HIGHER EDUCATION
Paucity of black male students is UT's biggest diversity challenge
Scaling back top 10 percent law could help boost numbers, Powers says.
By Ralph K.M. Haurwitz
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Saturday, April 11, 2009
In some ways, Brian Gaston is like many other students at the University of Texas. He graduated in the top 10 percent of his high school class. He's a big sports fan. He plans to attend law school.
In another way, Gaston is unusual: He is black. Just 2,192, or 4.4 percent, of the nearly 50,000 students enrolled at UT in the fall of 2008 were African American. And only 830 of those African American students were men. Black enrollment figures do not include foreign students.
The paucity of black men is the biggest diversity challenge on campus, UT President William Powers Jr. said at a recent legislative hearing. Low enrollment and graduation rates for black men, stemming from many years of social, historical and economic forces, are nationwide problems in higher education.
UT officials say they are trying to address the problem on multiple fronts, such as encouraging more mentoring of black men on campus and offering scholarships to students — many of whom are black or Hispanic — from Texas high schools that historically have sent few graduates to UT.
But another aspect of the university's strategy — urging lawmakers to scale back a state law that entitles the top 10 percent students to attend any of the state's 35 public universities — has proved controversial. The law was enacted in 1997 in an effort to boost minority enrollment, and some lawmakers worry that weakening it could cause black and Hispanic enrollment to erode.
Powers, who does not want to increase the size of the student body, argues that too much of UT's enrollment consists of students admitted under the 10 percent rule — 81 percent of entering freshmen from Texas last year. Limiting admittance of Texas students who graduate in the top 10 percent to about half would allow the university to enroll more students based on factors besides class rank, such as race, extracurricular activities, leadership skills and test scores, he says.
"What I absolutely, firmly believe and will commit to ... (is) we will make more progress" in minority enrollment if the law is scaled back, Powers said at a hearing of the state's House Higher Education Committee last month. "It'll be most dramatic for African Americans, because the numbers are smaller."
The Senate has passed a measure that would give Powers most of what he wants. The proposal's prospects in the House, which rejected a similar plan two years ago, are uncertain. Some House members have expressed skepticism at the university's argument that the law needs to be modified for the sake of minority enrollment.
"They don't have a problem finding a black male fullback or quarterback or shooting guard," Rep. Harold Dutton Jr., D-Houston, said in a frequently heard refrain.
Of the current freshman class, whose members enrolled in the summer and fall of 2008, there are 375 black students, or 6 percent of the class. . And of those black students, 34, or 9 percent, are athletes on scholarship, UT officials said.
For some black male students, UT can be an intimidating and isolating place, not only because of the small numbers of black students, but also because of prominent historical reminders that blacks once weren't welcomed.
Statues of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and other Confederate leaders line the South Mall of the campus, and an inscription dedicates the Littlefield Fountain to the Confederacy. State law barred black students until 1950, when the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the admission of Heman Sweatt, who had been rejected by UT's School of Law because of his race.
But Gaston, a senior majoring in management who competes on the debate team and plans to attend law school, said adjusting to life at UT "wasn't a big jump."
Although his high school on the outskirts of Houston was predominantly black, his parents exposed him to all kinds of people through Little League baseball, church programs and other activities, he said.
"Coming to a school like UT will prepare you for any of those obstacles you might face in the real world," Gaston said.
One of those is being the only black person in the room. "Often, if I'm not the only black person in my class, I'm definitely the only black male in my class," said Fisayo Ogundele, a senior from Missouri City, southwest of Houston, who is majoring in biology and pre-pharmacy.
UT isn't alone in its low enrollment of black males. Nationwide, women outnumber men in higher education, with black women outnumbering their male counterparts by nearly 2-to-1, the highest margin for any racial or ethnic group.
Fewer than a third of black male college students nationwide graduate within six years of enrolling, the lowest rate among both sexes and all racial and ethnic groups, according to a report by Shaun Harper, an assistant professor of higher education management at the University of Pennsylvania, who wrote the report for the nonprofit Washington-based Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.
Black men who enrolled as UT freshmen in 2002 posted a graduation rate of 54 percent, but that still falls short of the 75 percent rate for the university's black women and the 76 percent rate for white men.
Young black men in America face other problems besides getting an education, such as incarceration rates and unemployment rates that sharply exceed those of their white and Hispanic counterparts, said Richard Reddick, an assistant professor of higher education administration at UT.
College can be challenging for all students, Reddick said, "but when you're part of a group that's stigmatized as not being high-achieving, that carries a toll."
Ogundele and his roommate, Ewaen Woghiren, both of whom moved to the United States at a young age with their families from Nigeria, cited another cultural factor: There can be a stigma to lifting books rather than weights.
Scholars have coined a term for the aloofness and independence that characterize some young black men and make it difficult for them to succeed in college: "cool pose." The trait is a reaction to the fact that the African American male historically has been demonized and objectified as savage and ignorant, Reddick said.
Still, black students respect intelligence, Reddick said. When he taught at an inner-city school in Houston before earning his doctorate at Harvard University, Reddick said, the insult most likely to provoke a fight was for one student to tell another, "You're stupid."
UT officials say they hope to attract more black male students and improve their graduation rates.
Each year, 130 to 140 scholarships are awarded to freshmen from historically under-represented high schools. Recipients of the Longhorn Opportunity Scholarship get a $5,000 grant each year for four years.
The scholarship helps a lot, said Cardan Samples, a black freshman from Fort Worth who graduated in the top 10 percent of his class. "If I hadn't gotten it I would have tried to figure out a way to go," he said.
UT also is stepping up mentoring efforts, said Gregory Vincent, vice president for diversity and community engagement. It's never too early to begin planting the college-going seed, he said, noting that pre-kindergarten students at UT's charter elementary school in East Austin are referred to as "little Longhorns."
The university is trying to increase the number of African Americans in its faculty ranks as well, having hired 10 in 2007 and 10 more in 2008. UT has 91 tenured and tenure-track black professors out of 1,995 overall.
"Another measure is that the president and the provost have agreed to make the Center for African and African American Studies a tenure-granting unit," one mark of a full academic department, Vincent said.
Black students at UT say all of these efforts are important. But they also say that families must do more to encourage black males to study hard in primary and secondary school and apply to college.
The election of Barack Obama as the nation's first black president should help inspire families, said Woghiren, a senior from Houston majoring in government.
Ultimately, Woghiren said, there's no secret about what it takes to succeed in school.
"It's self-determination instilled by core people in your life," he said.
rhaurwitz@statesman.com; 445-3604
Find this article at:
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/04/11/0411utblack.html


Sunday, April 19, 2009
Bill would limit education board's power to set policy
TEXAS LEGISLATURE
Bill would limit education board's power to set policy
Because of bickering, Senate authors say, most authority would shift to appointed commissioner.
By Kate Alexander
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
The pitched political battles over several recent State Board of Education decisions could lead the Legislature to strip the board of most of its authority to set curriculum standards and choose textbooks for public schools.
"I'm not sure that we're serving the best interests of our children at this time," said Sen. Kip Averitt, R-Waco, an author of the bill, which the Senate Education Committee considered Tuesday. The committee did not vote on the proposal.
Both Republicans and Democrats on the 15-member elected State Board of Education are equally at fault for the "partisan bickering and fighting" that has marked recent debates over science and language arts curriculum standards, Averitt said.
"All I hear is that the Republicans want to push their religious views into the curriculum, and the Democrats want to teach our children how to masturbate," Averitt said during the committee hearing Tuesday.
Senate Bill 2275 would give the state's education commissioner, who is appointed by the governor, the authority to approve the curriculum standards and textbooks based on the recommendations of a group of educators. The board members, however, could override the commissioner's decision with a four-fifths vote.
State Board of Education Chairman Don McLeroy, R-College Station, said that under the proposal, only the "education establishment" would shape curriculum and textbook decisions and that the board would simply become a rubber stamp.
"There is nobody to question them if this bill is passed," McLeroy said. "What is wrong with having a debate?"
The political process ensures that parents and Texas voters have a voice in what students learn, he said.
"Regular people have a say-so with the State Board of Education because they elect us," McLeroy said.
But students' needs are overwhelmed by the controversy, said Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, another author of the bipartisan bill.
The proposed approach would ensure educators with experience and expertise in teaching the academic subjects can shape the curriculum and pick the textbooks without political interference, he said.
Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, said he was concerned that the change would mean the people of Texas would no longer have a hand in such critical decisions if the elected state board were essentially removed from the process.
Last month, the board stirred controversy with new science curriculum standards that critics say open the door to attacks on teaching evolution.
University of Texas biology professor David Hillis said the result of that decision is: "Texas students now have a weakened science curriculum, and the science reputation of the state has been seriously injured." This bill will "keep the focus of education on education, rather than on politics," Hillis said.
kalexander@statesman.com; 445-3618
Find this article at:
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/region/legislature/stories/04/15/0415stateboard.html
Bill would limit education board's power to set policy
Because of bickering, Senate authors say, most authority would shift to appointed commissioner.
By Kate Alexander
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
The pitched political battles over several recent State Board of Education decisions could lead the Legislature to strip the board of most of its authority to set curriculum standards and choose textbooks for public schools.
"I'm not sure that we're serving the best interests of our children at this time," said Sen. Kip Averitt, R-Waco, an author of the bill, which the Senate Education Committee considered Tuesday. The committee did not vote on the proposal.
Both Republicans and Democrats on the 15-member elected State Board of Education are equally at fault for the "partisan bickering and fighting" that has marked recent debates over science and language arts curriculum standards, Averitt said.
"All I hear is that the Republicans want to push their religious views into the curriculum, and the Democrats want to teach our children how to masturbate," Averitt said during the committee hearing Tuesday.
Senate Bill 2275 would give the state's education commissioner, who is appointed by the governor, the authority to approve the curriculum standards and textbooks based on the recommendations of a group of educators. The board members, however, could override the commissioner's decision with a four-fifths vote.
State Board of Education Chairman Don McLeroy, R-College Station, said that under the proposal, only the "education establishment" would shape curriculum and textbook decisions and that the board would simply become a rubber stamp.
"There is nobody to question them if this bill is passed," McLeroy said. "What is wrong with having a debate?"
The political process ensures that parents and Texas voters have a voice in what students learn, he said.
"Regular people have a say-so with the State Board of Education because they elect us," McLeroy said.
But students' needs are overwhelmed by the controversy, said Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, another author of the bipartisan bill.
The proposed approach would ensure educators with experience and expertise in teaching the academic subjects can shape the curriculum and pick the textbooks without political interference, he said.
Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, said he was concerned that the change would mean the people of Texas would no longer have a hand in such critical decisions if the elected state board were essentially removed from the process.
Last month, the board stirred controversy with new science curriculum standards that critics say open the door to attacks on teaching evolution.
University of Texas biology professor David Hillis said the result of that decision is: "Texas students now have a weakened science curriculum, and the science reputation of the state has been seriously injured." This bill will "keep the focus of education on education, rather than on politics," Hillis said.
kalexander@statesman.com; 445-3618
Find this article at:
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/region/legislature/stories/04/15/0415stateboard.html
Little pre-K access for Latinos
Little pre-K access for Latinos
Kids behind at start of school, advocates say
By Margaret Ramirez
Chicago Tribune reporter
April 15, 2009
Inside Casa Infantil Head Start in Logan Square, teacher Janeth Medellin called on her students to form a circle and then started singing a bilingual version of the "Good Morning" song.
"What day is today?" she asked 4-year-old Gustavo. "¿Qué día es hoy?"
When he hesitated, she touched his shoulder and said, "It's OK to answer in Spanish." With that, he shouted in English, "Monday!"
By using bilingual preschool curriculum and providing financial assistance, the Casa Infantil Head Start program is confronting one of the most debated issues in early childhood education: how to raise academic levels of low-income, Latino children.
Latino families with young children constitute a significant portion of the nation's population and future workforce, but several studies show those children are less likely to enroll in early education programs because of various barriers including language, cost, transportation and a shortage of pre-kindergarten spots in poor neighborhoods. For those and other reasons, Latino children lag well behind white children in reading and math skills when they start kindergarten.
Last month, President Barack Obama noted the stubborn gap between white students compared with Latinos and African-Americans, and said the key to raising academic achievement is investing in early childhood education programs—what he called "the first pillar" of education reform. Obama said $5 billion in stimulus funding would be used to grow Head Start programs, expand child care and do more for children with special needs. The president also called for Early Learning Challenge Grants to reward initiatives that raise the quality of pre-K programs.
"Too many in the Republican Party have opposed new investments in early education despite compelling evidence of its importance," Obama said in a speech to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. "This isn't just about keeping an eye on our children, it's about educating them."
But debates cut different ways on the best way to improve the underfunded, fragmented early childhood education system. In Illinois, a hodgepodge of early childhood education options exist, including federally funded Head Start, state-funded Preschool for All, private schools and center-based programs operated by non-profit organizations.
Although the reasons for low attendance among Hispanics in preschool programs have not been firmly established, a major factor is a lack of programs in poor neighborhoods. A recent study by the National Task Force on Early Childhood Education for Hispanics surveyed programs in Los Angeles and Chicago and found an overall shortage of pre-kindergarten slots in Hispanic neighborhoods.
Sylvia Puente, executive director for the Latino Policy Forum, said the shortage of preschool programs in Chicago stems from demographic shifts where neighborhoods dominated by older whites became populated by immigrants and a baby boom of younger Latino families. To discuss the issue, the Latino Policy Forum gathered leading educators, school administrators and child-care providers at National-Louis University last month.
"What has happened in the city is that you saw the older white ethnic enclaves become Latino. So, there was limited infrastructure of facilities because it was an older, aging demographic. As the Latino population has moved into those communities, there hasn't been the accompanied capital infusion to build space," Puente said.
Some Chicago child-care providers who primarily serve Latinos said many families are unaware that programs exist or don't understand the value of early childhood education. Others said enrollment requirements often become a barrier for low-income families. Celena Roldán, director of child care for Erie Neighborhood House, which serves about 400 children at four centers, said income verification for some child-care programs disqualifies immigrants who often live together in one home but don't share income.
"Sometimes you have multiple incomes going to one household because there are so many people living there and it appears the family is getting a large income. That's usually not the case," Roldán said.
Even when programs exist in impoverished neighborhoods, early childhood experts said other obstacles remain that delay learning for Latino children. Language is perhaps the most significant issue for recent immigrants, increasing the demand for bilingual teachers that surpasses the low supply.
Parental interaction also is critical, said Eugene Garcia, vice president at Arizona State University and a member of Obama's education transition team. Yet research shows that parental interaction is less likely to happen in Latino homes where both parents work full time and have not completed high school.
"We need interaction in the home," said Garcia, chair of the National Task Force on Early Childhood Education for Hispanics. "Latino children are behind in communicating in the complex way that schools demand."
In response, some social service agencies in Chicago have developed strategies specifically designed to encourage more parental interaction in early childhood education. Casa Central, the social service agency that runs Casa Infantil, also offers a home-based Head Start program for recent immigrants. During weekly visits, a preschool teacher comes to the home to review lessons with the child while guiding the parent on how to participate.
"The home-based program is really about showing the parent how to be their child's first educator," said Ellen Chavez, director of early childhood development programs for Casa Central, which also helps African-American, Chinese and Polish children. "Even if you don't speak English, there are things you can teach your child to prepare them for school."
Ana Solano, who immigrated from Mexico five years ago, was unaware of the importance of early childhood education until the home-based visits began for her 4-year-old daughter, Ana. She said she immediately noticed a remarkable difference between Ana and her older son, Juan Carlos, who had struggled in kindergarten. "I just thought he would pick everything up in school. With Ana, I see how much it helps and how much better off she will be," she said.
As the Obama administration prepares to release more details of its education plan, providers are hopeful it will recognize the different models needed to bolster academic achievement among Latino children. "We have limited dollars, so the focus is on quality and prioritizing," said Reyna Hernandez, research associate with the Latino Policy Forum. "We want to make sure that whatever the baseline is, that it takes into consideration these needs of Latino children."
maramirez@tribune.com
Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune
Kids behind at start of school, advocates say
By Margaret Ramirez
Chicago Tribune reporter
April 15, 2009
Inside Casa Infantil Head Start in Logan Square, teacher Janeth Medellin called on her students to form a circle and then started singing a bilingual version of the "Good Morning" song.
"What day is today?" she asked 4-year-old Gustavo. "¿Qué día es hoy?"
When he hesitated, she touched his shoulder and said, "It's OK to answer in Spanish." With that, he shouted in English, "Monday!"
By using bilingual preschool curriculum and providing financial assistance, the Casa Infantil Head Start program is confronting one of the most debated issues in early childhood education: how to raise academic levels of low-income, Latino children.
