Education
LULAC believes that universal and quality public education is the foundation for lifelong success, and strongly opposes any measure that denies education as a fundamental right, including that of immigrant children. School curricula and textbooks should reflect culturally based teaching methods grounded in research. LULAC supports legislation and policy decisions targeted at decreasing the Hispanic dropout rate and closing of the achievement gap. LULAC urges Congress to increase funding to implement targeted programs to encourage Hispanic students to remain in school.
Federal funding for LULAC National Education Service Centers (LNESC) should be continued so as to address the specific needs of our community, as well as to expand into geographic areas not currently served. Federal funding for Head Start, Migrants and Seasonal Head Start, Gear Up, TRIO, Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), HEP-CAMP, Title I and Title III programs should be increased and access should be expanded to ensure high participation of Latino children. LULAC supports increased funding for Title I, Title III and Title VII programs to address adult basic educational programs and bilingual education. LULAC also supports an effective and appropriate bilingual education program for all English language learners.
LULAC strongly opposes vouchers and any other funding method that will limit public education resources. All Latinos should have access to safe, quality and desegregated public education. Public schools should be improved and rehabilitated, and be provided with adequate funding to do so. LULAC supports full-funding of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and urges Congress to reauthorize ESEA with community input. LULAC supports an increase in funding for Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) of higher education. LULAC supports an increase in the number of Latino educators at all levels of education, administrators and school board members, as well as teacher training and development programs to encourage Latinos to become teachers.
LULAC will fight against harsh discipline practices and zero tolerance policies that remove students from the classroom and keep them from learning.
LULAC membership advocates that scholarship awards be provided to qualified persons regardless of their citizenship status.
LULAC National Focused on ESEA Waivers, Common Core State Standards, Effective Teaching, and Data Models
Thanks to the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, LULAC National’s education policy team has been able to continue advocating on behalf of Latino children both at the federal and state levels. With the education landscape ripe for reform, and issues like ESEA waivers, Common Core State Standards, Effective Teaching, and Data Models, dominating the discussion, LULAC National has been able to provide the Latino community with pertinent information and advocacy tools to engage Latino parents and education leaders in critical education reform conversations. Through workshops at conventions and events, community trainings and presentations, media outreach, and bilingual literature, LULAC has leveraged the support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to help advance the interests of Latino children. In addition, LULAC is also a member various coalitions including the Campaign for High School Equity and a co-chair of the Hispanic Education Coalition, who also work to advance the interests of under-served children across the country.
To learn more about these critical issues and coalitions click on the resources below.
The Campaign for High School Equity is a diverse coalition of national organizations representing communities of color that believe high schools should have the capacity and motivation to prepare every student for graduation, college, work, and life. LULAC currently serves as a member of the coalition and has co-chaired committees in the past.
The Hispanic Education Coalition (HEC) unites more than 20 organizations dedicated to improving educational opportunities and outcomes for the more than 54 million Latinos and Latinas living in the United States and Puerto Rico. LULAC’s Luis Torres currently serves as co-chair of the Hispanic Education Coalition.
The U.S. Department of Education has granted waivers to states exempting them from specific requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) in exchange for rigorous and comprehensive State-developed plans designed to improve educational outcomes for all students, close achievement gaps, increase equity, and improve the quality of instruction. Currently: 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Bureau of Indian Education submitted requests for ESEA flexibility, 34 States and the District of Columbia are approved for ESEA flexibility (From the Department of Education website)
To learn more about your state’s request for a waiver, click here.
The Common Core State Standards Initiative is a state-led effort that established a single set of clear educational standards for kindergarten through 12th grade in English language arts and mathematics that states voluntarily adopt. The standards are designed to ensure that students graduating from high school are prepared to enter credit bearing entry courses in two or four year college programs or enter the workforce. The standards are clear and concise to ensure that parents, teachers, and students have a clear understanding of the expectations in reading, writing, speaking and listening, language and mathematics in school.
Because teaching is complex, no single measure can capture the complete picture of a teacher's impact; yet many evaluation systems use tools that measure only a few aspects of teaching. The information that results provides teachers with very limited, occasional feedback to help develop their practice. Multiple measures are needed to help school leaders understand how teaching contributes to student success. By evaluating multiple aspects of teaching, instructors and school leaders can create better professional development programs that promote proven techniques and practices that help students learn, and can make better-informed hiring and tenure decisions. (From www.metproject.org)
The National Education Data Model is a conceptual but detailed representation of the education information domain. The Education Data Model strives to be a shared understanding among all education stakeholders as to what information needs to be collected and managed at the local level in order to enable effective instruction of students and superior leadership of schools.
While education institutions across the P-20W (early learning through postsecondary and workforce) environment use many different data standards to meet information needs, there are certain data we all need to be able to understand, compare, and exchange in an accurate, timely, and consistent manner. For these, we need a shared vocabulary for education data—that is, we need common education data standards. The Common Education Data Standards (CEDS) project is a national collaborative effort to develop voluntary, common data standards for a key set of education data elements to streamline the exchange, comparison, and understanding of data within and across P-20W institutions and sectors.
