Hamptons Suicides Prompt Focus on Latino Community

Posted on June 14, 2013 by Katherine Leal Unmuth

Three suicides by Latino teenagers in recent years have prompted introspection at the academically highly regarded East Hampton High School in New York State.

The New York Times recently reported that the rapid growth of the Hispanic population in the community has created tensions that may have been a factor in the students’ suicides. According to the article, the student population in the East Hampton Union Free School District was 41 percent Hispanic in 2012, up from 21.7 percent ten years earlier.

Daniel Hernandez, 16, an Ecuadorean immigrant, died after hanging himself last September, following Homecoming. In the aftermath of the tragedy, the district emphasized a renewed focus on reaching out to Hispanic parents. The district also hired a graduate of the high school to help and work as a community liaison, 23-year-old Ana Nunez, a Columbia University graduate who is of Ecuadorean descent.

She has helped parents learn how to understand student report cards and addressed concerns about students being absent for extended periods during out of the country trips.

The article acknowledges that a myriad of issues were at play in the suicides. For example, the article said Hernandez had questioned his sexuality and had allegedly been bullied by other Hispanic students.

Many school districts have chosen to hire liaisons to focus on involving Latino families. How is your local district handling outreach?

- East Hampton Union Free School District

- “Officials respond to student suicides,” East Hampton Star.

Ads Promote Autism Awareness Among Latinos

Posted on May 23, 2013 by Katherine Leal Unmuth

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.

The “Maybe” PSA campaign includes TV and print ads in both English and Spanish. The ads outline key warning signs and behaviors a child with autism may exhibit, such as a preoccupation with objects and avoiding eye contact.

Last year, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) released a study showing large increases in the number of Latino and black children identified as autistic. The CDC estimated that there were about 7.9 diagnosed cases of autism per 1,000 Latino children, an increase of 110% over 2002. Despite that increase, prevalence is much higher among white (12.0) and black (10.2) children. The report noted that the wide variation between groups could be attributed to awareness levels in the communities.

The average age of diagnosis is four to five years. But the average age of diagnosis is higher among Latino, black and low-income children.

“Earlier diagnosis [is] so important because if we can get a child by 2 years old, in most cases, with help that child can go to regular kindergarten,” Liz Feld, president of Autism Speaks, told NBC Latino. “The window between 2-5 years old is the most important time to deal with treatment.”

- “Autism Cases Identified Among Hispanic Children on the Rise, CDC Says,” Latino Ed Beat.

- “Autism Speaks launches new campaign to reach Latino, black parents,” NBC Latino.

- “Prevalence of Austin Spectrum DIsorders in Hispanic and non-Hispanic White Children,” Pediatrics.

- Autism Speaks

Pew: Latinos Making Dramatic Gains in College Enrollment

Posted on May 11, 2013 by Katherine Leal Unmuth

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.

“This is the maturation of a big second generation among Latinos — native born, and educated in American schools,” Richard Fry, the report’s author, told The New York Times.

The Pew report also suggests that the struggling economy and the availability of fewer jobs could make college seem like a more appealing choice to young Latinos.

The announcement comes after the release of other reports in recent months showing that the educational outcomes for Latinos are looking brighter. More Hispanics are graduating from high school, although there is still plenty of room for growth and an achievement gap with whites persists.

In January, the National Center for Education Statistics released a report finding that the Latino high school graduation rate increased to 71.4% in 2010, up from 61.4% in 2006.

Similarly, an analysis by the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center found that the Latino graduation rate for the Class of 2009 was 63%, representing a 5.5% increase from the previous year.

We should not minimize the fact that too many Latinos are still not making it to the high school graduation finish line, and they are not being factored into the Pew Hispanic Center’s percentages. Pew measured the college-going rates of the actual graduates, and does not include the students who started high school the same year but dropped out.

According to the Pew Hispanic Center, in 2011 about 14% of Latino 16- to 24-year-olds were high school dropouts, down from 28% in 2000. The white high school dropout rate in 2011 was 5%, in comparison.