Latino families with young children constitute a significant portion of the nation's population and future workforce, but several studies show those children are less likely to enroll in early education programs because of various barriers including language, cost, transportation and a shortage of pre-kindergarten spots in poor neighborhoods. For those and other reasons, Latino children lag well behind white children in reading and math skills when they start kindergarten.
Last month, President Barack Obama noted the stubborn gap between white students compared with Latinos and African-Americans, and said the key to raising academic achievement is investing in early childhood education programs—what he called "the first pillar" of education reform. Obama said $5 billion in stimulus funding would be used to grow Head Start programs, expand child care and do more for children with special needs. The president also called for Early Learning Challenge Grants to reward initiatives that raise the quality of pre-K programs.
"Too many in the Republican Party have opposed new investments in early education despite compelling evidence of its importance," Obama said in a speech to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. "This isn't just about keeping an eye on our children, it's about educating them."
But debates cut different ways on the best way to improve the underfunded, fragmented early childhood education system. In Illinois, a hodgepodge of early childhood education options exist, including federally funded Head Start, state-funded Preschool for All, private schools and center-based programs operated by non-profit organizations.
Although the reasons for low attendance among Hispanics in preschool programs have not been firmly established, a major factor is a lack of programs in poor neighborhoods. A recent study by the National Task Force on Early Childhood Education for Hispanics surveyed programs in Los Angeles and Chicago and found an overall shortage of pre-kindergarten slots in Hispanic neighborhoods.
Sylvia Puente, executive director for the Latino Policy Forum, said the shortage of preschool programs in Chicago stems from demographic shifts where neighborhoods dominated by older whites became populated by immigrants and a baby boom of younger Latino families. To discuss the issue, the Latino Policy Forum gathered leading educators, school administrators and child-care providers at National-Louis University last month.
"What has happened in the city is that you saw the older white ethnic enclaves become Latino. So, there was limited infrastructure of facilities because it was an older, aging demographic. As the Latino population has moved into those communities, there hasn't been the accompanied capital infusion to build space," Puente said.
Some Chicago child-care providers who primarily serve Latinos said many families are unaware that programs exist or don't understand the value of early childhood education. Others said enrollment requirements often become a barrier for low-income families. Celena Roldán, director of child care for Erie Neighborhood House, which serves about 400 children at four centers, said income verification for some child-care programs disqualifies immigrants who often live together in one home but don't share income.
"Sometimes you have multiple incomes going to one household because there are so many people living there and it appears the family is getting a large income. That's usually not the case," Roldán said.
Even when programs exist in impoverished neighborhoods, early childhood experts said other obstacles remain that delay learning for Latino children. Language is perhaps the most significant issue for recent immigrants, increasing the demand for bilingual teachers that surpasses the low supply.
Parental interaction also is critical, said Eugene Garcia, vice president at Arizona State University and a member of Obama's education transition team. Yet research shows that parental interaction is less likely to happen in Latino homes where both parents work full time and have not completed high school.
"We need interaction in the home," said Garcia, chair of the National Task Force on Early Childhood Education for Hispanics. "Latino children are behind in communicating in the complex way that schools demand."
In response, some social service agencies in Chicago have developed strategies specifically designed to encourage more parental interaction in early childhood education. Casa Central, the social service agency that runs Casa Infantil, also offers a home-based Head Start program for recent immigrants. During weekly visits, a preschool teacher comes to the home to review lessons with the child while guiding the parent on how to participate.
"The home-based program is really about showing the parent how to be their child's first educator," said Ellen Chavez, director of early childhood development programs for Casa Central, which also helps African-American, Chinese and Polish children. "Even if you don't speak English, there are things you can teach your child to prepare them for school."
Ana Solano, who immigrated from Mexico five years ago, was unaware of the importance of early childhood education until the home-based visits began for her 4-year-old daughter, Ana. She said she immediately noticed a remarkable difference between Ana and her older son, Juan Carlos, who had struggled in kindergarten. "I just thought he would pick everything up in school. With Ana, I see how much it helps and how much better off she will be," she said.
As the Obama administration prepares to release more details of its education plan, providers are hopeful it will recognize the different models needed to bolster academic achievement among Latino children. "We have limited dollars, so the focus is on quality and prioritizing," said Reyna Hernandez, research associate with the Latino Policy Forum. "We want to make sure that whatever the baseline is, that it takes into consideration these needs of Latino children."
maramirez@tribune.com
Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune
Hispanics one-fifth of K-12 students
Hispanics one-fifth of K-12 students
By Hope Yen, Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Roughly one-fourth of the nation's kindergartners are Hispanic, evidence of an accelerating trend that now will see minority children become the majority by 2023.
Census data released Thursday also showed that Hispanics make up about one-fifth of all K-12 students. Hispanics' growth and changes in the youth population are certain to influence political debate, from jobs and immigration to the No Child Left Behind education, for years.
The ethnic shifts in school enrollment are most evident in the West. States such as Arizona, California and Nevada are seeing an influx of Hispanics due to immigration and higher birth rates.
Read rest of story here.
By Hope Yen, Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Roughly one-fourth of the nation's kindergartners are Hispanic, evidence of an accelerating trend that now will see minority children become the majority by 2023.
Census data released Thursday also showed that Hispanics make up about one-fifth of all K-12 students. Hispanics' growth and changes in the youth population are certain to influence political debate, from jobs and immigration to the No Child Left Behind education, for years.
The ethnic shifts in school enrollment are most evident in the West. States such as Arizona, California and Nevada are seeing an influx of Hispanics due to immigration and higher birth rates.
Read rest of story here.
Cultural shift: Hispanic study tries to paint bigger picture against the backdrop of a changing city
INSIGHT
Cultural shift
Hispanic study tries to paint bigger picture against the backdrop of a changing city.
By Juan Castillo
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Four years ago, the City of Austin launched a study into the quality of life of its African American residents — an exploration that rose from the ashes of a fire at the Midtown Live nightclub.
Midtown Live wasn't just any club. It was wildly popular with African Americans, and as the blaze consumed the building on a February night in 2005, some Austin police officers and dispatchers exchanged insensitive remarks such as "burn, baby, burn." In the resulting fallout, then-City Manager Toby Futrell talked about the city's need "to fix the leak in our soul."
No such crisis in race relations led to the city's newest and current quality-of-life study focusing on Hispanics, a booming population responsible for an overwhelming share of Austin's growth this decade. But city officials say it is a crisis all the same — one driven by the urgent educational, economic and social challenges that confront an expanding Hispanic underclass, and threaten to cause problems for all Austinites in the future.
"We risk collapsing the entire system due to, if nothing else, the sheer enormity of this piece of our overall community," city demographer Ryan Robinson said in a February report to the City Council.
Though the African American and Hispanic quality-of-life studies had different catalysts, they share important similarities. Like the African American study, the Hispanic initiative addresses transformative shifts in the city's demographic and cultural landscape, and seeks to measure how one racial or ethnic group is faring in comparison with the rest of Austin and with peer populations in selected cities across the country.
And like its predecessor, the Hispanic study prompts a fundamental question: What, if anything, can or should —the city do to improve the quality of life of residents from one racial or ethnic group?
Not much, say opponents, who mostly protest in cyberspace and contend that the city should focus instead on improving the quality of life for all. One anonymous online poster recently asked: "Can someone tell me when the White Quality of Life Initiative will be held?"
City Council Member Mike Martinez says such comments imply that the council does not have the interests of all residents in mind.
"That's simply not true. A rising tide lifts all boats, so when we help the least of us, regardless of ethnicity or gender, we help all of us," said Martinez, who sponsored May's council resolution authorizing the quality-of-life study.
Troubling trends
Latinos are the biggest and fastest-growing minority population in the city, the state and the country. In Austin, they conservatively make up 36 percent of the city population and are projected to account for 70 percent to 80 percent of total city growth this decade.
Austin was once overwhelmingly white but by 2020, Anglo and Hispanic shares of the population will be almost identical, Robinson said.
In some respects, Latinos are flourishing here; their numbers are swelling in the professional ranks and the middle class, as Robinson's report notes. But the report, based on census data, also cites indicators of troubling trends. Among them:
The educational gap for Hispanics in Austin, when compared with Anglos, is the second-largest among 29 U.S. cities.
That gap has implications for the Central Texas work force. The Latino population is considerably younger than the Anglo population, and those poorly educated workers will become a significant component of the work force as Anglos retire.
The median family income for Austin Hispanics is less than half that of Anglos.
The poverty rate for Hispanics in 2007 — 23.1 percent — was the second-highest in the city, behind African Americans at 31.9 percent.
The 7.5 percent unemployment rate for Hispanics (in 2006) also was second-highest, behind African Americans at 9 percent.
With those trends, it makes economic sense for government to identify and strengthen the institutions and populations that are at risk and need the most help, said University of Texas professor Jacqueline Angel.
"It's important to understand why (Hispanics in Austin are) lagging so far behind in terms of earning wages, (and why) their whole sort of socioeconomic profile is highly vulnerable," said Angel, an expert on public and social policy and Hispanic health. "This increasing Hispanic population is going to grow, and this younger strata of workers will be disproportionately responsible for the welfare of all adults."
Common themes
Austin might bea national leader in examining how its Latino residents are faring, said Paul Saldaña, a consultant who is coordinating the public forums for the study. He has not found evidence of similar initiatives elsewhere in the country.
"There's an assumption by some that because of the numbers of the Hispanic population here, there's no need for a quality-of-life study. That's not true," said Saldaña, adding that Latinos in Austin "have been having this conversation about the need for one for some time."
Emilio Zamora, an expert on Mexican American history and a professor at the University of Texas, said the African American and Hispanic life studies are important acknowledgments that the city historically might not have effectively represented all residents.
"We ought to talk to all communities," Zamora said. "And I think the Mexican American community, which is the largest minority community in town and will become the majority community in the city — in the whole area — needs and deserves attention not only because of its growing size but because of its marginalization in the past."
"Both (initiatives) are based on need," said Assistant City Manager Michael McDonald, who was the city's point man during the African American Quality of Life Initiative.
And in both, common themes emerged: African American and Latino residents said they simply wanted equal opportunities. In some instances, they conceded, too, that they could do more to shape their own better futures.
That was the case this month at the Hispanic forum on the cultural arts at the Mexican American Cultural Center. At one lively session in an airy art gallery, about 30 participants brainstormed on how the city could do more to recognize and promote the contributions of Latino artists and their impact on Austin's culture and heritage; to increase their participation at major arts festivals; and to provide equal access to services and to cultural arts funding.
But a few also noted that in recent city elections, Hispanic residents have not turned out in numbers befitting their growing share of the city population, and that Latino leadership development, volunteerism and civic engagement are not what they could be.
"We need to go to the schools, and not just when it's convenient," said Alonzo Reyes, a lieutenant with the Travis County Constable's Office in Precinct 3. "Where are the mentors? Where are the volunteers in education who can set an example?"
But at the first public forum in February, on education, another spirited session had parents and others complaining that the city is not doing enough to keep Hispanic students in school. Some said city officials should hold the school district accountable for underperforming schools in Austin.
In many respects, the forums have reflected the breadth and diversity of the city's Hispanic population and of the topics they've addressed — education, business development, the arts, leadership and advocacy, preserving history and well more than a half-dozen other subjects — proving again that the population is hardly monolithic and that any attempts to improve quality of life will have to be multifaceted.
Government's role
At the time of the Midtown Live fire, the black share of Austin's populationhad fallen notably since 1960, and many African Americans were struggling to keep up with other Austin residents in terms of income, education, homeownership and business ownership. Someblack residents said they didn't always feel welcome in Austin, a city highly regarded by others as a great place to live.
At the same time, critics were telling McDonald that the civil rights struggle had repaired America's race problems, thus making the reason for the quality-of-life study moot. The notion of a postracial era got under his skin a little, McDonald, who is African American, recalled in a 2006 interview.
Though progress had been made, he said, "it's not an indication that things have arrived." He and Futrell said the fruits of the civil rights movement would not have been possible had government not intervened.
Opponents of the study questioned whether city government should enact policies singling out one racial or ethnic group for help. But supporters said it was race-based policies — such as the 1928 city master plan that sought to direct blacks into a segregated community east of downtown and to promote industrial development there — that created some of the lingering problems affecting African Americans. The implication was that government bore at least some responsibility to help correct them.
City officials have emphasized, too, that the initiatives, particularly the public forums, can identify ways in which other institutions — businesses, the school district and the county, for example — can get involved.
The two-year African American Quality of Life Initiative produced 56 recommendations, which the city says it has implemented, though not all are complete. It says it spent about $730,000 from the 2006 city budget on the initiative.
McDonald emphasized that the recommendations benefit all residents, as in the case of city down-payment assistance for homebuyers and sensitivity training for police officers. "That is not just for African American issues; it's across the board," McDonald said recently.
Some critics of both the African American and Hispanic quality-of-life studies charge that the problems of blacks and Latinos are their own doing.
But finding fault is not the point, Angel said. "The real question is how are we going to improve upon what we already have in terms of city services and the quality of life here in Austin." The answers, Angel said, lie in having a strong labor market and an educated population.
"What we all share in this issue is that if we don't have a vibrant economy, we will all suffer," Angel said.
jcastillo@statesman.com; 445-3635
What happens next
A series of public forums — the first phase of the city's Hispanic Quality of Life Initiative — continues April 28 with a look at health issues.
The event is from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at Rosewood-Zaragosa Neighborhood Center, 2808 Webberville Road.
Previous forums focused on education, economic and business development, and cultural arts.
According to the city, the Hispanic Quality of Life Initiative seeks to address the following questions:
Is the quality of life for Hispanics in Austin markedly different from the quality of life experienced by Hispanics in other cities?
Is the quality of life experienced by Hispanics significantly different from the quality of life experienced by the rest of Austin and other demographic groups?
Is the City of Austin providing program services, financial assistance and other opportunities to enhance the quality of life for Hispanics?
Comments from the forums and community surveys will help shape recommendations on how to make Austin a better place to live for Latinos. A report will be presented to the City Council, tentatively scheduled for June.
Next, a community oversight team will review the report and hold at least one more public forum before presenting a revised document to the council. City staff will create a final report and action plan to present to the council by year's end.
Cultural shift
Hispanic study tries to paint bigger picture against the backdrop of a changing city.
By Juan Castillo
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Four years ago, the City of Austin launched a study into the quality of life of its African American residents — an exploration that rose from the ashes of a fire at the Midtown Live nightclub.
Midtown Live wasn't just any club. It was wildly popular with African Americans, and as the blaze consumed the building on a February night in 2005, some Austin police officers and dispatchers exchanged insensitive remarks such as "burn, baby, burn." In the resulting fallout, then-City Manager Toby Futrell talked about the city's need "to fix the leak in our soul."
No such crisis in race relations led to the city's newest and current quality-of-life study focusing on Hispanics, a booming population responsible for an overwhelming share of Austin's growth this decade. But city officials say it is a crisis all the same — one driven by the urgent educational, economic and social challenges that confront an expanding Hispanic underclass, and threaten to cause problems for all Austinites in the future.
"We risk collapsing the entire system due to, if nothing else, the sheer enormity of this piece of our overall community," city demographer Ryan Robinson said in a February report to the City Council.
Though the African American and Hispanic quality-of-life studies had different catalysts, they share important similarities. Like the African American study, the Hispanic initiative addresses transformative shifts in the city's demographic and cultural landscape, and seeks to measure how one racial or ethnic group is faring in comparison with the rest of Austin and with peer populations in selected cities across the country.
And like its predecessor, the Hispanic study prompts a fundamental question: What, if anything, can or should —the city do to improve the quality of life of residents from one racial or ethnic group?
Not much, say opponents, who mostly protest in cyberspace and contend that the city should focus instead on improving the quality of life for all. One anonymous online poster recently asked: "Can someone tell me when the White Quality of Life Initiative will be held?"
City Council Member Mike Martinez says such comments imply that the council does not have the interests of all residents in mind.
"That's simply not true. A rising tide lifts all boats, so when we help the least of us, regardless of ethnicity or gender, we help all of us," said Martinez, who sponsored May's council resolution authorizing the quality-of-life study.
Troubling trends
Latinos are the biggest and fastest-growing minority population in the city, the state and the country. In Austin, they conservatively make up 36 percent of the city population and are projected to account for 70 percent to 80 percent of total city growth this decade.
Austin was once overwhelmingly white but by 2020, Anglo and Hispanic shares of the population will be almost identical, Robinson said.
In some respects, Latinos are flourishing here; their numbers are swelling in the professional ranks and the middle class, as Robinson's report notes. But the report, based on census data, also cites indicators of troubling trends. Among them:
The educational gap for Hispanics in Austin, when compared with Anglos, is the second-largest among 29 U.S. cities.
That gap has implications for the Central Texas work force. The Latino population is considerably younger than the Anglo population, and those poorly educated workers will become a significant component of the work force as Anglos retire.
The median family income for Austin Hispanics is less than half that of Anglos.
