It’s for the children.
Via U.S. News
Like many sojourners to this country, Alejandro Fuentes Mena lives with uncertainty as U.S. immigration policy is debated in the courts, Congress and the White House. But as he awaits a final ruling on his own future, he’s helping other young people build their dreams.
Fuentes, who settled in the United States illegally as a child, is a Denver elementary school teacher under a pilot program that recruits young immigrants like him to teach disadvantaged students. Teach for America, a national nonprofit running the program, believes people like Fuentes can be role models for students.
Fuentes, 23, has applied for a work permit and reprieve from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, a presidential order. Recipients of deferred action, like Fuentes, are also known as DREAMers.
Fuentes wasn’t directly affected by a judicial order this year that stopped the White House from expanding the number of immigrants who could remain in the country temporarily. But it left him worried. “If they overturn this part of immigration reform, will they go back and overturn other parts?” he said.
In the meantime, the Teach for America program he’s involved in has grown from two teachers in Denver, where it was launched last year, to 40 teachers in classrooms across the country, including Arizona, California and New Mexico. Denver’s 11 instructors with DACA status comprise the largest group. Teach for America plans to create more opportunities for immigrants like Fuentes.[…]
Critics question whether Teach for America’s five-week training course leaves candidates unprepared for the classroom and discouraged from making teaching a career. Candidates commit to two years’ teaching.
Keri Dallman, president of the Colorado Education Association teachers’ union, said one thing Teach for America does “exceptionally well is recruit quality candidates. But if those high quality candidates don’t stay in the classroom beyond two years, then we really haven’t solved the problem.”
Denver’s initiative has inspired other districts to look at DREAMers. In Colorado’s Eagle County, home to Vail, Superintendent Jason Glass is considering hiring teachers with DACA status. Half the district’s 6,800 public school students are Hispanic, and 40 percent are learning English.
“Denver definitely put the idea in our heads,” Glass said.