Undocumented Students

Undocumented Students

The number of undocumented children in the U.S. is increasing in numbers and educational leaders must understand how to support their educational success by addressing their unique challenges. For this discussion, you will focus on the case study “In All Fairness” in Chapter 8. This case study focuses on the controversy surrounding legal and illegal immigrant families, children and public school attendance, as well as the concept of silent tracking.

For this discussion, you will address the assigned questions based on your last name. For example, Jane Doe would respond to the first set of questions. Use the text and one outside source to support your response to the questions (this can also be your shared resource).

 

LAST NAME BEGIN WITH (W)

Student’s Last Name

Questions

Begins with A-M

If Alejandro came back to the school with a birth certificate (foreign), no social security card, and a letter from the local homeless shelter as proof of residence…

1. How would you explain to the office staff that he should be admitted?
2. What laws support your actions?
3. What resource(s) could the school provide to support this family?
4. What is one resource that you could share with your peers to support best practices in working with undocumented children and families?

Begins with N-Z

Regarding the case of Michael…

1. Why would counselors place Michael in lower track classes even after he requested that he be placed in college prep courses?
2. Is this a form of discrimination?
3. Why would these types of incidents be difficult to confront?
4. What is one resource that you could share with your peers to support best practices working with students of color who may be victims of silent tracking?

*Resources may be from yearly conferences, websites, leaders in the field, peer-reviewed journal articles, blogs, etc., that support the issue at hand. Through this collaborative effort, you will be able to add resources from multiple perspectives that you can later include in your final assignment. Be sure to include any relevant information including the full APA reference entry and a brief description of how the resource supports leaders/administrators in that issue.

THIS MIGHT HELP WITH THE DISCUSSION

 

Capatosto, K. (2015). Strategies for addressing implicit bias in early childhood education (Links to an external site.). Retrieved from http://kirwaninstitute.osu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/implicit-bias-strategies.pdf

• This article focuses on implicit biases in early education and may help you in your journal for this week..
  Accessibility Statement does not exist.
  Privacy Policy does not exist.Chapter 8 Equal Protection, English Language Learners, and Desegregation

  Introduction

  The ISLLC standards call for educational leaders who “safeguard the values of democracy, equity, and diversity.” The legal requirement that reflects this standard is called equal protection. Equal protection means that the law applies equally to everyone regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, sex, and so forth. This chapter presents several aspects of equal protection as the concept applies to student access to a public education, placement, discipline, English language learners, and school desegregation. John Rawls’s “justice as fairness” concept is expanded to include discussions of social justice and social capital.

  Focus Questions

  1. What are social justice and social capital, and how are these concepts related to equal protection?

  2. Should race, ethnicity, or sex ever be considered to achieve a diverse student body?

  3. Should students be required to document U.S. citizenship before enrolling in public education?

  4. What information should public school districts be able to obtain from families before allowing their children to enroll in public schools?

  5. How are civil rights laws enforced?

  Key Terms

  1. De facto segregation

  2. De jure  segregation

  3. Disparate impact

  4. English language learners

  5. Equality of opportunity

  6. Office for Civil Rights

  7. Social justice

  8. Unitary status

  Case Study In All Fairness

  Lucinda Chavez sat silently as Father Michael Lewis approached the microphone to address the Centerville Board of Education. Lucinda had been superintendent for only a few months, but she already knew much of the history of Centerville School District (CSD). Until the 1960s, Centerville had been a dual school system composed of the Lincoln Schools for African American children and the Centerville Schools for White children. After considerable encouragement from the state government, the schools were consolidated in 1968. Since that time, CSD had been officially integrated. Lucinda knew that Father Lewis planned to use anecdotes to support his claim that racial inequalities in educational opportunities and discipline practices remained commonplace at CSD. Unfortunately, from what Lucinda could ascertain, Father Lewis had a legitimate concern.

  Father Lewis spoke eloquently as he told the story of 12-year-old Alejandro. Alejandro’s parents had come to Father Lewis’s church for help. They finally admitted that they were in the country illegally and told of the hardships they had endured to finally reach Centerville. Now broke, hungry, and desperate for work, the parents had tried to enroll Alejandro in school. According to Alejandro’s parents, Centerville Middle School counselors and administrators had requested proof of citizenship, which of course they did not have. Administrators were reportedly rude and threatened to call the police. Afraid of deportation, Alejandro and his parents fled the school and into Father Lewis’s church.

