Posted on 07/16/2015 7:24:11 AM PDT by Kaslin
“If we expect kids to be losers they will be losers; if we expect them to be winners they will be winners. They rise, or fall, to the level of the expectations of those around them, especially their parents and their teachers.”
Those are the words of legendary East Los Angeles math teacher Jaime Escalante. Garfield High School, where Escalante taught, was 95 percent Latino and 80 percent poor. When he arrived from his native Bolivia in 1974, he found that many of his students were still using their fingers to add.
Yet during Escalante’s tenure, hundreds of these students not only mastered algebra and geometry, but also calculus. They were able to take and pass the Advanced Placement Calculus test and most went on to become successful college students in California’s excellent state universities. Now, five years since Escalante’s death, some encouraging numbers suggest that Latino education may still be improving in the United States as a whole.
The education gap between Latinos and whites is in some ways more complicated than the gap between African Americans and whites. The first issue is language skills. First-generation Hispanic Americans obviously speak English as a second language, if at all. Second-generation children may speak English fluently, but they do not usually hear a broad range of sophisticated English vocabulary words at home. As many have noted, parental vocabulary and dialogue with their children profoundly shapes mental development, and the gaps are apparent by age 3.
Hispanic Americans have long been characterized by higher high school dropout rates than their white and Asian counterparts, mostly due to economic need. Surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center found that 74 percent of 16 to 25 year old Latinos who dropped out did so to help support their families. Yet recent studies suggest that these numbers are improving. High school graduation rates for Latinos jumped 5.5 percentage points between 2008 and 2009, and a full 15 points between 2006 and 2012. College enrollment rates are rising as well.
According to the report by Excelencia in Education entitled, The Condition of Latinos in Education: 2015 Factbook, only 18 percent of Latino students are not proficient in English. The Child Trends Hispanic Institute examined test scores from 2003 to 2013 and found that Hispanic American students are making steady gains in math as well. The report demonstrated that, overall, Hispanic students’ scores rose between 9 and 13 points on average, the equivalent of a full grade level.
In fact, the gains among Latino students may be the primary reason for the positive education numbers coming out of cities like Miami, Charlotte, Austin, Dallas, Houston and Boston. Significant gains were also seen in Atlanta, Chicago, Albuquerque, New York, Baltimore, Milwaukee and Washington, DC.
According to Natalia Pane, author of the report and senior vice president of research operations at Child Trends, some school districts have been reaching out to Hispanic parents and getting them more involved in their children’s education. She also cited increased instructional time, reducing suspensions and developing programs that target English language acquisition as reasons for the success.
Unfortunately, poorer black students are not making similar gains, although the reasons for this are unclear. Median Hispanic income remains slightly higher than black income, although lower than that of whites and Asians. But some interesting clues for growing Latino success lie in the strength of its families.
Latino participation in the workforce is higher than that of any other ethnic group. Hispanic marriage rates also remain higher than those of blacks, and Hispanic children are more likely to be raised by two married parents. According to a report by National Public Radio last fall, “Latino kids were also more likely than blacks or whites to eat a meal with their families six or seven days a week, and those meals were likely to be cooked at home.”
These encouraging patterns among Latinos remind us that the challenges facing the black and Latino communities are not identical.
As Richard Whitmire wrote in USA Today, “The real lesson is that we need to stop lumping blacks and Hispanics together — both in terms of how we measure progress and in terms of policy — as "students of color." The groups have different education needs. At successful all-black schools, school staffs build cultures based on social justice and employ highly structured curricula that emphasize verbal instruction, explained one researcher. At successful Hispanic schools, you are more likely to see a school culture based on connections to family with teachers employing an unstructured curriculum emphasizing visual instruction.”
The lessons of Latino success remind us that the same intervention in different communities does not produce the same results. With strategic change, we can heal one of the root causes of racial division - the education gap.
Any ideas on how we could start this “education” thing in America, Harry? We could replace indoctrination with it.
Educational opportunity will not help. It is a cultural thing. “Education is not really needed. That is acting white.” Change the culture and things will improve. The only way to change the culture is to gut the welfare state.
It’s lucky for the Asians that their languages are so similar to English that they can overcome the language barrier more easily than Spanish-speaking immigrants. /s
As long as liberals can leverage racial strife into votes, there will be no racial healing. The Democrats have always — throughout their entire history — incited race hatred to obtain and stay in power. The reason we have vestiges of White Supremacy is because the Democrats used it for most of their history to stay in power. Now they have flipped to the other side. The media aides and abets them in this so there will be no healing, period.
And, just how do they plan to keep blacks and Hispanics from dropping out of school? Chain them to the floor?
Yes, just look at what Harvard did for Hussein. Now the whole country gets to reap the rewards.
Obama and pals already control what is taught. Search 8th
grade history final quiz. It was a shock to me to see what is being taught. We have already seen what Affirmative Action produces. Obama alone should tell all of us no more AA slots in schools and Black Studies is a joke. There is no use for it in private business.
This is NOT a true statement... and this type of 'unicorn' thinking is one of the reasons we're NOT solving racial problems.
When Hispanics become the Majority in this country it will be the end of affirmitive action for blacks.I don’t think they will give a rats ass about past discrimination of blacks and they sure as hell will not pay for it. Blacks will be longing for the Good old days when they had whitey over a barrel with guilt and they could milk they majority for everything.
Wen parents ‘educate ‘ black kids that whites are racist, no matter what, and cops are the devil, you will not heal racism.
The liberal mindset equates equal opportunity with equal outcome! Everyone has the opportunity to get an education. They also have an equal opportunity to succeed or fail. Outcome depends upon how they use or how much they put into that opportunity!
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