A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Issues and Recommendations for the Attainment of Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans

The identification of the issues, policy areas, recommendations and research directions by the Presidential Commission and the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans responds to the President's charge. We list the most important areas for ongoing improvement in the education of Hispanic Americans. Effective solutions and practices, and insightful scholarship are addressing some of these issues. It is our intention to widely disseminate, through electronic and printed media, this call for action, effective practices, models and scholarship as well as the Federal Agency Inventories, thereby creating a national database, accessible to all, on Hispanic American education.

Issues and Policy Areas

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As described in this report, the issues affecting Hispanic American education are numerous and alarming. For the purpose of presenting recommendations, the following issues must be addressed:

• Improving the quality of instruction at every point along the educational continuum: Early Childhood, Elementary, Middle School, High School, Postsecondary, and Adult Education;

• Improving the condition of schools;

• Increasing access to postsecondary institutions, and providing appropriate support;

• Improving the knowledge, skills, and cross-cultural competencies and effectiveness of teachers and administrators;

• Designing and promoting appropriate use of testing and assessment to enhance high quality instruction;

• Targeting appropriate levels of financial, human, health, and material resources toward Hispanic Americans;

• Challenging Federal, state, and local agencies to provide Hispanic Americans with equitable opportunities;

• Challenging the Department of Education to re-work the funding formulas and institution eligibility criteria so that HSIs can benefit from Campus-Based-Programs like work-study and supplemental educational opportunity grants;

• Challenging the corporate sector to provide Hispanic Americans more support and opportunities to enter all sectors of the work force and at every level; and

• Identifying and implementing future directions in research based on systematic collection of data targeted on specific program improvements affecting Hispanic educational outcomes.

Recommendations

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To address these issues and policy areas, effective educational models must incorporate high-quality standards, equitable financial support, and diverse language and cultural knowledge. Parent and school collaboration must be specified in all plans of action; and the following principles should guide the implementation of recommendations:

• Government, at all levels, in partnership with local Hispanic and non-Hispanic communities, must assure that schools ensure the attainment of quality educational outcomes by Hispanic students;

• Long-term, strategic plans must be developed through collaborative approaches with the public and private sectors at the local, state, and national level to monitor and to ensure a high standard of educational attainment among Hispanic Americans; and

• Inter-Federal-agency coordination must be strongly promoted to maximize the pooling of resources and delivery of services.

The following is a description of specific recommendations.

Corrective action at every point along the educational continuum: Early Childhood, Elementary, Middle School, High School, and Adult Education.

• Direct the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to work closely with community-based organizations to improve the participation of Latino preschoolers and their parents in early childhood programs;

• Increase the number of public, nonprofit, private, and community programs that provide intervention with parents during pregnancy incorporating health care, education, parenting education and childcare to provide an even start for Hispanic Americans;

• Monitor, research, collect, analyze, and report relevant data for every program affecting Hispanic American education;

• Increase funds, maintain and promote Bilingual Education programs, preschool programs, Title I, Title VII, migrant education, Goals 2000, and strengthen and expand parent involvement components;

• Promote multilingualism as a national resource for all Americans;

• Identify successful dropout prevention programs for Latino students and implement these programs in school districts with the greatest need; and

• Establish programs that will train and prepare young adults (through school-to-work) and adults for a technology driven workplace.

• Provide access to technology resources in public places, such as schools and libraries.

Facilitate access into postsecondary institutions and provide appropriate support.

• Support Hispanic graduate students in targeted fields especially mathematics, the sciences, health related professions, the humanities, and in fields of anticipated faculty shortages;
  

• Commit special initiatives and resources to Hispanic Serving Institutions;

• Increase support for two-year and community college programs with concentrations of Hispanic students, and strengthen guidance and other support systems to facilitate transfer from community colleges to four-year colleges;

• Identify exemplary transfer programs that lead Hispanic students to the attainment of bachelor degrees;

• Ensure collaboration among Federal agencies regarding outreach and support programs for undergraduate and graduate Hispanic students; and

• Facilitate collaborations between businesses and higher education institutions, in order to provide apprenticeships, mentoring relationships, and summer training opportunities for Hispanic undergraduate and graduate students.

Build capacity in the education professions.

• Launch a national professional development program for elementary, middle school, secondary, college and university faculty that focuses on increasing the participation and success of Hispanic students in postsecondary education;

• Link loan forgiveness programs and scholarships to a national initiative which will encourage Hispanic students to become teachers and educators; and

• Launch a national program that equips educators across all content areas with the knowledge and skills to effectively teach bilingual and multicultural students.

Promote the design and appropriate use of testing and assessment.

• Establish a national standard which makes clear that a single measure of student achievement does not adequately assess a student's knowledge and capability;

• Ensure fair testing practices that take in consideration issues of language and culture; and

• Establish a national monitoring system to identify the misuse of testing and assessment that tracks Hispanic students into low-level curricular sequences and inappropriate placement in special education.

Challenge each Federal agency.

