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Sunday, October 11, 2009

Family Tackled Obstacles on Path to Success

By Martin Salazar
Copyright © 2009 Albuquerque Journal
Journal Staff Writer
          For the Chaves family, success meant overcoming the doubts of others.
        James Chaves, now 58, remembers struggling with math in the fourth grade, and his father, who barely graduated from high school, not being able to help him.
        "I just felt so alone, because I couldn't get the help I needed," said Chaves, the first in his family to get a college education. "My fourth-grade teacher told me that I would probably never make it to the sixth grade."
        His son Gian Chaves, meanwhile, always knew he would go to a university after high school, but when he began discussing his plans with a Rio Grande High adviser, he was told that perhaps he should consider a junior college because it would be cheaper and easier.
        Gian, who had a 3.5 grade point average, walked away from the conversation feeling his abilities were underestimated.
        He went to UNM anyway, and the student who hadn't had to work hard to get good grades in high school realized he wasn't as prepared as some of his peers.
        "There was a difference in workload (at other high schools)," he said. "I think they expected more, made them study harder. They assigned more homework."
        Gian said he managed to keep up and to get As and Bs at UNM. But having to work, then getting married and having a daughter meant a delay in graduating.
        The 26-year-old is now two classes away from finishing his bachelor's in biology and expects to graduate in December. He plans to apply to UNM's pharmacy program.
        Gian and his two brothers had a head start on achieving their educational goals.
        They grew up in a middle-class family that valued education. Their mother, Virginia, graduated from high school and was a stay-at-home mom. Their father, James, earned a bachelor's and master's from UNM and was a math and electronics instructor at what is now Central New Mexico Community College.
        But Gian says the education legacy in his family wasn't as strong as in some others.
        "You've got to figure a lot of the students that are going to La Cueva, Sandia, they're not exactly first-generation college students," he said. "Their families have been going to college for generations and generations ... and they're actively involved in their kids' education, whereas a lot of Latinos didn't go to college."
        Gian said that, while his parents valued education and told him to study, they weren't overly involved in making sure he did his homework or pushing him to get straight As. They didn't need to be.
        "They did a good job regardless of whether they checked my homework or not," he said. "They were a little more passive and lenient with homework, because they knew that I was going to do it regardless."
        Still, he said he plans to push his daughter harder and to work with her on homework to help ensure she gets the best education possible. "With my daughter, I read with her all the time, and she's only 2," he said. "I want her to enjoy reading. ... I want her to be successful and be able to hold her own."
        Gian attributes his success in high school and college to self-motivation.
        "I'm still here," he said. "It's so easy just to give up and say, 'I can't do it.' I'm still here."
        Achievement Gap Not New
        The achievement gap between Anglo students and their Hispanic, black and American Indian counterparts is nothing new. The disparity has attracted statewide and even national attention for decades. Some examples:
        • DECEMBER 1971: A study by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights gives Southwestern schools failing marks for their efforts in educating minority students. In New Mexico, 48 percent of Hispanic students in schools studied are reading below grade level, compared to 25 percent of Anglo students. According to the report, titled "The Unfinished Education: Outcomes for Minorities in the Five Southwestern States," minority students in the Southwest "do not obtain the benefits of public education at a rate equal to that of their Anglo classmates."
        • AUGUST 1985: A study by the National Council of La Raza shows that in 1983, 50.3 percent of 18- to 19-year-old Hispanics had graduated from high school, compared with 75.6 percent of Anglos. The study, titled "The Education of Hispanics: Selected Statistics," also found that 56 percent of adult Hispanics are functionally illiterate, 3.5 times the rate for Anglos. The study defines functionally illiterate as the inability to read a bus schedule or address a letter.
        • AUGUST 1996: Sen. Jeff Bingaman and members of the National Hispanic Dropout project wrap up a national tour in Las Cruces in which they gathered information from students, parents and teachers and learned about local programs that address the dropout problem among Hispanics. The group says the national Hispanic dropout rate is 30 percent, compared with 10 percent for Anglos.
        • JUNE 2000: President Clinton outlines a set of goals aimed at closing the achievement gap between Hispanic and non-Hispanic students. Among the "clearly achievable" goals to be accomplished by 2010 are: eliminating the gap in standardized test scores between Hispanic and other students, and increasing the rate of Hispanics from high school to 90 percent.
        • SEPTEMBER 2009: Referring to an "education crisis," members of an activist group in New Mexico called on education leaders and the Latino community to work together to overcome the "catastrophe" of poor Hispanic student achievement. The Latino/Hispano Education Improvement Task Force cites large disparities in graduation rates between Anglos and Hispanics. New Mexico AYP results released in August continue to show a large achievement gap in standardized test results between Hispanic and Anglo students.
       

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