Friends of Refugees

A U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program Watchdog Group

Archive for the ‘Nashville’ Category

State Dept. Gave One Day Notice Of PRM Acting Assistant Secretary Robinson’s Nashville Visit

Posted by Christopher Coen on February 9, 2012

The State Department’s refugee office is going about its usual way of doing business by having yet another local program visit, this time in Nashville, with local resettlement contractors and their hand-selected refugee clients (this ensures that no one utters any free-spirited or critical comments about the local resettlement contractors, or their government oversight friends). Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) David M. Robinson is in Nashville February 8-9 (reminds me of the former Assistant Secretary’s — Eric P. Schwartz’s — trips to Salt Lake City and Portland and Denver and Phoenix). Robinson answered a few questions two weeks ago during an online live chat. The PRM put out a press release with only 24 hours or less to go before this Nashville visit – apparently in an attempt to keep away all save for insiders.

Media Note

Office of the Spokesperson

Washington, DC

February 7, 2012

Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) David M. Robinson will travel from February 8-9, 2012 to Nashville, Tennessee to meet with resettled refugees, refugee resettlement agencies, local and state government officials, and other community members involved in the resettlement of refugees…

If you wish to attend, please contact [the] PRM’s Public Affairs Advisor…by close of business on February 8. Read more here

Posted in Assistant Secretary of the PRM, democracy, Nashville, public/private partnership | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

After Nashville school district’s civil rights violation, foreign-language speaking students now desgregated

Posted by Christopher Coen on February 7, 2011

The Nashville school district is beginning to make progress on helping foreign-language speaking students learn English after a 2008 state Civil Rights Office violation for segregating the students to classes where they were unable to learn English from peers. An article in The Tennessean tells more.

…Throughout Metro Nashville Public schools, these stories are becoming more common as refugees from Africa and Asia and immigrants from Mexico and Central America show up at the schoolhouse gate. Nashville has more of these students than the state’s other three largest districts combined.

Students whose first language isn’t English were 15 percent of Metro’s public school enrollment in 2005. They’re 22 percent today. The majority require special services that, a decade ago, local educators barely knew existed. In 2008, after a state Office of Civil Rights violation over foreign-language speakers’ treatment, the district was forced to rethink its approach…

…Fixing violations

Lumping together foreign-language speakers for classes was an Office of Civil Rights violation, uncovered by a state official checking how Metro educated its immigrant students. The state allows nine models for teaching English Language Learners, and none allow a district to keep students together all day for longer than one year.

“The segregation of any students is wrong,” said Linda DePriest, assistant superintendent for instructional support, who now oversees the Office of English Learners. “Children learn just as much from their peers as their lessons. We deny them that if their peers lack English skills.”

The district hired office Executive Director Nicole Chaput-Guiziani from Massachusetts, and she brought fresh ideas to the program. This school year, all English Language Learners take at least some classes with their mainstream peers and can stay in Newcomer Academies only one year.

Metro lagged in getting students out of English Language Learning services within five years — the time it takes the average student to learn enough English to succeed in school — and services varied among schools, the George Washington University study noted…

…The hope is that more students will learn on the proper grade level for their age faster — another challenge Metro faces. Under the federal No Child Left Behind law, a district fails if its English Language Learners don’t test on grade level in reading and math. From elementary to high school, the subgroup has missed benchmarks in Metro three out of the past four years… Read more here

Posted in Catholic Charities of Tennessee, children, language, Nashville, reform, school for refugee children, schools, teenagers, Tennessee | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

 
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