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Sunday, December 10, 2006

Summit Focuses on Education; Hispanic Experts Meet in Duke City

By Debra Dominguez-Lund
Journal Staff Writer
    There are many reasons Lourdes Espinoza's students don't make it to high school or college.
    "Being three miles from the border, there's student migration issues, poverty issues— kids have to drop out of school to work and help their families survive," said Espinoza, a Columbus Elementary second-grade teacher in Columbus, N.M.
    "Our school is K-6, and of the 60 students or so who graduate from our sixth grade, only about 10 make it to high school," she said. "We need to change that."
    That's why Espinoza and about 50 other educators and policy makers are attending a critical education summit this weekend to address challenges faced by Hispanic students and to make the college dream attainable for all.
    The summit, organized by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund, started Friday and will conclude today at the Hilton Albuquerque Hotel.
    The event, titled the "New Mexico Statewide Policy Institute on Higher Education Access," was primarily organized in an effort to eliminate the achievement gap among Latino students, said Arturo Vargas, the group's executive director.
    "Latino students attend schools that are more likely to have less resources than schools attended by non-Latinos," Vargas said.
    Vargas also said many immigrant parents aren't involved in their children's education for many reasons, including not having a good experience with education themselves, not feeling like they are educated enough to help or because they feel the teacher shouldn't be questioned.
    "But we want them to know that they need to be teachers first and the number one advocates of the education system," he said.
    Those in attendance reviewed state education policies and developed effective strategies to give students higher education access— like those promoted by ENLACE New Mexico, a statewide effort that includes the state's higher education institutions, public schools, Hispanic students and their parents.
    "What we need to do is start aligning the skills our kids get in high school and making sure their course work is rigorous enough to meet up with the expectations of them in college," said Karen Griego, ENLACE executive director.
    According the 2000 U.S. Census, among working-age adults (ages 24 to 64), about 31 percent of Latinos don't have a high school diploma, and NALEO officials say about 17 percent of Latinos earn college degrees.
    State Higher Education Department Deputy Secretary of Academic Affairs Jozi De Leon said creating pathways to college for these kids needs to be a collaborative effort.
    "We need to get kids to understand what those pathways are," she said, "like taking the right high school course work in math, science and English."