The poverty rate for Hispanics in 2007 — 23.1 percent — was the second-highest in the city, behind African Americans at 31.9 percent.
The 7.5 percent unemployment rate for Hispanics (in 2006) also was second-highest, behind African Americans at 9 percent.
With those trends, it makes economic sense for government to identify and strengthen the institutions and populations that are at risk and need the most help, said University of Texas professor Jacqueline Angel.
"It's important to understand why (Hispanics in Austin are) lagging so far behind in terms of earning wages, (and why) their whole sort of socioeconomic profile is highly vulnerable," said Angel, an expert on public and social policy and Hispanic health. "This increasing Hispanic population is going to grow, and this younger strata of workers will be disproportionately responsible for the welfare of all adults."
Common themes
Austin might bea national leader in examining how its Latino residents are faring, said Paul Saldaña, a consultant who is coordinating the public forums for the study. He has not found evidence of similar initiatives elsewhere in the country.
"There's an assumption by some that because of the numbers of the Hispanic population here, there's no need for a quality-of-life study. That's not true," said Saldaña, adding that Latinos in Austin "have been having this conversation about the need for one for some time."
Emilio Zamora, an expert on Mexican American history and a professor at the University of Texas, said the African American and Hispanic life studies are important acknowledgments that the city historically might not have effectively represented all residents.
"We ought to talk to all communities," Zamora said. "And I think the Mexican American community, which is the largest minority community in town and will become the majority community in the city — in the whole area — needs and deserves attention not only because of its growing size but because of its marginalization in the past."
"Both (initiatives) are based on need," said Assistant City Manager Michael McDonald, who was the city's point man during the African American Quality of Life Initiative.
And in both, common themes emerged: African American and Latino residents said they simply wanted equal opportunities. In some instances, they conceded, too, that they could do more to shape their own better futures.
That was the case this month at the Hispanic forum on the cultural arts at the Mexican American Cultural Center. At one lively session in an airy art gallery, about 30 participants brainstormed on how the city could do more to recognize and promote the contributions of Latino artists and their impact on Austin's culture and heritage; to increase their participation at major arts festivals; and to provide equal access to services and to cultural arts funding.
But a few also noted that in recent city elections, Hispanic residents have not turned out in numbers befitting their growing share of the city population, and that Latino leadership development, volunteerism and civic engagement are not what they could be.
"We need to go to the schools, and not just when it's convenient," said Alonzo Reyes, a lieutenant with the Travis County Constable's Office in Precinct 3. "Where are the mentors? Where are the volunteers in education who can set an example?"
But at the first public forum in February, on education, another spirited session had parents and others complaining that the city is not doing enough to keep Hispanic students in school. Some said city officials should hold the school district accountable for underperforming schools in Austin.
In many respects, the forums have reflected the breadth and diversity of the city's Hispanic population and of the topics they've addressed — education, business development, the arts, leadership and advocacy, preserving history and well more than a half-dozen other subjects — proving again that the population is hardly monolithic and that any attempts to improve quality of life will have to be multifaceted.
Government's role
At the time of the Midtown Live fire, the black share of Austin's populationhad fallen notably since 1960, and many African Americans were struggling to keep up with other Austin residents in terms of income, education, homeownership and business ownership. Someblack residents said they didn't always feel welcome in Austin, a city highly regarded by others as a great place to live.
At the same time, critics were telling McDonald that the civil rights struggle had repaired America's race problems, thus making the reason for the quality-of-life study moot. The notion of a postracial era got under his skin a little, McDonald, who is African American, recalled in a 2006 interview.
Though progress had been made, he said, "it's not an indication that things have arrived." He and Futrell said the fruits of the civil rights movement would not have been possible had government not intervened.
Opponents of the study questioned whether city government should enact policies singling out one racial or ethnic group for help. But supporters said it was race-based policies — such as the 1928 city master plan that sought to direct blacks into a segregated community east of downtown and to promote industrial development there — that created some of the lingering problems affecting African Americans. The implication was that government bore at least some responsibility to help correct them.
City officials have emphasized, too, that the initiatives, particularly the public forums, can identify ways in which other institutions — businesses, the school district and the county, for example — can get involved.
The two-year African American Quality of Life Initiative produced 56 recommendations, which the city says it has implemented, though not all are complete. It says it spent about $730,000 from the 2006 city budget on the initiative.
McDonald emphasized that the recommendations benefit all residents, as in the case of city down-payment assistance for homebuyers and sensitivity training for police officers. "That is not just for African American issues; it's across the board," McDonald said recently.
Some critics of both the African American and Hispanic quality-of-life studies charge that the problems of blacks and Latinos are their own doing.
But finding fault is not the point, Angel said. "The real question is how are we going to improve upon what we already have in terms of city services and the quality of life here in Austin." The answers, Angel said, lie in having a strong labor market and an educated population.
"What we all share in this issue is that if we don't have a vibrant economy, we will all suffer," Angel said.
jcastillo@statesman.com; 445-3635
What happens next
A series of public forums — the first phase of the city's Hispanic Quality of Life Initiative — continues April 28 with a look at health issues.
The event is from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at Rosewood-Zaragosa Neighborhood Center, 2808 Webberville Road.
Previous forums focused on education, economic and business development, and cultural arts.
According to the city, the Hispanic Quality of Life Initiative seeks to address the following questions:
Is the quality of life for Hispanics in Austin markedly different from the quality of life experienced by Hispanics in other cities?
Is the quality of life experienced by Hispanics significantly different from the quality of life experienced by the rest of Austin and other demographic groups?
Is the City of Austin providing program services, financial assistance and other opportunities to enhance the quality of life for Hispanics?
Comments from the forums and community surveys will help shape recommendations on how to make Austin a better place to live for Latinos. A report will be presented to the City Council, tentatively scheduled for June.
Next, a community oversight team will review the report and hold at least one more public forum before presenting a revised document to the council. City staff will create a final report and action plan to present to the council by year's end.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Paucity of black male students is UT's biggest diversity challenge
HIGHER EDUCATION
Paucity of black male students is UT's biggest diversity challenge
Scaling back top 10 percent law could help boost numbers, Powers says.
By Ralph K.M. Haurwitz
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Saturday, April 11, 2009
In some ways, Brian Gaston is like many other students at the University of Texas. He graduated in the top 10 percent of his high school class. He's a big sports fan. He plans to attend law school.
In another way, Gaston is unusual: He is black. Just 2,192, or 4.4 percent, of the nearly 50,000 students enrolled at UT in the fall of 2008 were African American. And only 830 of those African American students were men. Black enrollment figures do not include foreign students.
The paucity of black men is the biggest diversity challenge on campus, UT President William Powers Jr. said at a recent legislative hearing. Low enrollment and graduation rates for black men, stemming from many years of social, historical and economic forces, are nationwide problems in higher education.
UT officials say they are trying to address the problem on multiple fronts, such as encouraging more mentoring of black men on campus and offering scholarships to students — many of whom are black or Hispanic — from Texas high schools that historically have sent few graduates to UT.
But another aspect of the university's strategy — urging lawmakers to scale back a state law that entitles the top 10 percent students to attend any of the state's 35 public universities — has proved controversial. The law was enacted in 1997 in an effort to boost minority enrollment, and some lawmakers worry that weakening it could cause black and Hispanic enrollment to erode.
Powers, who does not want to increase the size of the student body, argues that too much of UT's enrollment consists of students admitted under the 10 percent rule — 81 percent of entering freshmen from Texas last year. Limiting admittance of Texas students who graduate in the top 10 percent to about half would allow the university to enroll more students based on factors besides class rank, such as race, extracurricular activities, leadership skills and test scores, he says.
"What I absolutely, firmly believe and will commit to ... (is) we will make more progress" in minority enrollment if the law is scaled back, Powers said at a hearing of the state's House Higher Education Committee last month. "It'll be most dramatic for African Americans, because the numbers are smaller."
The Senate has passed a measure that would give Powers most of what he wants. The proposal's prospects in the House, which rejected a similar plan two years ago, are uncertain. Some House members have expressed skepticism at the university's argument that the law needs to be modified for the sake of minority enrollment.
"They don't have a problem finding a black male fullback or quarterback or shooting guard," Rep. Harold Dutton Jr., D-Houston, said in a frequently heard refrain.
Of the current freshman class, whose members enrolled in the summer and fall of 2008, there are 375 black students, or 6 percent of the class. . And of those black students, 34, or 9 percent, are athletes on scholarship, UT officials said.
For some black male students, UT can be an intimidating and isolating place, not only because of the small numbers of black students, but also because of prominent historical reminders that blacks once weren't welcomed.
Statues of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and other Confederate leaders line the South Mall of the campus, and an inscription dedicates the Littlefield Fountain to the Confederacy. State law barred black students until 1950, when the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the admission of Heman Sweatt, who had been rejected by UT's School of Law because of his race.
But Gaston, a senior majoring in management who competes on the debate team and plans to attend law school, said adjusting to life at UT "wasn't a big jump."
Although his high school on the outskirts of Houston was predominantly black, his parents exposed him to all kinds of people through Little League baseball, church programs and other activities, he said.
"Coming to a school like UT will prepare you for any of those obstacles you might face in the real world," Gaston said.
One of those is being the only black person in the room. "Often, if I'm not the only black person in my class, I'm definitely the only black male in my class," said Fisayo Ogundele, a senior from Missouri City, southwest of Houston, who is majoring in biology and pre-pharmacy.
UT isn't alone in its low enrollment of black males. Nationwide, women outnumber men in higher education, with black women outnumbering their male counterparts by nearly 2-to-1, the highest margin for any racial or ethnic group.
Fewer than a third of black male college students nationwide graduate within six years of enrolling, the lowest rate among both sexes and all racial and ethnic groups, according to a report by Shaun Harper, an assistant professor of higher education management at the University of Pennsylvania, who wrote the report for the nonprofit Washington-based Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.
Black men who enrolled as UT freshmen in 2002 posted a graduation rate of 54 percent, but that still falls short of the 75 percent rate for the university's black women and the 76 percent rate for white men.
Young black men in America face other problems besides getting an education, such as incarceration rates and unemployment rates that sharply exceed those of their white and Hispanic counterparts, said Richard Reddick, an assistant professor of higher education administration at UT.
College can be challenging for all students, Reddick said, "but when you're part of a group that's stigmatized as not being high-achieving, that carries a toll."
Ogundele and his roommate, Ewaen Woghiren, both of whom moved to the United States at a young age with their families from Nigeria, cited another cultural factor: There can be a stigma to lifting books rather than weights.
Scholars have coined a term for the aloofness and independence that characterize some young black men and make it difficult for them to succeed in college: "cool pose." The trait is a reaction to the fact that the African American male historically has been demonized and objectified as savage and ignorant, Reddick said.
Still, black students respect intelligence, Reddick said. When he taught at an inner-city school in Houston before earning his doctorate at Harvard University, Reddick said, the insult most likely to provoke a fight was for one student to tell another, "You're stupid."
UT officials say they hope to attract more black male students and improve their graduation rates.
Each year, 130 to 140 scholarships are awarded to freshmen from historically under-represented high schools. Recipients of the Longhorn Opportunity Scholarship get a $5,000 grant each year for four years.
The scholarship helps a lot, said Cardan Samples, a black freshman from Fort Worth who graduated in the top 10 percent of his class. "If I hadn't gotten it I would have tried to figure out a way to go," he said.
UT also is stepping up mentoring efforts, said Gregory Vincent, vice president for diversity and community engagement. It's never too early to begin planting the college-going seed, he said, noting that pre-kindergarten students at UT's charter elementary school in East Austin are referred to as "little Longhorns."
The university is trying to increase the number of African Americans in its faculty ranks as well, having hired 10 in 2007 and 10 more in 2008. UT has 91 tenured and tenure-track black professors out of 1,995 overall.
"Another measure is that the president and the provost have agreed to make the Center for African and African American Studies a tenure-granting unit," one mark of a full academic department, Vincent said.
Black students at UT say all of these efforts are important. But they also say that families must do more to encourage black males to study hard in primary and secondary school and apply to college.
The election of Barack Obama as the nation's first black president should help inspire families, said Woghiren, a senior from Houston majoring in government.
Ultimately, Woghiren said, there's no secret about what it takes to succeed in school.
"It's self-determination instilled by core people in your life," he said.
rhaurwitz@statesman.com; 445-3604
Paucity of black male students is UT's biggest diversity challenge
Scaling back top 10 percent law could help boost numbers, Powers says.
By Ralph K.M. Haurwitz
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Saturday, April 11, 2009
In some ways, Brian Gaston is like many other students at the University of Texas. He graduated in the top 10 percent of his high school class. He's a big sports fan. He plans to attend law school.
In another way, Gaston is unusual: He is black. Just 2,192, or 4.4 percent, of the nearly 50,000 students enrolled at UT in the fall of 2008 were African American. And only 830 of those African American students were men. Black enrollment figures do not include foreign students.
The paucity of black men is the biggest diversity challenge on campus, UT President William Powers Jr. said at a recent legislative hearing. Low enrollment and graduation rates for black men, stemming from many years of social, historical and economic forces, are nationwide problems in higher education.
UT officials say they are trying to address the problem on multiple fronts, such as encouraging more mentoring of black men on campus and offering scholarships to students — many of whom are black or Hispanic — from Texas high schools that historically have sent few graduates to UT.
But another aspect of the university's strategy — urging lawmakers to scale back a state law that entitles the top 10 percent students to attend any of the state's 35 public universities — has proved controversial. The law was enacted in 1997 in an effort to boost minority enrollment, and some lawmakers worry that weakening it could cause black and Hispanic enrollment to erode.
Powers, who does not want to increase the size of the student body, argues that too much of UT's enrollment consists of students admitted under the 10 percent rule — 81 percent of entering freshmen from Texas last year. Limiting admittance of Texas students who graduate in the top 10 percent to about half would allow the university to enroll more students based on factors besides class rank, such as race, extracurricular activities, leadership skills and test scores, he says.
"What I absolutely, firmly believe and will commit to ... (is) we will make more progress" in minority enrollment if the law is scaled back, Powers said at a hearing of the state's House Higher Education Committee last month. "It'll be most dramatic for African Americans, because the numbers are smaller."
The Senate has passed a measure that would give Powers most of what he wants. The proposal's prospects in the House, which rejected a similar plan two years ago, are uncertain. Some House members have expressed skepticism at the university's argument that the law needs to be modified for the sake of minority enrollment.
"They don't have a problem finding a black male fullback or quarterback or shooting guard," Rep. Harold Dutton Jr., D-Houston, said in a frequently heard refrain.
Of the current freshman class, whose members enrolled in the summer and fall of 2008, there are 375 black students, or 6 percent of the class. . And of those black students, 34, or 9 percent, are athletes on scholarship, UT officials said.
For some black male students, UT can be an intimidating and isolating place, not only because of the small numbers of black students, but also because of prominent historical reminders that blacks once weren't welcomed.
Statues of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and other Confederate leaders line the South Mall of the campus, and an inscription dedicates the Littlefield Fountain to the Confederacy. State law barred black students until 1950, when the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the admission of Heman Sweatt, who had been rejected by UT's School of Law because of his race.
But Gaston, a senior majoring in management who competes on the debate team and plans to attend law school, said adjusting to life at UT "wasn't a big jump."
Although his high school on the outskirts of Houston was predominantly black, his parents exposed him to all kinds of people through Little League baseball, church programs and other activities, he said.
"Coming to a school like UT will prepare you for any of those obstacles you might face in the real world," Gaston said.
One of those is being the only black person in the room. "Often, if I'm not the only black person in my class, I'm definitely the only black male in my class," said Fisayo Ogundele, a senior from Missouri City, southwest of Houston, who is majoring in biology and pre-pharmacy.
UT isn't alone in its low enrollment of black males. Nationwide, women outnumber men in higher education, with black women outnumbering their male counterparts by nearly 2-to-1, the highest margin for any racial or ethnic group.
Fewer than a third of black male college students nationwide graduate within six years of enrolling, the lowest rate among both sexes and all racial and ethnic groups, according to a report by Shaun Harper, an assistant professor of higher education management at the University of Pennsylvania, who wrote the report for the nonprofit Washington-based Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.
Black men who enrolled as UT freshmen in 2002 posted a graduation rate of 54 percent, but that still falls short of the 75 percent rate for the university's black women and the 76 percent rate for white men.
Young black men in America face other problems besides getting an education, such as incarceration rates and unemployment rates that sharply exceed those of their white and Hispanic counterparts, said Richard Reddick, an assistant professor of higher education administration at UT.
College can be challenging for all students, Reddick said, "but when you're part of a group that's stigmatized as not being high-achieving, that carries a toll."
Ogundele and his roommate, Ewaen Woghiren, both of whom moved to the United States at a young age with their families from Nigeria, cited another cultural factor: There can be a stigma to lifting books rather than weights.
Scholars have coined a term for the aloofness and independence that characterize some young black men and make it difficult for them to succeed in college: "cool pose." The trait is a reaction to the fact that the African American male historically has been demonized and objectified as savage and ignorant, Reddick said.
Still, black students respect intelligence, Reddick said. When he taught at an inner-city school in Houston before earning his doctorate at Harvard University, Reddick said, the insult most likely to provoke a fight was for one student to tell another, "You're stupid."
UT officials say they hope to attract more black male students and improve their graduation rates.
Each year, 130 to 140 scholarships are awarded to freshmen from historically under-represented high schools. Recipients of the Longhorn Opportunity Scholarship get a $5,000 grant each year for four years.
The scholarship helps a lot, said Cardan Samples, a black freshman from Fort Worth who graduated in the top 10 percent of his class. "If I hadn't gotten it I would have tried to figure out a way to go," he said.
UT also is stepping up mentoring efforts, said Gregory Vincent, vice president for diversity and community engagement. It's never too early to begin planting the college-going seed, he said, noting that pre-kindergarten students at UT's charter elementary school in East Austin are referred to as "little Longhorns."
The university is trying to increase the number of African Americans in its faculty ranks as well, having hired 10 in 2007 and 10 more in 2008. UT has 91 tenured and tenure-track black professors out of 1,995 overall.
"Another measure is that the president and the provost have agreed to make the Center for African and African American Studies a tenure-granting unit," one mark of a full academic department, Vincent said.
Black students at UT say all of these efforts are important. But they also say that families must do more to encourage black males to study hard in primary and secondary school and apply to college.
The election of Barack Obama as the nation's first black president should help inspire families, said Woghiren, a senior from Houston majoring in government.
Ultimately, Woghiren said, there's no secret about what it takes to succeed in school.
"It's self-determination instilled by core people in your life," he said.
rhaurwitz@statesman.com; 445-3604
Debunking the 'Ethnic Angle' to Mass Murders like Binghampton and Virginia Tech
This is a really interesting analysis on the role that language—and conversely, being tongue-tied in American society—and how it impacts people differently. Those for whom for whatever reason, learning English is insurmountable, creates a level of frustration that under particular conditions—including the availability of arms which amount to a "universal tongue"—that leads to violence. Interesting, thoughtful and sad read. Here is a powerful quote:
-Angela
By Andrew Lam, New America Media. Posted April 9, 2009.
Enough about Asia's "shame-based" culture, it is the gun culture in America that is most conspicuous.
Whenever a minority commits a heinous crime, it seems to beckon us in the media to search beyond an individual motive for a cultural one. We saw it in the case of Cho Sung-hui of Virginia tech, and now, in the latest case involving Jiverly Linh Phat Wong -- (or Voong). He blocked the back exit of a civic community center in Binghamton, N.Y., where immigrants had gathered to learn English and shot 13 people to death before killing himself.
It is a habit of "finding the ethnic angle" that is endemic in the work of American journalists in an age of cultural diversity, and in order to sound credible, we often ask so-called experts to give their insights.
Jack Levin, director of the Brudnick Center on Violence at Northeastern University and an expert on mass murderers, offered his take. "He was going to take his life, but first he was going to get even," Levin said the day after the Binghamton incident. "He was going to get sweet revenge against the other immigrants who had looked down upon him, among whom he had lost face. To him, that was an extremely important thing."
The keywords here are "revenge" and "lose face." Those are the popular terms we in the media like to throw around when we think of the inscrutable Asians. To use them well is to impress the Early Show, whose anchors were easily impressed.
But revenge sounds a bit like a "martial arts movie" motive that hasn't panned out. Shame is part of the equation, surely, but it doesn't explain enough. Every day around the world, millions of Asians "lose face," as it were. But they don't turn into lunatics and kill innocent people. Besides, the extreme outcome of shame in East Asia, most pronounced in Japan and increasingly in South Korea, is suicide, not genocide. Shame is not always a bad thing. In Confucian-bound societies, shame motivates students and workers to improve their lot, and to keep society bound to a fixed moral standard.
Yet, how do we explain the actions of Cho, the 23-year-old English major, who killed 33 people, and Wong (or Voong) who killed 14, before taking their own lives? How to get inside the head of someone whose rambling letter mailed to a local TV station before his blazing murder-suicide bid is now giving psychologists a field day? The media now brand him as "depressed," a "loner" and "delusional."
Perhaps there's another way to understand him, one that is somewhere between culture and psychology.
The opposite of a cosmopolitan has always seemed to me a kind of aphonic drifter. While he may move from one civilization to the next, he is disconnected to both. The successful border crosser is blessed with the power of metamorphosis and the gift of articulation. His counterpart, alas, finds himself tongue-tied and trapped in a defective chrysalis, unable to, but deeply desiring, change.
What keeps him from that covetous transformation is language, the loose tongue, that cunning go-between ability to slide between worlds. Cho spoke with a speech impediment that made him a pariah while in school. Wong, though having renamed himself and passed the U.S. citizenship test, was nevertheless defeated by the English language. He was reportedly "frustrated" by his inability to speak English despite two decades in America, and became, as his ex-co-workers described him, "quiet."
A day after the Binghamton incident, a Vietnamese American blogged in his native tongue on the language issue, while sympathizing with the shooter. "America is a country full of foreigners, but what [distinguishes] 'natives' from 'immigrants' is an ability to speak English well. English for the Vietnamese overseas can be an issue of survival, and sometimes it's an issue of life and death, as in the tragedy we just witnessed. I am not trying to defend Wong's crimes... But I think I understand how humiliating it is to not be able to speak English in America."
Shame, indeed, binds the tongue. Thus, while the successful border crosser uses language to overcome shame by refusing silence, while he finds ways to articulate his shame until he rearranges it and redefines himself, his counterpart remains retiring, finding no articulate way to transform himself in the new world.
If the Asian shame-based culture is still prominent, keeping its citizens in line and well behaved, it is the gun culture in America that is most conspicuous. It is there on TV and video games and the Internet and the silver screen, and it is the most accessible language for the tongue-tied. For them the gun -- be it in video games or at the practicing range -- speaks volumes.
Cho posted a video before his killing spree and his speech was largely incomprehensible, but what screamed out were the guns he displayed. They were his language.
Wong went to the firing range every Saturday, newspapers reported. It is there that he was most articulate.
So many famous immigrants have entered America's public space through their power of language -- be it men or women of letters, like Ha Jin or Salman Rushdie, or musicians like Yo Yo Ma and Lang Lang. But there is another way to enter America's consciousness -- through acts of violence -- and become infamous.
For some who feel powerlessness and marginalized but desiring change, the gun can be seductive. It provides power. It speaks in a language everybody understands. It speaks across color lines. It opens doors for the invisible into the public space.
Unfortunately, it is the language of annihilation and not creation. It speaks up once or twice, but often the user succumbs to his curse: that of silence.
Shame, indeed, binds the tongue. Thus, while the successful border crosser uses language to overcome shame by refusing silence, while he finds ways to articulate his shame until he rearranges it and redefines himself, his counterpart remains retiring, finding no articulate way to transform himself in the new world.
If the Asian shame-based culture is still prominent, keeping its citizens in line and well behaved, it is the gun culture in America that is most conspicuous. It is there on TV and video games and the Internet and the silver screen, and it is the most accessible language for the tongue-tied. For them the gun -- be it in video games or at the practicing range -- speaks volumes.
-Angela
By Andrew Lam, New America Media. Posted April 9, 2009.
Enough about Asia's "shame-based" culture, it is the gun culture in America that is most conspicuous.
Whenever a minority commits a heinous crime, it seems to beckon us in the media to search beyond an individual motive for a cultural one. We saw it in the case of Cho Sung-hui of Virginia tech, and now, in the latest case involving Jiverly Linh Phat Wong -- (or Voong). He blocked the back exit of a civic community center in Binghamton, N.Y., where immigrants had gathered to learn English and shot 13 people to death before killing himself.
It is a habit of "finding the ethnic angle" that is endemic in the work of American journalists in an age of cultural diversity, and in order to sound credible, we often ask so-called experts to give their insights.
Jack Levin, director of the Brudnick Center on Violence at Northeastern University and an expert on mass murderers, offered his take. "He was going to take his life, but first he was going to get even," Levin said the day after the Binghamton incident. "He was going to get sweet revenge against the other immigrants who had looked down upon him, among whom he had lost face. To him, that was an extremely important thing."
The keywords here are "revenge" and "lose face." Those are the popular terms we in the media like to throw around when we think of the inscrutable Asians. To use them well is to impress the Early Show, whose anchors were easily impressed.
But revenge sounds a bit like a "martial arts movie" motive that hasn't panned out. Shame is part of the equation, surely, but it doesn't explain enough. Every day around the world, millions of Asians "lose face," as it were. But they don't turn into lunatics and kill innocent people. Besides, the extreme outcome of shame in East Asia, most pronounced in Japan and increasingly in South Korea, is suicide, not genocide. Shame is not always a bad thing. In Confucian-bound societies, shame motivates students and workers to improve their lot, and to keep society bound to a fixed moral standard.
Yet, how do we explain the actions of Cho, the 23-year-old English major, who killed 33 people, and Wong (or Voong) who killed 14, before taking their own lives? How to get inside the head of someone whose rambling letter mailed to a local TV station before his blazing murder-suicide bid is now giving psychologists a field day? The media now brand him as "depressed," a "loner" and "delusional."
Perhaps there's another way to understand him, one that is somewhere between culture and psychology.
The opposite of a cosmopolitan has always seemed to me a kind of aphonic drifter. While he may move from one civilization to the next, he is disconnected to both. The successful border crosser is blessed with the power of metamorphosis and the gift of articulation. His counterpart, alas, finds himself tongue-tied and trapped in a defective chrysalis, unable to, but deeply desiring, change.
What keeps him from that covetous transformation is language, the loose tongue, that cunning go-between ability to slide between worlds. Cho spoke with a speech impediment that made him a pariah while in school. Wong, though having renamed himself and passed the U.S. citizenship test, was nevertheless defeated by the English language. He was reportedly "frustrated" by his inability to speak English despite two decades in America, and became, as his ex-co-workers described him, "quiet."
A day after the Binghamton incident, a Vietnamese American blogged in his native tongue on the language issue, while sympathizing with the shooter. "America is a country full of foreigners, but what [distinguishes] 'natives' from 'immigrants' is an ability to speak English well. English for the Vietnamese overseas can be an issue of survival, and sometimes it's an issue of life and death, as in the tragedy we just witnessed. I am not trying to defend Wong's crimes... But I think I understand how humiliating it is to not be able to speak English in America."
Shame, indeed, binds the tongue. Thus, while the successful border crosser uses language to overcome shame by refusing silence, while he finds ways to articulate his shame until he rearranges it and redefines himself, his counterpart remains retiring, finding no articulate way to transform himself in the new world.
If the Asian shame-based culture is still prominent, keeping its citizens in line and well behaved, it is the gun culture in America that is most conspicuous. It is there on TV and video games and the Internet and the silver screen, and it is the most accessible language for the tongue-tied. For them the gun -- be it in video games or at the practicing range -- speaks volumes.
Cho posted a video before his killing spree and his speech was largely incomprehensible, but what screamed out were the guns he displayed. They were his language.
Wong went to the firing range every Saturday, newspapers reported. It is there that he was most articulate.
So many famous immigrants have entered America's public space through their power of language -- be it men or women of letters, like Ha Jin or Salman Rushdie, or musicians like Yo Yo Ma and Lang Lang. But there is another way to enter America's consciousness -- through acts of violence -- and become infamous.
For some who feel powerlessness and marginalized but desiring change, the gun can be seductive. It provides power. It speaks in a language everybody understands. It speaks across color lines. It opens doors for the invisible into the public space.
Unfortunately, it is the language of annihilation and not creation. It speaks up once or twice, but often the user succumbs to his curse: that of silence.
Friday, April 10, 2009
10% Admissions -- the Full Impact
10% Admissions -- the Full Impact
April 6, 2009
Texas legislators may be on the verge of changing one of the most notable admissions experiments in recent years: a state law requiring that all public colleges and universities automatically admit all of those who graduate in the top 10 percent of their high school classes.
The focus of lawmakers -- particularly those advocating a change -- has been the difficulty the law places on the University of Texas at Austin. As the most competitive institution in the state, it is highly attractive to anyone eligible to earn admission, and UT leaders say that they are filling such a large share of admissions slots through the so-called 10 percent program that they have lost flexibility and, with it, the ability to admit highly talented students who don’t earn automatic admission. Defenders of the law tend to focus on its impact increasing minority enrollments.
Two new studies suggest both positive and negative impacts of the law that have received relatively less attention in the debate. The studies are scheduled to be released next Friday at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association.
One focuses on the high schools that send students to UT -- and finds that the law has led to much broader representation, effectively halting what had been a growing pattern in which a small number of wealthy high schools were increasingly dominating admissions. Not only has the overall number of high schools sending students to Austin increased since the 10 percent program, but the law appears to have shifted high school students’ decisions. At many high schools before the law took effect, those who would have almost certainly been admitted never bothered to apply -- and the law appears to have changed that, the research has found.
A second study could be used to argue against the 10 percent law -- or at least the way it has been carried out at UT-Austin. This study finds that, as the 10 percent law made it more difficult for some applicants to win admission, an increasing number of these rejected applicants used a program allowing transfer from other UT campuses. And as these transfers grew, transfers from community colleges fell. The finding is significant because so many low-income and minority students start their higher education at two-year institutions.
The authors of the studies -- noting the speed with which Texas legislators appear to be moving to change 10 percent -- released them to Inside Higher Ed in advance of their formal presentation in the hope that their findings might inform the debate.
The 10 percent law was adopted in 1997, following a federal appeals court’s ban on the consideration of race or ethnicity in admissions decisions. The law was immediately popular (with bipartisan support). Because so many Texas high schools have ethnically homogeneous student bodies (whether white, black or Latino), the law ensured that healthy numbers from all groups would be eligible to enroll at Austin. When in 2003 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the legality of affirmative action in college admissions, UT started to again consider race and ethnicity in admissions, and opposition to the law started to grow. Among the more vocal opponents have been families and legislators in wealthier parts of the state, which support high quality public schools where (these critics say) very well qualified students in the 11th percentile (or further down) are losing a shot at getting to Austin.
From High School to the Flagship
One of the papers focuses on the issue of which high schools send students to UT. Mark C. Long of the University of Washington, Victor B. Saenz of the University of Texas at Austin, and Marta Tienda of Princeton University analyzed 18 years' worth of data on which high schools sent students to UT, and they found significant shifts beyond the issues of race and ethnicity that tend to dominate discussion of 10 percent.
They start by documenting evidence from prior studies about the role of “feeder” high schools -- those that send a disproportionate share of students to Austin. One part of the research noted that in 1996, just before the law was adopted, 59 high schools accounted for half of UT’s freshman class. (There are more than 1,500 high schools in Texas.) By 2006, there were 104 high schools whose students made up half of the freshman class -- by no means an even distribution, but much more than was the case prior to 10 percent.
The total number of high schools sending at least one student to UT-Austin went up dramatically as this shift was taking place. In 1996, the study notes that UT admitted students from 674 high schools. By 2007, that figure was more than 900. The new high schools were more likely than those previously sending students to have large concentrations of minority students and low-income students (minority and white), to be in rural areas, or small towns and cities. Notably, the researchers found that once high schools experienced success in getting students admitted, they tended to continue to do so.
A key question in the debate over 10 percent is whether the more diverse student pool would continue without the law in its current form. Here, the research team offers evidence to suggest that there are key factors to the law itself -- especially its straightforward nature -- that contribute to its success. The researchers note that, prior to the 10 percent law, nearly all applicants in the top 10 percent of high school classes were admitted, but at high schools whose students have not flocked to UT until recently, very few of these students bothered to apply, pre-10 percent.
“Presumably, many seniors who ranked highly in their class failed to apply because of the opaqueness of UT's admissions policy; as is the case at most institutions, students have no way of knowing whether they qualify for admission or the likelihood of being admitted. This opaqueness would be acute for students at high schools with low sending rates to UT -- a student at such a high school would not have the experience of seeing their older peers' application results,” the draft report on the study says.
“Thus, the apparent increases in access may be due, in part, to the rendering of an opaque de facto policy that admitted nearly all top 10% students to a transparent de jure policy that clearly stipulated the criteria for automatic admission. Not only did this change in admission policy influence the number of admitted and enrolled students to UT, but it also diversified their geographic and socioeconomic origins.”
From Community Colleges to the Flagship
The paper on community colleges notes that for many students, especially low income or minority students, there has never been a great direct path to the flagship university, and transfer has long been viewed as a good option. The paper -- by Rose M. Martinez, a doctoral candidate at UT-Austin, explores what may be an "unintended consequence" of the 10 percent law: reduced transfers from community colleges.
Some applicants who are rejected for admission to UT-Austin are given the option through the Conditional Admission Program (known as CAP) of signing a contract to enroll at another UT campus and to meet certain goals, upon which they will earn a slot at Austin. Others transfer from community colleges. Martinez's study found that prior to the 10 percent law, community college transfer was the more common route in, but that since adoption of 10 percent the reverse is true. This is significant because that program caters to those who feel they were denied a shot at UT, possibly by those being admitted by the 10 percent law.
"While well intentioned, students qualifying for automatic admission are indirectly crowding out community college students at a highly ranked flagship university in a state where too few top ranked institutions exist," says a draft of Martinez's paper.
"Texas has 50 community college districts and 74 community college campuses. Yet, community college students averaged 30.3 percent or 626 students of the fall transfer cohort from 2004-8. If left unchanged, the transfer program may be overrun with CAP students, who are wholly comprised of non-top 10 percent freshman applicants. If so, it begs the question of whether the flagship university can recruit a diverse pool of transfer students or if CAP serves as a subliminal form of cascading of selective freshman applicants."
— Scott Jaschik
April 6, 2009
Texas legislators may be on the verge of changing one of the most notable admissions experiments in recent years: a state law requiring that all public colleges and universities automatically admit all of those who graduate in the top 10 percent of their high school classes.
The focus of lawmakers -- particularly those advocating a change -- has been the difficulty the law places on the University of Texas at Austin. As the most competitive institution in the state, it is highly attractive to anyone eligible to earn admission, and UT leaders say that they are filling such a large share of admissions slots through the so-called 10 percent program that they have lost flexibility and, with it, the ability to admit highly talented students who don’t earn automatic admission. Defenders of the law tend to focus on its impact increasing minority enrollments.
Two new studies suggest both positive and negative impacts of the law that have received relatively less attention in the debate. The studies are scheduled to be released next Friday at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association.
One focuses on the high schools that send students to UT -- and finds that the law has led to much broader representation, effectively halting what had been a growing pattern in which a small number of wealthy high schools were increasingly dominating admissions. Not only has the overall number of high schools sending students to Austin increased since the 10 percent program, but the law appears to have shifted high school students’ decisions. At many high schools before the law took effect, those who would have almost certainly been admitted never bothered to apply -- and the law appears to have changed that, the research has found.
A second study could be used to argue against the 10 percent law -- or at least the way it has been carried out at UT-Austin. This study finds that, as the 10 percent law made it more difficult for some applicants to win admission, an increasing number of these rejected applicants used a program allowing transfer from other UT campuses. And as these transfers grew, transfers from community colleges fell. The finding is significant because so many low-income and minority students start their higher education at two-year institutions.
The authors of the studies -- noting the speed with which Texas legislators appear to be moving to change 10 percent -- released them to Inside Higher Ed in advance of their formal presentation in the hope that their findings might inform the debate.
The 10 percent law was adopted in 1997, following a federal appeals court’s ban on the consideration of race or ethnicity in admissions decisions. The law was immediately popular (with bipartisan support). Because so many Texas high schools have ethnically homogeneous student bodies (whether white, black or Latino), the law ensured that healthy numbers from all groups would be eligible to enroll at Austin. When in 2003 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the legality of affirmative action in college admissions, UT started to again consider race and ethnicity in admissions, and opposition to the law started to grow. Among the more vocal opponents have been families and legislators in wealthier parts of the state, which support high quality public schools where (these critics say) very well qualified students in the 11th percentile (or further down) are losing a shot at getting to Austin.
From High School to the Flagship
One of the papers focuses on the issue of which high schools send students to UT. Mark C. Long of the University of Washington, Victor B. Saenz of the University of Texas at Austin, and Marta Tienda of Princeton University analyzed 18 years' worth of data on which high schools sent students to UT, and they found significant shifts beyond the issues of race and ethnicity that tend to dominate discussion of 10 percent.
They start by documenting evidence from prior studies about the role of “feeder” high schools -- those that send a disproportionate share of students to Austin. One part of the research noted that in 1996, just before the law was adopted, 59 high schools accounted for half of UT’s freshman class. (There are more than 1,500 high schools in Texas.) By 2006, there were 104 high schools whose students made up half of the freshman class -- by no means an even distribution, but much more than was the case prior to 10 percent.
The total number of high schools sending at least one student to UT-Austin went up dramatically as this shift was taking place. In 1996, the study notes that UT admitted students from 674 high schools. By 2007, that figure was more than 900. The new high schools were more likely than those previously sending students to have large concentrations of minority students and low-income students (minority and white), to be in rural areas, or small towns and cities. Notably, the researchers found that once high schools experienced success in getting students admitted, they tended to continue to do so.
A key question in the debate over 10 percent is whether the more diverse student pool would continue without the law in its current form. Here, the research team offers evidence to suggest that there are key factors to the law itself -- especially its straightforward nature -- that contribute to its success. The researchers note that, prior to the 10 percent law, nearly all applicants in the top 10 percent of high school classes were admitted, but at high schools whose students have not flocked to UT until recently, very few of these students bothered to apply, pre-10 percent.
“Presumably, many seniors who ranked highly in their class failed to apply because of the opaqueness of UT's admissions policy; as is the case at most institutions, students have no way of knowing whether they qualify for admission or the likelihood of being admitted. This opaqueness would be acute for students at high schools with low sending rates to UT -- a student at such a high school would not have the experience of seeing their older peers' application results,” the draft report on the study says.
“Thus, the apparent increases in access may be due, in part, to the rendering of an opaque de facto policy that admitted nearly all top 10% students to a transparent de jure policy that clearly stipulated the criteria for automatic admission. Not only did this change in admission policy influence the number of admitted and enrolled students to UT, but it also diversified their geographic and socioeconomic origins.”
From Community Colleges to the Flagship
The paper on community colleges notes that for many students, especially low income or minority students, there has never been a great direct path to the flagship university, and transfer has long been viewed as a good option. The paper -- by Rose M. Martinez, a doctoral candidate at UT-Austin, explores what may be an "unintended consequence" of the 10 percent law: reduced transfers from community colleges.
Some applicants who are rejected for admission to UT-Austin are given the option through the Conditional Admission Program (known as CAP) of signing a contract to enroll at another UT campus and to meet certain goals, upon which they will earn a slot at Austin. Others transfer from community colleges. Martinez's study found that prior to the 10 percent law, community college transfer was the more common route in, but that since adoption of 10 percent the reverse is true. This is significant because that program caters to those who feel they were denied a shot at UT, possibly by those being admitted by the 10 percent law.
"While well intentioned, students qualifying for automatic admission are indirectly crowding out community college students at a highly ranked flagship university in a state where too few top ranked institutions exist," says a draft of Martinez's paper.
"Texas has 50 community college districts and 74 community college campuses. Yet, community college students averaged 30.3 percent or 626 students of the fall transfer cohort from 2004-8. If left unchanged, the transfer program may be overrun with CAP students, who are wholly comprised of non-top 10 percent freshman applicants. If so, it begs the question of whether the flagship university can recruit a diverse pool of transfer students or if CAP serves as a subliminal form of cascading of selective freshman applicants."
— Scott Jaschik
WHY IMMIGRANT WORKERS WILL FILL THE STREETS THIS MAY DAY
By David Bacon
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
OAKLAND, CA (4/4/09) -- In a little less than a month, hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions, of people will fill the streets in city after city, town after town, across the US. This year May Day marches of immigrant workers will make an important demand on the Obama administration: End the draconian enforcement policies of the Bush administration. Establish a new immigration policy based on human rights and recognition of the crucial economic and social contributions of immigrants to US society.
This year's marches will continue the recovery in the US of the celebration of May Day, the day that celebrates worldwide the contributions of working people. That recovery started on May 1, 2006, when over a million people filled the streets of Los Angeles, with hundreds of thousands more in Chicago, New York and cities and towns throughout the United States. Again on May Day in 2007 and 2008, immigrants and their supporters demonstrated and marched, from coast to coast.
One sign found in almost every march said it all: "We are Workers, not Criminals!" The sign stated an obvious truth. Millions of people have come to the United States to work, not to break its laws. Some have come with visas, and others without them. But they are all contributors to the society they've found here.
The protests are a result of years of organizing, the legacy of Bert Corona, immigrant rights pioneer and founder of many national Latino organizations. He trained thousands of immigrant activists, taught the value of political independence, and believed that immigrants themselves must conduct a struggle for their rights. Most of the leaders of the radical wing of today's immigrant rights movement were his students.
In part, the May Day protests respond to a wave of draconian measures that have criminalized immigration status and work itself for undocumented people. In 1986, the Immigration Reform and Control Act made it a crime, for the first time in US history, to hire people without papers. Defenders argued that if people could not legally work they would leave. Life was not so simple.
Undocumented people are part of the communities they live in. They cannot simply go, nor should they. They seek the same goals of equality and opportunity that working people in the US have historically fought for. In addition, for most immigrants there are no jobs to return to in the countries from which they've come. After Congress passed The North American Free Trade Agreement, six million displaced Mexicans came to the US as a result of the massive displacement the treaty caused. Free trade and free market policies have similarly displaced millions more in poor countries around the world.
Instead of recognizing this reality, the US government has attempted to make holding a job a criminal act. Some states and local communities, seeing a green light from the Department of Homeland Security, have passed measures that go even further. Mississippi passed a bill making it a felony for an undocumented worker to hold a job, with jail time of 1-10 years, fines of up to $10,000, and no bail for anyone arrested. Employers get immunity.
Last summer, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff proposed a rule requiring employers to fire any worker who couldn't correct a mismatch between the Social Security number given to their employer and the SSA database. The regulation assumes those workers have no valid immigration visa, and therefore no valid Social Security number.
With 12 million people living in the US without legal immigration status, the regulation would have led to massive firings, bringing many industries and businesses to a halt. Citizens and legal visa holders would have been swept up as well, since the Social Security database is often inaccurate. While the courts enjoined this particular regulation, the idea of using Social Security numbers to identify and fire millions of workers is still very much alive in Washington, DC.
Under Chertoff, the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted sweeping workplace raids, arresting and deporting thousands of workers. Many were charged with an additional crime - identity theft - because they used a Social Security number belonging to someone else to get a job. Yet workers using those numbers actually deposit money into Social Security funds, and will never collect benefits their contributions paid for. The new Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says the big raids need to be reexamined, but she continues to support measures to drive undocumented workers from their jobs, and to keep employers from hiring them.
During her term as governor, the Arizona legislature passed a law requiring employers to verify the immigration status of every worker through a federal database called E-Verify, even more full of errors than Social Security. They must fire workers whose names get flagged. This is now becoming the model for Federal enforcement.
Many of these punitive measures surfaced in proposals for "comprehensive immigration reform" that were debated in Congress in 2006 and 2007. The comprehensive bills combined criminalization of work for the undocumented with huge guest worker programs. While those proposals failed in Congress, the Bush administration implemented some of their most draconian provisions by administrative action. Many fear that new proposals for immigration reform being formulated by Congress and the administration will continue these efforts to criminalize work.
In reality, the labor of 12 million undocumented workers is indispensable to the economy, just as is the labor of 26 million people with visas, and the many millions of workers who were born in the U.S. The wealth created by undocumented workers is never called illegal. No one dreams of taking that wealth from the employers who profited from it. Yet the people who produce this wealth are called exactly that - illegal.
All workers need jobs and a way to support their families, not just some. And in a country with schools behind the rest of the industrialized world, with bridges that fall into rivers and people living in tent cities for lack of housing, there is clearly no shortage of work to be done. If the trillion dollars showered on banks were used instead to put people to work, there would be plenty of jobs and a better quality of life for everyone.
Nativo Lopez, president of the Mexican American Political Association and the Hermandad Mexicana Latinoamericana, says, "Washington legislators and lobbyists fear a new civil rights movement in the streets, because it rejects their compromises and makes demands that go beyond what they have defined as 'politically possible.'"
The price of trying to push people out of the US who've come here for survival is increased vulnerability for undocumented workers, which ultimately results in cheaper labor and fewer rights for everyone. Under Bush, that was the government's goal -- cheap labor for large employers, enforced by deportations, firings and guest worker programs. This is what millions of people want to change. And the Obama administration was elected because it promised "change we can believe in."
In past May Day marches many participants have put forward an alternative set of demands, which includes tying legalization for 12 million undocumented people in the US with jobs programs for communities with high unemployment. All workers need the right to organize to raise wages and gain workplace rights, including the 12 million people for whom work is a crime. More green cards, especially visas based on family reunification, would enable people to cross the border legally, instead of dying in the desert. Ending guest worker programs would help stop the use of our immigration system as a supply of cheap labor for employers. And on the border, communities want human rights, not more guns, walls, soldiers and prisons for immigrants.
This May Day, immigrants will again send this powerful message. Their marches have already rescued from obscurity our own holiday, which began in the struggle for the eight-hour day in Chicago over a century ago. Today they are giving May Day a new meaning, putting forward ideas that will not only benefit immigrant communities, but all working families.
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
OAKLAND, CA (4/4/09) -- In a little less than a month, hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions, of people will fill the streets in city after city, town after town, across the US. This year May Day marches of immigrant workers will make an important demand on the Obama administration: End the draconian enforcement policies of the Bush administration. Establish a new immigration policy based on human rights and recognition of the crucial economic and social contributions of immigrants to US society.
This year's marches will continue the recovery in the US of the celebration of May Day, the day that celebrates worldwide the contributions of working people. That recovery started on May 1, 2006, when over a million people filled the streets of Los Angeles, with hundreds of thousands more in Chicago, New York and cities and towns throughout the United States. Again on May Day in 2007 and 2008, immigrants and their supporters demonstrated and marched, from coast to coast.
One sign found in almost every march said it all: "We are Workers, not Criminals!" The sign stated an obvious truth. Millions of people have come to the United States to work, not to break its laws. Some have come with visas, and others without them. But they are all contributors to the society they've found here.
The protests are a result of years of organizing, the legacy of Bert Corona, immigrant rights pioneer and founder of many national Latino organizations. He trained thousands of immigrant activists, taught the value of political independence, and believed that immigrants themselves must conduct a struggle for their rights. Most of the leaders of the radical wing of today's immigrant rights movement were his students.
In part, the May Day protests respond to a wave of draconian measures that have criminalized immigration status and work itself for undocumented people. In 1986, the Immigration Reform and Control Act made it a crime, for the first time in US history, to hire people without papers. Defenders argued that if people could not legally work they would leave. Life was not so simple.
Undocumented people are part of the communities they live in. They cannot simply go, nor should they. They seek the same goals of equality and opportunity that working people in the US have historically fought for. In addition, for most immigrants there are no jobs to return to in the countries from which they've come. After Congress passed The North American Free Trade Agreement, six million displaced Mexicans came to the US as a result of the massive displacement the treaty caused. Free trade and free market policies have similarly displaced millions more in poor countries around the world.
Instead of recognizing this reality, the US government has attempted to make holding a job a criminal act. Some states and local communities, seeing a green light from the Department of Homeland Security, have passed measures that go even further. Mississippi passed a bill making it a felony for an undocumented worker to hold a job, with jail time of 1-10 years, fines of up to $10,000, and no bail for anyone arrested. Employers get immunity.
Last summer, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff proposed a rule requiring employers to fire any worker who couldn't correct a mismatch between the Social Security number given to their employer and the SSA database. The regulation assumes those workers have no valid immigration visa, and therefore no valid Social Security number.
With 12 million people living in the US without legal immigration status, the regulation would have led to massive firings, bringing many industries and businesses to a halt. Citizens and legal visa holders would have been swept up as well, since the Social Security database is often inaccurate. While the courts enjoined this particular regulation, the idea of using Social Security numbers to identify and fire millions of workers is still very much alive in Washington, DC.
Under Chertoff, the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted sweeping workplace raids, arresting and deporting thousands of workers. Many were charged with an additional crime - identity theft - because they used a Social Security number belonging to someone else to get a job. Yet workers using those numbers actually deposit money into Social Security funds, and will never collect benefits their contributions paid for. The new Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says the big raids need to be reexamined, but she continues to support measures to drive undocumented workers from their jobs, and to keep employers from hiring them.
During her term as governor, the Arizona legislature passed a law requiring employers to verify the immigration status of every worker through a federal database called E-Verify, even more full of errors than Social Security. They must fire workers whose names get flagged. This is now becoming the model for Federal enforcement.
Many of these punitive measures surfaced in proposals for "comprehensive immigration reform" that were debated in Congress in 2006 and 2007. The comprehensive bills combined criminalization of work for the undocumented with huge guest worker programs. While those proposals failed in Congress, the Bush administration implemented some of their most draconian provisions by administrative action. Many fear that new proposals for immigration reform being formulated by Congress and the administration will continue these efforts to criminalize work.
In reality, the labor of 12 million undocumented workers is indispensable to the economy, just as is the labor of 26 million people with visas, and the many millions of workers who were born in the U.S. The wealth created by undocumented workers is never called illegal. No one dreams of taking that wealth from the employers who profited from it. Yet the people who produce this wealth are called exactly that - illegal.
All workers need jobs and a way to support their families, not just some. And in a country with schools behind the rest of the industrialized world, with bridges that fall into rivers and people living in tent cities for lack of housing, there is clearly no shortage of work to be done. If the trillion dollars showered on banks were used instead to put people to work, there would be plenty of jobs and a better quality of life for everyone.
Nativo Lopez, president of the Mexican American Political Association and the Hermandad Mexicana Latinoamericana, says, "Washington legislators and lobbyists fear a new civil rights movement in the streets, because it rejects their compromises and makes demands that go beyond what they have defined as 'politically possible.'"
The price of trying to push people out of the US who've come here for survival is increased vulnerability for undocumented workers, which ultimately results in cheaper labor and fewer rights for everyone. Under Bush, that was the government's goal -- cheap labor for large employers, enforced by deportations, firings and guest worker programs. This is what millions of people want to change. And the Obama administration was elected because it promised "change we can believe in."
In past May Day marches many participants have put forward an alternative set of demands, which includes tying legalization for 12 million undocumented people in the US with jobs programs for communities with high unemployment. All workers need the right to organize to raise wages and gain workplace rights, including the 12 million people for whom work is a crime. More green cards, especially visas based on family reunification, would enable people to cross the border legally, instead of dying in the desert. Ending guest worker programs would help stop the use of our immigration system as a supply of cheap labor for employers. And on the border, communities want human rights, not more guns, walls, soldiers and prisons for immigrants.
This May Day, immigrants will again send this powerful message. Their marches have already rescued from obscurity our own holiday, which began in the struggle for the eight-hour day in Chicago over a century ago. Today they are giving May Day a new meaning, putting forward ideas that will not only benefit immigrant communities, but all working families.
Sunday, April 05, 2009
The Rapid Growth and Changing Complexion of Suburban Public Schools
Check out the full report "Sharp Growth in Suburban Minority Enrollment Yields Modest Gains in School Diversity"
-Patricia
by Richard Fry, Senior Research Associate, Pew Hispanic Center
March 31, 2009
The student population of America's suburban public schools has shot up by 3.4 million in the past decade and a half, and virtually all of this increase (99%) has been due to the enrollment of new Latino, black and Asian students, according to a Pew Hispanic Center analysis of public school data. Once a largely white enclave, suburban school districts in 2006-07 educated a student population that was 41.4% non-white, up from 28% in 1993-94 and not much different from the 43.7% non-white share of the nation's overall public school student population. At the same time, suburban school districts have been gaining "market share"; they educated 38% of the nation's public school students in 2006-07, up from 35% in 1993-94.
The most potent driver of all these trends has been the near doubling of the Latino share of suburban school district enrollment -- to 20% in 2006-07, from 11% in 1993-94. Over this same time period, the black share grew to 15% from 12% and the Asian share rose slightly, to 6% from 5%. Overall, white students made up just 59% of the enrollment in suburban public schools in 2006-07, down from 72% in 1993-94.
The movement of minority students into suburban schools has had the overall effect of slightly reducing levels of ethnic and racial segregation throughout the nation's 93,430 public schools. However, trends vary for different minority groups, community types, school districts and, especially, individual schools. For example, despite the sharp rise in the racial and ethnic diversity of suburban district enrollments overall, there has been only a modest increase in the racial and ethnic diversity of student populations at the level of the individual suburban school.
These findings are based on an analysis of the most recent available enrollment figures for the nation's public schools. The National Center for Education Statistics of the U.S. Department of Education collects this information and also classifies school districts as being suburban, city or town/rural districts.
School-Level Diversity in the Suburbs
In 2006-07, the typical white suburban student attended a school whose student body was 75% white; in 1993-94, this same figure had been 83%. So at a time when the white share of student enrollment in suburban school districts was falling by 13 percentage points (from 72% in 1993-94 to 59% in 2006-07), the exposure of the typical white suburban student to minority students in his or her own school was growing by a little more than half that much -- or 8 percentage points.
Meantime, the typical black suburban school student in 2006-07 attended a school that was 34% white, down from 43% white in 1993-94. The typical Hispanic suburban student attended a school that was 31% white, down from 40% white in 1993-94. And the typical Asian suburban school student attended a school that was 48% white, down from 55% white in 1993-94. Thus, suburban minority students' exposure to white students has declined since 1993-94, reflecting the overall lower proportion of white students in suburban district enrollments.
Looking at the exposure of minority suburban students to their own racial or ethnic group rather than to whites, a different pattern emerges for Hispanics than for blacks or Asians.
Suburban Hispanic students are increasingly attending schools whose student bodies have a high percentage of Hispanics. In 2006-07, the typical suburban Hispanic student attended a school that was 49% Latino, up from 42% Latino in 1993-94. By contrast, there was little change during this period in the levels of racial isolation of black and Asian suburban students. In 2006-07, the typical suburban black student attended a school that was 44% black, up only slightly from 43% black in 1993-94, and the typical suburban Asian student attended a school that was 23% Asian, down slightly from 24% Asian in 1993-94.
The National Perspective
The movement of minority students into suburban school districts since 1993-94 has had an impact on national trends in minority student isolation. Nationally, the typical black student in 2006-07 attended a school that was 52% black, down from 54% black in 1993-94. This modest decline is partly attributable to the fact that a greater share of black students are now educated in suburban schools, where they tend to be less isolated than in city schools. Nationally, the typical Hispanic student in 2006-07 attended a school that was 55% Hispanic, up from 52% Hispanic in 1993-94. The increase in Hispanic isolation nationally would have been even greater in the absence of the shift of Hispanic students out of city school districts and into suburban areas. Nationally, the typical Asian student in 2006-07 attended a school that was 23% Asian, up from 22% in 1993-94.
When it comes to increases in public school student enrollment, the suburbs are where most of the action has been over the past decade and a half. Since 1993-94, two-thirds of the 5.1 million increase in public school enrollment nationwide has occurred in suburban school districts. In 1993-94, city school districts educated a majority of the nation's minority students. That is no longer the case. City school districts educated 47% of the nation's Hispanic students in 2006-07, down from 54% in 1993-94. Similarly, city school districts educated 48% of the nation's black students in 2006-07, down from 54% in 1993-94. In addition, a declining share of the nation's Asian students are educated in city school districts. The movement out of city schools has nearly exclusively been suburban school districts' gain because the share of the nation's minority students educated in town/rural school districts has been stagnant or has declined.
Overall, suburban schools are much closer in racial and ethnic makeup to the nation's public school population as a whole than are city schools, which tend to be disproportionately minority, or rural and town schools, which tend to be disproportionately white. The typical minority student in a city school has fewer white classmates than does a peer who attends a suburban school. In 2006-07, the enrollment of a city school attended by the typical black or Hispanic student was about 20% white and 80% minority. Most of the minority students in these schools were students of the same race/ethnicity as themselves. The typical city black student attended a school with 60% black enrollment, and the typical city Latino student went to a school with 63% Hispanic enrollment.
These levels of racial/ethnic isolation are significantly above those of their peers educated in suburban school districts. Minority students in town and rural school districts tend to have more exposure to white students than do minority students in suburban school districts. The typical town/rural black student attended a school with 47% white enrollment, and the typical town/rural Hispanic student attended a 43% white school. However, minority students in town/rural school districts tend not to be less isolated than their suburban peers. The typical town/rural black student attended a school with 44% black enrollment, and the typical town/rural Latino student went to a school with 47% Hispanic enrollment.
Asian students in town/rural school districts are less isolated than their suburban counterparts. The typical town/rural Asian student attended a school with 5% Asian enrollment, compared with the 23% Asian proportion of suburban schools attended by Asian students.
The Dissimilarity Index: Another Measure of School Segregation
This report examines the changing levels of exposure that minority students have to themselves and to white students, and the changing levels of exposure that white students have to themselves and to minority students. Such isolation/exposure indexes are a commonly used research tool, but they are not the only way researchers measure school segregation. Another widely used measure is the dissimilarity index, which gauges the evenness of the spread of students across the schools in a school district. Formally, it is the proportion of a student group that would have to change schools for all schools in the district to have the same proportion of the group as the district-wide average.
To see if we would find patterns consistent with those of our isolation/exposure analysis, we tabulated the dissimilarity index for all suburban districts and used it to examine the degree of segregation within a particular school district (not a larger geographic area such as a metropolitan area).
We found that trends in the suburban school district dissimilarity index are fairly similar to the trends in the isolation measure reported above. For black and Asian students, there was a small decline in suburban school district segregation from 1993-94 to 2006-07, according to the dissimilarity measure. For Hispanic students, suburban school segregation has increased since 1993-94. These trends are based on the average of the dissimilarity index across suburban school districts. There are, of course, individual suburban districts whose change in the dissimilarity index does not mimic the overall trend.
For each minority group, the level of segregation tends to be greater in city school districts than in suburban school districts, according to the dissimilarity index.
Across all school districts in America (city and suburban as well as town/rural), the dissimilarity index indicates that district-level segregation has declined since 1993-94 for black, Hispanic and Asian students. Part of this decline, again, is to due to the change in the geographic locus of minority education since 1993-94. Suburban school districts tend to be less segregated than city school districts, and an increasing share of each minority student group is being educated in suburban school districts.
In addition to examining the trend over all suburban school districts, this report examined changes since 1993-94 in individual suburban school districts. The analysis examined the fastest-growing suburban school districts in terms of minority enrollment. On the basis of the dissimilarity index, the suburban school districts with the highest levels of racial/ethnic segregation are also noted.
-Patricia
by Richard Fry, Senior Research Associate, Pew Hispanic Center
March 31, 2009
The student population of America's suburban public schools has shot up by 3.4 million in the past decade and a half, and virtually all of this increase (99%) has been due to the enrollment of new Latino, black and Asian students, according to a Pew Hispanic Center analysis of public school data. Once a largely white enclave, suburban school districts in 2006-07 educated a student population that was 41.4% non-white, up from 28% in 1993-94 and not much different from the 43.7% non-white share of the nation's overall public school student population. At the same time, suburban school districts have been gaining "market share"; they educated 38% of the nation's public school students in 2006-07, up from 35% in 1993-94.
The most potent driver of all these trends has been the near doubling of the Latino share of suburban school district enrollment -- to 20% in 2006-07, from 11% in 1993-94. Over this same time period, the black share grew to 15% from 12% and the Asian share rose slightly, to 6% from 5%. Overall, white students made up just 59% of the enrollment in suburban public schools in 2006-07, down from 72% in 1993-94.
The movement of minority students into suburban schools has had the overall effect of slightly reducing levels of ethnic and racial segregation throughout the nation's 93,430 public schools. However, trends vary for different minority groups, community types, school districts and, especially, individual schools. For example, despite the sharp rise in the racial and ethnic diversity of suburban district enrollments overall, there has been only a modest increase in the racial and ethnic diversity of student populations at the level of the individual suburban school.
These findings are based on an analysis of the most recent available enrollment figures for the nation's public schools. The National Center for Education Statistics of the U.S. Department of Education collects this information and also classifies school districts as being suburban, city or town/rural districts.
School-Level Diversity in the Suburbs
In 2006-07, the typical white suburban student attended a school whose student body was 75% white; in 1993-94, this same figure had been 83%. So at a time when the white share of student enrollment in suburban school districts was falling by 13 percentage points (from 72% in 1993-94 to 59% in 2006-07), the exposure of the typical white suburban student to minority students in his or her own school was growing by a little more than half that much -- or 8 percentage points.
Meantime, the typical black suburban school student in 2006-07 attended a school that was 34% white, down from 43% white in 1993-94. The typical Hispanic suburban student attended a school that was 31% white, down from 40% white in 1993-94. And the typical Asian suburban school student attended a school that was 48% white, down from 55% white in 1993-94. Thus, suburban minority students' exposure to white students has declined since 1993-94, reflecting the overall lower proportion of white students in suburban district enrollments.
Looking at the exposure of minority suburban students to their own racial or ethnic group rather than to whites, a different pattern emerges for Hispanics than for blacks or Asians.
Suburban Hispanic students are increasingly attending schools whose student bodies have a high percentage of Hispanics. In 2006-07, the typical suburban Hispanic student attended a school that was 49% Latino, up from 42% Latino in 1993-94. By contrast, there was little change during this period in the levels of racial isolation of black and Asian suburban students. In 2006-07, the typical suburban black student attended a school that was 44% black, up only slightly from 43% black in 1993-94, and the typical suburban Asian student attended a school that was 23% Asian, down slightly from 24% Asian in 1993-94.
The National Perspective
The movement of minority students into suburban school districts since 1993-94 has had an impact on national trends in minority student isolation. Nationally, the typical black student in 2006-07 attended a school that was 52% black, down from 54% black in 1993-94. This modest decline is partly attributable to the fact that a greater share of black students are now educated in suburban schools, where they tend to be less isolated than in city schools. Nationally, the typical Hispanic student in 2006-07 attended a school that was 55% Hispanic, up from 52% Hispanic in 1993-94. The increase in Hispanic isolation nationally would have been even greater in the absence of the shift of Hispanic students out of city school districts and into suburban areas. Nationally, the typical Asian student in 2006-07 attended a school that was 23% Asian, up from 22% in 1993-94.
When it comes to increases in public school student enrollment, the suburbs are where most of the action has been over the past decade and a half. Since 1993-94, two-thirds of the 5.1 million increase in public school enrollment nationwide has occurred in suburban school districts. In 1993-94, city school districts educated a majority of the nation's minority students. That is no longer the case. City school districts educated 47% of the nation's Hispanic students in 2006-07, down from 54% in 1993-94. Similarly, city school districts educated 48% of the nation's black students in 2006-07, down from 54% in 1993-94. In addition, a declining share of the nation's Asian students are educated in city school districts. The movement out of city schools has nearly exclusively been suburban school districts' gain because the share of the nation's minority students educated in town/rural school districts has been stagnant or has declined.
Overall, suburban schools are much closer in racial and ethnic makeup to the nation's public school population as a whole than are city schools, which tend to be disproportionately minority, or rural and town schools, which tend to be disproportionately white. The typical minority student in a city school has fewer white classmates than does a peer who attends a suburban school. In 2006-07, the enrollment of a city school attended by the typical black or Hispanic student was about 20% white and 80% minority. Most of the minority students in these schools were students of the same race/ethnicity as themselves. The typical city black student attended a school with 60% black enrollment, and the typical city Latino student went to a school with 63% Hispanic enrollment.
These levels of racial/ethnic isolation are significantly above those of their peers educated in suburban school districts. Minority students in town and rural school districts tend to have more exposure to white students than do minority students in suburban school districts. The typical town/rural black student attended a school with 47% white enrollment, and the typical town/rural Hispanic student attended a 43% white school. However, minority students in town/rural school districts tend not to be less isolated than their suburban peers. The typical town/rural black student attended a school with 44% black enrollment, and the typical town/rural Latino student went to a school with 47% Hispanic enrollment.
Asian students in town/rural school districts are less isolated than their suburban counterparts. The typical town/rural Asian student attended a school with 5% Asian enrollment, compared with the 23% Asian proportion of suburban schools attended by Asian students.
The Dissimilarity Index: Another Measure of School Segregation
This report examines the changing levels of exposure that minority students have to themselves and to white students, and the changing levels of exposure that white students have to themselves and to minority students. Such isolation/exposure indexes are a commonly used research tool, but they are not the only way researchers measure school segregation. Another widely used measure is the dissimilarity index, which gauges the evenness of the spread of students across the schools in a school district. Formally, it is the proportion of a student group that would have to change schools for all schools in the district to have the same proportion of the group as the district-wide average.
To see if we would find patterns consistent with those of our isolation/exposure analysis, we tabulated the dissimilarity index for all suburban districts and used it to examine the degree of segregation within a particular school district (not a larger geographic area such as a metropolitan area).
We found that trends in the suburban school district dissimilarity index are fairly similar to the trends in the isolation measure reported above. For black and Asian students, there was a small decline in suburban school district segregation from 1993-94 to 2006-07, according to the dissimilarity measure. For Hispanic students, suburban school segregation has increased since 1993-94. These trends are based on the average of the dissimilarity index across suburban school districts. There are, of course, individual suburban districts whose change in the dissimilarity index does not mimic the overall trend.
For each minority group, the level of segregation tends to be greater in city school districts than in suburban school districts, according to the dissimilarity index.
Across all school districts in America (city and suburban as well as town/rural), the dissimilarity index indicates that district-level segregation has declined since 1993-94 for black, Hispanic and Asian students. Part of this decline, again, is to due to the change in the geographic locus of minority education since 1993-94. Suburban school districts tend to be less segregated than city school districts, and an increasing share of each minority student group is being educated in suburban school districts.
In addition to examining the trend over all suburban school districts, this report examined changes since 1993-94 in individual suburban school districts. The analysis examined the fastest-growing suburban school districts in terms of minority enrollment. On the basis of the dissimilarity index, the suburban school districts with the highest levels of racial/ethnic segregation are also noted.
Hispanics travel rough road to higher education
Ethnic group is the fastest growing, but the least likely to enroll in college
By JEANNIE KEVER | Houston Chronicle
April 4, 2009,
The future of Texas is sitting in room 318 at Austin High School, and right now, it could go either way.
Students in the after-school program — Hispanic and from low-income families, the group least likely to enroll in college — are optimistic.
But who knows?
“I hope to go,” says Neri Gamez, 17, a high school junior who dreams of being a doctor.
Gamez has an advantage: She is in a program run by the Center for Mexican-American Studies at the University of Houston, designed to help Hispanic students enter college and, once there, earn a degree. Academic Achievers is among dozens of programs that address one of the state’s most intractable education problems.
But Hispanics, the state’s fastest-growing ethnic group, have fallen behind in some key areas, and efforts to change that remain piecemeal:
• Statewide, 68 percent of Hispanics graduate from high school within four years, 10 points below the overall rate.
• Just 42.5 percent of Hispanics who graduated from high school in 2007 enrolled in college or a technical training program the following fall, compared with 45.3 percent of black students and 57.5 percent of white students.
• Texas is “well below target” in raising the number of Hispanics in college, according to a 2008 report by the Higher Education Coordinating Board. Enrollment of both white and black students was “somewhat above target.”
And there are no consequences for schools that don’t raise Hispanic enrollment.
“The good news is, there’s a state goal,” said Paul Ruiz, co-founder and senior advisor to the Education Trust, a national group that advocates for at-risk students. “The bad news is, the institutions don’t get it. They set goals for Latino kids at about half the rate the state says we need.”
The issue is complicated by the rapid growth of the Hispanic population; about 36 percent of the Texas population is Hispanic.
“We’ve made progress,” said Raymund Paredes, higher education commissioner for Texas. “Our challenge is, we started so far behind, and the Latino population is growing so fast.”
Unless the numbers change, the state will be unable to field a well-educated work force. “The Hispanic community is key to the economic future of Texas,” Paredes said.
Enrollment edging up
The state plan, known as Closing the Gaps, began in 2000 with the goal of increasing college enrollment to 5.7 percent of the population by 2015. That would raise college-going rates to the national average.
Over the past eight years, overall enrollment has edged up to 5.3 percent from 5 percent. For Hispanics, it’s up to 3.9 percent from 3.7 percent.
More than 1.2 million Texans enrolled in a two- or four-year college or technical school last fall; state goals call for that to reach 1.6 million by 2015. The Coordinating Board’s own estimates suggest it will fall short by 300,000 students.
Gamez, a student at Austin High School, said she understands why so many of her peers don’t go on to college. “They may have to work,” she said. “And once they get a taste of the money, they may decide to skip college.”
Often, no one in their family has attended college, so they don’t know the ropes.
Gamez lives with her mother and 19-year-old brother, both of whom work at a tire store. Her father graduated from college in Mexico and owned a tire shop in Houston but now is in prison, she said. “He didn’t really get to apply his skills.”
She intends to be different.
Patchwork efforts
Paredes and other higher education officials point to the successes.
Hispanic enrollment has grown faster than that of other racial or ethnic groups, and is up 50 percent over the past five years. Two-thirds of the growth was at community or technical colleges, rather than a four-year school.
But the population has grown almost as quickly, wiping out much of the gains.
Paredes notes that improving college-going rates has to start in high school or even sooner, and he has pushed for more stringent high school graduation requirements to better prepare students for college. Those took effect in 2008.
The state has established counseling centers in 250 Texas middle and high schools to improve college counseling. Paredes also has argued, with mixed success, for more financial aid.
“Most Latino students come from poor families, and they’ll need aid to go to college,” he said.
Success is relative.
The University of Texas system touts its diversity, noting that in 2008, Hispanic enrollment was about equal to that of white students, and several campuses have been designated as among the nation’s top in awarding degrees to Hispanics. But most Hispanic enrollment is concentrated at the system’s border schools, including UT-Pan American (86 percent), UT-Brownsville (91 percent) and UT-El Paso (75 percent).
At UT-Austin, 16 percent of students are Hispanic; at UT-Dallas, it’s 9 percent.
The flagship campus could do better, Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa acknowledged. “It does require a real outreach effort,” he said. “It doesn’t happen automatically.”
Which is precisely Ruiz’s point.
Ruiz, who lives in San Antonio, suggests the state should set goals for each institution, with top administrators held accountable for meeting them.
Janet Beinke, director of planning at the coordinating board, said it’s not so easy to impose mandates. “What are you going to do? Take the money away?” she asked. “You have to use carrots.”
But Ruiz disagrees.
“To close the Hispanic gap, institutions have to do things dramatically differently,” he said.
Most rely upon a patchwork of efforts.
The University of Houston, for example, sends recruiters to local high schools and college fairs, said Jeff Fuller, director of student recruitment. Its major outreach comes through the Center for Mexican-American Studies, which began its first program at Jackson Middle School more than 20 years ago.
Progress has been slow.
Multiple stumbling blocks
About 20 percent of UH students are Hispanic, up only slightly over the last five years. (About 40 percent of Harris County residents are Hispanic.) But that was still enough to earn a place among the top 20 colleges and universities awarding degrees to Hispanic students, according to The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education magazine.
The numbers are slightly higher at the University of Houston-Downtown, which has its own outreach programs. About 36 percent of students there are Hispanic.
Rebeca Trevino, who manages the Center for Mexican-American Studies’ Academic Achievers program, said several factors hold Hispanic students back, including money and a lack of role models.
Language, high school preparation and immigration issues all can be stumbling blocks, as well.
“Most of our students are the first in their family to go to college,” Trevino said. “They need people they can relate to.”
A new tradition
Irene Avellaneda, 18, found that in her brother, Hector.
But when Hector Avellaneda, now 22, walked onto the Texas A&M campus in 2004, he had to forge his own path.
The eldest of three children, he was the first in his family to finish high school. College was foreign territory.
“The first semester and first year were kind of rough,” he said.
His GPA dipped to 2.75 that first semester — not terrible, but below the 3.0 his scholarships required — and he was placed on probation.
But he turned that around and will graduate in May, just as Irene finishes her first year at UH-Downtown.
“Hector was a big inspiration,” his sister said. “The younger siblings are always going to look up to the older.”
That now goes double for their youngest sibling, 14-year-old Moses.
WHY COLLEGE?
What are the benefits of a college education?
• More wealth: The National Center for Education Statistics says college graduates earn $1.2 million more during their lifetimes than non-graduates.
Less poverty: Unless more people earn a college degree, the Texas State Data Center warns that average household incomes will drop $3,000 by 2030.
By JEANNIE KEVER | Houston Chronicle
April 4, 2009,
The future of Texas is sitting in room 318 at Austin High School, and right now, it could go either way.
Students in the after-school program — Hispanic and from low-income families, the group least likely to enroll in college — are optimistic.
But who knows?
“I hope to go,” says Neri Gamez, 17, a high school junior who dreams of being a doctor.
Gamez has an advantage: She is in a program run by the Center for Mexican-American Studies at the University of Houston, designed to help Hispanic students enter college and, once there, earn a degree. Academic Achievers is among dozens of programs that address one of the state’s most intractable education problems.
But Hispanics, the state’s fastest-growing ethnic group, have fallen behind in some key areas, and efforts to change that remain piecemeal:
• Statewide, 68 percent of Hispanics graduate from high school within four years, 10 points below the overall rate.
• Just 42.5 percent of Hispanics who graduated from high school in 2007 enrolled in college or a technical training program the following fall, compared with 45.3 percent of black students and 57.5 percent of white students.
• Texas is “well below target” in raising the number of Hispanics in college, according to a 2008 report by the Higher Education Coordinating Board. Enrollment of both white and black students was “somewhat above target.”
And there are no consequences for schools that don’t raise Hispanic enrollment.
“The good news is, there’s a state goal,” said Paul Ruiz, co-founder and senior advisor to the Education Trust, a national group that advocates for at-risk students. “The bad news is, the institutions don’t get it. They set goals for Latino kids at about half the rate the state says we need.”
The issue is complicated by the rapid growth of the Hispanic population; about 36 percent of the Texas population is Hispanic.
“We’ve made progress,” said Raymund Paredes, higher education commissioner for Texas. “Our challenge is, we started so far behind, and the Latino population is growing so fast.”
Unless the numbers change, the state will be unable to field a well-educated work force. “The Hispanic community is key to the economic future of Texas,” Paredes said.
Enrollment edging up
The state plan, known as Closing the Gaps, began in 2000 with the goal of increasing college enrollment to 5.7 percent of the population by 2015. That would raise college-going rates to the national average.
Over the past eight years, overall enrollment has edged up to 5.3 percent from 5 percent. For Hispanics, it’s up to 3.9 percent from 3.7 percent.
More than 1.2 million Texans enrolled in a two- or four-year college or technical school last fall; state goals call for that to reach 1.6 million by 2015. The Coordinating Board’s own estimates suggest it will fall short by 300,000 students.
Gamez, a student at Austin High School, said she understands why so many of her peers don’t go on to college. “They may have to work,” she said. “And once they get a taste of the money, they may decide to skip college.”
Often, no one in their family has attended college, so they don’t know the ropes.
Gamez lives with her mother and 19-year-old brother, both of whom work at a tire store. Her father graduated from college in Mexico and owned a tire shop in Houston but now is in prison, she said. “He didn’t really get to apply his skills.”
She intends to be different.
Patchwork efforts
Paredes and other higher education officials point to the successes.
Hispanic enrollment has grown faster than that of other racial or ethnic groups, and is up 50 percent over the past five years. Two-thirds of the growth was at community or technical colleges, rather than a four-year school.
But the population has grown almost as quickly, wiping out much of the gains.
Paredes notes that improving college-going rates has to start in high school or even sooner, and he has pushed for more stringent high school graduation requirements to better prepare students for college. Those took effect in 2008.
The state has established counseling centers in 250 Texas middle and high schools to improve college counseling. Paredes also has argued, with mixed success, for more financial aid.
“Most Latino students come from poor families, and they’ll need aid to go to college,” he said.
Success is relative.
The University of Texas system touts its diversity, noting that in 2008, Hispanic enrollment was about equal to that of white students, and several campuses have been designated as among the nation’s top in awarding degrees to Hispanics. But most Hispanic enrollment is concentrated at the system’s border schools, including UT-Pan American (86 percent), UT-Brownsville (91 percent) and UT-El Paso (75 percent).
At UT-Austin, 16 percent of students are Hispanic; at UT-Dallas, it’s 9 percent.
The flagship campus could do better, Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa acknowledged. “It does require a real outreach effort,” he said. “It doesn’t happen automatically.”
Which is precisely Ruiz’s point.
Ruiz, who lives in San Antonio, suggests the state should set goals for each institution, with top administrators held accountable for meeting them.
Janet Beinke, director of planning at the coordinating board, said it’s not so easy to impose mandates. “What are you going to do? Take the money away?” she asked. “You have to use carrots.”
But Ruiz disagrees.
“To close the Hispanic gap, institutions have to do things dramatically differently,” he said.
Most rely upon a patchwork of efforts.
The University of Houston, for example, sends recruiters to local high schools and college fairs, said Jeff Fuller, director of student recruitment. Its major outreach comes through the Center for Mexican-American Studies, which began its first program at Jackson Middle School more than 20 years ago.
Progress has been slow.
Multiple stumbling blocks
About 20 percent of UH students are Hispanic, up only slightly over the last five years. (About 40 percent of Harris County residents are Hispanic.) But that was still enough to earn a place among the top 20 colleges and universities awarding degrees to Hispanic students, according to The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education magazine.
The numbers are slightly higher at the University of Houston-Downtown, which has its own outreach programs. About 36 percent of students there are Hispanic.
Rebeca Trevino, who manages the Center for Mexican-American Studies’ Academic Achievers program, said several factors hold Hispanic students back, including money and a lack of role models.
Language, high school preparation and immigration issues all can be stumbling blocks, as well.
“Most of our students are the first in their family to go to college,” Trevino said. “They need people they can relate to.”
A new tradition
Irene Avellaneda, 18, found that in her brother, Hector.
But when Hector Avellaneda, now 22, walked onto the Texas A&M campus in 2004, he had to forge his own path.
The eldest of three children, he was the first in his family to finish high school. College was foreign territory.
“The first semester and first year were kind of rough,” he said.
His GPA dipped to 2.75 that first semester — not terrible, but below the 3.0 his scholarships required — and he was placed on probation.
But he turned that around and will graduate in May, just as Irene finishes her first year at UH-Downtown.
“Hector was a big inspiration,” his sister said. “The younger siblings are always going to look up to the older.”
That now goes double for their youngest sibling, 14-year-old Moses.
WHY COLLEGE?
What are the benefits of a college education?
• More wealth: The National Center for Education Statistics says college graduates earn $1.2 million more during their lifetimes than non-graduates.
Less poverty: Unless more people earn a college degree, the Texas State Data Center warns that average household incomes will drop $3,000 by 2030.
Friday, April 03, 2009
Senate adopts $182 billion budget
By APRIL CASTRO
April 1, 2009
AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas Senate on Wednesday voted to adopt a $182.2 billion state budget for the next two years, including $11 billion in federal stimulus spending.
The Senate voted 26-5 to adopt the two-year budget, the most important bill lawmakers will consider during the five-month legislative session.
Using the federal rescue money, senators were able to craft a spending plan that would not dip into a projected $9 billion balance in the state's Rainy Day Fund. Still, officials cautioned that economic conditions could worsen before the budget can become law.
"Sales tax collections are slowing down faster than what we thought," said Sen. Steve Ogden, who was the lead Senate budget writer.
"I would argue that ... the most prudent thing we can do in the state right now is to hold on to that Rainy Day Fund, make sure things don't get worse before they get better."
Attention next turns to the House, which is crafting a separate version of the budget before the two drafts can be reconciled.
The federal stimulus money, which was part of a law signed by President Barack Obama in February, is helping budgeters close a shortfall between available state revenue and spending needs.
"While other states are facing huge deficits, Senate Bill 1 invests in our state's future by increasing funding for education, higher education, job training programs and transportation," said Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who presides over the Senate. "This budget also uses federal stimulus funds responsibly by working to ensure they will not result in ongoing costs to the state, while allowing us to leave the Rainy Day Fund untouched so it can be used to balance the budget in 2011."
Counting all funds, the plan spends about $53 billion on public education, which makes up the largest portion of spending, based on current school finance law and projected student enrollment growth. But the bill also sets aside $1.9 billion, contingent on the Legislature adopting a new school finance plan.
Democratic critics of the budget expressed concern about measures in health and human services spending, including a provision that Ogden said was intended to prohibit state money from being spent on research that destroys human embryos.
Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, called the budget a "fundamentally flawed document."
"It remains far from clear that this provision won't have a direct impact on scientists and researchers at some of the premier laboratories in the state," Watson said. "And this rider will doubtlessly damage our state's reputation for economic development and scientific discovery."
Watson, who voted against the budget, also criticized the plan for relying on the federal rescue dollars to enable "the state's worst fiscal habits without reforming them."
The budget significantly decreases funding to the Texas Youth Commission, which underwent a massive overhaul after a juvenile sex abuse scandal two years ago. The new proposal would cut spending on the juvenile agency by $81 million and mandates more than 700 employee cuts.
The Senate budget increases state spending by:
_ $600 million for cancer prevention and research;
_ $543 million for state schools;
_ $31 million to equip 2,500 school buses with seat belts;
_ $32.5 million to expand pre-kindergarten to 22,500 more children;
_ $27.1 million to buy and operate 450 patrol cars for the Department of Public Safety; and
_ $10 million to expand Boll Weevil eradication efforts made necessary in southeast Texas by Hurricane Ike;
The budget also prohibits the use of state dollars to purchase Microsoft Vista products.
State dollars, made up mostly of sales tax revenue and other taxes, comprise almost 48 percent of the total budget. Federal funds, including the stimulus money, make up about 36 percent of the budget.
The federal stimulus money is less than 10 percent of the total Senate budget. Another $3.3 billion in federal stimulus money has been set aside for supplemental spending in the current budget period, which ends this summer.
The two-year state budget is the one piece of legislation lawmakers are legally required to adopt during the biennial legislative session, which convened in January and adjourns in June.
April 1, 2009
AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas Senate on Wednesday voted to adopt a $182.2 billion state budget for the next two years, including $11 billion in federal stimulus spending.
The Senate voted 26-5 to adopt the two-year budget, the most important bill lawmakers will consider during the five-month legislative session.