• Establish programs to upgrade the Hispanic American hiring and promotion system, from internships through senior executive service positions;

• Facilitate, promote, and monitor the progress of Hispanic education initiatives;

• Ensure the equitable allocation of resources in public school funding for academic support;

• Enforce the Federal requirements for desegregation;

• Monitor adherence to Federal requirements for the provision of equal educational opportunities for students with languages other than English;

• Direct Federal agencies to provide Hispanic Americans with equitable educational opportunities related to the agency's mission and services;

• Identify the appropriate office and staff in each Federal agency to respond to Executive Order 12900, Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans;

• Establish a data system to track the number of participants and awards distributed for research and development, program evaluation, training, facilities and equipment, fellowships, internships, recruitment, student tuition, scholarships, private sector involvement and administration to institutions of higher education (two-year and four-year), Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs), school districts (K-12), Hispanic serving school districts, and organizations serving Hispanic Americans;

• Increase the grant award rate for Hispanic Serving Institutions from all Federal departments and agencies;

• Establish a Federal agency collaborative working group to identify, build, and complement successful, existing programs;

• Specify responsibility, data collection, procurement and contract considerations, and profile improvement at management and senior executive levels in the renewal version of Executive Order 12900;

• Establish the office of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans as a permanent, on-going collaborative effort between the Executive Branch and the Department of Education; and

• Prepare a plan of action to correct Hispanic participation performance in Federal agencies, below the 10 percent level.

Future Research Directions

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There is a growing body of research on the education of Hispanic Americans. However, there is much more to learn and to implement. What follows is a brief listing of relevant issues for immediate, action-oriented research.

Early Childhood, Elementary, Middle School, High School, and Adult Education.

• Discover what can be done to promote inter- and intra-governmental agency collaborative approaches that promote preschool programs for Hispanic children;

• Explore to what extent early childhood bilingual programs enhance children's entry and success in later schooling;

• Investigate how distance-learning technologies can be utilized to prepare Hispanic preschoolers to begin school ready to learn;

• Analyze how teachers can be trained, in order to understand and to incorporate new knowledge, into their classrooms — knowledge which leads to an understanding of how ever-changing educational practices can be prescribed and implemented; and

• Determine which strategies for change are most effective and what resources are required to maintain exemplary learning environments that effectively integrate linguistic and cultural factors.

Access into Postsecondary Institutions and Appropriate Support

• Analyze the points of entry and exit into postsecondary education for Hispanic students;

• Identify factors and interventions that influence and predict Hispanic student's decisions to remain or to leave postsecondary education;

• Identify the most effective proactive approaches for early outreach to middle schools and high schools, matriculation between two- and four-year institutions, and persistence interventions, including how these vary by Hispanic group, region, and background;

• Analyze the financial support structures that best assure the successful completion of postsecondary education for Hispanic American students; and

• Analyze the enrollment and graduation rates and student persistence factors of HSIs both on the continental U.S. and on the island of Puerto Rico.

Building Capacity in the Education Professions.

• Determine how intellectually stimulating opportunities can be provided for educators to grow as professionals to improve pedagogy and to influence the expectations held by instructors about minority student performance.

Use of Testing and Assessment.

• Explore what impact assessment reforms have on Hispanic student achievement.

Targeting Civil, Financial, Human, and Material Resources Toward Hispanic Americans in the Federal work force.

• Determine what organizational, social, attitudinal, and political factors promote or obstruct effective Federal initiatives toward more inclusive approaches and programs with Hispanics as employees and as the recipients of agency-funded programs.

Conclusion

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In response to President Clinton's charge and in response to the commitment demonstrated by Secretary Riley, this report focuses national attention on the education of the Hispanic American community in the United States. By synthesizing public hearing testimony, expert panel deliberations, research, and inventories of Federal agencies, it reports on the educational disparity between Hispanics and non-Hispanics precisely to illuminate the gravity of the Presidential challenge.

The Commission calls upon the nation to improve education for Hispanic Americans. This call to action goes out to Hispanics and non-Hispanics alike — rich, middle-class, and poor — to work in partnership with the leadership and resources of government and the private sector.

The nature of the problem with the education of Hispanic Americans is rooted in a refusal to accept, to recognize, and to value the central role of Hispanics in the past, present, and future of this nation. It is characterized by a history of neglect, oppression, and periods of wanton denial of opportunity.

The successful resolution of what has become nothing less than a national crisis is embedded in the collective and collaborative response of the nation; and it must be characterized by the affirmation of the value and dignity of Hispanic communities, families, and individuals.

There are serious shortcomings in the public education system that directly lead to unacceptable dropout rates, exceedingly low numbers of college graduates, and an overall denial of educational excellence to Hispanic Americans. While certain academic gains can be measured with some groups of Hispanic students, there remain enormous gaps between Hispanic American students and other American students on specific measures of educational attainment.

Unequal educational outcomes diminish the nation's ability to compete in the global economy, thus weakening its national fabric by not utilizing all of its human capital. The nation essentially is being robbed of the full intellectual, moral, and spiritual strengths of a major segment of the American population, Hispanic Americans.

To reiterate, the essential purpose of this Call to Action is to compel local, state, and Federal policy makers to take serious and immediate action to improve the educational attainment of Hispanic Americans. To help reach that goal, this report has provided an overview of both the demographic and cultural composition of Hispanic Americans and the current state of education for Hispanic Americans. Through specific findings and recommendations, the report has responded to the President's charge by providing information to help re-focus the nation's policies and resources that will be needed to counter the consequences of ignorance and inattention.

Since 1983, the educational war conducted on behalf of children in public schools is slowly being won for many students, but not for all. To win that war, this work requires commitment, as a nation, to provide the best education possible to all U.S. citizens. The Presidential Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanics is aggressively and affirmatively committed to keeping the nation alert. The United States should not tolerate the loss to our society of any more generations of children of any cultural, racial, or linguistic background. Excellence and equity must be inseparable benchmarks for the education of all of our nation's children. This report, therefore, is not the last word on what concerns Hispanic Americans. On the contrary, this report is just the beginning.

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State of Education...

Endnotes