1. VA schools up scores in ESL
2. Cape Cod businesses struggle
3. Probe on detainee death continues
4. Exec. pleads guilty to charges

1.
Testing Change Raises Scores
Va. Assesses Those Learning English On Class Work
By Michael Alison Chandler and Maria Glod
The Washington Post, August 28, 2008; B01

A switch in testing for students who are learning English fueled a rebound in scores this year for immigrant-rich schools in Northern Virginia that had failed the year before to meet targets set under the federal No Child Left Behind law.

Scores dipped last year when the federal government for the first time required Virginia school systems to give English learners the same reading tests as classmates who speak English fluently, a mandate that local educators vehemently opposed as unfair.

This year, federal officials allowed the state to assess thousands of English-learning students through portfolios of their work over the school year instead of through the state reading test. The results announced yesterday marked another turn in the national debate over the best way to test millions of students who are new to English.

"We are now using an appropriate test," said Fairfax County School Superintendent Jack D. Dale. The new assessment "more accurately reflects their learning of English and reading skills," he said.

In the region's largest school system and across the state, scores on the spring Virginia Standards of Learning tests climbed in almost every subject area and for most racial and ethnic groups.

Statewide, 84 percent of students passed the standardized math exams, a four-point increase over the previous year. And 87 percent passed the reading tests, a two-point gain. In both subjects, African American and Hispanic students made the greatest gains, narrowing the gap between them and white students.

The results mean that the state and several Northern Virginia school systems, including those in Fairfax, Prince William and Loudoun counties, reached targets the state established to comply with the federal law. For Loudoun, it was the first time its schools, as a whole, met the benchmarks.

Under the law, schools and school systems must meet steadily rising goals on reading and math tests on a path toward 100 percent proficiency by 2014. Certain groups, including ethnic or racial groups and students from low-income families, also must make gains. This year, the number of schools that failed to meet benchmarks dropped sharply in some places, from 71 to 55 in Fairfax, 14 to 9 in Arlington County and 13 to 3 in Loudoun. Those that receive federal poverty aid and fail two years or more in a row face sanctions.

This year, schools faced a tougher challenge because the state raised its targets: 75 percent of students were required to pass math tests and 77 percent were required to pass reading tests. Four years ago, the benchmarks were 59 percent and 61 percent, respectively.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/27/AR200808...

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2.
Immigration debate cuts Cape's summer worker supply
By Tania deLuzuriaga
The Boston Globe, August 29, 2008

Wellfleet -- With summer in full swing, vacationers are clogging the restaurants, shops, and inns of this town on the outer reaches of Cape Cod. But behind the counters, in the kitchens and back rooms, it is another story. Help is in very short supply.

The seasonal visa program that for years has supplied thousands of foreign workers to Cape Cod and the islands each summer has been entangled in Congress's contentious immigration debate, and business owners are struggling to manage high-season workloads with skeleton staffs.

Across the Cape, businesses that cater to tourists say labor shortages are forcing them to cut back on services and pay large amounts of overtime to the small number of workers they have found. Many owners are frantically trying to handle unfilled jobs themselves.

"We all joke that we're losing weight," said Judy Pihl, an inn and tavern keeper who has lived in Wellfleet since 1974. "Everyone is moving faster and longer. But the public comes in with expectations, and you don't want them to know that you're short-staffed."

On Martha's Vineyard, the amount of overtime paid for bus drivers has tripled from last year. At Wellfleet's The Wicked Oyster, the staff shortage has meant that the restaurant no longer serves lunch. And at nearby Mac's Seafood, owner Mac Hay is planning to close for the season two weeks early.

"I can't emphasize enough how much of a strain this has put on us," Hay said.

In past years, some 7,000 workers arrived on the Cape with temporary H-2B visas allowing them in the country to work during the busy summer months. But the flow of workers was cut off this year when Congress, locked in a battle over revamping immigration laws, balked at renewing the seasonal visa program. As a result, the number of seasonal visas available nationwide was cut almost in half. Those visas were quickly snapped up by winter resorts, which are allowed to file paperwork earlier than employers who hire for the summer.

For employers like Hay, it has meant that the seasoned employees who returned to his restaurant's kitchen year after year could not come this summer. He hired 30 new employees at the beginning of the season who needed to be trained on everything from handling food to working the cash register. He estimated that the additional training added about 1,000 hours to his payroll.

"You can sustain a hit like that one year," he said. "But at some point, you start to wonder why you're doing it."

Businesses have filled their ranks in several ways. Some, like Hay, have hired foreign workers who were already in the country with seasonal work visas and then were granted extensions. Others, like Pihl, turned to international students who entered the country through a separate visa program that allows them to work for three or four months at a time. But the students return home at the end of the month, leaving her with a shortage for September and October. And most J-1 visa workers aren't allowed to return for a second season, which means she will have a new crop to train next spring.
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http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/08/29/division_of_labor/?...

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3.
Autopsy: Immigrant inmate had blunt trauma
No conclusion on how wounds were inflicted
By Harvey Rice
The Houston Chronicle, August 28, 2008

Galveston -- An autopsy report released Thursday is unlikely to resolve a dispute over whether a 17-year-old illegal immigrant was beaten by League City police before hanging himself in the Galveston County Jail.

The report said Arturo Chavez had a half-inch wound on the right side of his head, black eyes and marks on his back, but reached no conclusion as to how the wounds were inflicted.

"There is blunt trauma," said Stephen Pustilnik, Galveston County chief medical examiner. "Whether you would call that a beating, I don't know. He could have hit his head on something or something could have hit him in the head."

A Galveston County Sheriff's Office report says Chavez was being housed in the medical wing of the jail when he hanged himself Aug. 3 because nurses were unsure whether bruising around his eyes was caused by infection or injury.

His parents, who live in Guatemala, have filed a federal lawsuit accusing League City police of using excessive force and Galveston County jail officials of ignoring his suicidal tendencies.

Chavez, who entered the country illegally, was arrested for driving without a valid license and was being held for immigration officials Aug. 1, when he bolted from his cell, according to League City police reports.

Officers struck Chavez three times with a baton and shocked him with a Taser twice after he tried to scale a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire, according to the reports.
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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/metro/5972950.html

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4.
Doughnut exec pleads guilty in immigration case
By Anabelle Garay
The Associated Press, August 28, 2008

Dallas (AP) -- The president of family-owned Shipley Do-Nuts pleaded guilty to a federal charge Thursday in one of the latest crackdowns on employers who hire illegal immigrants.

Lawrence W. Shipley III pleaded guilty in Houston to a misdemeanor charge of continuing to employ unauthorized workers and was placed on six months probation, officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said.

Shipley Do-Nuts — which includes Shipley Do-Nut Flour and Supply Co. and Shipley Properties — was expected to plead guilty next week to knowingly hiring illegal immigrants, ICE said. The company would forfeit $1.3 million and be placed on probation, ICE said.

The case is one of several brought recently against employers and managers who hire illegal immigrants. Since October 2007, ICE agents have made more then 1,000 criminal arrests — of workers and others_ connected to worksite investigations. Out of those arrests, 116 involved company owners, managers, supervisors or human resources employees.

Immigrant advocates have long criticized ICE, saying the agency too often targets undocumented workers while letting the employers who hire them go unscathed.
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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/5972400.html