Why have national Hispanic organizations been silent on the common core testing’s negative effects on ELLs & Hispanic students?
By Maria de Lourdes Pérez Ramírez, MA, President, Founder, HispanEduca, Inc.After a follower asked me if I knew of any legal action submitted or was pending against the common core standards’ testing to ELLs, I embarked on a search.
I asked, emailed and called Hispanic national organizations.
Unfortunately, not even national Latino/Hispanic advocacy organizations such as LULAC, NALEO, MALDEF, and others have undertaken a legal action against common core testing for ELLs.
In fact, also unfortunately, most of these organizations tend to support the new common core standards and the testing that are glued to them.
Why, when we all know that Hispanics have the lowest education level among minority groups; that only a handful is meeting the so-called “benchmarks” of standardized testing such as FCAT, ACT, SAT, and others; that despite the fact that more Hispanic students are going to college, only a few graduate with a higher education diploma; that our children are attending urban public schools where the most basic resources ( water, books, equipment, well-paid teachers, among many other things ) are nowhere to find; that education policy research experts have confirmed that Hispanics/Latinos are the victims of the education APARTHEID?
There might be several reasons for that.
1. First, the new common core initiative is part of President Obama’s Race to The Top (RTTT) program; his response after not being able to convince Congress (well, particularly Republicans and the Tea Party faction) to reauthorize ESEA (Elementary and Secondary Education Act) of 1965, after the last Bush’s re-authorization with the No Child Left Behind Act.
2. A huge percentage of Latinos/Hispanics elected President Obama, who sold this RTTT and the eventual Common Core Standard Initiative as a way to guarantee a quality education for “all”, etc. etc.
3. Given that Hispanics/Latinos are the population segment with the lowest education level, no one would argue (I would though, and if you do too, welcome to the club) that RTTT, including the common core state standard initiative is highly supported by Hispanics. So there might be cultural, loyalty, and maybe ideological issues that prevent national Hispanic organizations from publicly opposing any of Obama’s education programs. I guess opposing the common core might be basically seen as opposing Obama.
4. This stand or lack thereof makes me think that, although Hispanics voters have said that education is a high priority issue, even more important than immigration, when measured by action, there are other more important issues for national Hispanic organizations such as the Affordable Health Care Act (Obamacare) than protesting against the common core.
Unfortunately, that only shows that these organizations, are not informed (I hope it is not that they don’t care) about how these new common core standards and their tests, will practically leave intact education inequities, disparities, and discrimination against Hispanic students.
Still more unfortunate is the fact that Hispanics are being kept in the dark about the movement to eradicate public education (the one that best serves the poor and minorities); the corporatization of education; the evident way in which education profiteers manipulate Hispanic parents by making them believe that “parent choice” laws such as Parent trigger will really empower them to provide their children better schools and that charter schools will help their children succeed.
HispanEduca is at the service to those who want to examine and push legal action, an injunction, against common core testing.
For starters, that is.
- See more at: http://parentsacrossamerica.org/national-hispanic-organizations-silent-common-core-testings-negative-effects-ells-hispanic-students/