I have more than eight years of experience as an education reporter. I worked for The Dallas Morning News for six years and The Wichita Eagle in Kansas for two years. I hold a journalism degree from Northwestern University.
Latino Studies programs are popping up in unexpected places.
Just this fall, Vanderbilt University announced the creation of a Latino and Latina Studies program. This occurred even though only about 8 percent of Vanderbilt students are Latino.
Community colleges are also considering such programs.
Hispanic fourth- and eighth-graders made small gains in math and reading on the National Achievement of Educational Progress — known as the “Nation’s Report Card” — but achievement gaps remain a persistent problem.
The latest data released measured growth between 2011 and 2013.
Hispanic and black children still have not caught up to white children. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said the achievement gaps are troubling, The Dallas Morning News reported. He used the opportunity to promote the expansion of preschool programs.
Latinos in California have “unacceptably low rates” of college completion that must improve in order for the state to have a strong future, a new report says.
The report, “The State of Latinos in Higher Education in California,” was conducted by the nonprofit group The Campaign for College Opportunity.
The most stark fact illustrating the challenge is that in 2011, only about 11 percent of Latino adults ages 25 or older held a bachelor’s degree in the state, compared with 39 percent of white adults.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation has released its annual Kids Count report evaluating child well-being in the United States.
The report delves into areas such as economic security, education, health, and family and community. The online resources are comprehensive — offering the national and state-by-state perspective, in addition to data broken out by race and ethnicity.
According to the report, small gains have been made in the areas of education and health. However, income inequality and high unemployment are hurting well-being.
Latino students now make up slightly more than 24 percent of all public school students in Illinois, and are pushing the state’s schools toward becoming a majority-minority.
The Chicago Tribune reports that Illinois has almost reached the tipping point, with minority students making up 49.4 percent of all students. The growing number of Hispanic students in the suburbs, and now solely in the Chicago Public Schools, is also fueling the growth.
The first part of a compelling new documentary chronicling the lives of six young Latino teens premieres tonight (Monday) on PBS.
The documentary, created by filmmakers from the Quiet Pictures production company, will be shown on the program Independent Lens and will be broadcast at 10/9 CT. You can check your local listings to confirm the time. (As a disclaimer, I was asked for some feedback related to the discussion guides that accompany the documentary, but did not participate in editing or creating the documentary.)
The Tucson, Arizona, school board has reversed a ban on seven books related to Latinos that were once used to teach a now dismantled Mexican American Studies program.
The state of Arizona had previously banned any courses that allegedly have promoted the overthrow of the government or encouraged ethnic resentment and solidarity. Despite the ban on the MAS program, this year the Tucson schools were ordered to enforce a “culturally relevant” curriculum as part of a desegregation lawsuit.
A decision by the Los Angeles Unified School District to group limited English proficient children into classes together rather than blending them into mainstream classes has sparked protests and petition drives.
Over and over, the word “segregation” has popped up during debate over the plan.
A new study shows that as early as 18 months old, children from poor families understand words much more slowly than those from affluent families. Previous studies have had similar findings in children of older ages.
The study by Stanford University psychologists was recently published in the journal Developmental Science. The psychologists tested a group of 20 babies at 18 months old by how they identified objects based on language. They were evaluated on accuracy and time. They were then retested six months later.
A new policy brief from 10 researchers aims to bolster the assertion that preschool education has a myriad of positive attributes.
The researchers reviewed research studies on preschool to compile their report. They concluded:
Preschool can help children with literacy, language and math development.
A new study seeks to uncover what sorts of discrimination Latino youth and their families may face when seeking mental health treatment.
The Elkhart Truth reports that the study is funded by the National Institute for Mental Health and will focus on northern Indiana. According to Census figures, the city of Elkhart, Indiana, is about 15 percent Latino, compared with 6 percent statewide.
The impending closure of the Buena Vista Mobile Park in affluent Palo Alto, Calif. has touched off passionate discussion about a somewhat unexpected topic: school quality.
