RECENT ARTICLES

Census 2010 should accurately represent Latino population

Hate Groups Misconstrue Immigration Issues

Latinas Not Receiving Benefits of Folic Acid

Carbon Permit System Will Pay

Obama Backs Teacher Merit Pay

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Census 2010 should accurately represent Latino population

Wednesday the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) in Washington, D.C. convened to discuss how Latinos have been under-counted in previous census counts and efforts by LULAC and other national Latino organizations are aimed at making the next population count more accurate.

“April 1, 2010, is a critical date for all of us,” said Brent Wilkes, executive director of LULAC, referring to Census Day. “We have to make sure that every person is counted because it’s going to transform what is known about our diverse and growing population.”

Latinos represent an estimated 15 percent of the U.S. population, or 45.5 million people.

Wilkes noted that an accurate census count in 2010 is critical because those numbers will be used to address the needs of communities for the coming decade. The federal government uses census data to allocate about $300 billion in funds every year for vital services, including disaster relief, health care, schools, transportation, libraries and senior centers.

Panelists agreed that many Latinos, regardless of their immigration status, will be suspicious of the letters the Census will be sending out to households in March 2010. If they don’t respond to it, the Census Bureau will follow up by sending a specialist to their address for an interview. Such visits sometimes help the agency locate new members of the community.

One of the Census Bureau’s strategies for overcoming such fears is to deploy bilingual specialists around the country to do follow-up home visits. The agency has already hired personnel who speak 55 of 59 languages it has determined are needed for interviewing. “We want to make sure that the person who comes to your door looks just like you,” Ramos said.

In communities where Latinos represent more than 20 percent of the population, the agency will send the forms in both English and Spanish. Communities with smaller percentages of Latinos or other non-English-speaking groups can request bilingual forms.

The Census Bureau is also setting up local offices, with 145 already open and a total of 485 expected to be operating by the end of the year. These offices, located in the middle of communities, will help the agency do the hyper-local part of the job. But they also offer job opportunities.

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Author: Cristina F. Pereda

Source: www.alternet.org

Hate Groups Misconstrue Immigration Issues

The number of hate groups in the U.S. continues to grow with the country’s immigrant population being the top targets of their hatred.  The latest figures on hate groups have just been released by a legendary firm that monitors their activities. 

Racial hatred was behind last July’s murder of immigrant Luis Ramirez in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania and experts say it’s behind the dramatic rise in hate groups, like neo-nazis, skinheads, and the klan.
Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center says “we’ve seen a long-term trend of about 7 or 8 years of these groups growing rather significantly.  And I think that is almost entirely due to the exploitation of the immigration issue by these groups.“

Since 2000, hate groups have grown by 54%.

The Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama now says there are 926 hate groups, mainly in southern or border states, where mostly illegal, Latino immigrants end up.

John Amaya of the Mexican American Legal Defense & Educational Fund says “they are being targeted because they’re the “other” right now.  Right now immigrants in particular seem to be the scapegoat for all the wrongs that are in this country.“

The hate groups even blame the economic meltdown and the subprime mortgage mess on illegal immigrants.

The election of the country’s first black president runs contrary to their racist philosophy, all of which doesn’t bode well in trying to stem hate group growth.

Mark Potok said “we are seeing a kinda of “perfect storm” of factors that favor growth of these groups.  Continuing non-white immigration, the worsening of the economy and of course the idea of a black man in the White House.“

A perfect storm, the experts say, only knowledge and understanding can prevent.

Article from NBC news

clickhere report in video format

Latinas Not Receiving Benefits of Folic Acid

Only 17 percent of Spanish-speaking women of childbearing age in the United States are taking a multivitamin containing folic acid daily, according to the first- nationally representative folic acid awareness survey to focus on this population.

Folic acid can prevent neural tube defects (NTDs), serious birth defects of the brain and spine such as spina bifida and anencephaly, which are more prevalent in the Hispanic population than other racial or ethnic groups. Hispanics account for more than 23 percent of all births in this country, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The March of Dimes and other members of the National Council on Folic Acid work to raise awareness of the benefits of this essential B vitamin. Daily consumption of folic acid beginning before and continuing through pregnancy is crucial because NTDs can occur in the early weeks following conception, often before a woman knows she is pregnant.

A survey by the March of Dimes of women’s awareness of folic acid and its benefits: “Improving Preconception Health: Knowledge and Use of Vitamins and Folic Acid Among Spanish-language-dominant Hispanic Women” was conducted by International Communications Research. They questioned 1,250 women of childbearing age and was funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“More than half of all pregnancies are unplanned, which is why it’s so important that all women of childbearing age take a multivitamin with at least 400 micrograms of folic acid beginning before and continuing through pregnancy,” said Joann Petrini, PhD, MPH, director of the March of Dimes Perinatal Data Center.

Hispanic women and young women (ages 18 to 24) are among the least likely groups in the U.S. to take the recommended amount of folic acid that could lower their babies’ risk of developing NTDs.

