Marjorie Faulstich Orellana

On March 13th, the Los Angeles Unified School District authorized a worst-case scenario budget that would eliminate education for adults unless other hoped-for means of balancing the budget are achieved. The logic that the school board seemed to use is that it's easier to take the ax to an entire...

Last week I was informed that my son and his high school peers will be put in detention if they do not have their student IDs with them on campus.

I was shocked. Detention? Just for forgetting an ID? What kind of a police state are we becoming?...

The job market has always been segmented and stratified by race, class and gender. This point was brought home to me when, on Labor Day, I thought about my earliest work experiences, and realized how infused they were with my awareness of race and class. Then I thought about who...

In my last column I suggested that schools often don't see and appreciate the bilingual virtuosity of immigrant youth. They focus instead on what these children lack -- i.e. proficiency in English. I suggested that there are different ways of viewing limitations. These thoughts were inspired by a colleague, Luis...

For some time, I have been thinking about what education might look like if we truly wanted to build on the linguistic and cultural assets of bilingual youth.

I'm referring to youth who used to be called "Limited English Proficient" students in school. Now they're labeled "English Learners," but schools...

On-line forums are a new space for the public sharing of opinions. There are few established forms of etiquette, as the responses to my two previous blogs would suggest. The aim of the May 21 essay -- an appeal to the hearts of readers for empathy toward the...

The responses to my May 7th essay about the effects of Arizona law on children were illuminating.

I put children at the center of my argument. This may be dismissed as a rhetorical strategy to play on the emotions of readers.

But what would it mean to look the children...

Adriana Sosa was nine when her family was pulled over by the police. This was a few years ago in Illinois, though, not in Arizona this past April. An English-speaking child of Spanish-speaking parents, Adriana had to translate for the police and her father, but she didn't have to explain...