Non-Profit Organization Seeking Local Families for Hosting High School Exchange Students
ASSE International Student Exchange Programs (ASSE), in cooperation with your community high school, is looking for local families to host boys and girls between the ages of 15 to 18 from a variety of countries: Norway, Denmark, Spain, Italy, Japan, to name a few.
ASSE students come with an enthusiasm to practice their English and experience American culture - food, sports, shopping and more. They also love to share their own culture and language with their host families. Host families welcome these students into their family, not as a guest, but as a family member, giving both the students and families a rich cultural experience.
In addition, ASSE students have pocket money for personal expenses and full health, accident and liability insurance. ASSE students are academically selected into the program, and host families can choose their student from a wide variety of backgrounds, countries and personal interests.
To become a host family or to find out how to become involved with ASSE in your community, please call us at the ASSE Western Regional Office at 1-800-733-2773 or go to www.host.asse.com to choose your student and begin your host family application.
There are many students to choose from, so begin the process of welcoming your new son or daughter into your family today!
ASSE International (formerly American Scandinavian Student Exchange) is a non-profit, tax-exempt, public benefit organization. ASSE is officially designated as an exchange visitor program by the United States Department of State, was founded by the Swedish National Department of Education.
=================================
Chaos or Community in Immigration Policy
By Andrew Moss
847 words
If you scan the Internet for immigration-related news stories following the Trump administration's May 7 announcement of its "zero tolerance" border policy, you'll find the word "chaos" coming up time and time again. Here, for example, is a July 10 headline from my hometown paper, the Los Angeles Times: "First wave of migrants is reunited: amid chaos and legal clashes, U.S. returns 38 of 102 children to parents but misses deadline set by judge."
In this headline the Times editors used the word "chaos" to allude to several kinds of disorder depicted in the news story: the suffering of 64 families with children under 5 who were still separated from their parents, the anguish and anxiety facing another 2000-3000 children ages 5-17 who had yet to be reunited with their parents, and the general uncertainty produced by constant fluctuations in government policy and actions.
If there were any pattern to this chaos, it was identified by U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee, who rejected the administration's effort to extend the amount the time that children could be detained. In explaining her July 9 ruling, Judge Gee described the administration's effort as a "cynical attempt...to shift responsibility to the Judiciary for over 20 years of Congressional inaction and ill-considered Executive action that have led to the current stalemate."
Judge Gee pinpointed a crucial fact about the current situation. President Trump has steered immigration policy to new heights of cruelty and turmoil, but our immigration system has been vexed by serious problems long before he came into office. Though the judge didn't address broader issues of policy in her ruling, her critique still provokes consideration of a basic question: how do we find our way out of the chaos facing us today?
A number of commentators have argued that it's essential we first come to terms with U.S. involvements in Central America that helped stoke the political instability and violence impelling people to journey northward in search of safety and livelihood. They point, for example, to the CIA involvement in the 1954 coup that overthrew Guatemala's democratically elected government, and to the subsequent U.S. military involvement in a civil war (1960-1996) that claimed 200,000 lives. Similarly, the U.S. provided significant military aid to a right-wing government in El Salvador responsible for killings, kidnappings, and torture during a devastating civil war (1980-1992) that claimed more than 75,000 lives. During these conflicts and in ensuing decades, thousands of people fled to the U.S. Now, as thousands more arrive at our borders fleeing violence, often inflicted by gangs incubated in the U.S. and stimulated abroad by our own harsh deportation policies, they argue that homeland security should be guided by a firm sense of global responsibility rather than the fear and amnesia binding us ever more tightly in the confining walls of a garrison state.
University of Southern California professor Roberto Suro noted that President Trump has submitted budget requests for immigration enforcement and detention ($26 billion) and for a border wall ($18 billion) that almost match the gross domestic product of El Salvador and Honduras combined ($46 billion). As he said in a recent New York Times column, "a fraction of the enforcement budget well spent on economic development . . . would be a better use of taxpayer dollars than trying to intercept people in flight at a militarized border and then criminalizing them."
But more than responsibility is needed as a foundational value for homeland security. Justice is needed as well. More than 50 years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. published his fourth and final book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? In that book, he addressed the interconnected evils of racism, militarism, and economic injustice, not only in the context of American society, but in a global sense as well. In his final chapter, "The World House," he discussed the technological and scientific changes that have made human societies throughout the world ever more interdependent – and that have heightened expectations for human rights and dignity.