The mostly Latino and low-income residents can’t otherwise afford to live in the city, and attend the well-regarded public schools there. Developers plan to raze the park to make room for upscale apartments. Residents have begged the City Council to take into account children’s access to a quality school district.
A new report takes aim at New Jersey’s public schools, describing the segregation of black and Latino students into certain schools as an “apartheid” system.
The Institute on Education Law and Policy at Rutgers University released the report making that characterization, along with another report issued by the Civil Rights Project at UCLA on segregation in New Jersey schools.
Across the country, suburban school districts viewed as wealthy and white are rapidly changing and diversifying. As a result, perception is lagging reality.
To measure how rapidly the demographics of a school district are changing, a good place to start is examining the backgrounds of incoming kindergartners and comparing that against the averages for overall enrollment and upper grades.
The Prince George’s County School System in Maryland came under scrutiny after the county’s executive recently appointed three new members to the Board of Education — none of whom were Hispanic.
Of the district’s approximately 123,000 students, roughly 25 percent are Hispanic (though no Hispanics serve on the 13-member board).
Education reporters often are drawn to reporting the depressing headlines about the state of Latino and black students in our nation’s public schools.
These stories often focus on high school dropouts, low test scores, and unstable home lives. But we must remember that lessons can also be drawn from minority students who are success stories. And we must realize how damaging it can be to portray black and Latino students in an almost hopeless, and fatalistic, light.
Each year the advocacy and policy group Excelencia in Education identifies college programs that are making strides in helping Hispanic students achieve success.
The organization just announced three examples of such programs at its annual conference in Washington, D.C., which are highlighted in the report “2013 What Works For Latino Students in Higher Education.”
The group seeks identify the strongest associate, undergraduate and graduate programs.
Just a few dollars can impact the college application decisions of high school seniors, according to a new study by the National Bureau of Economic Research reported on by the web site Inside Higher Ed.
The study addresses how the cost of submitting a college application can discourage students from applying to a greater number of colleges. Recent studies on the phenomenon of “undermatching” have found that high-achieving minority students from low-income backgrounds often don’t apply to the elite schools they are qualified to attend.
The SAT college entrance exam picture for Hispanic students is mixed, based on 2013 data released Thursday by the College Board.
Hispanics have increased to 17 percent of test takers. Yet only about 23.5 percent of Latino students were deemed college ready based on their scores, a slight increase over the prior year.
The overall national average is also frustrating. For the past five years, the overall average college readiness of test takers has hovered at 43 percent.
Latinos raised in Spanish-speaking homes but not formally schooled in Spanish are often caught in a bind when they want to strengthen their language schools in college.
Spanish classes for non-native speakers may not be the best fit, so programs that address the needs of “heritage” speakers are increasingly popping up. As the Latino student population ages, Spanish for Spanish speakers classes could grow in popularity throughout the country.
The Hispanic student population is soaring in the Clark County School District in Las Vegas, where Hispanics are fueling much of the record jump in enrollment this year.
According to the Las Vegas Sun, the student enrollment increased this year by 3,707 students to 315,087 total students. The growth exceeded the district’s expectations.
About 44 percent of Clark County students are Hispanic, while 29 percent are white.
Eight presidents of Utah colleges and universities are calling on Congress to pass immigration reform.
The signers of the new letter include the presidents of the University of Utah, Utah State University, and Utah Valley University.
Immigration reform has largely faded from the headlines, but the presidents demonstrate that some groups are pushing to bring it to the forefront again.
They support making it easier for foreign students to obtain visas to study in science and engineering fields.
The Abriendo Puertas/Opening Doors program gives parents the skills to become their child’s first teacher.
Until this week, Texas Christian University professor Santiago Piñón was apparently best known for his work teaching a popular course on Latinos and religion.
On the web site Rate My Professors, reviewers describe him as a funny, helpful and insightful man. Several go as far as to call him one of the university’s best professors.
Children living in Chicago’s most heavily Latino neighborhoods have much less access to quality parks than white children, an analysis by WBEZ radio shows. The research mapped out the city’s 525 playgrounds by census tract.
