TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Los ex pasantes no remunerados en el Congreso, están ampliando su búsqueda de pasantías remuneradas con un subsidio de $200,000 para investigar las desigualdades raciales en los programas de pasantías en todo el país.
El grupo Pay Our Interns fue fundado por pasantes que recopilaron datos, que muestran que el 90 por ciento de los miembros de la Cámara de Representantes de Estados Unidos no ofrecieron pagar a las personas que trabajaron con ellos como pasantes en 2017.
El Director Ejecutivo Carlos Mark Vera dice que por lo general los estudiantes de color son los que a menudo pierden estas oportunidades de trabajo, por que no pueden permitirse trabajar gratis.
"Para las personas que no lo saben, una pasantia puede costar hasta $6,000 cuando se habla de alquiler, transporte, ropa profesional, especialmente porque la mayoria de las pasantias se realizan en ciudades como Nueva York, D.C., Miami, lugares que no son exactamente baratos, por lo que en su mayoria son ninos acomodados."
Un informe de la Asociación Nacional de Universidades y Empleadores dice que los estudiantes blancos tienen más probabilidades de haber sido pagados como pasantes que los estudiantes negros, y es más probable que los estudiantes latinx nunca hayan sido pasantes.
Vera dice que el subsidio del Fondo de Equidad y Justicia Racial de $15 millones de la Fundación Lumina, se utilizará para expandir su investigación más allá del gobierno, en universidades y centros profesionales.
Cuando Pay Our Interns publicó por primera vez su informe que mostraba que la mayoría de los congresistas no les pagaba a sus pasantes, se produjeron cambios rápidos en Capitol Hill. Desde entonces, el Congreso ha aprobado presupuestos de $14 a 17 millones al año para financiar programas de pasantías.
Sin embargo, Vera ha encontrado que algunos hijos de políticos donantes y otras personas que podrían permitirse ser pasantes no remunerados, también están aprovechandose de estos fondos.
"No se trata de solo pagar a los pasantes, sino que tambien se debe examinar quienes estan obteniendo estas oportunidades pagadas, ese es el objetivo de esta subvencion, esto realmente nos permite tener los recursos para investigar y obtener mas datos."
Vera dice que su grupo quiere asegurarse de que las personas de todos los orígenes estén representadas en todas las industrias. Él cree que esto se puede lograr asegurando una mayor equidad en los programas de pasantías que inician carreras en todo el país.
La Fundacion Lumina proporciono apoyo para este informe.
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It's estimated that nearly half of all schools in the country don't have enough teachers. To help change that, the University of Texas in El Paso offers a residency program to help ensure that first-time teachers succeed.
The "Miner Teacher Residency" gives students in the College of Education an opportunity to work in elementary and middle schools alongside working teachers.
Clifton Tanabe, dean of the UTEP College of Education, was part of a recent national roundtable discussion on ways to solve the teacher shortage, and said the program gives future educators the skills they need to be ready for their first day of class.
"A third grader in a first-year teacher's classroom is only going to get to do third grade once, but that teacher will be able to do the third grade again and again," he explained. "So, we want them ready for that first group of third graders that they take on."
Tanabe added nearly half of the students enrolled in the program are first-generation college students and 70% are bilingual. He adds that mirrors the population of students in the public school system in El Paso, where 90% of the students are Hispanic. Most of the new teachers remain in the area, he said.
Many school districts have been forced to leave positions open, or fill them with teachers who are not fully certified. Some rural Texas districts have gone to a four-day school week. And some teachers are leaving the profession, citing increased workloads, low pay and concerns about safety.
According to Tanabe, teacher retention is directly related to being successful in the first two years on the job - and the UT program addresses this.
"So, folks who graduate from our residency model in their first and second years in teaching are set up with an instructional coach who's from the university, from the College of Education, to work with them on individualized instructional improvement," he continued.
The residency program is in its sixth year. It currently has 62 teachers working in five different school districts in the El Paso area.
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Ohio's Black students are more likely to face excessively harsh discipline practices such as expulsion and suspension, according to a recently released report from the Children's Defense Fund of Ohio.
The data show out-of-school suspensions and expulsions rose in every grade level from kindergarten through twelfth grade in the 2022-23 school year, compared with the previous academic year.
John Standford, state director for the Children's Defense Fund of Ohio, said economically disadvantaged students comprised 83% of all out-of-school suspensions.
"School districts really have to pay closer attention to the data and really screen the data, review the data, on a regular basis to really begin to address the issues of inequities," Standford urged.
Last year saw 174,000 cases of total suspension or expulsion among low-income students compared to 35,000 cases among students who do not qualify as economically disadvantaged. According to the report, Black females in Ohio were six times more likely to receive out-of-school suspensions than their white female peers. Black males were also more than four times more likely to be suspended or expelled than their white male peers.
Kim Eckhart, research manager for the fund, said she understands the difficulties teachers face. She hopes the report encourages districts across the state to support schools with the resources and time needed to address behavioral problems restoratively.
"We need schools to be supporting teachers with additional time and space," Eckhart contended. "So that there is capacity to address these things, rather than just kicking the student out of the class, kicking them out of the school."
School discipline practices are also linked to Ohio's alarmingly high chronic absenteeism rates. According to the report, missing as little as two days of school per month can lead to chronic absence. More than 26% of Ohio students -- more than 400,000 children -- were chronically absent from school in the 2022-2023 school year, up by nearly half from the 2018-19 school year.
Disclosure: The Children's Defense Fund of Ohio/KIDS COUNT contributes to our fund for reporting on Children's Issues, Education, Health Issues, and Hunger/Food/Nutrition. If you would like to help support news in the public interest,
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Idaho lawmakers are considering a measure that would eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs on college campuses.
Critics say it could keep potential students from attending school in the state. Senate Bill 1357 would prohibit the use of state funds for DEI, and DEI offices from operating at colleges and universities.
Nick Koenig is a PhD student in geography at the University of Idaho.
"These positions that are trying to be taken away from this bill are specifically to foster student success on campus," said Koenig, "not just for students from marginalized groups but also just the totality of the campus community."
Lawmakers supporting the bill say eliminating DEI programs would save the state more than $3 million.
But Koenig said the consequences of eliminating these positions will have ripple effects. He said he spoke with the LGBTQ office at the University of Idaho before deciding to attend.
"The person I originally chatted with before coming to this university," said Koenig, "if her position was just not there, I would not have come to this university at all."
Koenig said the legislation would also make it hard to recruit people to colleges and universities in Idaho.
"People go to school say that they can see themselves as COOs or as teachers or as sociologists or as geographers, like in my case," said Koenig, "and if I saw that they're actively trying to remove me as a queer person from the state then, yeah, why would I want to spend four years in a state that wants to remove me as a person?"
Support for this reporting was provided by Lumina Foundation.
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