Click here to view a presentation on the purpose of Common Education Data Standards. (PDF)
Making Every Diploma Count: Using Extended-Year Graduation Rates to Measure Student Success. August 2011
The American Youth Policy Forum, Gateway to College National Network, and the National Youth Employment Coalition
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Apr 1, 2011
LULAC, and partner organizations, urge Senator Reid to protect our most vulnerable students from unethical career education programs and which have bilked taxpayers out of millions of precious dollars in Pell Grants and Stafford Loans.
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Mar 28, 2011
In it, they propose a reduction of $5 billion from the Department of Education’s $64 billion budget in 2010...
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We write to strongly oppose H.R. 1, which funds the federal government through the remainder of FY 2011. The bill would result in massive cuts to programs that serve the neediest, most vulnerable members of our society...
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The Obama Administration, as it moves forward in its effort to reauthorize the Elementary & Secondary Education Act (formerly known as the No Child Left Behind Act), has developed a
Blueprint for Education Reform. The Blueprint outlines the administrations priorities in this legislation, LULAC and many other education reform advocacy organizations have submitted their priorities and recommendations to the House Education and Labor subcommittee in response to the blueprint. LULAC applauds the administration’s desire to keep in place a strong focus on holding schools accountable for student’s academic success while expanding to include district’s and states in an accountability system; LULAC is concerned that the blueprint does not address critical issues such as quality of charter school programming for English Language Learner students and the importance of parent and family engagement. LULAC’s recommendations cover the areas of academic assessments and accommodations, accountability, graduation rates, middle school interventions, family engagement, teaching of, and support for teachers, of English Language Learners and charter schools. In addition, LULAC as through the
Hispanic Education Coalition (as an HEC co-chair), the
Campaign for High School Equity (as a founding partner). For questions or comments please contact Iris Chavez at 202-833-6130 x13 or ichavez@lulac.org
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The Hispanic Education Coalition (HEC) unites 25 organizations dedicated to improving educational opportunities for the nearly 50 million Latinos living in the United States and Puerto Rico. Co-chaired by the National Council of La Raza and the League of United Latin American Citizens, the HEC focuses upon federal legislative issues relating to education including the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, the Head Start Act, the Higher Education Act, adequate federal funding for education, and the educational concerns of English Language Learners. In each of these areas, the HEC strives to ensure that dialogue at the federal level regarding education issues reflects the education priorities of the Latino community.
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The Campaign for High School Equity (CHSE), a diverse coalition of national organizations
representing communities of color,is pleased to submit comments onthe recently released notice
of proposed priorities, requirements, definitions, and selection criteria for the Race to the Top
Fund under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act(ARRA).
Download the PDF
Publications
LULAC Releases the Education Advocacy Toolkit. A guide that will equip you with the tools necessary to advocate for education reform at the local, state or federal level.
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Latino students are the fastest‐growing segment of the public school population and make up nearly one in five public school students. The achievement gap between Latino students and their peers remains wide, and the gap is even more pronounced for English language learners (ELLs). This gap, which is evidenced even before children enter kindergarten, has led to an
alarmingly high dropout rate and low levels of enrollment in higher education programs...
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Welcome to the Back to School edition of the LULAC Education Newsletter!
In celebration of the start of the 2011 school year for students across the country, LULAC would like to use the September edition of the LULAC Education Newsletter to showcase education programs from across the country that are having a positive impact for Latino students. This month’s edition will spotlight two programs making outstanding strides in the areas of Parent & Community Engagement and Expanded Learning Opportunities. We hope that the stories of these successful programs will inspire you to think about ways that your school and/or community can make an impact in the lives of a student this school year.
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A brief newsletter dedicated to bringing you news and information specific to LULAC’s work on educational advocacy!
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LULAC, The American Youth Policy Forum, Gateway to College National Network, and the National Youth Employment Coalition with support from numerous national youth-serving organizations (complete list below) have produced an issue brief to encourage states’ use of extended-year graduation rates in adequate yearly progress calculations and incorporation of these rates into their state accountability frameworks/systems. This brief, Making Every Diploma Count: Using Extended-Year Graduation Rates to
Measure Student Success, aims to educate and inform states of the flexibilities that currently exist to use extended-year graduation rates as a policy mechanism to encourage schools and districts to continue to work with overage, under-credit students.
These rates provide for the inclusion of overage, under-credit students who take longer than the traditional four years to earn a high school diploma, but who successfully earn their credential in five or six years. Extended-year graduation rates allow states to document increases in graduation rates
compared to the traditional four-year measure and highlight the successful work of schools and districts to get struggling and out-of-school students back on-track to graduation. The brief encourages states to calculate five- and six-year high school graduation rates to ensure that schools’ and districts’ efforts to serve struggling and off-track students are recognized and not discouraged.
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