The March of Dimes survey of women of all races found that nearly 40 percent of U.S. women of childbearing age (ages 18-45), say they take a daily multivitamin supplement containing folic acid. However, the rate drops to 27 percent among women 18 to 24 years old. Only 11 percent of women of childbearing age said they knew that folic acid should be consumed prior to pregnancy.

Since the U.S. Food & Drug Administration began requiring in 1998 that all enriched grains be fortified with folic acid, NTDs in the U.S. have declined by 26 percent.

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Source: March of Dimes Foundation

Carbon Permit System Will Pay

As envisioned by President Barack Obama’s budget proposal, the federal government will soon begin tapping into a huge new source of revenue by requiring companies to pay for the permission to emit so-called greenhouse gasses linked to global warming.

The Obama budget blueprint assumes that by 2012, the Treasury will be collecting $78.6 billion in new revenue from carbon emissions permits. From 2012 to 2019, it envisions that a total of $645.7 billion would be raised from auctioning of such emission allowances.

A “cap-and-trade system” would be created, under which the government would place a cap, or limit, on the total amount of greenhouse gasses that can be emitted. Companies that need to exceed their allotted level must buy offsetting permits from those that emit less.

What impact would the emissions curbs have on consumers?
Congressional Budget Office director Peter Orszag, who is now head of the Office of Management and Budget under Obama, testified last year that the firms that were required to buy permits would pass the costs along to their customers in the form of higher prices. The price increases, he said, would “be essential to the success of a cap-and-trade program” because they would be the mechanism by which businesses and households would be forced find ways to cut their greenhouse gas emissions.

Won’t that harm consumers, especially the poor?
A recent study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank, said, “Low-income consumers are the most vulnerable (under such a system) because they spend a larger share of their budgets on necessities like energy than do better-off consumers.”
They also are “least able to afford purchases of new, more energy-efficient automobiles, heating systems and appliances,” it said.

Obama proposes using about 80 percent of that anticipated revenue — or $526 billion — to pay for tax credits for low- and middle-income people to help offset higher energy costs. The rest of the money would subsidize alternative energy projects and firms.

The New York Times reported  that low-wage and middle-income workers would receive a $500 tax credit, or $1,000 to couples; but the credit would be phased out for single people with incomes above $75,000 a year and for couples with incomes of more than $150,000, it said.

Ultimately it will up to Congress to decide how the money will be used. 

read the full article on msnbc.msn.com

Author: Tom Curry

Obama Backs Teacher Merit Pay

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama called for tying teachers’ pay to students’ performance and expanding innovative charter schools Tuesday, embracing ideas that have provoked hostility from members of teachers unions.

In his first big speech on education, Obama said the United States must drastically improve student achievement to regain lost international standing.

“The future belongs to the nation that best educates its citizens,” he said. “We have everything we need to be that nation … and yet, despite resources that are unmatched anywhere in the world, we have let our grades slip, our schools crumble, our teacher quality fall short and other nations outpace us.”

His solutions include teacher pay and charter school proposals that have met resistance among members of teachers unions, which constitute an important segment of the Democratic Party.

Obama acknowledged that conflict, saying, “Too many supporters of my party have resisted the idea of rewarding excellence in teaching with extra pay, even though we know it can make a difference in the classroom.”

Despite their history on the issues, union leaders publicly welcomed Obama’s words, saying it seems clear he wants to include them in his decisions in a way former President George W. Bush did not.

The president of the 3.2 million-member National Education Association, Dennis van Roekel insisted that Obama’s call for teacher performance pay does not necessarily mean raises or bonuses would be tied to student test scores. It could mean more pay for board-certified teachers or for those who work in high-poverty, hard-to-staff schools, he said.

However, administration officials said later they do mean higher pay based on student achievement, among other things.

Obama addressed the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, a setting intended to underscore the need to boost academic performance, especially among Latino and black children who sometimes lag behind their white counterparts.

Broadly speaking, Obama wants changes at every level from before kindergarten through college. He is putting special focus on solving the high school dropout crisis and pushing states to adopt more rigorous academic standards.

Some of his promises already are in the works: Public schools will get an unprecedented amount of money — double the education budget under Bush — from the economic stimulus bill over the next two years. To get some of those dollars, Obama and Duncan insist states will have to prove they are making good progress in teacher quality, on data systems to track how students learn and on standards and tests.  Duncan said last Friday that states will get the first $44 billion by the end of the month.

Obama also wants kids to spend more time in school, with longer school days, school weeks and school years — a position he admitted will make him less popular with his school-age daughters.

Children in South Korea spend a month longer in school every year than do kids in the U.S.  “I know longer school days and school years are not wildly popular ideas, not with Malia and Sasha,” Obama said as the crowd laughed. “But the challenges of a new century demand more time in the classroom.”

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Author: Libby Quaid, AP Education Writer