Pew has a few other caveats, as well. Just 56% of Hispanic college students are enrolled in four-year colleges and universities, compared with 72% of white students. Hispanic students are therefore more likely to attend community college, less selective schools, and are more likely to be part-time students — all factors that contribute to the fact that they are less likely to complete a bachelor’s degree.

But certainly, strides are being made and justifiably, celebrated.

- “Record rate of Hispanic students heading to college,” USA Today.

- “As Latinos Make Gains in Education, Gaps Remain,” The New York Times.

- “Latino High School Graduation Rate Sees Large Increase,” Latino Ed Beat.

- Diplomas Count, Editorial Projects in Education Research Center.

Study Examines Teacher Assignment Inequalities Within Schools

Posted on April 24, 2013 by Katherine Leal Unmuth

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.

A new study by Stanford University researchers published in Sociology of Education examined teacher assignments within the Miami-Dade County Public Schools system between the 2003-04 through 2010-11 school years. (Last school year, about 66% of Miami-Dade students were Hispanic.)

Researchers found that low-performing students were more likely be assigned to teachers with less experience, those from less-competitive colleges, female teachers and black and Hispanic teachers.

According to the study, teachers with 10 or more years of experience and those in leadership were more likely to have high-performing students in their classrooms. Teachers who are white, male or attended more competitive universities also tended to be assigned more high-performing students.

There was one interesting exception, however. Those schools under strong accountability pressure were less likely to place the high-achieving students with veteran teachers. But in most cases, campuses are assigning struggling children to less experienced teachers, and the achievement gap persists.

The study cautions that efforts within districts to lure more veteran teachers with financial incentives to certain difficult-to-staff campuses can backfire.

“Within-school sorting may prevent the most effective teachers from being matched to students who need them most even if the sorting of teachers between schools is minimized,” the study says.

According to the study’s survey of principals in Miami-Dade, about 28% of principals said they rewarded strong teachers with the class assignments they wanted. Their motivation was to retain the strong teachers.

In addition, the study notes that “If white principals tend to develop better relationships with white teachers in their school than they develop with black or Hispanic teachers, then a desire to reward their friends with desired classes may contribute to the racial differences in class assignments we observe in schools led by white principals.”

While researchers were critical of assigning students to less-experienced teachers, they were not as critical of the practice of assigning black and Hispanic students to black and Hispanic teachers. They point out that minority teachers may desire these assignments and may have a more powerful impact on their students’ achievement, prompting principals to support making such assignments as well.

This begs the question–is it bad to match students with teachers of the same race or ethnicity? And is some of this happening in regards to Hispanic students because of language issues as well?

In addition, how can the teacher assignment process be reformed?

- “Systematic Sorting: Teacher Characteristics and Class Assignments,” Sociology of Education.

Latino Students in Virginia Often Attend Segregated Schools

Posted on March 19, 2013 by Katherine Leal Unmuth

A new study finds that Latino students are becoming more segregated in Virginia schools–particularly in the northern part of the state where they are the largest minority group.

According to the study by The Civil Rights Project at UCLA, Northern Virginia is the only part of the state where Latino students are more segregated than black students.

“Despite Virginia’s long history with school desegregation, little political attention has been paid to the growing multi-racial diversity of the state’s enrollment and rising levels of isolation for its black and Latino students,” the report says.

The report examined data from the National Center for Education Statistics between 1989 and 2010, and found the following about school enrollments in 2010:

- About 6% of the state’s Latino students attended schools where white students make up less than 10% of the enrollment.

- Despite segregation, schools are also becoming increasingly diverse as well. In 2010, more than 60% of Latino students attended a multiracial school where three or more racial groups made up at least 10% of the enrollment. It was a dramatic increase from 1989, when the rate was 10%.

- The typical Latino student attended a school where low-income students made up about 41% of students.

The study breaks out numbers depending on the region of the state- Norfolk-Virginia Beach-Newport News, Richmond-Petersburg and Northern Virginia. The report makes various suggestions as to how the state can increase integration, including using magnet schools to promote more racial integration and avoiding rezoning policies that increase racial isolation.

Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project, called attention to the need for the state to adjust to its changing demographics.

