Education Panel

By Tracy Barnett and Mariana De Maio
A report contributed by

Moderator: Karen Johnson, Educational consultant, Title I-C Migrant Education Program

Speakers:

Lisa Flores, UMC: Educational attainment of Latinos is the lowest in the U.S.; nearly half drop out of high school; fewer go to college, and even fewer graduate. That�s the lowest among the racial and ethnic groups in the United States, with a 43 percent dropout rate and only 10 percent receiving a bachelors� degree.

The employment characteristics are pretty dismal � many end up with low-paying, low prestigious occupations. Women and persons of color are earning much less money compared to their white male counterparts.

In spite of all these statistics, it�s surprising we don�t have more writing in the professional literature on this subject. What the literature does tell us is that there is an inconsistency between aspirations and expectations.

Ask a Latino student: What do you aspire to? What do you expect? You�ll find their expectations are much lower than their aspirations.

This suggests that there are some things happening that are limiting their potential to succeed and limiting the goals they are aspiring to.

One factor for Latinos is the strong sense of responsibility to family and the obligations they need to fulfill. It�s often hard for these people to move away from their community. Often they have financial difficulties; often they find that they feel isolated in university communities. They report the experience of racism in the university setting, both inside and outside of the classroom; in dormitories� there�s a lack of mentors and role models.

If they don�t see people who look like them� there is a lower sense of belonging.�

Many have weak academic preparation, so that in post-secondary schooling, there is a problem of low self-esteem.

I�m going to present briefly a study I did with Mexican-American students in South Texas, in the lower tip of Texas which is 95 percent Latino, maybe 10-15 minutes from Mexican border.

I tested high school seniors using the career development model, in which you test and see if they are attaining their educational goals.

One of the factors is number of family members with a college education� Several propositions within the theory were not supported, some were.

Acculturation level directly contributed. The higher the acculturation levels, the higher the achievement goals. There was a negative correlation in cases where more family members were attending college; there were lower educational goals

This could have to do with hearing about negative experiences within the educational system. They might have unrealistic expectations, and they might need interventions within that setting.

Students who had more positive expectations of the outcomes or experience they could get from going to college tended to set higher educational goals

Those with fewer barriers set higher goals. Barriers included a lack of family support, self-confidence, financial ability, etc.

What does this mean for those who work in higher education?

Previous studies indicate that Mexican-American girls� and boys� career and educational goals are different. We shouldn�t treat all Latinos alike; there are differences in gender and also in educational level.

Are the barriers actual or just perceived? Regardless, we need interventions.

We need to be developing a mentoring program with peers, and with faculty and staff to provide some of the guidance they are not getting with their family members.

We need to examine whether the curriculum is correlated to their experience � are we training teachers to be culturally competent?

We often find students of color don�t use the student support services. They�re experiencing all the challenges college student face and then some because of cultural barriers.

We�re talking about some of the recent demographics in the Latino population in Missouri, and the impact throughout the state.

I recently attended a meeting of rural county officials at a rural economic meeting in Columbia, and as I was preparing for that, I was thinking about this, as well. Not very many years ago there would be no discussion of Latino students at that conf � that has changed.

We have 890,000 kids in K-12 in 524 school districts. School district size ranges from 42,000 in St. Louis to 47 in a small school district � The Latino population of students in 10 years has tripled. A bigger and more impressive, more positive part is that today we have identified in over 1//5 of our districts students who have identified as Spanish speaking students � in a fifth of our school districts � and this presents a challenge and a tremendous opportunity. We often think of the population being in Kansas City. It�s not just Kansas City, and you all know that, but perhaps a lot of people don�t.

A lot of our LEP students are Spanish speaking, almost half � the percentage has increased slightly.

As we think about No Child Left Behind � it�s not one of my favorite pieces of legislation, as it presents many more challenges than it does opportunities � however, there are some really, really good points. It forces school districts to identify specific groups of kids, and it spotlights that group of kids and identifies the achievement gap. We�ve been focused on the achievement gap for some time; it�s not new, but it is new when we see the penalty phases.

If the goal is to increase student performance by 3 percent a year, that�s not enough for the elementary school to demonstrate its population has increased by 7 percent, if each subgroup hasn�t improved by that goal. This includes various ethnic groups, LEP kids, kids on free reduced lunch. It has the potential to affect 4 or 5 subgroups. The point is � I think it�s a positive educational point � this will cause educators to say, �Do I want to be identified as not meeting the progress goal for our subgroups?� It�s been far too easy to focus on the whole, to brag about the whole � �our school is very good, we have x� � and ignore perhaps the Latino kids. We can�t do that anymore. That�s one of the really positive things about the legislation. It forces us to look at kids in a different way.