However, the Chicago Park District has plans to upgrade 300 parks over the next five years. The city says that about 90 percent of children live within a half mile, or a 10 minute walk, of a park.
The teen birth rate for Latinas has fallen dramatically within the last few years, according to new data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Between 2007 and 2012, the teen birth rate for Latina teenagers ages 15 to 19 fell by 39 percent — the largest drop of any group. In 2012, there were 46.3 births per 1,000 Hispanic teens.
The town of Greenwich, Connecticut, may conjure up images of a mostly wealthy and white population. But roughly one-third of students attending the Greenwich Public Schools are not white, and about 17 percent are Hispanic.
The concentration of Latino and other minority students at two elementary schools in Greenwich prompted the state to warn the school system that it was in violation of a law prohibiting schools from being racially imbalanced.
The Chicago Public Schools have faced numerous difficulties in the past year: school closures, neighborhood violence and persistently high dropout rates. Latino children make up about 44 percent of the district’s enrollment.
On the Huffington Post Latino Voices blog, Latino Policy Forum Executive Director Sylvia Puente writes about the conditions in Chicago and Illinois, noting last year’s struggles.
Higher numbers of Latinos are enrolling in college than ever before — even as overall college enrollment in the United States is falling.
Rhode Island may not be a state that comes immediately to mind when the challenges of Latino students are discussed.
But the state has a rapidly growing population, especially in its larger cities. While other states have large Mexican origin populations, Rhode Island tends to draw from other groups such as Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Colombians, and Guatemalans.
States are obtaining federal waivers from meeting some of the more onerous provisions of No Child Left Behind, raising concerns that achievement gaps may no longer be exposed. A new analysis by the Campaign for High School Equity finds that the waivers would essentially weaken the law.
A survey of parents of school-age children finds that their views of an “ideal” school often vary by race, ethnicity and economic status. The Thomas B. Fordham Institute surveyed more than 2,000 parents a year ago online for the “What Parents Want” study.
In Texas, poor Hispanic children who are English language learners often attend intensely segregated schools, a new study has found.
Such children face “triple segregation” because they are isolated by virtue of their ethnicity, socioeconomic background and language skills. The trend is found in both urban and suburban settings.
Federal spending cuts due to sequestration are expected to eliminate Head Start services for more than 57,000 children across the country, including thousands of Latino children enrolled in the programs.
A new poll shows that Latino parents are more likely than other groups to say that a lack of high-quality teachers at their children’s schools is an extremely serious problem, while black and white parents tend to point to school funding as a big problem.
Latino, black and low-income parents are also more likely to say their children’s schools have serious problems than white or wealthy parents.
More than half a million young immigrants who moved to the United States as children have applied for “deferred action” from the federal government since the program was created a year ago.
The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program gives certain undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States before age 16 a temporary reprieve from deportation and work authorization. When President Obama announced its creation, estimates placed the number of eligible youth somewhere around 900,000.
A recently launched initiative in Texas will bring together school districts, community colleges and universities in an effort to improve education outcomes for Latino and black male students.
The Texas Education Consortium for Male Students of Color will be based at the University of Texas at Austin and seeks to encourage Texas higher education institutions to create “male-focused student programs” that address state goals in increasing the success of minority male students.
In the Dallas school district, a group of librarians meets every year to create a special reading list for Hispanic children. The librarians strive to identify 20 of the best bilingual books for Spanish-speaking elementary school children.
The librarians call themselves the luminarias (lights used to guide the way), because of how they view their role as shepherding young readers. In Dallas ISD, this is especially critical since almost 70 percent of the district’s students are Latino, and nearly 40 percent are classified limited English proficient.
As the Latino population boomed beyond major urban centers and border states, school systems have struggled to keep up with their rapidly changing demographics — even in unexpected places such as Iowa.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released some welcome news this week. Between 2008 and 2011, obesity rates declined among poor pre-school students in 19 states and U.S. territories.
Challenges remain. About one in six Hispanic preschool children and one in five black children between ages two and five are obese, according to the CDC. This compares with one in eight of all preschoolers.