“Though many racial issues remain unsettled for black students, Virginia now faces another kind of change as it becomes a truly multiracial state, which poses a different set of risks and opportunities,” Orfield said. “Leaders need the vision to renew efforts to achieve justice and integration for blacks and to be sure that the growing Latino communities are not locked into segregation and inequality.”

- “UCLA Report Finds Virginia’s African American Students Face Increasing Racial Segregation and Poverty in School,” The Civil Rights Project at UCLA.

Latinos Underrepresented in New York City Gifted Programs

Posted on March 5, 2013 by Katherine Leal Unmuth

While Latino children make up the largest racial or ethnic group enrolled in New York City’s public elementary schools, they occupy the smallest percentage of the gifted and talented program’s enrollment.

Data obtained by The Wall Street Journal shows that Latino children are dramatically underrepresented in the program, making up just 12% of the city’s 14,266 gifted elementary school students this school year. Yet Latino children make up about 41% of the 489,911 elementary students.

The Journal reports that white and Asian children make up about 70% of students enrolled in the city’s 110 gifted and talented elementary programs. Children who are Latino, black or of other races make up about 29%. The newspaper asked the city’s chief academic officer, Shael Polakow-Suransky, whether he thought the racial imblance was a problem.

“I wouldn’t say that we set a goal for ourselves on diversity,” he told the newspaper. “We set a goal for ourselves on having a high standards that we want to push our kids and our families to meet.”

The newspaper is shining a light on the disparity, as the city prepares to change the exam it uses to screen for gifted children. The new test will be the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test, relying on abstract thinking.

A large part of the racial and ethnic disparity is that low-income, minority parents don’t know about the gifted program or test. Nor do they have the resources to prepare for it, as tutoring can be expensive. Critics say that the city should not solely rely on standardized test for admission to the program.

According to the Journal, only about 13% (39,300) of children kindergarten through third grade were even tested for gifted programs in 2012, and the city does not believe in screening all students.

In a follow-up story, the Journal reported that the school system’s Chancellor ,Dennis Walcott, said the low enrollment of black and Hispanic children “is what it is.”

“It’s unfair to [black and Hispanic students] if they just need to be put in a program to satisfy some type of percentage,” he told the newspaper.

The lack of diversity among elementary schoolchildren is just the tip of the iceberg. The New York school system has also come under fire for the lack of diversity at the city’s most elite magnet high schools, including Stuyvesant and Bronx Science .

Last September, the NAACP filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education (with the support of Latino Justice PRLDEF), saying that the city’s magnet admission exam discriminated against black and Latino students.

At the time, Reuters reported that in the 2011-12 school year Latinos only made up about 2.4% of Stuyvesant students, and black students made up 1.2 percent.

Admissions standards for gifted programs can vary widely. Make sure to compare your school district’s racial and ethnic composition against the gifted population. Does your district use an exam, or include other factors?

- “City Defends Gifted Policy,” The Wall Street Journal.

- “NAACP says entry exam bars Blacks, Latinos from Top N.Y. Schools,” Latino Ed Beat.

- “Gifted, Talented and Separated.” The New York Times.

Latino High School Graduation Rate Sees Large Increase

Posted on January 23, 2013 by Katherine Leal Unmuth

The National Center for Education Statistics has released a new report showing a huge increase in Latino high school graduation rates. The rate increased to 71.4% in 2010, up from 61.4% in 2006.

The report shows more positive outcomes for all students. About 78.2% of students graduated on time within four years in 2010. The report also breaks out data by state.

Jack Buckley, director of the NCES, told The Huffington Post that the last time the country had a similarly high graduation rate was in 1968. The NCES put out its first such report in 2005, but made estimates dating back to the 1970s.

“This is the highest estimated rate of on-time graduation,” Buckley said.

Despite those gains, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, said while there has been much progress, still more is needed.

“…Our high school dropout rate is still unsustainably high for a knowledge-based economy and still unacceptably high in our African-American, Latino and Native American communities,” he said in a statement.

Nevada reported the worst rate for Latinos in 2010, at 47.2%. Meanwhile among the states with the nation’s two largest Latino populations, Texas reported a significantly higher graduation rate than California. Texas reported 77.4%, and California, 71.7%.

