“Perhaps we can bring the day when children will learn from their earliest days that being fully man and fully woman means to give one’s life to the liberation of the brother who suffers. It is up to each one of us. It won’t happen unless we decide to user our lives to show the way.” -Cesar Chavez
Migrant Education
- There are an estimated 900,000 migrant students. About 50% finish high school. (“Changing School With the Season,” Christian Science Monitor. February 15, 2005)
- In order to help support their families, many farm worker children drop out of school and work alongside their parents in the field. The average migrant child may attend three different schools during one academic year. For many migrant children, it takes roughly three years to advance one grade level. (“United States Farm worker Fact Sheet.” Student Action With Farm Workers. Durham, North Carolina.)
- By the time they reach first grade, fifty percent of migrant children will have fallen below national scholastic averages. The majority of farm worker children will never graduate from high school. (Daniel Rothenberg, With These Hands: The Hidden World of Migrant Farmworkers Today.)