Florida education officials are being challenged on their plan to evaluate Latino and black students based on much lower math and reading achievement goals than those set for white and Asian students.
Educators have long advocated for judging students based on growth, rather than a set cut score. A significant achievement gap still persists. But does that mean standards should be set lower for black and Hispanic children as a result?
Arizona state law dismantled the Mexican American Studies program offered by the Tucson Unified School District with a ban on ethnic studies courses passed three years ago. But due to a judge’s desegregation order, the program appears to be headed for a resurrection.
The course was removed due to the ban– but a judge’s order for “culturally relevant” classes appears to be enough to revive it. According to an NPR report, the Mexican American Studies courses were originally created due to a desegregation order.
While Latinos are making great gains in college enrollment, a new study finds that they are largely shut out of the most selective institutions.
The new report, “Separate and Unequal: How Higher Education Reinforces the Intergenerational Reproduction of White Racial Privilege,” was released by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. It calls the story of minority college access a “good news – bad news” story.
Children made up a “relatively small share” of the 25.3 million foreign and U.S.-born people with limited English proficiency residing within the United States in 2011, according to a new study by the Migration Policy Institute.
A new study finds that Hispanic children with immigrant parents and black children of U.S.-born parents were rated the lowest on well-being indicators when compared against other children.
The research also offers some insights into the attributes of immigrant families — their strengths as well as the significant challenges they face. According to the U.S. Census, children of immigrants are now about one of every four children. (However, it’s important to point out that most children of immigrant parents are actually U.S.-born citizens).
A $50 million boost in education funding may seem like good cause for celebration. But in Nevada, the reaction to the news has not been uniformly positive.
In New Britain, Connecticut, a new school superintendent has pushed for a dramatic and controversial shift in how to instruct English Language Learners.
Superintendent Kelt Cooper is doing away with bilingual education and phasing in mostly English classes that with an intensive focus on grammar, a recent story on PBS News Hour reported. He compares the approach to teaching English as a foreign language.
A new brief by The Education Trust celebrates the spike in college enrollment by Latino students, but calls attention to the need to improve six-year graduation rates.
Between 2009 and 2011, Latino undergraduate enrollment at four-year colleges and universities increased by about 22 percent — from 949,304 students to 1,158,268. Black student enrollment increased by 8.5 percent to 1,158,268 and white enrollment increased by 2.7 percent to 6,090,212.
First, the good news: High school graduation rates are improving for Latino and black male students in New York City. The bad news? Many of those new graduates are not ready for college coursework.
Several years ago, Denver Public Schools officials recognized the enormous popularity of Spanish-language radio among Hispanic parents and turned that knowledge into a successful new vehicle for community outreach.
On the last day of classes at Huguenot High School in Richmond, Virginia, community members rallied outside of the school to protest the alleged discriminatory treatment of Hispanic students. The group included the valedictorian of the graduating class, Jessica Orsonio.
A group of university professors have released a statement through The Civil Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles, arguing that the benefits of affirmative action are supported by sound research, despite the politically divisive nature of the debate over its usage.
Sates have widely varying degrees of preparedness for the implementation of common core standards — and in particular their impact on low-income, Latino and black students.
Many Latino children enjoy limited opportunities to engage in physical activity and exercise in their communities, according to a new study. That’s because they may not have nearby access to the proper facilities and safe “active spaces.”
This can negatively impact the ability of children to maintain a health weight, and could promote obesity.
A new report by a federal advisory committee concludes that several proposed need-based financial aid changes to the Higher Education Act (HEA) could threaten the completion rates of low-income college students, and in particular Latino and black students.
The percentage of Latino teachers in Colorado lags far behind the state’s diverse student population.
The Denver Post reports that Latinos made up about 8 percent of the state’s teachers during the 2012-13 school year, and 25 percent of the students. Additionally, the percentage of Latino teachers has increased by only 1 percent over the past decade.
The achievement gap between Hispanic and white students in math and reading has narrowed since the 1970s, according to data from a national exam.
