Immigrant detention: immigrant abuse meets mass incarceration

I first learned of El Refugio in 2014, when the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University, the organization I worked for at the time, put on a conference about immigration. Marie Marquardt, the organization’s board chair emeritus, mentioned El Refugio while on a panel discussing immigrant detention, a horror I did not know existed.

She explained that El Refugio was a ministry of hospitality, providing visitation to immigrants detained at Stewart Detention Center in the rural and isolated Lumpkin, Georgia, and free accommodations and meals to the friends and family members of detainees. I thought this was such a beautiful concept, so gracious and giving, a shining light of kindness amid dark circumstances.

When a job opportunity at El Refugio surfaced four years later, I jumped! Now I am learning all about immigrant detention and the network of privately operated civil prisons spread around the country that house more than 110,000 immigrants. The best sources for information are Freedom for Immigrants, and this publication by Project South.

I am so honored to work with detained immigrants and their families and to get the opportunity to educate myself about the gross violation of human rights going on right in my state. (Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms stopped detaining immigrants on behalf of ICS in Atlanta shortly after taking office.)

I will share more as I learn more…

This little yellow house is where the inherent kindness of El Refugio unfolds. We provide accommodation and meals to families who are visiting loved ones at Stewart Detention Center, which is right down the street.

She asked for books, and she got 15,000 books

A mom in a struggling California town posted requests for books on two online writer's groups, and she ended up receiving more than 15,000 books for the local school library. Books, says Garcia, offer a world beyond the isolation that can breed intolerance. "I hear sweet kids say stupid things about Asian Americans and Chicanos. A little diverse information could go a long way in helping stem rural American racism, sexism, and homophobia." 

Indian Valley Academy has not had a librarian since 1997. 

Khloe's care packages

I love this story about an 8-year-old girl who makes bags filled with essentials for homeless women. Makes me want to break out my sewing machine!

A few of the many, many things that bug me about standardized testing

When I left my career as an education journalist, I wanted to reinvent myself as an education activist. I have done that over the years by serving on the board of a charter school, starting a neighborhood group to support my local elementary school, and writing op-eds about education for Get Schooled, the AJC blog I founded in 2004.

But some issues bother me so much and on so many different levels, I hardly know where to start to try to make an impact. The fading of recess is one such issue and high-stakes standardized testing is another.

I tried getting my arms around standardized testing in this op-ed for Get Schooled. It started as a letter to the state school board and superintendent, but after months of going back and forth trying to determine the appropriate public forum to read my letter, I gave up, emailed it to them, and published it.

I consider it a very abbreviated screed, focused only on a few of my testing peeves: lying to students about the high-stakes nature of the test, questionable grading practices, and the lack of accountability for testing companies. There are many other concerns I have, but these were some I had not seen discussed elsewhere. It's hard to let some points go unsaid, but it is better to focus on a few digestible points than try to cover too much. There will always be room in the blogosphere for another post about testing.