PRESCHOOL FOR ALL. State funding for preschool decreased by over half a billion dollars last year, according to a new study. Cuts in many states have led to bigger class sizes and reductions in quality. Childcare subsidies have been drastically cut in California, effectively excluding many low-income children from preschool. President Obama has proposed universal preschool. Experts on the importance of early childhood education in the Latino community join this edition to discuss how to make quality preschool affordable for all.

Guests: Celia Ayala, Ph.D., Executive Director, Los Angeles Universal Preschool, and Spokesperson, National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER), Los Angeles, CA, www.laup.net , www.nieer.org ; Jennifer Maldonado, Mother of two, Parent Voices, Oakland, CA, www.parentvoices.org

OBAMA IN MEXICO. This week, President Obama visits Mexico to meet with Mexican President Peña Nieto. They are expected to discuss issues related to trade, immigration reform, organized crime violence, and gun trafficking. Obama also travels to Costa Rica to meet with Central American leaders. A guest commentator discusses the promises and challenges ahead in the U.S. relation with its neighbors to the South.

Guest: Dr. Andrew Selee, Vice President for Programs, Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington, D.C., www.wilsoncenter.org

ALSO, BUSH LIBRARY. Five living presidents met in Dallas to dedicate George W. Bush’s presidential library and museum, amid a heated debate surrounding the legacy of the former president. An ex member of Bush’s cabinet shares her feelings on the former president and her views on the most controversial episodes that cast a long shadow on the Bush administration.

Guest: Rosario Marín, Former U.S. Treasurer, Dallas, TX.

RESTORATIVE JUSTICE. Fresno Unified School District has the highest dropout rate of the ten largest school districts in California. Some experts say more than half the students in the district are not finishing high school, and two-thirds continually miss class. The rates are highest among Latino and African-American boys. Suspensions lost the district $250,000 last year. A group of students and community leaders is calling for the district to use restorative justice discipline, a method that attempts to resolve conflicts before they escalate, focusing on keeping students in school instead of expelling them. This approach has been used with some success in other school systems.

FROM JAIL TO LAW. At 15, Frankie Guzmán spent six years behind bars, after stealing a car and robbing a liquor store. Now, he’s put himself through law school and become an advocate for juvenile justice, speaking at schools and juvenile detention centers. He’s also the recipient of a Soros Justice Fellowship, to study alternatives to sentencing first-time youth offenders as adults.

Guest: Francis “Frankie” Guzmán, Attorney and Soros Justice Fellow, National Center for Youth Law, Oakland, CA, www.youthlaw.org

FROM DROPOUT TO PROFESSOR. Víctor Ríos dropped out of school when he was 14 and joined a gang. Today, he is a university professor researching how juvenile crime policies affect Latino and African-American boys. This edition, part of a special series on the school-to-prison pipeline, offers an in-depth interview with Dr. Ríos about the way the discriminatory application of disciplinary measures pushes many young Latinos out of the classroom and into prison, and what kinds of innovative approaches to discipline have proved to work to change that pattern around.

Guest: Dr. Víctor Ríos, Associate Professor in Sociology, University of California Santa Barbara, and Author, Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys (2011), Santa Barbara, CA, www.soc.ucsb.edu

BLESS ME, ULTIMA. Based on a classic Chicano novel, the movie Bless Me, Ultima is the story of the coming-of-age of a young boy who learns about his own Native American roots through a curandera named Ultima. The book, by Rudolfo Anaya, has been banned in some school districts throughout the country. The movie is set to begin screening in hundreds of movie theaters this week.

Guest: Miriam Colón Valle, Actress, Bless Me, Ultima The Movie, New York, NY (TBD), http://www.blessmeultima.com

TENANT ARRESTS. Hundreds of people in Arkansas face criminal charges every year because they fail to pay the rent on time. A state law allows landlords to demand a tenant move out within 10 days of not paying the rent in full. The international organization Human Rights Watch is calling the law unjust and calls for its repeal.

Guest: Antonio Ginatta, Advocacy Director, U.S. Program, Human Rights Watch, Washington, D.C., www.hrw.org

ALSO, RAZA STUDIES REINSTATED? A federal judge ruled in a decades-long desegregation case against the Tucson Unified School District, ordering the school board to eliminate segregation and improve education for Latino students. As part of this order, the district will have to offer culturally-relevant classes focusing on the history and culture of Latino communities. Does this mean Tucson teachers can reinstate their banned ethnic studies program?

DREAMERS IN THE FIELDS. About one million and a half people could qualify for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, but hundreds of thousands in rural areas do not yet meet the education requirement. A researcher joins this edition to discuss ways for rural youth to overcome obstacles, such as budget cuts for community colleges, ESL classes, and vocational programs, as well as a lack of information and resources. Also, a philanthropic foundation set aside an unprecedented one million dollars for scholarships for undocumented students at the prestigious public university UC Berkeley.

NEWTOWN HORROR. The nation is shocked and saddened, after a gunman opened fire in two first grade classrooms in Newtown, Connecticut, killing 20 children of 6 and 7 years old, and 6 adults, as well as his mother and himself. Editors and commentators from news media around the country join this edition to discuss how they are covering this terrible massacre, what they are hearing from their listeners or readers, what can we learn from it, what can be done to stop this escalation of violence, and other issues haunting the country's hearts and minds.

Guests: Maria Hinojosa, Award-winning journalist, Anchor, Executive News Producer, NPR's Latinos USA, President of Futuro Media Group, New York, NY, www.futuromediagroup.org ; Dr. Marcos Gutierrez, Director, Hecho en California, KIQI, San Francisco, CA; Gabriel Villalobos, Host and Producer, Contacto Total, KNUV 1190 AM, Phoenix, AZ.

BANNED BOOK. In honor of Banned Books Week, Línea Abierta offers an exclusive interview with a Chicana author banned in Tucson, Arizona. Carmen Tafolla’s Curandera, originally published in 1983, broke ground using the Spanish and English code-switching of her West Side San Antonio barrio as a literary language. Tafolla discusses what it means that this and other multicultural books were taken out of Tucson classrooms, and what can be done to stop the banning of books and protect the freedom to read.

Guest: Carmen Tafolla, Poet Laureate of the City of San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, www.carmentafolla.com