Latino children still have the lowest preschool attendance rate of any racial or ethnic group, The Annie E. Casey Foundation annual 2013 Kids Count report has found.
Between 2009 and 2011, about 63 percent of Hispanic children did not attend preschool, compared with 50 percent of white children.
Hispanic students who are economically disadvantaged and those who are English Language Learners are excelling in charter schools much more now than in past years, according to a study of charter schools conducted by Stanford University researchers.
Latino children view about 12 food and beverage television ads a day, says a study published in JAMA Pediatrics suggesting that such viewership could be related to high obesity rates among the group.
After noticing that few Hispanic parents were serving on school district committees, an Illinois school district superintendent decided to create a program to teach parents the skills they need to become effective leaders.
New York City Department of Education officials say that the graduation rate for English Language Learners fell by almost 5 percent for the Class of 2012, in part because of tougher accountability standards. Latinos make up a large part of the city’s ELL student population.
Three suicides by Latino teenagers in recent years have prompted introspection at the academically highly regarded East Hampton High School in New York State.
Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent John Deasy sent a memo to the district’s board of trustees recently outlining the academic gains by English Language Learners within recent years.
News stories often report on programs that work to build awareness among Spanish-speaking parents about the importance about college — but what about special education?
Manhattanville College in New York State recently brought together Hispanic parents through its Changing Suburbs Institute to promote awareness of special education issues, The Journal News reports.
A new report by the ACLU of Rhode Island finds that Latino and black students are being suspended at much higher rates than white students, relative to their student population size.
The report is based on an analysis of data from the Rhode Island Department of Education, between 2004 and 2012.
A new report outlines how community colleges can improve retention and completion rates for Latino students — in particular, through targeted financial counseling and assistance.
The report, “Supporting Latino Community College Students: an Investment in Our Economic Future,” was conducted by the advocacy group Excelencia in Education and the program, Single Stop USA.
Excelencia focuses on efforts that build Latino student success at colleges and universities.
About 54 percent of all U.S. Latino undergraduate college students in 2011-12 attended Hispanic-Serving Institutions, a new analysis has found.
This week during a meeting with journalists, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan raised concerns about the low enrollment rates of Latino children in preschool.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has sent a complaint letter to the administrator of the Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, Head Start program, alleging that the organization has illegally demanded proof of U.S. citizenship from Latino families seeking to register their 3-year-olds in the program.
While Silicon Valley is world-renowned for its innovative high-tech industry, a new report says that only 20 percent of Latino students in the region are graduating high school within four years and are eligible for admission to the University of California and California State University systems.
A new report released by the National Center for Education Statistics sheds some light on the course-taking practices of Latino high school students. In particular, greater numbers of students are taking math and science coursework.
The courses taken changed considerably between 1990 and 2009. For example, the percentage of Hispanic graduates those years who took a calculus course grew from 4 percent to 9 percent.
A new ad campaign from the group Autism Speaks is reaching out to Latino and African-American parents to generate greater awareness about autism and encourage earlier identification.
Harvard University students have gathered 1,200 signatures protesting the John F. Kennedy School of Government’s approval of a dissertation asserting that Latinos have low IQs.
The Los Angeles Unified School District will stop using “willful defiance” as a justification for suspension, a sweeping change that eliminates the broad category as an option for teachers and administrators.
A federal judge has ruled against a community group that sought to block Washington, D.C., public school closures by arguing that they disproportionately hurt black and Latino children.
The Washington Post reports that U.S. District Judge James Boasberg wrote that school officials were not intentionally discriminating against the students.
Researchers from the Center for Early Care and Early Education Research – Dual Language Learners at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, recently reviewed many studies to drawn conclusions about English language learners. The center’s research is funded in part by the Administration for Children and Families in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Researchers examined children ages zero to five who are learning two languages.
Latino high school graduates in the Class of 2012 were more likely to enroll in college than their white counterparts, a new Pew Hispanic Center study has found.
About 69% of Hispanic high school graduates enrolled in college the following fall, compared with 67% of their white peers. The data used for the study comes from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Conversations about closing the achievement gap for Hispanic students often center around reaching children as early as possible — in preschool, or even as toddlers.
