Monday, November 20, 2006
ON EDUCATION
2 of 2 additional Required articles for week of Nov. 27th
ON EDUCATION; For Hispanic Parents, Lessons On Helping With the Homework
New York Times November 1, 2006
By JOSEPH BERGER
Published: November 1, 2006
Claudia Crisostomo cannot help her three children with homework, nor can
she read to them at bedtime. Those are among the pretty prescriptions
educators favor for getting parents involved in schooling.
But the reality for Ms. Crisostomo, who came to the United States from
Mexico 17 years ago, is that she works laundering uniforms on a shift that
starts at 3 p.m., just as her children -- Eduardo, 10; Erica, 9; and
Jasmine, 6 -- are coming home from school.
''I don't have time,'' she said. ''I work, and I have to cook and clean.''
It is also not easy for Ms. Crisostomo to attend PTA meetings or see
teachers if her children are slipping. Even if she can arrange a morning
appointment, she does not have a car, cannot rely on the sparse bus
service in this city about 60 miles north of New York City, and so would
have to take a cab to school, a pinching $16 expense. It is not clear
anyway how much help Ms. Crisostomo could provide her children with their
homework. Her schooling ended at sixth grade and her English is weak.
Parental involvement is a buzzword in education, a recommended cure for
high dropout rates, poor test scores and almost everything else that ails
schoolchildren. But for immigrant parents, helping their children absorb
lessons in an inscrutable language in a strange country has always been a
distinctive challenge.
Hispanic children now make up 18.6 percent of the nation's public and
private school children, and many of those are immigrants or children of
immigrants. Their dropout rates and test scores trouble policy makers, so
educators have been focusing on what parents can do to help their children
thrive in school and what obstacles they face, among other approaches.
''It's a huge issue,'' said Dr. Pedro A. Noguera, director of the
Metropolitan Center for Urban Education at New York University. ''Many
Latino parents are working a lot, so their ability to get involved is
limited. There's the language barrier. In many Latin American countries
there's a tendency to defer to authorities in school, an assumption that
educators know what they're doing.''
Long-established middle-class American parents, he said, take for granted
that they are ''critical consumers, making sure their kids are getting the
right teachers and the right classes.'' But, he said, ''many immigrants
parents don't understand that this is a role they need to play.'' For
those who immigrated without proper papers, the problem is ''compounded by
legal status; any time you engage public officials there's anxiety that
you can be discovered.''
Here in this city of 30,000, where 36 percent of the school population is
Latino, most of them Mexican immigrants, the school district is working
hard to help parents immerse themselves in school from kindergarten on.
Carmen Vazqueztell, the district's director of bilingual education, runs
six workshops a year for parents, instructing them on monitoring homework
and reading to children in Spanish, then having the children paraphrase
the stories. Peter Gonzalez, the district's bilingual liaison, pinch-hits
for parents and helps students do homework.
The city of Newburgh offers parents a smorgasbord of adult English
classes, though long workdays or homes with several children make getting
to such classes a heroic effort.
According to Richard Fry, senior research associate with the Pew Hispanic
Center, 12 percent of the country's Hispanic 15- to 19-year-olds are not
attending high school, while the number for whites is 5 percent; for
blacks, 7 percent; and for Asians, 2 percent. The number for immigrant
Hispanic children is three times that for Hispanic children born in the
United States. Ultimately, said Melissa Lazarin, a senior policy analyst
for education reform with the National Council of La Raza, the Hispanic
civil rights organization, 50 percent of Latino children will never
graduate high school.
Despite the obstacles, it is crucial that parents get involved in school,
said Mariela Dabbah, a consultant on issues of concern to Latinos. She
recently wrote ''Help Your Children Succeed in School: A Special Guide for
Latino Parents.'' ''If the administration feels the parents aren't
interested, the administration does less for kids, so it's a vicious
circle,'' she said.
In Newburgh, Hispanic immigrants have found many ways to keep children on
track. After all, exposing their children to a fine education is one of
the reasons many of these immigrants braved deserts and rivers to enter
the United States.
''We want them to go to college; we don't want them to end up like us,''
said Laura Jurado, a mother of three who launders uniforms.
Emilio Pinado, a Honduran who works until 2 a.m. in a Gap warehouse, cuts
his sleep short to make sure his daughter Emily, 11, eats a breakfast of
pancakes or cereal, then sees her off on the bus. His wife left him, but
his niece watches Emily when he is not around and helps with homework.
Martin Bustos, a Mexican immigrant, works two jobs, in a factory that
makes shower curtains and at the U.P.S. warehouse at nearby Stewart
International Airport.
But when a teacher needs to hand out a report card personally, Mr. Bustos
drops his wife off at school in his minivan, though like other immigrants
she must bring a child along to translate, a situation that can place the
child in an awkward bind.
WHEN parents do get involved, the decisions they make can be pivotal --
few more so than whether to put youngsters in bilingual classes or the
English as a second language classes that quickly immerse students in
English. Patricia Ortega, the head of Newburgh's bilingual parents
advisory council, recalled how teachers advised her to put her son
Jonathan, then in first grade, in English-only classes.
''For three months all he brought home was drawings, and I was worried he
was falling behind academically,'' she said. She took it upon herself to
move Jonathan to bilingual classes, where he flourished, she said. He
eventually attended the University of Miami in Florida for three
semesters, though he joined the Army and is now in Afghanistan.
''When we have problems is when our children leave the bilingual
program,'' she said. ''They go into class with a teacher who speaks only
English, and then parents lose communication with the school entirely.''
