From Dropout Factory to College Student Incubator – A school district on the Texas border with Mexico achieved an astounding transformation that could be an example for the rest of the nation. Pharr-San Juan-Alamo is a 99 percent Latino district. A few years ago, the percentage of students in the district who dropped out was more than twice that of the entire state of Texas. Now, the district has drastically cut the number of dropouts by 85 percent and notably increased the number of students who are graduating from high school with college credits. How did this metamorphosis happen? The superintendent who implemented the changes, Dr. Daniel King, participated in a special education forum held by Radio Bilingüe in Edinburg, Texas. These are some of his words.
Culture Through Recipes – In San Diego, a group of refugee women from East Africa realized that their daughters born in the United States were eating too much fast food and not the traditional delicacies of their native Somalia, Eritrea, and other countries. They got together to start a cooking class, where they show their daughters how to cook the recipes they learned from their own mothers and grandmothers, both to take care of their health and to take care of their culture. Manuel Ocaño visited one of these community cooking classes and has this story. This feature report is part of our series Raíces: Stories About Grassroots Artists.
