Memo From Middle America | Back To School — And Lots Of Exciting New Problems Imported By Immigration Policy!

By Allan Wall

09/01/2014

School started after Labor Day when I was a kid, and most Americans tell pollsters they would still prefer that, but as usual the educrats don’t care. In Oklahoma this year, we started in mid-August. My theory is that it’s is due to (1) the general fanaticism about more and more school, and more and more school taking over our lives; and (2) more mothers working, so school becomes a de facto daycare. School years used to be based on the agricultural year, so the kids could help with harvests in the summer. My extended family still lives that lifestyle, but now most Americans don’t. But then, thanks to current immigration policy, what is an American anyway?

The Main Stream Media has already been gloating that white students will no longer be a nationwide majority when they arrive in school this year [White Students No Longer To Be Majority In School, by Kimberly Hefling and Jesse J. Holland, Associated Press, August 10, 2014]. But even the MSM admits that diversity brings problems — and we aren’t allowed to talk about the solutions.

In my family, we’re all in the public school system — my sons are students, my wife is an employee, and I’m a Spanish teacher. The public school system is a good place to preview the American future, and I’m in a unique position to comment on it.

It doesn’t look pretty.

After introductory fluff about the joys of diverse students learning together, the Hefling/ Holland AP article noted:

For the first time ever, U.S. public schools are projected this fall to have more minority students than non-Hispanic whites enrolled, a shift largely fueled by growth in the number of Hispanic children.

And what is the definition of Hispanic? A Hispanic, according to the U.S. government is “A person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race.” (Source: National Center for Education Statistics).

If billionaire Spaniard Amancio Ortega (worth $61.9 billion) migrated to the U.S., his children and grandchildren would be eligible for affirmative action and would be favored over your children and grandchildren if they were “non-Hispanic whites.”

This artificial identity is a way to deconstruct the historic American nation because it encourages even the many white Hispanics to embrace multiculturalism. And people identify as such because there are societal and monetary rewards for doing so.

My own sons are native speakers of both English and Spanish. However, they are listed as “Hispanics,” because the school is rewarded for minority representation.

The Anglo side of the family has been in the country since the 1600s — but of course that doesn’t count.

However, the situation is even more confusing because this year, schools can expect tens of thousands of “Hispanics” who don’t even speak Spanish. [‘Some Speak Mayan’: Illegal Kids Swamp Public Schools, by Leo Hohmann, WND, August 14, 2014]

This sudden influx of diversity creates innumerable challenges, Hohmann reports, “such as the need for more English language instruction, and cultural ones, meaning changes in school lunch menus to reflect students' tastes.”

Our schools already had enough problems dealing with Michelle Obama’s meddling with school lunches. Now they have to change menus to suit foreign cuisine?

Immigration’s impact gets far worse. AP’s Hefling and Holland concede:

But it also brings some complex societal questions that often fall to school systems to address, including issues of immigration, poverty, diversity and inequity. The result, at times, is racial and ethnic tension.

In May, police had to be called to a school in the Streamwood, Illinois, a Chicago suburb, to help break up a fight between Hispanic and black students after a racially based lunchroom brawl got out of control.

And Hefling/ Holland even admit that diversity paradoxically leads to segregation…

But even as the population becomes more diverse, schools are becoming more racially segregated, reflecting U.S. housing patterns.

The disparities are evident even in the youngest of black, Hispanic and Native American children, who on average enter kindergarten academically behind their white and Asian peers. They are more likely to attend failing schools and face harsher school discipline.

Later, they have lower standardized test scores, on average, fewer opportunities to take advanced classes and are less likely to graduate.

In the Kennett Consolidated School District, Superintendent Barry Tomasetti described parents who opt to send their kids to private schools across the border in Delaware after touring diverse classrooms.

Or, maybe, they don’t have the money to pay for private schools/ move to another district.

This isn’t a problem for rich white liberals, who send their children to safe schools with whites and Asians while excoriating “racists” and “rednecks” who have more contact with blacks and Hispanics than they do.

Regardless of whether or not people can flee, problems like test score disparities can’t simply be wished away. Nonetheless, President Obama’s Education Secretary Arne Duncan is quoted in the AP article saying all students must “have an opportunity to have a world class education, to do extraordinarily well.”

But how can all students do “extraordinarily well”? Isn’t that like saying everyone must be above average? The racial gap in test scores may be “unacceptable,” as Duncan told AP, but it may be as unchangeable as other facts of nature.

AP’s Hefling/ Holland also tell us that as the school-age population becomes “poorer,” more likely to be “dealing with the instability of being in the country illegally or with a parent who is,” and less able to take care of “basic needs,” school districts will face new challenges. And they must also cater to the emotional needs of their diverse charges:

Lisa Mack, president of the Ohio PTA, encourages local leaders to include grandparents and replace events such as a sock hop with one with a Motown theme that might be more inclusive or to provide opportunities for people of different ethnic groups to bring food to share at monthly meetings. "I think one thing that’s critical is that schools and PTAs and everyone just need to understand that with changing demographics, you can’t do things the way you've done them before," she said. "That you have to be creative in reaching out and making them feel welcomed and valued and supported in the school system."

Another problem reported by Hefling/ Holland — too few minority teachers: “Today, fewer than 1 in 5 of the public schools teachers is a minority.” And even if you get more,

"Just because you speak Spanish doesn’t mean you speak the same Spanish your students are speaking and communicating with," she said.

Left unasked — why is any of this necessary?

What was so horrible about the United States of America that it needed to be utterly replaced?

And what is the benefit of importing all of these problems?

Journalists treat the demographic transformation of the United States as a natural process. But it is the inevitable result of specific, deliberate government policies.

Those policies can be reversed, those problems avoided.

But only if the historic American nation has the will to see it through — and keep the problems we see emerging in our school system from encompassing the entire country.

American citizen Allan Wall moved back to the U.S.A. in 2008after many years residing in Mexico. Allan’s wife is Mexican, and their two sons are bilingual. In 2005, Allan served a tour of duty in Iraq with the Texas Army National Guard. His VDARE.COM articles are archived here; his Mexidata.info articles are archived here; his News With Views columns are archived here; and his website is here.

< Previous

Next >

This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.