Blog on Hold

Well, faithful readers, I must announce that this blog will have to be put on indefinite "hold," as your blogger will be leaving Hispanic CREO and moving to a new organization.

Thanks for reading!

Better Late Than Never

Where was this article last November?

One More Reason to Love NPR

Here's why: they have some smart talk about Latino kids.

Pedro Noguera, venerated and visionary teacher and professor of education at NYU, and Jeffery Passel of the Pew Hispanic Center discuss myths about Latino kids.

1 in 4 children under 5 is now Latino, so this has proven itself to be an increasingly relevant topic as the population grows. Noguera, in particular, offers some strong commentary when talking about the opportunity gap. He notes that Latino students have fewer opportunities to attend well-funded schools and that they are more likely to attend under-resourced schools - which seriously diminishes the likelihood of them attaining an excellent education. Right on. And let's change that, by the way.

Want to listen? Here you go.

Competition = Success for Disabled Students

Researchers Jay P. Greene and Marcus A. Winters weigh in in today's East Valley Tribune on how Arizona's voucher program has benefited the state's special needs population by creating competition between public and private schools. According to their research, special needs students who stay in traditional pubic schools benefit from the voucher program, because their schools are motivated to improve in order to retain students.

Greene and Winters's most recent project measured the impact that a similar voucher program had on public schools in Florida and was sponsored by the Manhattan Institute. The researchers employed their Florida research to analyze Arizona's program.

Initially, I am reluctant to agree with Greene and Winters. After all, just because vouchers have had a positive impact in Florida doesn't necessarily mean that they have been equally effective in Arizona. One must be careful about such slippery reasoning - I prefer hard data.

However, I would say that there's no reason why Greene and Winters can't use the same methods to evaluate Arizona's voucher program - and they should.