, local high school students - The Education Report - Katy Murphy's blog on Oakland schools:

National immigration policy, local high school students

By Katy Murphy
Wednesday, September 5th, 2012 at 5:46 pm in Uncategorized.

photo by Ray Chavez/Bay Area News Group

A story in the Oakland Tribune by my colleague Matt O’Brien examined how the federal “deferred action for childhood arrivals” immigration policy might provide an added inspiration to some students to graduate from high school and go to college.

The program, announced in June, offers temporary deportation relief for those brought to the country illegally when they were children as long as they were under 31 on June 15 and have met certain educational (and other) requirements.

According to the Migration Policy Institute, 20 percent of young immigrants who met the other criteria won’t be able to benefit because they don’t have a high school diploma or GED and they’re not in school. I wonder if that figure is even higher in Oakland, where the four-year high school graduation rate is only 59 percent.

To help Matt with some of the reporting, I spoke with Vidal Gonzalez, who mentors