Using the federal rescue money, senators were able to craft a spending plan that would not dip into a projected $9 billion balance in the state's Rainy Day Fund. Still, officials cautioned that economic conditions could worsen before the budget can become law.
"Sales tax collections are slowing down faster than what we thought," said Sen. Steve Ogden, who was the lead Senate budget writer.
"I would argue that ... the most prudent thing we can do in the state right now is to hold on to that Rainy Day Fund, make sure things don't get worse before they get better."
Attention next turns to the House, which is crafting a separate version of the budget before the two drafts can be reconciled.
The federal stimulus money, which was part of a law signed by President Barack Obama in February, is helping budgeters close a shortfall between available state revenue and spending needs.
"While other states are facing huge deficits, Senate Bill 1 invests in our state's future by increasing funding for education, higher education, job training programs and transportation," said Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who presides over the Senate. "This budget also uses federal stimulus funds responsibly by working to ensure they will not result in ongoing costs to the state, while allowing us to leave the Rainy Day Fund untouched so it can be used to balance the budget in 2011."
Counting all funds, the plan spends about $53 billion on public education, which makes up the largest portion of spending, based on current school finance law and projected student enrollment growth. But the bill also sets aside $1.9 billion, contingent on the Legislature adopting a new school finance plan.
Democratic critics of the budget expressed concern about measures in health and human services spending, including a provision that Ogden said was intended to prohibit state money from being spent on research that destroys human embryos.
Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, called the budget a "fundamentally flawed document."
"It remains far from clear that this provision won't have a direct impact on scientists and researchers at some of the premier laboratories in the state," Watson said. "And this rider will doubtlessly damage our state's reputation for economic development and scientific discovery."
Watson, who voted against the budget, also criticized the plan for relying on the federal rescue dollars to enable "the state's worst fiscal habits without reforming them."
The budget significantly decreases funding to the Texas Youth Commission, which underwent a massive overhaul after a juvenile sex abuse scandal two years ago. The new proposal would cut spending on the juvenile agency by $81 million and mandates more than 700 employee cuts.
The Senate budget increases state spending by:
_ $600 million for cancer prevention and research;
_ $543 million for state schools;
_ $31 million to equip 2,500 school buses with seat belts;
_ $32.5 million to expand pre-kindergarten to 22,500 more children;
_ $27.1 million to buy and operate 450 patrol cars for the Department of Public Safety; and
_ $10 million to expand Boll Weevil eradication efforts made necessary in southeast Texas by Hurricane Ike;
The budget also prohibits the use of state dollars to purchase Microsoft Vista products.
State dollars, made up mostly of sales tax revenue and other taxes, comprise almost 48 percent of the total budget. Federal funds, including the stimulus money, make up about 36 percent of the budget.
The federal stimulus money is less than 10 percent of the total Senate budget. Another $3.3 billion in federal stimulus money has been set aside for supplemental spending in the current budget period, which ends this summer.
The two-year state budget is the one piece of legislation lawmakers are legally required to adopt during the biennial legislative session, which convened in January and adjourns in June.
The Education Front: Should immigrant children get a TAKS exemption?
Exempting students from standardized test assessments does not mean that the state is no longer able to assess the performance of immigrant and ELL youth. First, TAKS tests are a diagnostic instrument. There are better ways to assess students, especially those who are second language learners. A Compensatory Multiple Measures assessment that takes into account portfolios, teacher evaluations, GPA, in addition to performance on standardized tests is an example of an alternative assessment that not only better serves ELL and immigrant youth but ALL students.
Patricia
Mon, Mar 23, 2009
William McKenzie | Dallas News Op-Ed
Here's a tough call: Should Texas legislators exempt students who are not proficient in English from the TAKS test?
Democratic Rep. Mike Villareal's bill on this subject is slated to come up for review in the Texas House Public Education Committee Tuesday. Rodger and I have talked about this subject before, and I confess real ambivalence. I'm a testing/accountability hawk, so I generally don't like to make testing exemptions. It's real easy to start shortchanging kids when you do that.
But here's the reality: Kids who come here from Mexico in, say, the ninth grade with limited English skills really are at a disadvantage. Some readers may think they or their parents should never have come in the first place, but that's not the point. They are here, the state has an obligation (and a self-interest) in educating them and schools in Dallas and elsewhere have to figure out the best way to get them learning in English and at grade level.
Both are tough because some immigrant children are behind in learning in Spanish, much less English. This is a daily reality for many teachers across the state.
There's also data that shows kids take up to five to seven years to really learn in another language. I'd like to think it could be done faster, but what if that is how long it takes?
I'm really stumped on this. If you give a ninth grader four years of TAKS exemption, then they basically can get out of school without ever taking the state's achievement exam. How's that fair to them, if the world they're going to live in requires at least the skills high school provides?
So, what would you do? What do you think is realistic in situations like this? I'm particularly interested in hearing from educators.
Patricia
Mon, Mar 23, 2009
William McKenzie | Dallas News Op-Ed
Here's a tough call: Should Texas legislators exempt students who are not proficient in English from the TAKS test?
Democratic Rep. Mike Villareal's bill on this subject is slated to come up for review in the Texas House Public Education Committee Tuesday. Rodger and I have talked about this subject before, and I confess real ambivalence. I'm a testing/accountability hawk, so I generally don't like to make testing exemptions. It's real easy to start shortchanging kids when you do that.
But here's the reality: Kids who come here from Mexico in, say, the ninth grade with limited English skills really are at a disadvantage. Some readers may think they or their parents should never have come in the first place, but that's not the point. They are here, the state has an obligation (and a self-interest) in educating them and schools in Dallas and elsewhere have to figure out the best way to get them learning in English and at grade level.
Both are tough because some immigrant children are behind in learning in Spanish, much less English. This is a daily reality for many teachers across the state.
There's also data that shows kids take up to five to seven years to really learn in another language. I'd like to think it could be done faster, but what if that is how long it takes?
I'm really stumped on this. If you give a ninth grader four years of TAKS exemption, then they basically can get out of school without ever taking the state's achievement exam. How's that fair to them, if the world they're going to live in requires at least the skills high school provides?
So, what would you do? What do you think is realistic in situations like this? I'm particularly interested in hearing from educators.
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By BRITTONY LUND
The Lufkin Daily News
Friday, April 03, 2009
A recent piece of state legislation on the top 10 percent rule could make it even more difficult for rural students to have the opportunity to attend state universities like the University of Texas in Austin.
The state Senate passed the bill, by Sen. Florence Shapiro (R-Plano) two weeks ago. It still has to go through the House, where it failed two years ago.
The bill, if passed, would limit automatic admissions under the top 10 percent rule to 60 percent of the incoming freshmen class at state colleges and universities. As the law currently stands, all high school graduates in the top 10 percent of their class are granted automatic admission into any state college or university.
Local school officials fear if this bill passes it will cater to students in urban areas, making it even more difficult for students in rural areas, such as Angelina County, to attend any major state universities.
Roy Knight, superintendent at Lufkin ISD, said current data shows outside of those admitted under the top 10 percent law, UT accepts more students from wealthy families, including those who grew up in Highland Park, Austin's West Lake area and Houston's Bellaire area. He believes if they change the law these students will replace students from rural areas.
"My kids are just as entitled," Knight said. "But in the end it's about the kids who come from affluence unable to get into the universities."
Mary Ann Whiteker, Hudson ISD superintendent, is just one of many local school officials who has always supported the top 10 percent rule and does not want to see it change.
"It's allowed opportunities for our rural students to go to flagship universities," Whiteker said. "Due to where our students live they are limited in the opportunities that are available to a lot of students in the urban and suburban areas."
Eric Wright, superintendent at Huntington ISD, said the top 10 percent rule makes admissions into major universities, like UT Austin, fair to all students based on grades.
"If they're having that much demand they need to expand their programs and allow entrance to more students," Wright said.
Gary Martel, superintendent at Diboll ISD, who has a daughter who got accepted into a major university through the top 10 percent rule, said he doesn't think UT really has an admission problem. Even though last year 81 percent of their freshmen admitted fell under the rule, he said not all students admitted choose to go to that school.
And not all students admitted can afford to go.
"I think they're just complaining," Martel said. "There's not that many. We might be trying to fix something that's really not a problem."
Knight also said data shows that of the 81 percent of freshmen admitted into UT last year under the top 10 percent rule, only 70 percent ended up actually attending.
David Flowers, superintendent at Zavalla ISD, also doesn't think changing the rule would be fair to students.
"A student that is in the top 10 percent of their graduating class should be welcome at our state's colleges and universities," Flowers said.
"These top graduates have worked extremely hard and deserve to be admitted to these institutions should they apply."
The Lufkin Daily News
Friday, April 03, 2009
A recent piece of state legislation on the top 10 percent rule could make it even more difficult for rural students to have the opportunity to attend state universities like the University of Texas in Austin.
The state Senate passed the bill, by Sen. Florence Shapiro (R-Plano) two weeks ago. It still has to go through the House, where it failed two years ago.
The bill, if passed, would limit automatic admissions under the top 10 percent rule to 60 percent of the incoming freshmen class at state colleges and universities. As the law currently stands, all high school graduates in the top 10 percent of their class are granted automatic admission into any state college or university.
Local school officials fear if this bill passes it will cater to students in urban areas, making it even more difficult for students in rural areas, such as Angelina County, to attend any major state universities.
Roy Knight, superintendent at Lufkin ISD, said current data shows outside of those admitted under the top 10 percent law, UT accepts more students from wealthy families, including those who grew up in Highland Park, Austin's West Lake area and Houston's Bellaire area. He believes if they change the law these students will replace students from rural areas.
"My kids are just as entitled," Knight said. "But in the end it's about the kids who come from affluence unable to get into the universities."
Mary Ann Whiteker, Hudson ISD superintendent, is just one of many local school officials who has always supported the top 10 percent rule and does not want to see it change.
"It's allowed opportunities for our rural students to go to flagship universities," Whiteker said. "Due to where our students live they are limited in the opportunities that are available to a lot of students in the urban and suburban areas."
Eric Wright, superintendent at Huntington ISD, said the top 10 percent rule makes admissions into major universities, like UT Austin, fair to all students based on grades.
"If they're having that much demand they need to expand their programs and allow entrance to more students," Wright said.
Gary Martel, superintendent at Diboll ISD, who has a daughter who got accepted into a major university through the top 10 percent rule, said he doesn't think UT really has an admission problem. Even though last year 81 percent of their freshmen admitted fell under the rule, he said not all students admitted choose to go to that school.
And not all students admitted can afford to go.
"I think they're just complaining," Martel said. "There's not that many. We might be trying to fix something that's really not a problem."
Knight also said data shows that of the 81 percent of freshmen admitted into UT last year under the top 10 percent rule, only 70 percent ended up actually attending.
David Flowers, superintendent at Zavalla ISD, also doesn't think changing the rule would be fair to students.
"A student that is in the top 10 percent of their graduating class should be welcome at our state's colleges and universities," Flowers said.
"These top graduates have worked extremely hard and deserve to be admitted to these institutions should they apply."
Virtual schools, real questions
This is an interesting article and actually has relevance to current Texas policy trying to promote virtual learning. Another concern is that this kind of instruction "virtually" eliminates the need for teachers. A sneaky approach if you're trying to avoid teacher shortage problems. Education without teachers - something to think about.
Patricia
by The Editorial Board
Thursday April 02, 2009, 4:04 PM
Lawmakers should support existing online charter schools while adopting a moratorium to resolve the policy issues they raise
Oregon legislators clearly don't know what to make of virtual education, the online charter schools that serve 4,000 kids in this state, and, by most accounts, serve them well.
The Oregon Education Association, the state teachers union, is pushing a bill in Salem that would cripple online charter schools. Meanwhile, K12 Inc., the private vendor that operates the largest of Oregon's virtual schools, is lobbying for a competing bill that would encourage more online charter schools in the state.
Neither approach, in our view, makes sense for Oregon right now. Lawmakers and state education officials simply are not prepared to resolve the issues raised by online charter schools. Instead, lawmakers ought to pass a bill that places a one- or two-year moratorium on new or expanded virtual schools while ensuring that the existing schools can continue to operate.
As it stands, Oregon has no well-informed policy on virtual schools. The state's largest online school, the Oregon Connections Academy, is run out of one of Oregon's smallest school districts, the Scio School District. ORCA, as the online school is known, has more than 2,500 students. Scio itself had 676 students at the state's last count. One of the questions a work group must answer is whether it is appropriate for small districts to operate large, statewide schools.
There are many other significant issues. Some are financial: Should full state per-pupil funding follow students of virtual schools if there are no associated costs for heat, busing, building maintenance or capital improvements? Are virtual schools a way for home-schoolers to obtain a private education at public expense?
Other questions are about accountability: What kind of financial and academic transparency should Oregon demand of private vendors and other entities operating online charter schools? How can the state fully assess the rigor and quality of online schools?
Oregon isn't prepared to answer all those questions right now. What lawmakers can clearly see, though, is that many families are prepared to strongly defend existing online schools. One state survey of parents of online charter schools found that 96 percent gave their schools an "A" or "B" grade. The public school system would certainly love those kinds of grades.
The bill pushed by the Oregon Education Association would require that 50 percent of the students of any online charter school live within the boundaries of the sponsoring school district. That would kill the ORCA school -- only a small percentage of its students live in the tiny Scio district -- and crimp the entire online school movement in this state.
Oregon shouldn't do that. Virtual schools hold tremendous promise, and those who are pioneering online learning in this state should be encouraged, not driven away. It's clear that self-paced learning can effectively meet the needs of both gifted students and students who need more time. To put it bluntly, a state that sees a quarter or so of its students drop out from regular public schools shouldn't be blithely eliminating alternatives.
Yet if the Oregon Education Association is wrong to try to shut down existing virtual schools, it is not wrong to point out that this state has not answered hard questions about money, equity and accountability raised by the growth of online charter schools.
Lawmakers should keep the existing schools open and establish a work group to draft a well-reasoned policy on online education. The times and the technology keep moving forward. Oregon education policy needs to run and catch up.
Patricia
by The Editorial Board
Thursday April 02, 2009, 4:04 PM
Lawmakers should support existing online charter schools while adopting a moratorium to resolve the policy issues they raise
Oregon legislators clearly don't know what to make of virtual education, the online charter schools that serve 4,000 kids in this state, and, by most accounts, serve them well.
The Oregon Education Association, the state teachers union, is pushing a bill in Salem that would cripple online charter schools. Meanwhile, K12 Inc., the private vendor that operates the largest of Oregon's virtual schools, is lobbying for a competing bill that would encourage more online charter schools in the state.
Neither approach, in our view, makes sense for Oregon right now. Lawmakers and state education officials simply are not prepared to resolve the issues raised by online charter schools. Instead, lawmakers ought to pass a bill that places a one- or two-year moratorium on new or expanded virtual schools while ensuring that the existing schools can continue to operate.
As it stands, Oregon has no well-informed policy on virtual schools. The state's largest online school, the Oregon Connections Academy, is run out of one of Oregon's smallest school districts, the Scio School District. ORCA, as the online school is known, has more than 2,500 students. Scio itself had 676 students at the state's last count. One of the questions a work group must answer is whether it is appropriate for small districts to operate large, statewide schools.
There are many other significant issues. Some are financial: Should full state per-pupil funding follow students of virtual schools if there are no associated costs for heat, busing, building maintenance or capital improvements? Are virtual schools a way for home-schoolers to obtain a private education at public expense?
Other questions are about accountability: What kind of financial and academic transparency should Oregon demand of private vendors and other entities operating online charter schools? How can the state fully assess the rigor and quality of online schools?
Oregon isn't prepared to answer all those questions right now. What lawmakers can clearly see, though, is that many families are prepared to strongly defend existing online schools. One state survey of parents of online charter schools found that 96 percent gave their schools an "A" or "B" grade. The public school system would certainly love those kinds of grades.
The bill pushed by the Oregon Education Association would require that 50 percent of the students of any online charter school live within the boundaries of the sponsoring school district. That would kill the ORCA school -- only a small percentage of its students live in the tiny Scio district -- and crimp the entire online school movement in this state.
Oregon shouldn't do that. Virtual schools hold tremendous promise, and those who are pioneering online learning in this state should be encouraged, not driven away. It's clear that self-paced learning can effectively meet the needs of both gifted students and students who need more time. To put it bluntly, a state that sees a quarter or so of its students drop out from regular public schools shouldn't be blithely eliminating alternatives.
Yet if the Oregon Education Association is wrong to try to shut down existing virtual schools, it is not wrong to point out that this state has not answered hard questions about money, equity and accountability raised by the growth of online charter schools.
Lawmakers should keep the existing schools open and establish a work group to draft a well-reasoned policy on online education. The times and the technology keep moving forward. Oregon education policy needs to run and catch up.
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