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Sunday, October 11, 2009

Education Legacy

By Martin Salazar
Copyright © 2009 Albuquerque Journal
Journal Staff Writer
          Editor's Note: Over the next several months, the Journal will look at the achievement gap between Hispanic and Anglo students that has vexed the state for decades. We plan to look at the problem from different angles and to feature people, schools and programs that appear to work along with those that don't. We invite you to share your thoughts by going to ABQjournal.com, where you will also find links to previous stories and other resources.
        James Chaves drilled a motto into his three sons as they were growing up on a five-acre ranch in Albuquerque's South Valley.
        "You can either push the shovel or push the pencil," the first-generation college graduate would tell the boys, instilling in them from the beginning the idea that if they didn't want to be stuck doing backbreaking manual labor, they had better hit the books.
        "My dad used to work our butts off and really kind of give us a lot of experience of digging trenches and getting our hands dirty," Gian Chaves said. "It was a regular ranch experience, and I guess that was his way of saying, 'If you don't like it, then do good in school so you don't have to do this ... for a living.'"
        The lesson took hold, and Chaves' three sons — Mario, Gian and Christopher — graduated from Rio Grande High, a predominantly Hispanic school better known in recent years for dropouts and infighting than for its success stories.
        In New Mexico, for nearly every Hispanic who comes out of high school with a diploma after four years, there is another who doesn't.
        Mario Chaves graduated from high school, but Ana Rosales did not. She dropped out of Albuquerque High after getting pregnant and realizing she needed to work to support her child. The Chihuahua, Mexico, native thinks she would have stayed in school had her family been more involved and had she felt someone cared.
        While Gian Chaves got his high school diploma, Juan Felipe Roybal did not. Roybal began skipping school and getting into trouble after his mother and father were killed in a crash on a northern New Mexico highway one November afternoon. As he struggled with his grief and lashed out, he faced multiple suspensions and began feeling like the Peñasco district was pushing him out. He left his senior year.
        Christopher Chaves got to put on a cap and gown, but Ramona Acosta did not. She dropped out of Los Lunas High at 15 because she wanted out of the gang environment she said pervaded her school. Two years later, she had a son.
        What the numbers show
        While both Rosales and Roybal have since received their GEDs and are now pursuing higher education, Acosta put her plans for a GED on hold when her son got sick.
        More than two years after dropping out, Acosta still regrets her decision.
        "I probably would have had a better life for myself and for my son," she said, reflecting on the "what if" that many Latinos likely ponder after leaving high school without a diploma.
        Their stories are at the heart of New Mexico's achievement gap problem: low expectations and the perception that Latino students likely won't beat the odds; poverty; families that don't value education enough to demand their children remain in school despite obstacles; students showing up at school with problems teachers cannot solve; and teens simply giving up on their education.
        Various explanations for the achievement gap have been offered over the years.
        Some suggest higher poverty rates among Hispanics and other social issues play a key role. In New Mexico, 82,000 Hispanic children live in poverty, compared to 19,000 Anglo children, according to KIDS Count statistics. That same report reveals 42 percent of Hispanic children live in single-parent families, compared to 27 percent of Anglo children. In 2006, 751 Anglo teens gave birth, compared to 3,149 Hispanic teens.
        Others suggest that language barriers and the lack of a culturally relevant curriculum contribute to the problem.
        Whatever the cause, the achievement gap has become a devastating reality for New Mexico's Latino community:
        • Only 55 percent of last year's Hispanic eighth-graders were proficient in reading, compared to 79 percent of their Anglo counterparts. About 35 percent of Hispanics in that same class were proficient in math, compared to 61 percent of Anglo students.
        • About 56 percent of the state's Latino students are graduating from high school within four years, compared to 71 percent of Anglo students, according to the first four-year study released by the state.
        • The U.S. Census Bureau reports that nearly 30 percent of Hispanics in New Mexico have less than a high school diploma or GED, compared to 6.5 percent of Anglos.
        • Of the Hispanic students who graduated from high school and enrolled in a New Mexico college or university, more than 55 percent needed remedial classes, compared to about 35 percent of Anglos.
        • At the University of New Mexico, 41 percent of Hispanic freshmen graduate within six years compared to 47 percent of Anglo freshmen.
        Why care?
        So why does the state's Latino achievement gap matter?
        For Hispanics, it matters because not having a good education makes it harder to get a decent-paying job. Their options in life are limited, as are their children's. Several studies suggest that as Latinos fail to succeed in the education system, the likelihood of their children succeeding diminishes.
        For non-Hispanics, the achievement gap matters because the number of Latinos in this state continues to grow. Hispanics make up 54.6 percent of the state's student population, compared to 30.6 percent for Anglos. Hispanics who are not well-educated generally earn less money, pay less in taxes and are more likely to need government services that are funded with tax dollars.
        At a Washington, D.C., conference earlier this week, New York University professor Carola Suárez-Orozco called the achievement gap "an economic train wreck."
        Given the number of Hispanics in public schools, the state's underperforming education system cannot be fixed without addressing the persistent achievement gap between Anglo and Latino students.
        Nationally, education leaders are referring to the achievement gap between Latinos, blacks and Native Americans and their Anglo counterparts as the civil rights issue of our time.
        In New Mexico, a new grass-roots group dedicated to closing the Latino achievement gap is demanding the situation be treated with urgency and that significant resources be deployed to address the problem.
        "What schools have been doing with our children is not working," said an impassioned Jose Armas, a member of the Latino/Hispano Education Improvement Task Force. "What colleges and universities have been doing to prepare our teachers who work with our children is not working. What the unions, elected officials and the different departments of education have been doing and what our own community has been doing to address our children's education is not working. We point out these failures, and they are failures, not to attack anybody, but as a call to action for change."
        Gov. Bill Richardson has pledged close to $9 million in federal stimulus money to improve the state's graduation rate and help close the achievement gap. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., has introduced legislation to tackle high dropout rates across the country.
        State and school leaders like Albuquerque Public Schools Superintendent Winston Brooks, University of New Mexico President David Schmidly and state Education Secretary Veronica Garcia are all echoing the sentiment that the state's achievement gap is unacceptable and that no efforts should be spared in tackling the problem that has persisted for decades.
        "As Hispanos, we enjoy a strong culture, a strong tradition which is a great source of pride," Garcia said during a recent news conference. "But can we add to that culture, to our heritage? Can we aspire to be an educated people? To be a people that obtains high wages to improve the state of our communities?"
       

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