We publish, and have been now for three years, on our website the statewide data: scores on the Missouri Assessment Program, or MAP � and we know what�s happening. Look at the five-year trend data, and we see the change; Hispanic kids� scores have been slightly positive � the change in African-American scores has been slightly positive. None of it is fast enough to really deal with getting the gap closed. It�s just not happening to the extent that it has to. Now there is added motivation.

We in our agency publish several lists each year � the �academic deficients� � and schools don�t like to be on that list, and communities don�t like to be on them, just like kids don�t like to be on the F list.

When you have to report, you tend to pay attention to the things you have to report, because you don�t like to be identified.

We have an opportunity to do what�d right for a whole group of kids.

I�m excited about the opportunities the No Child Left Behind Act gives us, and� I want to leave you with the thought that the opportunity that piece of legislation provides us should not go unnoticed � even though it causes discomfort among a wide variety of folks. We�re looking forward to making that a positive impact on the education of the state of Missouri.

The major program we have that helps LEP children, people who speak Spanish in particular, with language acquisition, is the new program in Title III � it provides supplemental funds for children learning English.

It�s not a highly funded program � we�re hoping through efforts Joe (Tillman) will be making through our new network, we will be able to count all those children, and that will help our funding.

Title III provides $1.5 million, plus $1 million for migrant education, and the ESL materials library. Then we have something that�s new from No Child Left Behind this year, an accountability requirement � we�re required to give every child in the state who is LEP an English acquisition assessment so we know exactly where they are in their English leaning. Programs have always given English assessments but they�ve chosen their own. So when the child moves, the information doesn�t necessarily make much sense to the district.

It will give us an assessment in reading, writing, comprehension, listening, and speaking. So it gives us a score in 5 important areas to determine if they are proficient enough in English that they can do the academic skills.

We want to work as hard as we can to bring those children up to speed. We don�t want them to give up their culture or their language, but we feel it�s very important to dominate English.

We have a new organization of networking and services for English language learners that Joe Tillman is in charge of. We�re excited about this opportunity. We have migrant children in the Sedalia area, and we have English language learners all over this state.

We have 50 districts with between 1 and 5 English language learners, and we�re concerned about building the capacity to help them learn it well.

This new network will be across the state � centered in nine different locations so they can reach across the state and provide help � a great majority are in the St. Louis and Kansas City areas, but those districts have already developed the capacity� we want to provide for those other districts that have between 1 and five children. Even if there is only one, it�s one of the things we appreciate about No Child Left Behind � it�s very demanding; it does not allow us to disregard any subgroup of children.

Migrant English language learner (MELL) is used in dissemination of programs.

This program will assist school districts to build capacity, making sure that the definition used to define English-proficient children and migratory children across the state is the same.

It will ensure access to appropriate and coordinated supportive services that address this issue.

No Child Left Behind forces us to rewrite the definition of Limited English Proficiency students.

Missouri assessment of English language learning and its standards should be the same across the state.

No Child Left Behind is not a user-friendly law.
The number of children being reported is an undercount, and the amount of funding received by the Missouri Department of Education is a direct result of this count. The money comes from the Census, so if we are not accurate counting the kids, then we won�t receive the money we need.

Total migrant LEP allocation is $16 million in Kansas.

No Child Left Behind fortunately gives us a definition to work with, how to define an LEP student. Before, there was a distinction made between �language minority� and �Limited English Proficiency. Now it is LEP only.

What we have to do is to get the information reflected in the Census so we can get money to have programs to help these kids.

Yvonne Vazquez Rangel, Regional Director, LULAC National Educational Service Centers 

Across the U.S., LULAC focuses on education among Latino students. Kansas City keeps students in school and tries to encourage them to keep studying up through post-secondary education.

Reading scores for Latino students lowers out on the third grade level. What can we expect from these students? What is going to keep them from dropping out?

The program began at one elementary school and now works at seven elementary schools, serving children who have reading problems.

We are working with children whose teachers recommend them to work in the program. The program uses certified teachers and volunteers.

We�ve seen increases for one to three grade levels during the course and academic year.

16% of elementary school children need assistance.

 

Final questions to the whole panel: