A Road Map to Their Future: What Latino Students Need to Graduate

Laura J. Cortez | The Chronicle of Higher Education
September 25, 2011

I can vividly remember the day I first stepped foot on the University of Texas-Pan American campus to begin my dissertation research on first-generation Mexican-American college students. Classes had just started and Spirit Week was in full swing. As I walked around campus, my senses went into overdrive. Students were excitedly walking to class, chatting in groups, and lounging around the campus. I could not put my finger on the overwhelming sense of excitement or comfort I felt. And then it suddenly hit me: Almost every student who passed by looked like me and was speaking Spanish.

I was home.

I was born in San Benito, Tex., a small town on the Mexican border. There I learned to embrace my life as both a Mexican and an American. I was raised in a predominately Hispanic community, where I learned to speak Spanish at a young age and where "day care" meant spending time at my grandma's house with all of my cousins. I was the first college graduate in my family, and went on to pursue a doctorate in higher-education administration at the University of Texas at Austin. I understand firsthand the obstacles many first-generation Latino students face, and over the past four years have dedicated my research to learning about their experiences, specifically at Hispanic-serving institutions in Texas, and what helps such students succeed in college.

The designation "Hispanic-serving" applies to nonprofit colleges where full-time undergraduate enrollment is at least 25 percent Hispanic. I chose Pan American, which has 19,000 students, because of its high Latino enrollment and large number of graduates. (In 2010 it ranked third among colleges nationwide that awarded the most bachelor's and master's degrees.) It is located in the Rio Grande Valley, one of the fastest growing—and poorest—regions in the United States, according to U.S. Census data from 2010. Despite the area's economic conditions, Hispanic students at Pan American are consistently doing well, and more important, they are graduating.

For my dissertation I wanted to learn what factors most helped Latino students obtain a degree. While I interviewed faculty and administrators, I especially wanted to give a voice to students—single mothers, transfer students, working adults, campus leaders, and those who juggled multiple roles. Throughout my study, Latino students repeatedly identified certain tools that helped them succeed and graduate—tools that could be useful to a wide range of colleges. They include:

A campus climate that values and validates their culture. This was critical to students, who believe they do best when they feel at home. With the rapid growth of the Hispanic population in the United States, more Latinos are expected to attend college, and it is imperative that they feel welcomed and supported. Administrators can accomplish this by deliberately analyzing how their institutional missions are serving Latinos. "I think the important thing for the university, any school or any place for that matter, is to have events, lessons, foods, or lectures that can relate to the culture that they are serving," Marc, a 26-year-old student who spent four years working before attending college, told me.

Pan-American, for example, has built an on-site day-care center to assist students who are parents. For many young mothers, the center provides crucial support that allows them to continue their education. Academically, Pan-American encourages more Hispanics to pursue careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields. Once a year it hosts the Hispanic Engineering, Science, and Technology Week, which brings together nationally known speakers and students from all over the Rio Grande Valley. Sara, a 22-year-old student, told me, "I think a university that provides these types of events is reaching out and actually helping more Hispanics reach their goal to graduate and get a degree."

Academic programs that promote collaboration. Latino students consistently made the point that they thrive in supportive academic peer groups—particularly important at a commuter campus, where students have fewer chances to interact than at residential universities. Latinos are commonly raised in extended-family environments, and the peer groups provide a similar network of support and responsibility.

Education majors often cited an academic-cohort program in the School of Education in which the same groups of students meet in classes—called blocks—as a significant step in keeping them engaged and on track to graduation. Besides providing academic motivation, the program helps students develop friendships and connect with one another through mutual career goals.

Kayla, a 28-year-old commuter student and single mom, said: "When you start the Block program, you see the same people every day. Some of us carpool and we help each other that way. That sense of helping each other and reminding each other of when assignments are due is a good experience. You feel like you are just not here alone."

Academic-cohort programs are common in graduate education, but colleges should consider their long-term benefits for Latino undergraduates as well, especially in fields such as science, engineering, and math, subjects in which courses are sequenced and students can complete the requirements as a team.

Clear procedures to simplify the transfer process. Many Latino college students are first-generation, and have very little understanding of the college process. Unable to draw upon the knowledge of parents or peers, many experience trial by fire. As one Pan-American administrator said, "It is one thing to get them in the door, and it is another thing to ensure they graduate."

Because so many Latino students begin their education at community colleges—in Texas, that figure is over 60 percent—both two- and four-year colleges must help make the transition to four-year institutions seamless. The students I interviewed found the transfer process especially difficult when the burden of making sure they met course requirements fell mostly on their shoulders. Many agreed that the close collaboration between Pan-American and South Texas College, the local community college, made it possible for them to pursue their degrees.

A student who had transferred three times told me: "The one thing that helped me was my transfer adviser. She was the one who was responsible for making sure I had all the hours transferred over. She made sure that I had all the classes required ... and that I had the grades to be ready for it."

A well-articulated pathway to a degree. This was another institutional tool frequently mentioned by students. Pan-American advises all first-year students on their degree plans. Students found the degree plans most useful when they were repeatedly used during advising sessions throughout their four years. Degree plans are a key to success, constantly reminding students where they are going and what it will take to get there.

Strong faculty advising to help students make connections between degrees and careers. Latino students relied heavily on faculty members for career advice, and often considered them indispensable mentors who inspired them to continue their education. Colleges have a responsibility to train faculty, as well as students, about institutional policies. At Pan-American, new faculty members participate in a yearlong program that includes training on such issues as how to be culturally sensitive to Hispanic students. It makes new professors aware of the types of students they will be teaching and the many factors that shape their lives. Just getting to class, for example, is a hardship for some students. "We do everything to show our faculty where the students come from, including their home lives and environment," one administrator said. The program is not meant to "water down the curriculum," but to expose professors to the difficulties many students face, this administrator said. "We want them to know we are here to serve our students."

My research examined the programs and tools that help Latino students reach the finish line. But in the end, it takes supportive faculty members and administrators to create those programs and services—people like the Latina administrator who told me, "I do what I do every day so I can see the light in their eyes shine."

When given the opportunity, students will tell you what they need. When colleges are willing to listen, everybody wins.

Laura J. Cortez is a recent doctoral graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and a higher-education consultant. She has worked as a career and academic adviser to underrepresented minority students at Texas and St. Edward's University.

Early-College High Schools: 'Why Not Do It for All the Kids?'

Great piece on South Texas' Hidalgo ISD.

-Patricia

By Joel Vargas | Ed Week Editorial
January 7, 2011

Hidalgo, Texas, has one of the most successful school systems in the United States. The dropout rate is nearly zero, and the high school regularly lands on a top-school list published by U.S. News & World Report. Last June, when members of the high school graduating class crossed the stage to receive their diplomas, 95 percent of them could proudly point to their college credits as well. Two-thirds of the graduating seniors had earned at least a full semester of credits toward a college degree.

It’s time for the nation to pay attention when any community boasts results like these. These are especially remarkable in one of the most economically depressed areas of the United States, just across the Rio Grande River from Mexico, with one of the lowest number of college-educated adults. Nine out of 10 students in the high school are considered economically disadvantaged, 99.5 percent are Hispanic, and 53 percent entered with limited proficiency in English.

The story of Hidalgo is not only one of success, but of turning around an entire school district. In the late 1980s, student achievement in Hidalgo ranked in the bottom 10 percent in Texas. But local leaders took giant steps to improve student performance, and they gained support from every segment of the surrounding community. Over the next two decades, everyone—from bus drivers to principals, from teachers to school board members—began to focus on doing what it takes to raise the achievement levels of all 3,500 young people in the Hidalgo schools.

Read on...

UT System officials spell out plans for Valley vision Officials hope to expand academic and health offerings.

By Ralph K.M. Haurwitz | AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, Dec. 3, 2010

"Plant the flag."

That's how University of Texas System Regents Gene Powell and Robert Stillwell put it a year ago when they summed up what the state's largest university system ought to do in the Rio Grande Valley. Their point was that the system should plan to dramatically expand its academic and health offerings in the fast-growing region, which has long been a stepchild when it comes to higher education.

They might have been preaching to the converted. Regents with ties to South Texas include Janiece Longoria, who grew up in Pharr, and Colleen McHugh, who lives in Corpus Christi and leads the board. The system's chancellor, Francisco Cigarroa, grew up in Laredo and expanded health programs in South Texas when he was president of the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio.

On Friday, at a retreat in Austin, system officials outlined their progress to the Board of Regents. The efforts don't amount to a planting of the flag, but that moment might come in February, when the officials plan to ask the board for permission and money to begin the initial steps of a 10-year vision they are developing.

"This is ambitious. This is long term," said David Prior, the system's executive vice chancellor for academic affairs.

Cigarroa said he hopes to come up with $4 million to $5 million for hiring faculty members in science, technology, engineering and math at UT-Brownsville and UT-Pan American. He said the money likely would come from system endowments and savings from debt restructuring and other cost-cutting measures. Communities in the Valley would be asked to match the system's contribution dollar for dollar through donations and other means, he said.

The system is working on a parallel track to ramp up its health programs in the region. It already operates three satellite medical campuses — known collectively as the Regional Academic Health Center — in Harlingen, Brownsville and Edinburg. The largest unit, at Harlingen, has 50 medical students from San Antonio in clinical rotations. Cigarroa hopes to double that.

Hospitals in the Valley have agreed to provide 127 new residency slots for freshly minted doctors undergoing additional training, said Kenneth Shine, the system's executive vice chancellor for health affairs.

One long-term goal is a full-fledged medical school in the Valley. State lawmakers approved a measure last year that authorizes — but stops short of requiring — the UT regents to establish a medical school in Cameron County, whose major cities are Brownsville and Harlingen. But with the state facing a multibillion-dollar budget shortfall, it's unlikely that the Legislature would allocate significant funds for such a venture anytime soon.

Education study ranks Hidalgo County near the bottom among large metro areas

Neal Morton | The Monitor
July 21, 2010

McALLEN — McAllen remains among the nation’s worst cities for educational success, a think tank reported this week, but some business and education leaders gleaned hope from the area’s third-to-last ranking for bachelor’s degree achievement.

Releasing its “State of Metropolitan America” study on Monday, the Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institute ranked the McAllen-Edinburg-Mission area — which comprises all of Hidalgo County — 98th among the country’s 100 largest metro areas based on the proportion of residents age 25 and older with a bachelor’s degree.

Only 15.1 percent of that age group, or 58,811 people, had a bachelor’s degree in 2008.

In 1990 and 2000, Greater McAllen stood at dead last on the list.

University of Texas-Pan American President Robert Nelsen hailed the movement up the ranking since then as good news for the area.

“We only came up by two, but my optimism is large,” Nelsen said. “Sometimes I’m asked if we need to recruit in Houston or in Dallas. No, we don’t.

“There are so many students here available,” he said. “We just need to make certain they know they have the opportunity.”

Nelsen said many hurdles stand between metro McAllen and the 35 percent national average for degree attainment.

One key factor in the area’s low education rates represented what Nelsen called a vicious circle.

“We have a lot of poverty in the (Rio Grande) Valley,” he said. “I think of lot of that is because of the low number of bachelor’s (degrees) we have here. An educated populace is what will turn around that trend.”

Demonstrating the vicious circle, the metro report illuminated tough prospects for individuals without post-secondary educations.

In 2008, less than 60 percent of residents with only a high school diploma or less had a job, compared to over 86 percent employment for residents with a bachelor’s degree.

Joe Brown, president and CEO of Border Capital Bank and board chairman of the McAllen Chamber of Commerce, said the low numbers of bachelor’s degrees in the area reflected a student mindset that hurts the area.

“We’ve lost some of that mental capital to other areas of the state,” Brown said. “We have a lot of our kids leaving the Valley to go to school. … They get enamored with life in the big city and we lose them.”

Brown’s own daughter received a master’s degree in Austin and has yet to return.

He said the dislocation of education-oriented students might change as more institutions of higher learning like South Texas College establish themselves in South Texas.

STC’s vice president of academic affairs, Juan Mejia, agreed.

“We are playing catch-up more than anything,” Mejia said.

“Here, our focus is to prepare a workforce for jobs that exist in our area,” he said. “We do environmental scans on what potential new jobs are coming so we can be ready to roll out a program as soon as possible.”

As their schools renovate engineering, health care and information technology programs, Mejia and Nelsen said they were coordinating efforts to provide training for jobs specific to the region.

Their optimism was supported by some increases reported in the metro study.

The McAllen area’s enrollment in college or graduate schools beat the national trend as it jumped 7.8 points from 23.5 percent of the age 18-24 population in 2000 to 31.3 percent in 2008.

Bachelor’s degree attainment among residents age 25 and older also went up — 12.9 percent in 2000 versus 15.1 percent in 2008. Meanwhile, associate degree attainment in that age group increased half a percentage point to 3.4 percent.

Even high school graduation rates for the age 25-and-up crowd increased, from 50.5 percent in 2000 to 58.3 percent in 2008.

High school was the place Nelsen saw the most potential for change in the Valley’s college-ready culture.

“You have to get these kids early on,” he said. “You have to be moving as quickly and early as you can to introduce them to the idea of college.”

He referenced a San Juan school district program that helps parents get their general equivalency diplomas and noted the community aspect to such efforts.

“If the parents get the GED, then their kids are more likely to go to college,” Nelsen said. “It has to be multi-pronged. Just the university or STC can’t do it alone. We all have to do it together.”

Valley administrators fear cuts to financial aid could slow enrollment

Jared Janes | The Monitor

July 19, 2010

EDINBURG — The saving grace for Hidalgo County’s two higher education institutions may be their students.

South Texas College and the University of Texas-Pan American both saw summer enrollment increases of about 30 percent, a skewed figure because this year is the first time that low-income students can use Pell Grants for summer classes. But administrators at both campuses are still projecting modest enrollment increases of at least 5 percent in the fall that could offset the loss of state dollars with additional tuition revenue.

Unlike the University of Texas at Austin, where staff layoffs occurred with student enrollment at the maximum allowed, UTPA can cover some of the shortfall by getting more students on campus.

"We don’t have an expense problem. We have a revenue challenge," said Juan C. Gonzalez, UTPA’s assistant vice president for business affairs. "Because our academic cost is low, we can’t go very far before we start hitting the muscle when we face reductions."

The Valley’s higher education administrators are most concerned cuts to financial aid programs could eliminate enrollment gains seen statewide.

The state’s student financial aid program was exempt from the 5 percent cut this year, and state leaders vowed not to touch it in the 10 percent cut under consideration.

But even administrative changes in the TEXAS Grant — the need-based grant — could affect UTPA students, said UTPA President Robert Nelsen. An additional $10 million to $13 million is given to UTPA students each year from universities elsewhere that don’t use the full allocation.

There’s no guarantee that redistribution of TEXAS Grants will continue.

While state legislators may not need to make sweeping changes with a rainy day fund estimated at $9 billion and a shortfall that could be as low as $12 billion, higher education officials are still preparing themselves for adjustments, said STC President Shirley Reed. Because higher education is among the state’s discretionary spending — unlike mandatory contributions to Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program — it’s especially vulnerable to cuts.

All state agencies were asked to prepare budgets reflecting the additional 10 percent cuts to help legislators identify reductions when those decisions are made in January, said state Sen. Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa, D-McAllen, who sits on the Legislative Budget Board. But he pledged to look at the whole structure from the spending side to the taxing side to prevent drastic cuts that damage the state’s higher education system.

Shifting more of the cost for higher education toward students by raising tuition or cutting financial aid could lead the state to lose waves of students, especially in low-income areas like the Valley, Hinojosa said.

"Texas depends on an educated workforce," Hinojosa said. "If we close the doors to students, then not only do the students suffer, but our economy and the business community suffers."

Jared Janes covers Hidalgo County government, Edinburg and general assignments for The Monitor. He can be reached at (956) 683-4424.

Shapleigh calls on Dewhurst to set up a new South Texas Border Initiative

Steve Taylor | Rio Grande Guardian
10 June 2009

McALLEN, June10 - State Sen. Eliot Shapleigh has asked Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst to prepare for a new South Texas Border Initiative in order to boost access to higher education along the border.

“Given that Texas is minority-majority today and will be majority-Hispanic by 2020, I am asking you to set the stage for a second STBI in order to reverse decades of institutionalized and systematic discrimination against our Borderlands universities,” Shapleigh wrote, in a May 18 letter to Dewhurst.

The original STBI was mounted in the 1989 by the 71st Legislature and resulted in a $460 million aid package for the nine four-year colleges located on the Texas-Mexico border.

It came about following a lawsuit filed by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund that claimed the state of Texas had discriminated against Hispanic students by not adequately funding higher education institutions along the border.

In his letter, Shapleigh points out the huge disparity in the number of doctoral and professional programs at Borderlands universities as compared to Texas Tech University in Lubbock.

Texas Tech has 60 doctoral and professional programs, Shapleigh wrote, compared to one at the University of Texas at Brownsville, three at the University of Texas-Pan American, 19 at the University of Texas at El Paso, five at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, and one at Texas A&M International University in Laredo. Shapleigh also listed the 21 doctoral and professional programs at the University of Texas at San Antonio to strengthen his argument, though most border leaders do not consider San Antonio a border city.

Dr. Blandina “Bambi” Cárdenas referenced the lack of doctoral programs along the border in a hard hitting speech to the North American Advanced Manufacturing Research and Education Initiative reception in Laredo on Monday evening.

In what appeared to be a call to arms to border business, academic and political leaders to strongly challenge the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and the Legislature, the former UTPA president said it was “unsatisfactory and unacceptable” that the border region has just a handful of doctoral programs. She said the border region would likely have to “force” the issue.

“If you draw a line from, let’s say, Marfa, around San Antonio and south to Corpus Christi, we have less than a handful of doctoral programs in that region. Less than a handful,” Cárdenas said.

“I would suggest that we have less than ten doctoral programs in all of those institutions put together. We cannot support and create a 21st century economic development effort if we are lacking those doctoral programs.”

Shapleigh’s letter was sent Dewhurst during the 81st Legislature and came about as a result of a fierce Senate debate over the criteria Texas should use in establishing more Tier One universities. Tier One is another name for a flagship university and confers the title of a national research center. Tens of millions of research dollars flow to such universities.

Under legislation passed this session, seven Texas universities are in the running to receive money from a new fund designed to help higher education institutions achieve Tier One status - UTEP, UTSA, the University of Houston, the University of North Texas, the University of Texas at Arlington, the University of Texas at Dallas, and Texas Tech University. Texas voters must approve the establishment of the fund in a constitutional amendment in November.

Shapleigh said he agreed with a statewide consensus that something must be done to make Texas’ universities more competitive on a national and global scale.

However, Shapleigh strongly disagreed with the criteria being set in legislation authored by Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock. Shapleigh said Duncan’s bill – SB 1560 – would effectively result in the “coronation” of the University of Houston and Texas Tech as Tier One universities.

“With the University of California (UC) System now birthing an eighth public national research institution at UC-Merced, we can learn many lessons on how to develop and fund excellence. One thing we should not continue is a historic under-funding of border universities, the ramifications of which are still with us today,” Shapleigh wrote.

In his letter, Shapleigh pointed out that he offered two amendments to Duncan’s bill in an attempt to “level the playing field” for all seven emerging universities.

Duncan’s criteria stated that an institution must have awarded 200 PhDs during each of the last two academic years. Shapleigh’s amendment would have reduced this to 100 PhDs and allowed a school to qualify had they shown a 20 percent growth in the number of PhDs awarded over the past three fiscal years.

Shapleigh said this would have helped UTEP and UTSA. “The residual effect of historic discrimination is that the state’s majority-Hispanic institutions have dramatically low number of PhD programs,” Shapleigh wrote. The amendment was defeated on a vote of 20 to 11.

Shapleigh offered another amendment that he said would have reflected what Higher Education Commissioner Raymund Paredes stated at a March 25 higher education committee hearing on Tier One legislation. Paredes pointed out the importance of demographic and economic considerations, including population trends and the economic and business infrastructure of a locality when considering a Tier One application.

“Our amendment would have allowed a school to meet an additional criteria provided that the institution is located in a population center with a local and regional economic infrastructure capable of facilitating the long-term success of a national research institution,” Shapleigh wrote. “El Paso, San Antonio, and the Valley would have greatly benefited from this amendment, as all have dynamic economies capable of sustaining growth and working closely with the local universities.”

Shapleigh said that, “unfortunately, in deference to Senator Duncan,” the amendment was voted down 19 to 12. Duncan’s district, like the Panhandle generally, is shrinking population-wise, when compared to the fast growing border region.

“I point these amendments out because their defeat are representative of the larger problem,” Shapleigh wrote to Dewhurst. “The historic under-funding of Border universities that has resulted in them playing catch up to the rest of the state.”

Shapleigh added that all the current talk of additional Tier One universities in Texas is “a Potemkin dream without funding.” He said that at best, even with the funding in the Tier One bills moving through the Legislature, Texas could be decades away from new Tier Ones.

Shapleigh pointed to Coordinating Board statistics which show that Texas lags far behind other states in university funding. He said even the Governor’s business supporters, namely the Select Commission on Higher Education and Global Competitiveness, agrees. That group’s report stated:

“Texas is not globally competitive. The state faces a downward spiral in both quality of life and economic competitiveness if it fails to educate more of its growing population (both young and adults) to higher levels of attainment, knowledge and skills. The rate at which educational capital is currently being developed is woefully inadequate. Texas also needs an innovation-based economy in all the state’s regions that can fully employ a more capable workforce. It must generate more external research funding, and commercialize ideas and intellectual property at a volume substantially greater than currently taking place.”

The point about assisting all the state’s regions was also made recently by Keith Patridge, president and CEO of the McAllen Economic Development Corporation. Patridge told the Guardian he would be voting against the constitutional amendment on Tier One universities in the November election in protest at the “willful and negligent abuse” handed out to Rio Grande Valley universities.

Shapleigh ended his letter by reminding Dewhurst that China and India have learned that exporting valuable capital to the U.S. is an unsustainable model. “Soon we will understand what competition from those countries will represent in innovation, ideas, and prosperity, and what failed leadership has cost our state.”


© Copyright of the Rio Grande Guardian, www.riograndeguardian.com, Melinda Barrera, Publisher. All rights reserved.

Cárdenas: It's time to 'force' Texas into providing border region with more doctoral programs

Steve Taylor | Rio Grande Guardian
9 June 2009

LAREDO, June 9 - South Texas and the border region must exert its political and economic muscle to “force” the state of Texas into increasing higher educational opportunities, says Dr. Blandina “Bambi” Cárdenas.

In a hard-hitting speech before an audience of economic development, business and academic leaders, the former president of the University of Texas-Pan American said it was “unsatisfactory and unacceptable” that the region has just a handful of doctoral programs.

“If you draw a line from, let’s say, Marfa, around San Antonio and south to Corpus Christi, we have less than a handful of doctoral programs in that region. Less than a handful,” Cárdenas said.

“I would suggest that we have less than ten doctoral programs in all of those institutions put together. We cannot support and create a 21st Century economic development effort if we are lacking those doctoral programs.”

Cárdenas gave her remarks at a reception at La Posada hosted by the North American Advanced Manufacturing Research and Education Initiative (NAAMREI).

Cárdenas said it would take the South Texas region’s combined “political, strategic and economic acumen to force - and I will say force - the Coordinating Board and force the Texas Legislature to put the resources behind the institutional capacity that it will take to build those doctoral programs.”

Cárdenas said higher education is the “R&D and human development operation” of a successful economy. She went on to list what the region currently has and what it lacks. It has one engineering program, no medical school, no law school and a handful of doctoral programs in education, she said. “That is unsatisfactory and unacceptable. We cannot continue to grow this economy with that kind of vision,” she said.

The way to address these deficiencies, Cárdenas said, is to develop a strategic plan based on the region’s educational needs for the next 25 years. “We can do it because we have got the brain power. If we come together we’ve got enough votes. But the agenda has to be set,” she said.

After four and a half years as president of UTPA, Cárdenas retired in January, citing health issues. “As you can see, old educators, like old soldiers, don’t just fade away,” Cárdenas said, to cheers from the audience.

NAAMREI’s leadership team had gathered for their quarter meeting. The group honored Cárdenas with its first ever Leadership Award.

Cárdenas said she was not going to let the opportunity pass without doing “just a little bit of preaching.” She spoke a little about the difficulties she had faced growing up in Del Rio. “There were a whole lot of people standing in the way who thought Mexicanos from the barrios of San Felipe shouldn’t be showing that kind of leadership,” she said.

Having been all over the world and having mixed with lots of so-called important people, Cárdenas said she was in no doubt about the richness of character and intelligence found in border communities.

“I have long been convinced that the people of our region, even those that were not born here, are particularly gifted,” she said. The talents of those living in other parts of the country and the world in no way surpass the “human capital, the intelligence, the brain power, the values power, the soul power, and the gut power of our people of South Texas,” Cárdenas said, to a cheering audience.

The only thing standing in the way of that power being realized is the articulation of an educational system, Cárdenas said. “We are far from the educational system that we need.”

In her remarks about NAAMREI, Cárdenas said her vision for the group came about after she attended a meeting of university presidents with state Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo. Zaffirini had said, “Don’t forget about Laredo,” Cárdenas explained. That thought resonated and it dawned on Cárdenas that South Texas educational institutions do not have to wait for the blessing of UT-Austin or UT-San Antonio in order to start collaborating and building intellectual capacity.

Cárdenas implored NAAMREI’s members not to let the group die, even if the funding dries up. The group got off the ground with a $5 million grant under the WIRED project developed by the Department of Labor.

“Don’t let it die. If the funding goes away, it doesn’t matter; keep it going because it is important and because it adds value. Find more funding to keep it together,” Cárdenas said.

Federal funding was not everything, Cárdenas said, citing the formation of the League of United Latin American Citizens in El Paso in 1929. She pointed out LULAC did not have an expense account, a telephone or a fax machine when it started. They simply “fought for what was right,” she said.

Regardless of whether there is a formal organization or not, economic development groups across South Texas have to come together and design and define what their strategic educational needs are in order to make economic progress, Cárdenas said.

“I’ll be right there prodding you and if you don’t do it I’ll come back and haunt you from wherever I am,” Cárdenas said, to great cheers.

She concluded her remarks by saying: “Let’s raise our expectations continuously, let’s raise our vision of what is possible for our region. And, let’s not accept that we have to do without because there is nowhere, and I have read it all, there is nowhere in the Bible that says that South Texas isn’t entitled to a high quality educational program and until I read it in the Bible I am not going to believe it.”


© Copyright of the Rio Grande Guardian, www.riograndeguardian.com, Melinda Barrera, Publisher. All rights reserved.

Community Colleges Challenge Hierarchy With 4-Year Degrees

This recently happened in Texas where South Texas College in the Valley was granted the authority to offer bachelor degrees. It led to both criticism from the THECB's commissioner (because god forbid a So. Texas community college could be offering a rigorous bachelor degree) and an investigation to examine if their BS programs were watered down was done.

That investigation ended up revealing that STC exceeded the quality that equivalent programs in four-year institutions were offering both in Texas AND in the nation.

-Patricia

By TAMAR LEWIN
Published: May 2, 2009

MIAMI — When LaKisha Coleman received her associate’s degree at Miami Dade Community College six years ago, her best bet for a bachelor’s degree seemed to be at the more expensive Florida International University.

But nowadays, Miami Dade College — the “Community” has been dropped — offers bachelor’s degrees in teaching and nursing and public safety management, and will soon add engineering technology, film production and others. Ms. Coleman returned to Miami Dade two years ago and is about to graduate with a degree in public safety management.

Ms. Coleman now recommends the college to family members. “It’s much cheaper, the teachers are good, you can do it in the evening while you work, and everyone’s very helpful,” she said.

As Ms. Coleman discovered, the line between community colleges and four-year universities is blurring.

Florida leads the way, with 14 community colleges authorized to offer bachelor’s degrees, and 12 already doing so, in fields as varied as fire safety management and veterinary technology. But nationwide, 17 states, including Nevada, Texas and Washington, have allowed community colleges to award associate’s and bachelor’s degrees, and in some, the community colleges have become four-year institutions. Others states are considering community college baccalaureates.

In most cases, the expanding community colleges argue that they are fulfilling a need, providing four-year degrees to working people who often lack the money or the time to travel to a university. But some of those universities are fighting back, saying the community colleges are involved in “mission creep” that may distract them from their traditional mission and lead to watered-down bachelor’s degrees.

“It’s cooking in several states, in many work-force-related fields, but there’s a lot of debate and politics, and differing views on whether they’re still community colleges if they give baccalaureates,” said Beth Hagan, executive director of the Community College Baccalaureate Association, a nonprofit group that promotes the trend.

In Michigan, community colleges are seeking to offer baccalaureates in culinary arts, cement technology and nursing. Their efforts have stalled, said Mike Hansen, president of the Michigan Community College Association.

“We need legislation to do it, and the legislation’s been introduced, but that’s as far as it’s gotten,” Mr. Hansen said. “The four-year universities in the state are very much opposed to the idea.”

Mike Boulus, the executive director of the group that represents the four-year universities, called the plan to expand community colleges “a solution in search of a problem.”

“It’s clearly unnecessary,” Mr. Boulus said. “Community colleges should stick with the important work they do extremely well, offering two-year degrees and preparing students for transfer to four-year schools.”

Some critics worry that community college baccalaureates will drive up costs, take resources from needy students and lead to low-quality degrees.

At Miami Dade College, more than 1,000 students are enrolled in baccalaureate programs. Their average age is 33; three-quarters are women, and slightly more than half are Hispanic.

Miami Dade’s president, Eduardo J. Padrón, said the baccalaureate programs were part of his institution’s mission of serving the community.

“We supply the area’s nurses and the teachers, and we respond quickly to new work force needs in our community, training people for real jobs,” Dr. Padrón said. “You won’t see us starting a B.A. in sociology. We’re offering degrees in things the universities don’t want to do.”

He emphasized that the programs required the same kinds of general education courses as four-year universities.

Miami Dade’s baccalaureate courses feel unlike a typical college class. In a recent Monday evening class, Ms. Coleman and others were quick to share experiences from outside the class. The evening’s topic was correctional officers — their pay, job requirements, working conditions and subculture. One student knows a guard who was fired for trafficking in cellphones; another tells of how the guards treated visitors when her son was in jail.

Almost all had earned their associate’s degree, a prerequisite for the baccalaureate programs, at Miami Dade and had taken some classes at Florida International, but had found them expensive and unsatisfying.

Ms. Coleman, the third of 10 children, took 10 years after high school graduation to earn her associates’ degree because she was working and had to take semesters off to care for her younger siblings and ailing mother.

Dr. Padrón said community colleges existed to serve students like Ms. Coleman.

“We have an open-door policy, and we serve 62 percent of Miami-Dade district graduates who go to college,” said Dr. Padrón, referring to the local public school system. “Eighty percent of our students work, and 58 percent of them come from low-income families.

“Ours is a mission of rescue. The universities that handpick their students based on SATs and grades get three times the funding we do. We are the underfunded overachiever.”

Dr. Padrón said he had no plans for Miami Dade to become Miami Dade State College, as it is entitled to be.

Some community colleges that offered baccalaureates have, however, morphed into four-year institutions, repeating a pattern in American higher education.

“From the 1840s to the 1940s we had the sequence where normal schools, founded to train teachers, became teachers’ colleges, then abandoned that role to become colleges, and then the ball would keep rolling and they would become universities,” said Christopher J. Lucas, an education professor at the University of Arkansas. “This has some of that feel. I get a little uneasy when I see community colleges playing at being four-year universities. When you try to be all things to all people, you end up not being very good for any of them.”

Community-college baccalaureates challenge the educational hierarchy’s boundaries between the research mission of universities, the teaching mission of colleges and open admissions for community colleges.

“Many people in leadership believe that’s the right division of labor,” said Carol Geary Schneider, president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities. “So like any fundamental change, the blurring of the lines is uncomfortable.”

Further complicating matters, some four-year universities offer not only nursing and teaching degrees but also applied baccalaureates — Bachelor of Applied Science or Bachelor of Applied Technology — in the fields into which community colleges are expanding. “The old categories that divided the world up between big-picture and applied-skills are out of date and dysfunctional,” Dr. Schneider said. “So colleges and universities of all kinds — two-year, four-year, public and private — are feeling their way toward a synthesis.”

PSJA graduates first students from bilingual program

Jennifer L. Berghom | The Monitor
May 17, 2009

SAN JUAN — Learning the three R's in English and Spanish simultaneously did not come easy to Oscar Martinez at first.

Martinez started participating in the Pharr-San Juan-Alamo school district's dual-language program when he was in kindergarten at Pharr Elementary School.

Having learned only English at home, Martinez, now 18, found it difficult to understand some of his teachers who would give lessons in Spanish. By sixth grade, however, he could read, write and carry on conversations in his second language.

But the most encouraging result for him was that he was finally able to have a conversation in Spanish with his grandfather, something he hadn't been able to do without help from family members.

"I just felt so accomplished," said Martinez, who is among the first cohort of students in the district's dual-language program.

This year, 45 seniors from PSJA and PSJA North high schools are graduating from their respective institutions knowing how to communicate in English and Spanish through a program they have been enrolled in since elementary school.

PRODUCING MARKETABLE STUDENTS

The school district began its dual language program 13 years ago so its students would become fluent at speaking, reading and writing English and Spanish.

Parents and other members of the community had been asking the district why their children were not able to speak Spanish and English well enough to communicate with others.

The district wasn't satisfied with bilingual programs already in place in the area, said Rosalva Silva, the district's bilingual education coordinator.

So the district sought and obtained a federal grant to implement the dual language program. The program's intent is to teach students a new language while retaining the skills of their first language. All students are welcome to participate in the program in the schools that offer it, but students with limited English proficiency are required to take part in the program, Silva said.

"We thought, ‘Why not produce students who are going to be marketable?'" she said.

The program began at Pharr and Palmer elementary schools. As the students in the dual-enrollment program progressed to middle and high school, the program followed them, expanding to Liberty Middle School — where all the dual-enrollment students attended after elementary school — and then to PSJA and PSJA North high schools.

Students at the elementary level begin taking half of their subjects in English and half in Spanish. By the time they enter middle and high school, students are able to seek college credit for Spanish while continuing to take classes in both languages.

They are expected to be fully bilingual and bi-literate by the time they graduate from high school.

FACING CHALLENGES

Because it was the only public school district in the Rio Grande Valley — and probably among a handful of districts throughout the country — to take on this endeavor, the PSJA district had to overcome obstacles and create the program as it progressed.

For one, the district didn't know where it would find teachers who could teach subjects like math and social studies in Spanish. The district wanted students to learn Spanish and English well enough that they could communicate effectively in both languages when they entered the workforce, Silva said.

Administrators thought they were going to have to hire teachers from Mexico. But they decided to look within their district first and found faculty who could teach those subjects in Spanish, Silva said.

While curricula were available for elementary schools, very little was available at the secondary level. Middle and high school teachers had to develop their own curricula for their students, translating lessons from English to Spanish, Silva said.

"We've been very pleasantly surprised," she said.

The district continues to struggle with the challenges of educating immigrants who were not attending school before their move to the United States.

Educators have found that placing those students in the dual language program helps them catch up to their peers because they're taking some classes in their native language. By building their skills in their first language, those students are able to pick up English, Silva said.

SERVING AS AN EXAMPLE

The program has been considered a success, and earlier this month representatives from national and state education policy groups visited PSJA High School as part of a weeklong tour of the Valley hosted by the American Youth Policy Forum.

Martinez and other students told the visitors about their experiences with the program and offered advice on how to help students if other schools were to follow suit.

All students said the dual-language program gave them the confidence to take on any challenge.

Martinez, who is set to graduate with more than 40 college credit hours, is taking more classes this summer at the University of Texas-Pan American before starting in the fall at Texas A&M University in College Station as a sophomore. He plans to attend law school and return to the Valley to practice law.

"I'm going to have clients who are not going to know English. I'll be a bilingual lawyer," he said.

That's a goal he said he's able to achieve because of the dual-language program.


Jennifer L. Berghom covers education and general assignments for The Monitor. She can be reached at (956) 683-4462.

Most Valley schools receive state accreditation

I find it interesting that this article is using the accreditation labels from H.B. 3/ S.B. 3, which are different than those currently in statute. This just five days after the HB 3 was made public.

-Patricia

Jennifer L. Berghom | The Monitor
March 10, 2009

AUSTIN — Almost all 42 public school districts throughout the Rio Grande Valley and Webb, Zapata and Jim Hogg counties are performing to state standards with no problems.

The Texas Education Agency released its state accreditation statuses for the 2008-2009 school year Tuesday, which rates how well school districts are performing academically as well as financially. This is the second year the agency has compiled the list and the first year it included charter schools.

Ratings are: accredited, accredited-warned, accredited-probation and not accredited-revoked.

Rio Hondo school district is accredited-warned because it received substandard ratings two years in a row from the state's Financial Integrity Rating System, which measures how well school districts handle the public's money.

Edcouch-Elsa school district's status is pending because of the state's ongoing investigation of the school system's finances.

The Texas Education Agency assigned a conservator to review Edcouch-Elsa's financial situation after it was discovered the district had been hiring more employees than necessary and was more than $10 million in debt.

Both districts were accredited last year, according to the agency.

Districts that fail to meet standards will no longer be recognized as public school districts, meaning charter schools could be closed and traditional public school districts could be consolidated under neighboring school systems, according to the agency.

LUPE stresses response to immigrant needs

Check out more information on LUPE

-Patricia

By DAN BARKER, Times Staff Writer
Friday, December 12, 2008

One of the things OneMorgan County Coordinator Brenda Zion learned from a trip to Texas is to review just what immigrants want and need.

Zion made a trip to San Juan, Texas, near the very bottom tip of the state, to visit with LUPE, an organization known for its outreach to Hispanic immigrants and workers.

The OneMorgan County transition team is working to find out just how to financially and culturally support OMC, which will have its grant money run out at the end of next summer.

Zion went to see LUPE to find out how it works its membership program, which supports much of its efforts, she said.

LUPE is quite different from OneMorgan County, because LUPE sprang out of the Hispanic union founded by the famous Cesar Chavez, who championed the rights of agricultural workers, Zion said.

LUPE membership means being a part of a quasi-union, complete with benefits and political power, which is not what OMC has been about, she said.

Zion took part in a meeting with many other organizations which were interested in how LUPE works, she said. Most of those agencies were from around the Denver Metro area, but there were people from Boston and Los Angeles, too.

The thing all of the organizations took away was to realize — or remember — that they have to work on things that immigrants really need and want, Zion said.

That means finding out what they need, not just acting from the outside, she said.

“That really stood out,” Zion said.

OneMorgan County did a lot of that when it was founded, but it may be time to revisit that aspect of the mission, Zion said.

Some of that will happen when the transition team conducts community groups and forums to determine the future of OMC at the beginning of 2009, she said.

Zion is also conducting a survey of what immigrants need in order to be more successful, she said.

These are both opportunities to see what OMC should pursue, and should be done regularly, Zion said.

One of the strengths of LUPE is that it was built from the bottom up, by workers who had needs and organized to meet them, she said.

It is easier for LUPE’s members to know why they should be a part of the organization, Zion said.

LUPE offers specific benefits to its members — such as participation in a community loan fund — which offer innovative housing and economic development activities, she said.

Members can receive low-interest loans for housing or micro-loans to start businesses, Zion said.

LUPE does not give handouts, she said, because people should do for themselves.

For instance, the main office for LUPE stands on 10 acres on which homes are built for members. Like Habitat for Humanity, the members must put 500 hours of sweat equity into their own homes, as well as pay the cost of materials.

LUPE does help its 5,000 members to access outside social services resources for immediate needs with the support of state and local partners. Part of that is referrals to clinics and attorneys.

It also provides a prescription service for those who need medicines, including for asthma and diabetes, Zion said.

LUPE provides tax preparation and translation services and does leadership development, she said.

One of its strengths is that committees of members help direct the organization and bring up special needs, Zion said.

“So it really becomes their organization,” she said.

However, LUPE is not completely satisfied with where it stands, Zion said.

It wants to find a way to bridge the gap between immigrants and the receiving communities — which is the mission of OneMorgan County, Zion said.

This means there is a limit to how much LUPE can teach Morgan County, she said.

All of LUPE’s membership is individual, which is different than OMC’s vision of also having business memberships.

LUPE’s individual memberships cost $40 per year and $60 for a couple.

However, the trip was valuable for a couple of reasons, Zion said.

She had a chance to meet with other Colorado organizations, which may help in the long run, and she was reminded of the core value of meeting immigrants’ needs, she said.

— Contact Dan Barker at business@fmtimes.com.

Brownsville Schools Win Prestigious Award

The Broad Foundation will give the Texas district $1 million in scholarships for graduating seniors

By Eddy Ramírez | US News
October 14, 2008

The fifth graders at Morningside Elementary School in Brownsville, Texas, are working through math problems in room 309, when muffled cries momentarily disrupt the class. A boy is telling the teacher, Lourdes Medrano, how his home in Port Arthur was destroyed by Hurricane Ike. "Mom went back to see what she could salvage, but everything got destroyed," he cries. Medrano does her best to console the boy, telling him, "But you know what? Now, you're going to get a prettier house." Despite the boy's troubles, he has thrived in Medrano's class since relocating to Brownsville. Whether they are children chased from their homes by disaster or children of migrant workers from Mexico, the students who enter Brownsville's public schools are all welcomed with the same challenge from the school system. "There is no pobrecito concept here," says the school's principal, Dolores Emerson, citing the Spanish term that loosely translates as "poor, unfortunate soul." "We don't allow students to fail."

Indeed, looking at the numbers, it might seem easier to give up than to try. Located on the southern tip of Texas along the Rio Grande, Brownsville has the highest child poverty rate in the United States. Nearly all of the 48,000 students attending the city's 52 public schools receive free breakfast and lunch. Nearly half of them are learning English as a second language.

In other school districts, these children would most likely be casualties of low expectations. But in Brownsville, where the bar is set high, they are soaring. Last school year, the district's Hispanic and low-income students outscored their statewide counterparts at all grade levels in math, and in reading in the elementary grades. Because of these promising results, the Brownsville Independent School District was presented today with the Broad Prize for Urban Education, an award that comes with $1 million in college scholarships for graduating seniors. The annual prize is given by the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, a Los Angeles-based philanthropy group, to large urban school districts that have made significant gains in academic achievement, particularly among disadvantaged students. Four other finalists—Long Beach, Calif.; Aldine, Texas; Miami-Dade County; and Broward County, Fla.—will each receive $250,000 for scholarships.

This was the first year that Brownsville made the list of finalists. For Hector Gonzales, the district's superintendent of schools, winning the Broad Prize offers some vindication. Two years ago, four middle schools in Brownsville were accused of cheating on state tests after posting large single-year academic gains. The schools were eventually cleared in the controversy, but the sting of the allegations never completely went away. A week ago, Gonzales sat in his modest office and explained his district's credo: "Success is not an accident." "We believe that every child can learn," he says. "It's not that every child can learn except Juanito."

Defying the odds Nationwide, Latino students who come from low-income, immigrant families face steep academic challenges. Fewer than 4 in 10 Hispanic children participate in early-childhood education programs, and the high school dropout rate is highest among recent Hispanic immigrants. Latinos, like other minority groups, are also underrepresented in advanced math and science high school courses and in gifted-and-talented education programs.

It is against these statistical odds that Brownsville students are succeeding. Every year, new students arrive from Mexico, some with nothing but the clothes on their back. Most can't read or write fluently in either English or Spanish. Yet, 80 percent of Brownsville's students become proficient in English by the end of third grade. In fourth grade, most of them are taught primarily in English. At the district's five regular high schools, participation and scores on the SAT and Advanced Placement tests have risen steadily. (Two high schools made the U.S. News America's Best High Schools lists.) The number of graduating seniors who say they will attend a four-year college is growing; several recently have enrolled at highly selective schools including Harvard and MIT. Over the next five years, the district plans to give at least $637,000 in scholarships to graduating seniors who want to study science and math.

At Rivera High School, Tim Snyder has put to work strategies that he used as a successful elementary school principal: among them, a longer school day and a bigger emphasis on student and teacher relationships. "Sometimes teachers underestimate the power and influence they have on older students," he says. "Our teachers here take the attitude that they are second parents for these students." His colleague Teri Alarcon, principal of Hanna High School, says introducing more students to college-level work has also made a difference. "We're giving kids a jump-start on college," she says. "Some of them graduate with enough college credits to have an associate's degree." Thanks to partnerships with the Brownsville and Austin campuses of the University of Texas, the district's high school teachers receive training to teach college classes, and students can receive credit for high school classes they completed in Mexico. Besides offering a challenging academic program, Brownsville schools also have made a name for themselves on the national stage for their strong music and chess programs.

Getting results A. S. Putegnat Elementary School, only a few blocks from the U.S.-Mexico border, is the first stop for many immigrants and children from families that cannot afford the rents in the city's north side, "where the rich people live" (the median annual household income is $26,000). Most principals in comparable districts would worry about these students hurting the school's academic standing, but the students at Putegnat score high on tests. Like their counterparts at other schools, administrators and teachers at Putegnat are relentless about reviewing test data and remedying any of the students' academic deficiencies.

Because Texas allows recent immigrant students and bilingual students to test in their native language, teachers in Brownsville give their students frequent assessments in English and Spanish in preparation for the state tests in March. Students who need to brush up on math or reading can attend after-school, hourlong tutorials three times a week, and many students do take advantage of the longer school day. "We're not trying to reinvent the wheel," says Rachel Ayala, an assistant superintendent who oversees the downtown area schools. "But we are consistent with our approach."

Like many educators in the district, Ayala was born and raised in Brownsville. She was only 19 years old when she started teaching at a school in the district and now has been with the district for 42 years. Unlike other school systems with high turnover, Brownsville teachers tend to stick around; the average teacher has 11 years of classroom experience in the district. Competitive teacher salaries and free health insurance go a long way to attract and retain teachers. Starting teachers in Brownsville make $39,000 annually, which is effectively worth more given the region's cost of living. State and federal dollars are crucial to the district. Local revenues cover only 14 percent of its annual expenses; the district has a $476 million budget.

But it's the connection with students and the community that seems to have the most value for Brownsville's teachers. During a tour of the school, Ayala spots an old college roommate in a fourth-grade classroom. Irma Garcia, 61, is giving a lesson on creative writing. Although she retired from the district in 2006 after 38 years teaching there, she comes by Putegnat every day to fill in for absent teachers. "She's fantastic," Ayala says. "Her students' writing scores are always in the 100th (percentile)."

In a separate wing of the school, Robert Rivera achieves similar results with his fifth-grade math students. A native of Brownsville, Rivera has taught for 11 years. In 2006, Rivera won the prestigious Milken Educator Award. "I always tell my kids about my dad," says Rivera, whose father worked as a custodian at the school. "I want them to have a choice just like I did." Principal Ernestina Treviño takes this idea further when she talks with students and staff members. "One day one of you will be standing in my position," she tells them. "You'll be taking over for me."

Parent support. When Maria Rosa Navarro's daughter, Nora, arrived at Morningside Elementary, the girl didn't speak any English. Now, in the fifth grade, Nora moves seamlessly between the two languages. Teachers say the transition for kids like Nora would be more difficult without the encouragement of parents.

Having a strong parent outreach program has been central to the district's success. Teachers and staff members go beyond making home visits and calling parents every time their child is absent. They're also educating adults. Every week, schools offer parenting classes on everything from how to prepare a healthful salad to how to help a child read. Threatening weather on a recent morning didn't dissuade some 300 parents from showing up for a morning rally called by the district to get families to exercise. After running laps around the track in the district's only football stadium, the parents, mostly stay-at-home moms, moved to a gymnasium, where they danced to salsa music and worked out with medicine balls and jump ropes. District staff members stressed the importance of regular physical activity so they can lower their risk of diabetes.

But like the parent classes and school meetings, the rally was about building trust and empowering parents. "The parents are very eager," says Nicolas Serrata, a veteran kindergarten teacher. "They're always asking, 'How's my kid doing? Does he have any homework?'" Those questions seem to be leading Brownsville schools to all the right answers.

Deported Children Abandoned in Mexico

This should concern everyone!

-Patricia

Melissa del Bosque | Texas Observer
August 15th, 2008 at 2:45 pm

A new study finds that unaccompanied children are being abandoned on the Mexican side of the border at an alarming pace.

In the last seven months, U.S. authorities have deported at least 90,000 children to Mexico, according to a study by the Mexican Government’s Commission on Population, Border and Immigration Affairs.

At least 13,500 of these children ages 17 and under were deported to Mexican border states but never reconnected with their parents or legal guardians. Many of these children have resorted to begging with the hopes of crossing into the United States again to be reunited with family members, according to the study. Other abandoned children are being cared for by churches and non-governmental organizations.

Many of these children were caught while being smuggled into the United States. U.S. authorities typically funnel the children through an “expedited” deportation process — sending them back to Mexico in a matter of hours.

The study cites another disturbing statistic: for every three adults deported to Mexico, one child is left abandoned in the United States.

Mexican border governors met with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff about the deportations in February in Washington, D.C.

One of the biggest problems is lack of coordination between the U.S. and Mexican authorities. Jose Guadalupe Osuna Millan, governor of Baja California, told Chertoff that many children end up homeless because Mexican authorities are not advised when the children will arrive and don’t have time to find appropriate housing for them.

Eugenio Javier Hernandez Flores, the governor of Tamaulipas, said that his state receives 35,000 deported immigrants a year, many of them children. “Our governments need to work on a procedure for these undocumented children,” he said.

The Mexican governors said that among the children there were also South American and Central American children being deported to Mexico.

Edmundo Ramirez Martinez, Secretary of the Commission on Population, Borders and Migrant Affairs, told Mexican legislators that the International Convention on the Rights of Children requires that children be “repatriated” to their home countries rather than “deported.”

Repatriation means that the United States would return the child back to his or her specific home rather than abandon the child at the border.

Repatriating children, however, would cost the U.S. more time and money.

Money and effort the Bush administration thus far isn’t willing to invest.

U.S.: End Beating of Children in Public Schools

Violation of dress code can be a matter of not tucking in your shirt according to students I've talked to in a high school that practices paddling. Crazy!

-Patricia

Abusive, Discriminatory Punishment Undermines Education

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: hrwpress@hrw.org or media@aclu.org

DALLAS – More than 200,000 US public school students were punished by beatings during the 2006-2007 school year, Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union said in a joint report released today. In the 13 states that corporally punished more than 1,000 students per year, African-American girls were twice as likely to be beaten as their white counterparts.

In the 125-page report, "A Violent Education: Corporal Punishment of Children in U.S. Public Schools," the ACLU and Human Rights Watch found that in Texas and Mississippi children ranging in age from 3 to 19 years old are routinely physically punished for minor infractions such as chewing gum, talking back to a teacher, or violating the dress code, as well as for more serious transgressions such as fighting. Corporal punishment, legal in 21 states, typically takes the form of "paddling," during which an administrator or teacher hits a child repeatedly on the buttocks with a long wooden board. The report shows that, as a result of paddling, many children are left injured, degraded, and disengaged from school.

"Every public school needs effective methods of discipline, but beating kids teaches violence and it doesn't stop bad behavior," said Alice Farmer, Aryeh Neier Fellow at Human Rights Watch and the ACLU, and author of the report. "Corporal punishment discourages learning, fails to deter future misbehavior and at times even provokes it."

The report found that in the 13 southern states where corporal punishment is most prevalent, African-American students are punished at 1.4 times the rate that would be expected given their numbers in the student population, and African-American girls are 2.1 times more likely to be paddled than might be expected. There is no evidence that these students commit disciplinary infractions at disproportionate rates.

"Minority students in public schools already face barriers to success," said Farmer. "By exposing these children to disproportionate rates of corporal punishment, schools create a hostile environment in which these students may struggle even more."

Students with mental and physical disabilities are also punished at disproportionate rates, with potentially serious consequences for their development. In Texas, for instance, 18.4 percent of the total number of students who were physically punished were special education students, even though they make up only 10.7 percent of the student population.

"A Violent Education" is based on four weeks of on-the-ground research in Mississippi and Texas in late 2007 and early 2008, including more than 175 interviews with children, teachers, parents, administrators, superintendents, and school board members.

The report documents several cases in which children were beaten to the point of serious injury. Since educators who beat children have immunity under law from assault proceedings, parents who try to pursue justice for injured children encounter resistance from police, district attorneys, and courts. Parents also face enormous, sometimes insurmountable, obstacles in trying to prevent physical punishment of their children. While some school districts permit parents to sign forms opting out of corporal punishment for their children, the forms are often ignored.

In the report, the ACLU and Human Rights Watch cite experts on best practices in school discipline, who emphasize traditional approaches such as detention, and modern approaches such as positive behavior support systems. Positive behavior support systems, which are school-wide discipline systems that stress a clear structure of rewards and consequences for student behavior, have been effectively implemented in major U.S. school systems. States and school boards that fail to implement best practices allow the status quo, or school beatings, to remain in place.

Human Rights Watch and the ACLU call upon the U.S. government to prohibit corporal punishment in all public schools and urge state governments, school boards, superintendents, and administrators to eliminate physical punishment in their schools.

Selected Witness Accounts:

"He took me into the office and gave me three licks. … He made me hold onto the wall and he paddled me. … It hurt for about two hours, it felt like fire under my butt."
– Matthew S., who was paddled in second grade for throwing food in a school cafeteria in the Mississippi Delta.

"The other kids were watching and laughing. It made me want to fight them… When you get a paddling and you see everyone laugh at you, it make you mad and you want to do something about it."
– Peter S., a middle school student in the Mississippi Delta.

"What made me so angry: he's three years old, he was petrified. He didn't want to go back to school, and he didn't want to start his new school. I was so worried that this was going to constantly be with him, equating going to school with being paddled."
– Rose T., mother of a 3-year-old boy in Texas who was bruised from physical punishment after he refused to stop playing with his shoes in class.

"I went into the principal's office. … He gave me a chair and said hold onto the chair. The paddle had holes in it. Then he just did three swats. … I was hit on my buttocks. … There were holes in the paddle to make it go faster. … It hurt very much. There were definitely red marks and then swelling… almost welt-like markings. It didn't last for more than a couple days. … It left me feeling very humiliated. I think there were several levels of emotion. Physical pain, mental humiliation. … And being a female at that age, it was like there was this older man hitting me on the butt. That's weird… even at that age I knew it was inappropriate."
– Allison G., a recent graduate punished as a teenager in Texas for being late to class multiple times.

"I've heard this said at my school and at other schools: ‘This child should get less whips, it'll leave marks.' Students that are dark-skinned, it takes more to let their skin be bruised. Even with all black students, there is an imbalance: darker-skinned students get worse punishment."
– Account of Abrea T., former teacher in rural Mississippi.

"I see corporal punishment as a form of slavery. Beating on the slaves was how the headman got them to do something… we're focused so much on making kids do what we want. Think about the mental capacity that this kind of treatment leaves our children with. We are telling them we don't respect them. They leave that principal's office and they think, ‘they don't consider me a human being.' That young person loses self-respect."
– Account from Doreen W., school board member in a Mississippi Delta town.

To read the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch report, "A Violent Education: Corporal Punishment of Children in U.S. Public Schools," please visit: www.aclu.org/intlhumanrights/gen/36476res20080819.htm

College challenge for rural kids

By Rick Dalton and John Mills • Special to The Courier-Journal
August 1, 2008

Every summer, thousands of Americans enjoy vacation getaways to rural communities with little thought about the challenges facing those who live there year round: persistent poverty, a lack of major employers and skilled workers, and a large population of underachieving high school students whose futures will be stunted because they won't go to college.

In fact, only 27 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds from rural areas enroll in college -- a number far lower than those from both urban and suburban communities. These problems will only become more significant if current trends continue. National enrollment in rural schools was up 15 percent in recent years and continues to increase, with minority and low-income students -- those who are among the lowest achieving and least likely to attend college -- fast becoming the largest demographics of students in these schools. In fact, half of all students classified as English language learners now live in rural areas.

As a rural college president and a representative of an organization that has spent the past decade striving to address challenges facing economically disadvantaged students, we believe rural educators, policymakers and families must do much more to boost college-going aspirations and prepare students for college success. Many rural communities mirror those of the inner cities -- only 21 percent of young people between the age of six and 18 have parents who have earned bachelors or graduate degrees.

As a result, many students have few adults in their lives who can speak from their own experience when encouraging young people to pursue a college education. Efforts by schools, churches and community organizations to help students prepare for college should therefore involve the students' families, so that aspirations are reinforced at home.

Many rural students who hope to attend college also need a clearer road map for getting there. The admissions and financial aid process can be an obstacle course for even the best informed students and their families, but the can't-miss deadlines and detours are even more vexing for those who don't have a personal guide.

Face-to-face conversations with college representatives are key -- yet like urban schools most rural schools lack a sufficient number of counselors to foster a college-going culture among their students. Boards of education in rural areas can address this by employing counselors who travel from school to school, and by creating partnerships that bring more college representatives to schools.

Rural students also need to become better prepared for college. Currently, only 52 percent of rural schools offer AP courses, ranking them dead last compared to urban and suburban schools. Rural pre-K-12 educators must make more of these courses available to ensure students are prepared to succeed at competitive colleges -- and to send the message that college is a worthwhile destination.

Those educators will achieve even more success in boosting aspirations by partnering with students themselves -- specifically older teens and young men and women in their early twenties who have made it to college. Through a 17-year partnership that has involved 480 pre-K-12 schools and 280 colleges, thousands of elementary, middle and secondary school students have received direct mentoring from older students who are succeeding in college. Students spend time on college campuses, learn about the importance of challenging high school courses and receive individual assistance in navigating the applications process from peers who are promoting the value of college firsthand. The process has proven to be effective. To date 96 percent of the secondary school participants who have participated in the program have gone on to college -- nearly three times the rate for rural students overall.

We can also support those students by improving the economic prospects of their communities. Rural enterprise zones, expanded broadband Internet access and secondary school curriculums that promote entrepreneurial learning will all attract investments and jobs to rural America. They will also give college graduates from rural communities an opportunity to inspire future generations by bringing their skills, knowledge and aspirations back home.

Rick Dalton is president of College for Every Student and John Mills is president of Paul Smiths College, Paul Smiths, N.Y..

HOUSE PASSES HIGHER EDUCATION BILL

News for South Texans from
Congressman Solomon P. Ortiz

FOR RELEASE, 07.31.08
CONTACT: DANNY GUERRA, (202) 225-7742

HOUSE PASSES HIGHER EDUCATION BILL

WASHINGTON, D.C.‹Congressman Solomon P. Ortiz announced today that the House
of Representatives passed the conference report of H.R. 4137, the Higher
Education Opportunity Act. The measure is the first reauthorization of the
Higher Education Act in 10 years.

It encourages colleges to rein in tuition increases, restore integrity and
accountability to the student loan programs, simplify the federal student
aid application process, and expand college access and support for
low-income and minority students.

The bill focuses on expanding opportunities in the STEM (Science,
Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields and provides loan
forgiveness for people employed in several high need occupations.

³Succeeding in college means having a plan in the classroom and having a
plan on how to pay for it,² said Congressman Ortiz. ³With these new
improvements, students will have more chances to obtain and afford a college
degree.²

Pell Grants will now be available for students year-round, and the
legislation expands the Work-Study programs.

Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and Texas A&M-Kingsville, both Hispanic Serving
Institutions, will benefit from the new incentives and programs for minority
students.

The legislation provides competitive grants to institutions to promote the
training and job placement of real-time writers. Del Mar College is working
to train people for this high-demand career and to expand its program.

Real-time writers provide an essential public service by instantly
transcribing the spoken word on television programs to closed captioning,
ensuring that news and information is available to all viewers. Currently
all new English-language programming must be close-captioned, and
Spanish-language television must be close-captioned by 2010.

Expand need-based aid
* For the first time, makes the Pell Grant scholarship available year-round.
* Strengthens the Work-Study program and expands community service
opportunities in the program. The Work-Study program helps colleges and
universities pay the wages of eligible undergraduate and graduate students
working part-time to help pay for college.

Strengthen critical college readiness and support programs
* Increases the authorization level for the GEAR-UP program to $400 million.

The program helps prepare low-income elementary and secondary students to
succeed in college.
* Increases the authorization level for the TRIO programs ­ Upward Bound,

Talent Search, and Student Services ­ to $900 million. The TRIO programs seek
to increase high school completion and college participation and graduation
rates among low-income and first-generation college students.
Make key investments in Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs)
* Creates new graduate programs for HSIs
* Creates partnership programs for HSIs to help attract young students into
science, engineering, technology, and mathematics fields.

Simplify the student aid application process
* Allows families to apply for federal college aid using a simpler, two-page
form.
* Enhances financial literacy of college students and provides critical
consumer protections to help safeguard borrowers from risky college loan
arrangements and predatory lending tactics.

Danny Guerra
Communications Director
Office of Congressman Solomon P. Ortiz (TX-27)
2110 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-7742 phone
(202) 226-1134 fax

Pact lifts threat of border fence from UT-Brownsville

This is great news for the university and students. It's unfortunate though that a similar agreement couldn't have been reached for other residents; apparently due to the lack of "unique status".

-Patricia

By LYNN BREZOSKY | San Antonio Express-News
July 31, 2008

BROWNSVILLE — A federal court agreement reached Thursday with the Department of Homeland Security removes the threat of an 18-foot fence splitting the campus of the University of Texas-Brownsville/Texas Southmost College.

Instead, the federal agency agreed to accept the bolstering of an existing fence along the university perimeter and use the site to test and study technological alternatives to a physical barrier to curb illegal immigration.

"DHS will not build a fence on the university campus," UTB/TSC President Juliet Garcia said. "They will not condemn or seek to condemn the land."

Students and other protesters waiting outside the courthouse cheered the news on one of many battlefronts over the government's controversial effort to build border fencing.

The agreement comes weeks after U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen sent DHS back to the table. Hanen told the agency that it had not complied with his March order to exchange ideas with the university on both security and campus life.

Attorneys described the compromise as an "agreement in principle" whose paperwork was interrupted by Hurricane Dolly but which should be final next week.

DHS spokeswoman Laura Keehner said details are still being worked out.

"The goal that was agreed upon Thursday was basically to develop a program to meet the Border Patrol's operational requirements by the Dec. 31 deadline, while at the same time recognizing the University of Texas-Brownsville's unique status as an institution of higher education," she said.

University officials had taken the latest round of negotiations straight to DHS officials in Washington.

The government's original plan would have lopped off about 180 acres of university land, putting remnants of a historic battlefield and the university golf course on the Mexican side of the fence.

Traveling across campus

Some critics asked if students or staff would have to show passports when they crossed the barrier to practice their golf game.

"There will be no impediment to the golf course," Garcia said.

"There will be no gate. There will no checkpoints. There will be none of that."

According to the proposed agreement, the university will be responsible for repairing the existing fence and raising it to 10 feet.

"It can be a very friendly fence," Garcia said. "I kind of see it with bougainvillea and vine climbing all over it."

It will be up to the Border Patrol to install surveillance technology along it and patrol it.

The agreement would also have DHS drop its eminent domain lawsuit against the school, as well as plans for a "floating" fence that could be moved should the university get approval to expand south toward the Rio Grande.

Also Thursday, about a dozen land owners who refused initial government compensation offers for their land got good news.

Sides ordered to meet

Judge Hanen denied a DHS request to seize the land to erect the fence while money issues get litigated in court.

Hanen ordered both sides to meet this month and told the government to supply landowners with information about the fence, including what's going up, where it's going up, how landowners will access their property behind the fence and what money is being offered.

He said he would not rule on the government's possession request before then.

Most of the 210 lawsuits filed by the government to take Texas land for fencing have ended in settlements, but lawyers for both sides said the remaining handful of cases could stretch on for months.

DHS is committed to having 370 miles of fence built by Dec. 31.

"All they seem to be interested in, in my view, is them getting possession so they can meet their timeline," said Norton Colvin, an attorney for various landowners.

Virginia Butler, land acquisition chief with the Department of Justice, said compensation offers would be based on the value of the land before the fence decreased its value.

Full compensation possible

She said in cases where the land was made worthless because of the barrier, a landowner could be compensated full land value even if the barrier only takes part of the land.

She said preliminary estimates were made by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and that appraisals couldn't be shared with defendant landowners because "when the government has tried that it starts bidding against itself."

Lawyers for property owners said there were all sorts of issues to sort out, ranging from having to move water wells on the fence path to recouping lost revenue from white wing dove hunts.

Texas RioGrande Legal Aid attorney Robert Doggett said there was still an issue of whether Congress called for a fence "along the border," meaning it couldn't go on places a quarter-mile inland. The actual U.S.-Mexico border is the middle of the Rio Grande.

Hanen told him to submit a brief outlining his argument.

UTB is not the first public entity to reach a compromise on the fence. Hidalgo County reached an agreement to shore up 22 miles of eroding levees with concrete to serve as a combination security barrier and flood structure.

Work on the fence-levee got under way this week.

Valley likely to be affected by language ruling

July 31, 2008 - 4:07PM
Ryan Holeywell | The Monitor
July 31, 2008

McALLEN — A federal court ruling last week could affect every school district in the Rio Grande Valley.

The ruling forces the Texas Education Agency to overhaul its system for teaching and monitoring the progress of students with limited English proficiency by Jan. 31.

The impact could be especially strong here in the Rio Grande Valley, where 39 percent of students are LEPs, and every district has at least some students with limited English skills.

"...TEA has not met its obligation to remedy the language deficiencies of Texas students," wrote U.S. District Judge William Wayne Justice in a 95-page opinion.

More than half the students in the Valley View, Hidalgo, Rio Grande City, Donna and Roma districts are classified as having limited proficiency with the English language.

"Obviously, we're not doing something right," said Ofelia Gaona, director of the bilingual department in Donna. "The only ones paying the price are the children."

The League of United Latin American Citizens and the GI Forum, which advocate for Hispanic-American equal rights, were the plaintiffs in the case.

Justice wrote that "the statistics for secondary LEP students are undeniably egregious."

The ruling cited a 16.3-percent dropout rate for LEP students who should have graduated in 2004, compared to 3.9 percent of all students.

The ruling also cited disparate test scores and retention rates between secondary LEP students and their peers.

"The failure of secondary LEP students under every metric clearly and convincingly demonstrates student failure, and accordingly, the failure of the ESL secondary program in Texas," Justice wrote.

Suzanne Marchman, a TEA spokeswoman, said the agency was disappointed with the judge's decision and would likely ask the Attorney General to appeal the ruling.

Marchman declined to respond to the ruling's specific criticisms of TEA, citing the pending litigation.

David Hinojosa, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said he is hopeful - but not optimistic - that TEA will make changes that "give teeth" to the state's ESL programs. Those changes must be implemented for the 2009-2010 school year, according to Justice's ruling.

"These students have long been ignored, and it all starts with the state," Hinojosa said.

Hinojosa said if the state does not meet the Jan. 31 deadline, it would likely face some sort of sanction from the federal court. Arizona faced financial sanctions in 2005 for failing to comply with a deadline set by a federal judge in a similar case.

Justice also described "fatal flaws" in TEA's system for monitoring LEP students' performance, which fails to identify all LEP students and masks poor performance by aggregating data between multiple grade levels.

In Texas, LEP students receive bilingual education through sixth grade and take ESL instruction in grades seven and higher.

That system was implemented 25 years ago, but Justice wrote it is clear that TEA "failed to achieve results" in that time.

Nearly all LEP students in Texas are Hispanic, but according to the ruling, just 13 percent of them are classified as immigrants.

The ruling even cited a deposition of former TEA Commissioner Shirley Neeley, who said there's "not anybody in their right mind that would say these are good scores."

Hinojosa said there are no statewide standards that define what an ESL program really is, and ESL is implemented "at the whim of school districts." Gaona said she believes the bilingual and ESL programs schools use should be based on solid research.

"You can do practically anything to satisfy an ESL program," Hinojosa said.

School officials uncertain over new state English guidelines

By Jennifer Berghom | The Monitor
May 27, 2008

Rio Grande Valley school leaders do not know how new state guidelines for teaching English will affect students.

Some districts say the new standards better prepare students for college. Others say the updates could hurt students learning the language.

School district officials have not seen the new standards adopted by the Texas Board of Education last week, but many expect they will have to make some changes to their teaching plans - but they just don't know what changes, yet.

Some districts remain worried that the updated standards ignore the needs of English language learners and hinder teachers' creativity with their lessons.

Teachers would have to follow a more scripted curriculum, which could include more drilling on grammar and phonics, said Maritza Park, the Donna school district's director for elementary English language arts curriculum.

``It's like we went back 20 years,'' Park said.

After months of arguing and debating different proposals for updated English language arts standards, the approved standards were given to state education board members just hours before they were to vote on the updates. Several board members were outraged they were not given enough time to review the latest proposal, especially after board members were asked to consider at least five different ones since January, according to the Associated Press.

The new standards place a stronger emphasis on grammar and offer grade-specific objectives, said Debbie Graves Ratcliffe, spokeswoman for the Texas Education Agency.

``I think the standards as a skeleton and the districts have to come up with the curriculum guide. The standards provide the basic bone structure but there is still a lot of flexibility that districts have,'' Ratcliffe said.

The approved updates should be available to the public in a few weeks, as the agency is finalizing the specific wording of the rules based on the board's wishes, she said.

Edinburg's school district is ready for the new standards, said Maria Luisa Guerra, the district's assistant superintendent for instruction and support services. The district began using a curriculum called CSCOPE this year that helps better align lessons from kindergarten though 12th grade, Guerra said. It also is using another program that provides students learning English with more tutoring and monitoring, she said.

The updated standards take effect in the 2009-2010 school year.