History of IDEA
Jeannie Oakes, Founder and Former Director
Youth Voice in School Finance
NEW REPORT: Los Angeles' road to A-G for all
Without Dollars and Sense Powerpoint
Past Educational Opportunity Reports
A lesson about speaking up
- 03-29-2010
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By Hector Tobar/Los Angeles Times
The parents I met on 104th Street in Watts are immigrants from Mexico, for the most part, but they're well established in Los Angeles. They own pickup trucks and vans, and many proudly claim to be either legal residents or naturalized U.S. citizens. Even though Spanish is their first language, most have lived here a decade or so and are fairly fluent in English. One aspect of U.S. culture, however, remains a great mystery to them: the school system. "In Durango I learned my times tables by the time I was in third grade," Gerardo Jasso, a 43-year-old metal polisher told me, describing his childhood in northern Mexico. "I had to memorize them." (more...)
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