Some of the 2010 rates for Latinos in other states with large Latino populations included Arizona, 70.6%; Colorado, 65.9%; Florida, 71.1%; Illinois, 76%; New Mexico, 65.3%; and New York, 60.7%.

- “Public School Graduates and Dropouts from the Common Core of Data: School Year 2009-10,” National Center for Education Statistics.

- “Latino High School Graduation Rates up 10%,” Fox News Latino.

CDC Study Finds Obesity Common Among L.A. Preschoolers

Posted on January 18, 2013 by Katherine Leal Unmuth

A new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds that between 2003 and 2011, obesity rates among poor preschool-aged children in Los Angeles rose at one point to a high of 21 percent, according to a story by the Associated Press.

The study found that at the same time obesity rates among children in New York fell from 19 percent to 16 percent.

Sadly, the reason given for the higher rates in Los Angeles is that obesity rates among Mexican-American children are particularly high when compared with other groups, the AP reports.

The study found the obesity rate in LA was initially 17 percent, peaked to 21 percent in 2009, and then dropped to 20 percent.

The AP reported that researchers focused on three- and four-year olds who were enrolled in the WIC government program, which provides food vouchers to low income families. About 85 percent of children in the L.A. study were Hispanic, most of whom were Mexican-American. In New York, just 46 percent of the children studied were Hispanic, including not many Mexican-Americans.

According to the CDC, about 12 percent of all preschool-aged children are obese.

Report Projects Rapid Diversification of College Campuses

Posted on January 11, 2013 by Katherine Leal Unmuth

A new report takes a sweeping look at the “new normal” coming soon to college campuses across America.

The Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education’s study, Knocking at the College Door, predicts that while the number of high school graduates in the United States is expected to decline in the coming years after peaking in 2010-11 at 3.4 million, the diversity of graduates will rapidly increase.

The study urges policymakers to address the change by better serving students who have not been served well in the past.

The report also breaks down its predictions on a state-by-state basis. Just three states are expected to see swift expansion in high school graduates–Colorado, Texas and Utah.

The study predicts that by 2019-20, about 45 percent of public high school graduates will not be white, driven in large part by growth in the Latino population. Between 2008-09 and 2019-20, the report projects that white high school graduates will drop by 228,000 as Hispanic graduates increase by 197,000. Asian graduates are expected to increase, and black graduates are projected to decrease.

The report also predicts that by that year graduating high school classes will become majority-minority in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Maryland and Nevada. Currently, California, Hawaii, Mississippi, New Mexico and Texas are majority-minority.

Detailed data on a state-by-state basis can be found here.

WICHE has 15 states that are members and works on public policy research and expanding educational access. The report was also backed by the ACT and College Board.

- “College admission may get easier as ranks of high school graduates drop.” The Los Angeles Times.

- “Wave of Diverse College Applicants Will Rise Rapidly.” The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Many California Children Live in Poverty

Posted on January 9, 2013 by Katherine Leal Unmuth

A new study finds that 30 percent of Hispanic children ages zero to six years old in California live at or below the poverty line–threatening the state’s economic strength in the years to come. The rate is higher than the average of 23 percent for all California children.

The report, Prosperity Threatened, was released by the non-profit group The Center for the Next Generation, which focuses on improving opportunities for children and families.

The researchers highlight the stark differences in poverty rates by age, reporting that fewer than one in ten of the state’s senior citizens live in poverty.

They also looked at data by county, finding that Merced County had the highest overall poverty rates and San Mateo County, the lowest.

The group recommends increasing funding to the highest poverty school districts, and urges the state to create a new school financing system. They also say that family income stability can be improved by strengthening benefit programs.

The argument that childhood poverty now threatens economies of the future is becoming a common theme elsewhere in the country. Former Texas state demographer Steve Murdock testified that the challenges facing Latino children require greater investment from the state during a school funding trial last October.

How have you framed this discussion in your own state?

- “Prosperity Threatened: Perspectives on Childhood Poverty in California.” The Center for the Next Generation.

- “We can’t abandon the next generation.” The Sacramento Bee.

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