Friday, February 19, 2016

Settling the Refugee Lawsuit: Politics of the Worst Kind. . .

Both the OD and the Syracuse newspapers have reported that The Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees' Newcomer Program and the Oneida-Herkimer-Madison BOCES Alignment of Pathways and Programs for Learners of English will be shut down at the end of this school year. As discussed previously on this blog, these programs were the subject of federal lawsuits filed against the Utica City School District by the NY Civil Liberties Union, and by the NY State Attorney General because certain 17-20 year old refugee students with Limited English Proficiency (LEP) complained that they were placed in the programs instead of being allowed to attend Proctor High School.  [Note that the UCSD Superintendent's response to the latter suit echos my question of why the AG was bringing suit against an entity regulated by the State Education Dept.]

The complaining students came to Utica in their late teens, spoke little English, and appear to have been virtually uneducated having spent most of their lives in refugee camps.  Yet, somehow, they knew enough to contact an NYCLU lawyer, demand to attend the local high school as a matter of right, and complain that UCSD was denying them the opportunity to become doctors, nurses, engineers, etc.

Obviously a bit of "mentoring" was going on.

With the closure of the programs and sending the students to Proctor, the AG and NYCLU lawyers are getting their wish, the students are getting what they were told is best for them, and the UCSD will hopefully get these costly bogus lawsuits dismissed.  Everyone will be happy...BUT...

Are the refugee students really better off? 

If, like the complainants, you were 8, 10, or 12 years behind your peers in education achievement and did not speak the language of your fellow students, you would likely waste your time attending regular school because you would be unprepared for it. Without preparation, encouraging you to attend regular school would be educational malpractice!

It was my understanding that the courses complained of concentrated on teaching as much English and American customs and culture as possible to these students in their limited time left in the school system.  Because of the actions of the AG and the NYCLU, the students will lose access to programs designed to position them to assimilate into American society.

A political connection was mentioned in my NYCLU post and political motivation suggested in my AG post. Now the political objective comes into focus:

Preventing assimilation would create a permanent underclass that will always be dependent upon its political mentors. 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Strike, sadly this is so true. The refugee students "won" and the traditional students loose. And the teachers will look like failures to the State Ed Dept. for their evaluations because the students aren't at grade level.

Anonymous said...

Don't forget a big reason why these people were brought into the area was because too many people have left over time due to the bad government and corruption that had (and continue) to drive them away.

These poor people are brought in from whatever misery they've had to endure and then put somewhere to prop up the district population numbers all while those in charge (Albany) fail horribly in providing the schools and municipalities the funding needed to support their integration. But then when problems come up its OUR fault while Albany skates away and the "school aid formula" keeps us in high taxes and poor performance.

I know who to blame, the ones we send to Albany where they accomplish nothing. How is that Hospital funding? Pathetic