Collaboration
Needed to Improve Hispanics' Education
A new report by the
President's Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanic
Americans advises that groups need to work together to help Hispanic students
close the achievement gap with students of other ethnic groups.
Included: Descriptions of programs that are working and ways in which
parents, schools, communities, businesses, and the government can come
together to help Hispanic students achieve.
The new report cites about a dozen local programs that support
Hispanic students and families. Following are three examples
of those programs:
* Parents As First Teachers This program
in Chicago pairs trained parents from a local Head Start program
with Hispanic families that have children between three and
five years old. The program helps those families prepare their
children for school. The Chicago Public Schools and
El Valor, an organization that provides early childhood
education and support programs for parents, sponsor this program.
*Parent
Leadership Program of the Mexican American Legal Defense and
Educational Fund This Los Angeles program offers a free 16-lesson training
course for parents that teaches them how they can inform themselves
about their children's education. It also teaches them how
to participate in their children's schools and how to exercise
their rights as parents. The program is free to schools with
a need for greater parental involvement, high percentages
of low-income students, and below-average test scores.
* Industrial Areas Foundation's Alliance Schools
More than 120 schools in Texas are part of this program
that develops constituencies of parents, community leaders,
and educators to improve student achievement in low-income
communities. Similar networks are being created in California,
Arizona, and New Mexico.
"It's the whole idea of partnering," said Debbie Montoya, assistant to the
executive director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence
for Hispanic Americans, which worked with the commission on the report.
"We know how to fix this. So let's do it."
The commission calls for
raising the level of achievement of Hispanic students to that of the general
student population by 2010, by getting all segments of society -- schools,
parents, communities, government, and businesses -- to work together and
set high standards and provide support for Hispanic students.
GOOD NEWS TOO
Although the report said that Hispanics continue to lag behind other
ethnic groups in academic achievement, it also contains a lot of positive
information, Deborah Santiago, deputy director of the White House Initiative
and one of the co-authors of the report, told Education World. Hispanic
students were at least three times as likely as white students to take
advanced-placement tests in a foreign language in high school, according
to the report. They are also more likely to score 3 out of 5 or higher,
which qualifies them for college credit. Hispanic students also earn more
high school credits in computer science, foreign languages, and English
than any other ethnic group.
"We tried to put into the report examples of what is working. Too often,
we don't hear those stories," Santiago told Education World. "In a lot
of reports on education, when people try to capture the image of Latinos
in education, they focus on the deficits. It was nice to see there are
some improvements. We do have more kids going to college, but we need
more."
CLOSING THE GAP
The report highlights what parents, community groups, the private sector,
the federal government, and local schools need to do to close the achievement
gap:
Parents need to become more involved with children's education,
both at home and at school. They should set high expectations for their
children.
Schools should mandate that all students take college-preparatory
courses, encourage Hispanic students to take the Scholastic Assessment
Test (SAT) or the ACT Assessment, communicate better with Hispanic parents,
and set high expectations for Hispanic students.
Community organizations need to work with schools to encourage
more outreach to the Hispanic community, and to provide after-school
and summer mentoring and tutoring programs.
The private sector can develop career education programs,
provide scholarship money for students, and provide flexible work schedules
so parents can attend school events.
The federal government should develop and circulate information
about the best ways to improve Hispanic students' educational achievement,
provide financial support for Hispanic college students studying education,
and ensure that Hispanic families are aware of federal programs that
can benefit them.
GAP FORMS EARLY
More progress is needed, and as the Hispanic population continues to
grow, ensuring Hispanic children are well educated should be a national
concern, according to the report. By 2025, the report estimates, Hispanic
children will compose up to 25 percent of the school-age population.
"The academic success of the new wave of students entering our classrooms
is vital to the nation's economic well-being and enriches our cultural
and linguistic resources as a nation," the report states. "As school improvement
efforts continue to focus on increasing achievement for all our young
people, to fail a growing percentage of our students would be to undermine
these efforts to improve education as a whole."
According to the report, the gap begins to develop with the preparation
for preschoolers, and widens as Latino youngsters progress through school:
In 1998, only 20 percent of three-year-old Hispanic children were enrolled
in early-childhood programs, versus 42 percent of white and 44 percent
of African American three-year-olds.
Currently, only 55 percent of Latinos ages 25 and older have completed
high school or additional education, compared with 84 percent of whites
and 76 percent of African Americans. About 50 percent of Hispanic students
are placed in general-level high school courses that do not prepare students
for college or technical school, as opposed to 39 percent of white students
and 40 percent of African American students.
FACTORS BEHIND LOW ACHIEVEMENT
The report cites a variety of reasons that Hispanic students lag behind
other students, including the following:
low attendance by Hispanics in early childhood programs;
poverty;
limited English proficiency;
minimal coordination among parents, schools, and community organizations
on behalf of students;
isolation in resource-poor schools;
low expectations for Hispanic students by teachers;
tracking of Hispanic students into less rigorous classes.
Santiago considers the biggest obstacles to Hispanics' academic success
are not enough parental involvement and schools with limited resources
that don't offer the most demanding courses.
She also considers that teachers with low expectations for Hispanic
students also play a role in their low achievement. "[Educators] don't
expect Hispanics to do well, so they don't push them," she said. "And
we need more parental involvement."
STATES WORKING TOO
Some states are already working on programs in keeping with the goals
in the Creating the Will report. The Massachusetts Education Initiative
for Latino Students, which is in its second year, plans to set an agenda
for improving education for Hispanic students, according to Rev. Wesley
Williams, executive director of the
United Methodist Urban Services of Boston, the lead agency in implementing
the Massachusetts plan.
"We want to reverse the trends of the largest minority having the highest
dropout rate and involve parents more," Williams said. Hispanic students
compose about 10.2 percent of the state's total school population in kindergarten
through 14th grade, including two years of vocational training.
A coalition of 13 groups from around the state that is advocating for
improved education for Hispanics plans to develop a list of goals to promote
greater academic success, Williams added.
Santiago commented that those are the kinds of efforts members of the
White House Initiative would like to see for a larger population. "We
have to find a way to bring things that are working to scale," she said.
"We know what works -- we just have to do it."
SPREADING THE NEWS
Commission and White House Initiative members have been busy for the
past several weeks discussing the report at press conferences around the
country.
Reaction so far has been positive, according to Santiago. "I've been
encouraged that when we talked to corporations and businesses, they wanted
to help," she said.
Members of the business community in Miami, for example, have offered
funding for programs, according to Montoya of the White House who worked
on the report.
President Bill Clinton appointed the 23-member commission in 1994; he
extended an executive order establishing the commission originally issued
by President George Bush. The report also recommends that the next president
issue another executive order to continue the commission and the White
House Initiative.
Collaboration
Needed to Improve Hispanics' Education