preschool opportunities over the past year with over 500 kids for full day preschool and this year we enrolled over 2,000 kids. We’ve taken kindergarten from 70% full day to 90% full day. So, I think that’s the start - getting kids in school early and giving them the chance to succeed.
For the students whom we have in the elementary school is to make sure that we have strong efforts to reach the individual needs of our students whether they are English language learners or students who speak English at home, having an academic program and structural program that meets their needs. I think that we’ve made a lot of progress in terms of our English Language learners and our approach to English Language learners, but we’ve got a heck of a lot farther to go in terms of training our teachers and having differentiated instruction and having our teachers truly understand the language needs of their students. Because for some, the way that they speak or the way that they communicate, they may appear to be completely fluent English speakers, but that sort of oral fluency sometimes masks the fact that some reading skills may not be there; that some literacy skills may not be there; some understanding of the higher order, text skills or vocabulary may not be there; that’s hidden behind someone who could have a perfectly fluent every day conversation with you – so I think that’s important.
I also think at the secondary level one of the things we are starting to see that we need more of are programs targeted at students who are at risk of dropping out or students who have dropped out. Many of our existing high schools are bringing forth Credit Recovery Programs. Where someone
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Temp agencies, ‘raiteros’ exploit undocumented
Ty Inc. became one of the world's largest manufacturers of stuffed animals thanks to the Beanie Babies craze in the 1990s.
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Ty Inc. became one of the world's largest manufacturers of stuffed animals thanks to the Beanie Babies craze in the 1990s.
But it has stayed on top partly by using an underworld of labor brokers known as raiteros, who pick up workers from Chicago's street corners and shuttle them to Ty's ...
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