California Today, Texas Tomorrow?

"If you want to see how profoundly the state's population is changing, look at the faces of the children in Texas public school classrooms. In all but rural areas, Hispanic enrollment is rapidly surpassing that of whites. Hispanic schoolchildren make up nearly 49 percent of Texas' 4.8 million pre-K through 12th-grade students, according to the Texas Education Agency. ... Now, they must confront the realization that the state is not adequately funding education of a growing population that is generally poorer and less proficient in English. ... The shift appears to be driven by birth rates and immigration, not simply 'white flight' to private schools. The gap grows every year and is wider in the early elemanetary school grades, where Hispanic children now make up a majority. ... But the combination of high numbers of limited english-proficient students, even higher numbers of children from low-income families and persistently high dropout rates worry some educators and demogaphers. During the past decade, enrollment from low-income families has grown to 2.8 million, or nearly 59 percent of all students. The number of English-language learners has increased to nearly 816,000. ... Manuel Rodriguez Jr, president of the Texas Mexican American School Board Association and a member of the Houston ISD board [said], 'millions and millions have been spent on dropout prevention measures, and it hasn't changed the numbers.' ... Steve Murdock, now on the faculty of Rice University [said], 'The demographics are very overpowering, and we clearly show signs of falling farther behind. It is, as we have noted, the major challenge to Texas' future'," my emphasis, Gary Scharrer at the Houston Chronicle, 16 May 2010, link: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7007046.html.

"If the American Dream is upward economic mobility and arrival in the middle class, the grim statistics show only a small percentage of Texas' Hispanics are on the road to success. As the state's Latino population continues to expand over the next two decades, if current treands stay the same, Texas is in danger of developing what one academic describes as a 'permanent underclass.' Widespread poverty could pull down the standard of living for all Texans. ... Hispanic girls accounted to 62 percent of all births to teen mothers in 2006, the most recent year reported by the National Center for Health Statistics. ... St. Mary's University political scientist Henry Flores said ... 'Texas has been the cradle of the Hispanic middle class, what there is of it nationally. ... But if you look at the overall percentages of Hispanics of higher degrees and professional occupations, it's very, very small.' ... 'If things don't change, you're going to see a continuing Hispanic underclass'," RG Ratcliffe at the Houston Chronicle, 17 May 2010: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/metro/7008236.html.

Quoted without comment.

Isn't creating an underclass what our "open borders" advocates want? "Feature, not bug", as Yves Smith says. If we didn't have enough poor people, what would our poverty warriors fight? What's Flores' problem? Absent an underclass, what would he have to study? See my 4 April 2008 post:

http://skepticaltexascpa.blogspot.com/2008/04/no-mexican-child-left-behind.html. As Texas demographics approach Mexico's, Texans average living standard will approach that of Mexicans. It's that simple.