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Keeping Latino students from falling thru cracks; Schools ban flags
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- Subject: Keeping Latino students from falling thru cracks; Schools ban flags
- From: Peter Farruggio <pfarr@cal.berkeley.edu>
- Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2006 10:11:50 -0700
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From the Los Angeles Times
For Some, Hurdles Keep a Diploma Out of Reach
A conference at UCLA focuses on ways to keep Latino students from falling
through multiple cracks in the 'educational pipeline.'
By Arin Gencer
Times Staff Writer
April 4, 2006
In the spring of 1968, thousands of Mexican American students walked
out of East
Los Angeles high schools in protest. They called for equal treatment in
education, bilingual instruction, courses that acknowledged their cultural
heritage and smaller classes in their overcrowded schools.
Almost 40 years later, observed participants at a recent UCLA conference on
Latinos in education, little has changed. Latino students are still falling
through multiple cracks in the "educational pipeline," they said.
Citing research based on the 2000 federal census, they said that
slightly more
than 50% of Latino students finish high school, 10% graduate from
college and 4%
obtain an advanced degree. By comparison, 84% of white students get
their high
school diplomas, with 26% graduating from college and about 10%
earning advanced
degrees.
The problems discussed at the conference were not new. Nor, in some
cases, were
the solutions.
But the sheer numbers now affected, particularly in Los Angeles and
California,
demand attention, said Daniel Solorzano, a professor in UCLA's
Chicano Studies
Research Center.
"The pipeline is still hemorrhaging Latino students," said Patricia Gandara,,
one of the participants and an education professor at UC Davis.
Latinos made up 72.8% of students in the Los Angeles Unified School District,
and 46.8% of students statewide, in the 2004-05 school year.
Hurdles at every level of public education increasingly equate to
obstacles for
Latino students.
The all-day summit at the UCLA Faculty Center last month served as a
collective
brainstorming session to remove those hurdles.
It was also a call to action, meant to inspire a sense of urgency
about issues
often relegated to academic studies, said Sylvia Hurtado, director of the
university's Higher Education Research Institute.
Dozens of education experts and representatives from the UC, California State
University and California Community College systems shared their research and
experiences, then sought public-policy solutions to the challenges for Latino
students, from kindergarten through postgraduate studies.
A recurring theme emerged: At almost every stage, the experts said, Latino
students lacked both information needed to navigate the pipeline and a
college-going culture that encouraged them to reach its end.
"The earlier you introduce the option of college, the stronger the
possibility
that they will attend college," said Dolores Delgado Bernal, an education
professor at the University of Utah.
Higher education must be integrated into students' school experience
and their
personal lives, she added, to foster a sense that every child has university
potential.
"Nobody's preparing these kids for what they need to do because of
that absence
of a culture" of college-going, Gandara said.
Teachers and counselors in every tier of education must be trained
so they can
better guide Latino students to and through college, said Tara
Yosso, a Chicano
studies professor at UC Santa Barbara.
The situation appeared especially bleak at the community college level, where
about 30% of Latino high school graduates enroll, according to the California
Postsecondary Education Commission.
Students often don't know which courses they need to transfer from community
college, said Linda Hagedorn, an education professor at the University of
Florida in Gainesville.
Faculty members are rarely equipped to help them either. At some schools, the
student-counselor ratio is as high as 2000 to 1, she added, which exacerbates
the difficulty of reaching everyone.
"It's just really difficult for students to take the initiative to go to the
counselors and say, 'What courses do I need to transfer out?' " said Marilyn
Gonzalez, 26, a UCLA senior who attended the conference. "They're
never trained
to take that initiative."
Gonzalez, who transferred from East Los Angeles College, said she is
hard-pressed to remember teachers or counselors, in high school or community
college, who urged her to aim for a four-year institution.
Instead, she was driven to pursue a degree with the birth of her
son, at age 19,
and the realization that someone's well-being depended on her.
"It's about making sure that we make the connection, and not waiting for
students to make the connection," said Alfred Herrera, director of
UCLA's Center
for Community College Partnerships, which works to develop a motivation to
transfer in students even before they start their community-college studies.
"It's really about showing the students . that they can belong to an
institution
like this."
Establishing benchmarks along the usually long journey through
community college
also could help, Hagedorn said.
One Santa Monica College student in the audience, who identified herself as
undocumented, questioned the point of spending money to get a
degree, especially
when she couldn't use it.
"What is the motivation to transfer?" she asked. Other students expressed
similar sentiments about the need to support the undocumented.
Herrera looked over the rows of educators and academics and directly at the
student, who stood toward the back of the room.
"If you don't have a degree, you're not going to go anywhere,"
Herrera said. "If
you don't become an educated part of this society, then your voice is never
going to be heard." But Hurtado said that even those Latinos who empower
themselves and stride onto college campuses frequently feel alienated,
perceiving a racially hostile environment or an administration and
staff members
inattentive to student concerns. "When there's low Hispanic enrollment on
campus, there's a sense that this place is not for me," Hurtado said.
Encountering even one teacher who shows interest in them can ease that
adjustment, Hurtado said, as can classes on race and ethnic issues.
The idea for the conference originated nearly three years ago during
a community
forum, said Chon Noriega, director of the Chicano Studies Research Center.
The meeting brought together education, public-policy and public-health
professors, as well as representatives from the Mexican American
Legal Defense
and Educational Fund and Jose Huizar, then a Los Angeles school board member.
"We realized people don't necessarily know each other even though they were
leaders" in their field, Noriega said.
Noriega said organizers would like to make the conference an annual event,
perhaps focusing next year on community colleges, a part of the pipeline that
gets little attention.
"Change takes a long time," Herrera said.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Schools ban flags as immigration debate gets tense
Anglos, Latinos in confrontations in Colo., Ariz., Calif.
By Tom Kenworthy
USA TODAY
DENVER - Several schools in Colorado, Arizona and California
recently banned the
display of national flags and the wearing of clothing with patriotic
symbols as
the divisive national debate over immigration has brought angry
confrontations
between Latino and Anglo students.
The bans have prompted protests by parents, stirred local debates over free
speech and its limits, and caught the attention of civil liberties advocates.
In Westminster, Colo., tensions between middle school students wearing
camouflage clothing to show support for troops in Iraq and others wearing
bandanas patterned after the Mexican flag triggered an order amending the
school's dress code.
"Some clothing worn by some of our students has created a tense and sometimes
hostile environment in our school over the past few days," Shaw
Heights Middle
School Principal Myla Shepherd wrote in a letter to parents. She banned
"clothing that makes a political statement," camouflage clothes and "banners,
flags, bandanas of all types" at the suburban Denver school.
The dress code "is temporary and will be continually evaluated," said Deb
Haviland, spokeswoman for the Adams County school district, which includes
Westminster.
In Longmont, Colo., about 25 miles north of Denver, the principal of Skyline
High School last week banned temporarily the display of Mexican and
U.S. flags
by students. Principal Tom Stumpf said some students used the U.S. flag to
express hostility to Hispanic students by waving it in their faces.
Longmont schools are on spring break this week, and Stumpf did not respond to
messages left at the school.
In Apache Junction, Ariz., the superintendent banned the display of flags on
clothing following a dispute between students at Apache Junction High School
over flying the U.S. and Mexican flags from a school flagpole.
Within hours of
issuing the ban on Friday, he relented after protests by parents.
"There's a lot of tension with the immigration issue going on, but this
transcends that issue," said Mike Burk, who protested the
short-lived ban at the
school attended by one of his sons. "You don't handle it by banning
the American
flag."
Carol Shepherd, spokeswoman for the Apache Junction schools, said, "After
listening to the community and the students, (Superintendent Greg Wyman)
reviewed the situation and decided to revise the ruling and allow flags to be
worn with the caveat that . anyone using them to incite other
students would be
subject to discipline."
In Oceanside, Calif., superintendent Kenneth Noonan closed middle and high
schools last Thursday following a walkout by 650 students over immigration
legislation in Congress. In a letter to parents, he barred students
from wearing
"items that could be disruptive" and banned flags, placards and
signs on school
grounds.
"It's a temporary ban," said Oceanside schools spokeswoman Laura Chalkley.
Kevin Keenan, head of the American Civil Liberties Union in San
Diego, said in a
statement posted on the group's website that school officials should "insure
protection for those activities protected by the First Amendment."
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