First Lady talks education to Hispanic audience

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By Percy Luján

NEW YORK CITY — First Lady Michelle Obama, featured speaker at the League of United Latin American Citizens convention, which concluded here this past week, didn’t venture into the national debate about the 50,000-plus Central American children clogging the U.S.-Mexico border. She left that contentious politicized subject up to husband Barack. Instead, addressing 1,200 LULAC members at a unity luncheon here, she chose to talk about education and Latino youth. After commending LULAC for its consistent civil rights advocacy on Latino and black education issues, she shifted, “While all of you are proud of what you did, you are by no means satisfied.”

A U.S. Department of Education study released in April showed the high school graduation rate for Hispanic students nationwide was 73 percent, 13 points lower than for white students in the school year ending in 2012. For African-American students it was 69 percent.

Helper Natividad Vasquez (right) and cook Lupita Ceron de Navarrete prepare steak fingers at Hillcrest Middle School. (Brenda Armendariz/Borderzine.com)

New federal school-meal guidelines cause concern in some and revulsion in others

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EL PASO — Just like Cookie Monster who is now eating more vegetables and fewer cookies, students in all El Paso school districts must also eat a healthier diet due to the new federal nutrition standards for school meals. But many young students are tossing their healthy meals at Oscar’s garbage can. Officials say that high school students have been more accepting of the new menu, but middle school students have been placing the required fruits or vegetables right into the garbage can. The new federal nutrition standards went into effect on July 1st, 2012 as part of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 introduced by First Lady Michelle Obama. These meals must meet science-based requirements to provide a healthier lifestyle to students in Texas schools.