Obama Uses Failing High School as Backdrop for Immigration Speech

President Obama, looking for a high school with a majority Hispanic population to use as a backdrop for his demagogic speech on immigration reform, settled on Del Sol High School in Las Vegas, Nevada. Unfortunately, the same children to whom Obama spoke of opportunity are deprived of it at Del Sol, which dramatically underachieves academically.

According to Del Sol’s 2010-2011 School Accountability Summary Report, 54% of Hispanic students attending Del Sol were “non-proficient” in math. The school lags behind both the statewide standards and the standards of the school district on reading, writing, and mathematics; just 27% of the school population exceeded standards in reading, only 1% exceeded standards in writing, and a mere 9% exceeded standards in mathematics. While 6% of high school children in the district were either below average or abysmal in reading, 10% were at Del Sol; 22% were below average or “emergent/developing” in writing, but 38% were at Del Sol; 29% were below average or worst standard in math at the district level, but 43% were at Del Sol.

The dropout rates at Del Sol are significantly higher than at the other schools in the district. That’s particularly true for Hispanic students. While 5.1% of Hispanic kids drop out of high school in Nevada statewide, and 5.5% did at the district level, a full 9.6% did from Del Sol. Overall, Del Sol was “classified as a school which did not demonstrate Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) during the 2010-2011 school year.”

So while President Obama was preaching to a bunch of students stuck at an underachieving high school about how he wanted “action!” on illegal immigration this very instant, he seems more interested in using those kids as a photo op than helping them achieve their dreams.

UPDATE: The 2011-2012 Del Sol High School academic performance report is out, too, and it doesn’t look much better for the school. Once again, it trailed the state and district performance in reading, writing, and math. One bright spot: the dropout rate dropped. But once again, the school didn’t demonstrate Adequate Yearly Progress in 2011-2012.

Ben Shapiro is Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News and author of the book “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America” (Threshold Editions, January 8, 2013).