When he published Where Do We Go From Here? in 1967, the U.S. had no detention system for migrants. Such a system, driven by the profit motive and rife with human rights abuses, wouldn't come into place until the 1980s. Now, more than 50 years later, it's time to abolish that system and begin realizing the global promise of a just and interdependent society that Dr. King had envisioned. Are there sane and sound alternatives to detention? Yes, there are, and they've been proven to work in community accompaniment programs around the country that have supported migrants seeking asylum, seeking a place in American society. (For further information, see the website for the organization, "Freedom for Immigrants": https://www.freedomforimmigrants.org/).
As he often did in his writings, King concluded his book with a challenge. Invoking the power of nonviolence, he declared, "We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent coannihilation. This may well be mankind's last chance to choose between chaos and community." That choice, in a different time and in a different context, is still before us today.
–end–
Andrew Moss, syndicated by PeaceVoice,is an emeritus professoratthe California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, where he taught a course, “War and Peace inLiterature,” for 10years.
===================
A weekly report on education news and commentary you won’t find anywhere else — from the nation’s leading voice on education innovation and opportunity.
POLITICS AS USUAL. As if on cue to lend credence to the wisdom of the Supreme Court’s Janus v. AFSCME decision (which frees individuals from being forced to fund unions they don’t support) last week’s AFT annual meeting more closely resembled the quadrennial national party conventions than a gathering of teachers devoted to education and learning. Not only was the AFT’s laundry list of resolutions laced with criticism of the current administration, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and current Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders all showed up to rally the troops and lead the charge toward political victory in November and beyond!!! Also joining in the AFT’s pep rally and cheerleading tryouts were noted labor bosses, Lee Saunders (AFSCME), Lily Eskelsen-Garcia, (NEA), and Mary Kay Henry (SEIU). Notably absent – any talk of meaningful reform of schools and everyone whose ideas, opinions, or political leanings don’t conform to the union leaders’ views of America.
THE WRONG RESPONSE. Of course much of the AFT’s focus was on the biggest issue of concern to parents and children across the country: the impact of Janus on the union! Leading the way in the torches-and-pitchforks rally was AFT president Randi Weingarten who was on a tear orating, among other things, about how “They [the infamous and dangerous “they”] have attacked us and perverted and weaponized the First Amendment, the freedom of speech in a way that no one recognizes.”
SCHOOLYARD SCUFFLE. There’s never been any love lost between Nevada’s competing teachers unions – Clark County Education Association (CCEA) and the new National Education Association of Southern Nevada (NEA-SN) – but now their relationship has devolved into a playground hair-pulling affair complete with name-calling and fit-throwing. The problem comes down to who’s taking members away from whom and is best explained by an impartial observer who says it’s all about money. “I hate to be so crass to say it that way, but if you lose 10,000 members that’s money that’s gone.” Offers another observer: “The only word that comes to my mind is incompetency.” Oh well. If nothing else, at least the unions’ priorities are nicely aligned with their national counterparts.
A BIG CHANGE IN THE BIG EASY. After hurricane Katrina back in 2005 Louisiana abolished its old, failing, school system in favor of a system of charter schools. So how has it worked out? As The New York Times reports “…academic progress has been remarkable. Performance on every kind of standardized test has surged.” A caution is in order, however. The Time’s piece was sparked by the state returning schools to “local control” – to the Orleans Parish School Board, for example which has historically opposed giving any power to schools or autonomy to individuals – and threatens to be a step toward a return to the structure, and mindset, that doomed New Orleans students to violent and chronically failing schools before Katrina.
NOW THERE’S A THOUGHT. A well-reasoned piece out of New Mexico where an op-ed – “Bureaucracy stifles innovation at NM schools” – points to the need for an education system that provides “innovative solutions that fit local needs…we should be asking, what does your local community need from its graduates and what experiences will prepare them for the future? Or, how can we give students real-life internship experiences that teach students the skills they need to be prepared in our ever-changing workforce?” Here, here!
THOSE DARN PARENTS. It won’t come as a shock to learn that as enrollment in charter schools in North Carolina rises, and attendance in the state’s traditional public schools falls – it’s down, for the third straight year, to 81 percent and falling fast – the status quo sees a conspiracy afoot to “dismantle public schools.” But when you open the gates and people can leave – and they do – it says something about the existing offerings. Advocates of traditional public school shouldn’t complain but figure out how to keep students without calling parents undemocratic or accusing them of trying to dismantle the public schools simply because they their kids educated to their own needs.
REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN for our Silver Anniversary Summit + Celebration. More info at edreform.com.
Friends, Allies & faithful Newswire Readers: We've moved! Our new address is:
1455 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Suite 250, Washington, DC 20004
Founded in 1993, the Center for Education Reform aims to expand educational opportunities that lead to improved economic outcomes for all Americans — particularly our youth — ensuring that conditions are ripe for innovation, freedom and flexibility throughout U.S. education.
