Wednesday, January 4, 2012

44 Years After Walkouts, Are Latino Students Better Off? - Hispanically Speaking News

44 Years After Walkouts, Are Latino Students Better Off? - Hispanically Speaking News:

44 Years After Walkouts, Are Latino Students Better Off?

44 Years After Walkouts, Are Latino Students Better Off?

The following commentary was produced by South Kern Sol, a new, hyperlocal online outlet for youth reporting on community health issues in South Kern County. It is a project of New America Media, and is supported by The California Endowment and The Knight Foundation.

The first time I got to listen to Sal Castro speak was four years ago at UC Santa Barbara during my freshman year of college. Last month, I had the opportunity to hear him lecture again at Cal State Bakersfield, on the topic of education reform, along with professor Mario T. Garcia from UCSB.

Castro, an educator and lifelong Chicano activist, is most well known for his role in the East Los Angeles high school walkouts of 1968. Those historic walkouts were a defining moment of the Chicano movement. At its

Mom’s Poverty, Diabetes Might Raise ADHD Risk in Kids

Mom’s Poverty, Diabetes Might Raise ADHD Risk in Kids

Study found combo increased chances of disorder 14-fold.

New research suggests that the combination of poverty and having diabetes during pregnancy significantly raises the risk of attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in a woman’s offspring.

Children born to such moms are as much as 14 times more likely to have ADHD by the age of 6, the study found. ADHD is a behavioral disorder characterized by difficulty focusing, impulsive behaviors and hyperactivity.

A report on the finding appears in the January issue of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

The new study included 212 children. Of these, 115 had “low socioeconomic status” (lower-income) moms,


Fun Ways to Include Kids in Fitness Resolutions

Fun Ways to Include Kids in Fitness Resolutions

Expert tips for making fitness a family matter in 2012.

Parents can involve their children in any New Year’s fitness resolutions they may have in the works, says one fitness expert, by making exercise seem fun and exciting.

“If you say, ‘We’re going to take the kids out for a walk this evening,’ most kids are going to say, ‘Wait, we have to leave the video games or television?’” cautioned Michael Berry, chair of the health and exercise science department at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., in a university news release. “Kids like to play games, they like to be engaged, so exercise needs to be something that is sports-


Iowa Caucus Results and the Overlooked Latino Voter

Iowa Caucus Results and the Overlooked Latino Voter

The first chapter on the road to the presidential election of 2012 was written Tuesday in Iowa without even a Latino voter footnote.

At midnight CST the Iowa Republican Caucus race was too close to call between Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney with only 35 votes separating