ON EDUCATION; For Hispanic Parents, Lessons On Helping With the Homework
New York Times November 1, 2006
By JOSEPH BERGER
Published: November 1, 2006
Claudia Crisostomo cannot help her three children with homework, nor can
she read to them at bedtime. Those are among the pretty prescriptions
educators favor for getting parents involved in schooling.
But the reality for Ms. Crisostomo, who came to the United States from
Mexico 17 years ago, is that she works laundering uniforms on a shift that
starts at 3 p.m., just as her children -- Eduardo, 10; Erica, 9; and
Jasmine, 6 -- are coming home from school.
''I don't have time,'' she said. ''I work, and I have to cook and clean.''
It is also not easy for Ms. Crisostomo to attend PTA meetings or see
teachers if her children are slipping. Even if she can arrange a morning
appointment, she does not have a car, cannot rely on the sparse bus
service in this city about 60 miles north of New York City, and so would
have to take a cab to school, a pinching $16 expense. It is not clear
anyway how much help Ms. Crisostomo could provide her children with their
homework. Her schooling ended at sixth grade and her English is weak.
Parental involvement is a buzzword in education, a recommended cure for
high dropout rates, poor test scores and almost everything else that ails
schoolchildren. But for immigrant parents, helping their children absorb
lessons in an inscrutable language in a strange country has always been a
distinctive challenge.
Hispanic children now make up 18.6 percent of the nation's public and
private school children, and many of those are immigrants or children of
immigrants. Their dropout rates and test scores trouble policy makers, so
educators have been focusing on what parents can do to help their children
thrive in school and what obstacles they face, among other approaches.
''It's a huge issue,'' said Dr. Pedro A. Noguera, director of the
Metropolitan Center for Urban Education at New York University. ''Many
Latino parents are working a lot, so their ability to get involved is
limited. There's the language barrier. In many Latin American countries
there's a tendency to defer to authorities in school, an assumption that
educators know what they're doing.''
Long-established middle-class American parents, he said, take for granted
that they are ''critical consumers, making sure their kids are getting the
right teachers and the right classes.'' But, he said, ''many immigrants
parents don't understand that this is a role they need to play.'' For
those who immigrated without proper papers, the problem is ''compounded by
legal status; any time you engage public officials there's anxiety that
you can be discovered.''
Here in this city of 30,000, where 36 percent of the school population is
Latino, most of them Mexican immigrants, the school district is working
hard to help parents immerse themselves in school from kindergarten on.
Carmen Vazqueztell, the district's director of bilingual education, runs
six workshops a year for parents, instructing them on monitoring homework
and reading to children in Spanish, then having the children paraphrase
the stories. Peter Gonzalez, the district's bilingual liaison, pinch-hits
for parents and helps students do homework.
The city of Newburgh offers parents a smorgasbord of adult English
classes, though long workdays or homes with several children make getting
to such classes a heroic effort.
According to Richard Fry, senior research associate with the Pew Hispanic
Center, 12 percent of the country's Hispanic 15- to 19-year-olds are not
attending high school, while the number for whites is 5 percent; for
blacks, 7 percent; and for Asians, 2 percent. The number for immigrant
Hispanic children is three times that for Hispanic children born in the
United States. Ultimately, said Melissa Lazarin, a senior policy analyst
for education reform with the National Council of La Raza, the Hispanic
civil rights organization, 50 percent of Latino children will never
graduate high school.
Despite the obstacles, it is crucial that parents get involved in school,
said Mariela Dabbah, a consultant on issues of concern to Latinos. She
recently wrote ''Help Your Children Succeed in School: A Special Guide for
Latino Parents.'' ''If the administration feels the parents aren't
interested, the administration does less for kids, so it's a vicious
circle,'' she said.
In Newburgh, Hispanic immigrants have found many ways to keep children on
track. After all, exposing their children to a fine education is one of
the reasons many of these immigrants braved deserts and rivers to enter
the United States.
''We want them to go to college; we don't want them to end up like us,''
said Laura Jurado, a mother of three who launders uniforms.
Emilio Pinado, a Honduran who works until 2 a.m. in a Gap warehouse, cuts
his sleep short to make sure his daughter Emily, 11, eats a breakfast of
pancakes or cereal, then sees her off on the bus. His wife left him, but
his niece watches Emily when he is not around and helps with homework.
Martin Bustos, a Mexican immigrant, works two jobs, in a factory that
makes shower curtains and at the U.P.S. warehouse at nearby Stewart
International Airport.
But when a teacher needs to hand out a report card personally, Mr. Bustos
drops his wife off at school in his minivan, though like other immigrants
she must bring a child along to translate, a situation that can place the
child in an awkward bind.
WHEN parents do get involved, the decisions they make can be pivotal --
few more so than whether to put youngsters in bilingual classes or the
English as a second language classes that quickly immerse students in
English. Patricia Ortega, the head of Newburgh's bilingual parents
advisory council, recalled how teachers advised her to put her son
Jonathan, then in first grade, in English-only classes.
''For three months all he brought home was drawings, and I was worried he
was falling behind academically,'' she said. She took it upon herself to
move Jonathan to bilingual classes, where he flourished, she said. He
eventually attended the University of Miami in Florida for three
semesters, though he joined the Army and is now in Afghanistan.
''When we have problems is when our children leave the bilingual
program,'' she said. ''They go into class with a teacher who speaks only
English, and then parents lose communication with the school entirely.''
# posted by A. Palacios @ 8:15 AM 
