by Michael Marcell
Federal and state governments spend more than $10,000 per pupil on elementary and secondary public education annually, but new desks and computers are not the Rosetta Stones needed to assist young, Latino students.
Forty-two percent of Hispanic 4th and 8th grade students in the U.S. public schools have below-basic English reading proficiency, according to a study presented at the National Press Club June 22 by the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators.
“Closing the Achievement Gap” was conducted by the Los Angeles- based Tomás Rivera Policy Institute.
It targeted states and school districts with high numbers of Hispanic middle- school students.
The results showed major achievement gaps between English Language Learners and non-ELL students. Seventy percent of ELL middle-school students have belowbasic reading levels compared to 15 percent and 24 percent for their 4th and 8th grade peers.
Delaware State Representative Joseph Miro said there is a uniform problem with the teaching ELL and ESL students. “Unless we dedicate the resources, not just money, and training of different educators, we are not going to be able to address the problem.” Miro said.
Sen. Melinda Romero (Puerto Rico), newly appointed chairwoman of the NAHCSL education taskforce, said teachers of ELL students need better professional development, assessments and resources.
“The ELL teachers are usually not up to par,” Romero said, stressing the vaue of parent involvement. “Usually the teachers are not Latino or Spanish speaking and the parents are afraid of being involved.
Much of the study focused on middleschool students. Romero said middle schools are where most Latino dropouts occur. She called them the “Wasteland of American education.”
“We have seen years where almost 65 percent of the Latino community has dropped out in middleschool.” Romero said.
Consensus among the speakers was that ELL students fall behind early in their academic careers, starting in the first grade, and often drop out in frustration.
TRPI’s Wendy Charavia said most students who drop out do so as they are going into the 9th grade.
Charavia stressed the mportance of college awareness as a goal and motivatorfor ELL students.
“If you’re in middleschool and have some idea of where you’re going to be after school, it’s a huge motivator to stay,” Charavia said. No clear strategy forparent involvement was put forward at the presentation.
When asked by Weekly Report what was being done to increase parental participation, Miro, a former teacher, said “the expectation of schools at this point is to take the role to educate the kids with a decrease in the parents’ responsibility.”
Kansas State Rep. Mario Goico said the best way to begin the parental integration is by assigning students reading lists to be signed by their parents acknowledging that they were, in fact, doing their work.
“You have to have a certain interaction between the teacher, the parent and the student in order to communicate the knowledge,” Goico said. Hispanic Link.