More universities are embracing a similar mindset. They are seeking to reach students before they’ve even thought of applying to college. That means working with students and parents in high school, or even middle school.
Latinos living along the border between Texas and Mexico reported feeling hurt by the state’s $5.4 billion in state education budget cuts two years ago, according to a new poll by the Texas State Teachers Association and the group Latino Decisions.
The Southern Poverty Law Center broadened its federal complaint against the Jefferson Parish Public School System in Louisiana regarding the district’s treatment of Latino immigrant families this week.
Civil rights organizations in Nevada are raising concerns about the scant funding for English Language Learners attending the state’s public schools, and are investigating a possible lawsuit against the state.
Arizona State University administrators are working on recruiting more first-generation Latino college students — by including parents in their outreach efforts.
The Future Sun Devil Families program offers workshops to families, with students grades 9-12 and their parents learning side-by-side.
Demetrio Rodriguez played a pivotal role in the creation of what is known as the “Robin Hood” school funding system in Texas. He was the lead plaintiff in the Rodriguez v. San Antonio ISD case, which was first brought in 1968.
In part, the case centered on inequality and whether children children had a constitutional right to an education.
Hispanic students are improving in their understanding of economics, but still lag behind white students, according to the results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress in economics taken by high school seniors.
The exam was taken by 11,000 high school seniors in 2012, and the results have been compared with those of students who took the exam in 2006.
We often hear about disparities in teacher quality between rich and poor schools. But what about the inequality that takes place within schools?
Every school has a mix of teachers of varying levels of talent and experience. School principals wield the power to determine which students they will be assigned. Experienced teachers may seek to handpick their students. Well-informed, affluent parents may also demand specific teachers.
For many children who are English language learners, the road to proficiency can stretch on for years. While many shed their ELL label after several years, others languish in special language programs well into their teens.
Sal Castro, a Mexican American Los Angeles high school social studies teacher who played a pivotal role in the walkouts of Latino students demanding better educational opportunities, died Monday at age 79.
A new report by Colorado higher education officials finds that in 2012, almost 78% of Latino students enrolled in the state’s two-year colleges need remedial education. Latino students fared better at four-year colleges, where 40% need remedial courses.
Empowered by California’s “parent trigger” law, the parents at one elementary school cast their votes Tuesday in an unusual election.
They were deciding whether the struggling 24th Street Elementary School in Los Angeles should remain in the L.A. Unified School District, break away and be run by a charter school operator–or opt for an unusual combination of the two.
A Florida scholarship program known as Bright Futures may soon no longer have such a sunny reputation.
Recently announced eligibility requirement changes mean that significantly fewer Latino and black students will qualify for assistance. The required minimum GPA of 3.0 will remain the same.
Years after concerns were first raised about how the Hartford Public Schools in Connecticut were instructing English Language Learners, the district has entered into an agreement with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, pledging to make a number of changes to address the needs of the population.
States grade their school districts each year based on accountability tests and other factors. In California, The Education Trust-West has created its own report cards for the state’s largest 148 school districts. The group proved to be a pretty tough grader.
The report noted that the highest overall grade of a B was earned by Baldwin Park Unified school district. Most districts received grades of Cs and Ds, leaving plenty of room for improvement.
The Central California Migrant Head Start programs can serve as a model of how to effectively welcome Latino families, reports EdSource Today. Children are taught in Spanish and English.
Former Stanford University administrator Cecilia Preciado Burciaga worked to support many first-generation Latino college students transition into the university.
Now that she has passed away at age 67, many of those former students are stepping forward to share the impact she made on their lives. They include successful professors and attorneys.
Four finalists are in the running for the elite $1 million Broad Prize for Urban Education, recognized for their success in boosting the achievement levels of low-income, Latino and black students.
The winner won’t be announced until Sept. 25. The winner will receive $550,000 in scholarships for students, and the three other finalists will receive $150,000 each. According to the press release, 75 of the nation’s largest districts were eligible and considered for the prize.