  Father Lewis told the story of Michael. Michael was a bright African American youth whom Father Lewis knew well. By the time Michael was in the ninth grade, he was being watched closely by several college basketball recruiters. Unfortunately, Michael was not always teacher friendly and, in spite of his repeated request for placement in college prep courses, he was placed by his high school counselors in lower-track courses and study hall. As graduation approached, it was obvious even to Michael that his dreams of playing college basketball had ended when his course work did not meet NCAA Clearinghouse requirements. By age 22, Michael was wealthy, feared, and dead. His mother and Father Lewis blamed the Centerville High School faculty for denying Michael the opportunity to take college courses. Father Lewis than spoke of the number of African American and Latino children in “dumbed-down” classes, the lack of access to advanced placement courses, the harsh discipline of any child of color who happened to cross the line, and the discrimination in numbers and value of scholarship awards to children of color.

  Father Lewis ended his speech: “Ladies and gentlemen of the board, these are our children, and with them go all of our hopes and dreams. In all fairness, the insidious discrimination in Centerville School District must end.” As Father Lewis sat down to thunderous applause, the board chairperson thanked him and moved to appoint a committee to study the problem. Lucinda knew it would be a difficult challenge to lead the board to a reasoned discussion of Father Lewis’s claims.

  Leadership Perspectives

  According to Frances  Fowler (2009) , the values of equality and fraternity are fundamental to educational policy in the United States. Equality as a policy value is also often referred to as  social justice . Equality is defined in the U.S. Constitution (“All men are created equal”) and in the Fourteenth Amendment (“No State shall . . . deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”). This does not mean that all citizens have equal ability or the right to an equal share of property. Rather, it means that all citizens are of equal status, and the law is going to apply equally to everyone. For example, Title IX was designed at least in part to provide equal protection for female athletes, desegregation law is based on equal protection for minority children, and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or natural origin by recipients of federal funds.

  Fraternity (or social capital) can be defined as the “ability to perceive other members of one’s society as brothers and sisters, to have a sense of responsibility for them, and to feel that in difficult times one can turn to them for help” ( Fowler, 2009 , p. 112). The importance of the development of social capital within the larger school community is reflected in ISLLC Standard 6E. Social capital is derived from the various resources, social support systems, and organizations that shape the normative environment in which a school functions. Two valuable sources of social capital are schools and families. The practice of racial integration, the integration of English language learners into the public school culture, and the inclusion or mainstreaming of special education children in the regular classroom are examples of policies designed to promote equality and social capital among diverse groups of students ( Fowler, 2009 ).

  ISLLC Standard 6E

  ISLLC Standards 4 and 5 call for school leaders to embrace the values of social justice and to understand and promote the development of social capital within the larger school community. These standards promote the understanding and appreciation of a community’s diverse resources, the promotion of positive relationships with families and caregivers, the safeguarding of democracy, equity, and diversity, and the promotion of social justice. In the case study “In All Fairness,” Father Lewis is asking the school district to examine these normative practices that in the opinion of Father Lewis have undermined the values of social justice and social capital in the Centerville community. However, the values of social justice and social capital sometimes conflict with the deeply held values that define not only individual persons, but the larger school culture as well. Lucinda Chavez may indeed face a difficult challenge in confronting long-held normative practices that fracture feelings of equality and brotherhood in the Centerville School District.

  ISLLC Standards 4 and 5

  ISLLC Standard 4B

  ISLLC Standard 4C

  ISLLC Standard 5C

  ISLLC Standard 5E

  Justice as Fairness: Promoting Equality and Fraternity

  The ethical concepts of a well-ordered school based on John Rawls’s ideas of social cooperation and public justification were discussed in  Chapter 5 . This concept was derived from  Rawls’s (2001)  first principle of “justice as fairness,” which states:

  · Principle One: Each person has the same indefeasible claim to a fully adequate scheme of equal basic liberties, which scheme is compatible with the same scheme of liberties for all. (p. 42)

  The justice as fairness concept will be further extended to the ethical considerations of equality (social justice) and fraternity (social capital) embedded in the ISLLC standards. The concepts of equality and fraternity are considered in the second of Rawls’s Principles of Justice:

  · Principle Two: Social and economic inequities are to satisfy two conditions: first, they are to be attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity; and second, they are to be to the greatest benefit of the least-advantaged members of society (the difference principle). (pp. 42–43)

  Rawls’s second principle consists of two conditions under which inequalities may exist. The first condition of the second principle considers fair equality of opportunity. The second condition of the second principle considers when inequalities are justified.

  Fair Equality of Opportunity