If you are an educator or just a taxpayer in a Somali “welcoming” town, this is a story for you. In Portland, Oregon, Somali activists want a dual language program for their children, many of whom are ‘graduating’ from high school, but without a diploma! I didn’t even know there was such a thing! Do they just age-out?
Here is the story at the Street Roots News. Apparently the recent wave (it is very large) of new Somali refugees are especially illiterate.
There are nearly 500 Somali youth currently attending Portland Public Schools (PPS), and since 2010, they’ve combined to make the district’s third largest immigrant community, behind Hispanics and Vietnamese. More than half don’t speak any English, and some had little, if any, formal education prior to moving to the U.S. This is especially true of the most recent wave of Somali immigrants. Many children in this group were born in refugee camps in Kenya and, like Mohamud, never attended school. In addition, few have parents with the education necessary to help them with their homework.
Everyone reading this should be giving serious thought to the fact that the next generation of Somalis in America are working (if they are working) at menial labor according to Street Roots News.
Remember Portland’s most infamous Somali youth—-the Christmas tree bomber, here.
We have resettled well over 100,000 Somalis around the country in the last 25 years. 9,000 came in fiscal year 2014 and we are on target to surpass 10,000 this year.