Additive Schooling in Subtractive Times: Bilingual Education and Dominican Immigrant Youth in the Heights

8. The Political Economy of Education: Trajectories of Luper

211 8 The Political Economy of Education: Trajectories of Luperón Students through School and Beyond In his compelling study of first- and second-generation Dominican immigrants in Providence, Rhode Island, sociologist José Itzigsohn (2009) finds that U.S. economic and racial structures, as much as if not more than academic and professional preparation and hard work, shape Dominicans’ social mobility. Itzigsohn posits, “The future of immigrant generations depends on the continuity or change of the current class and racial stratification system” (40–41); that is, it “depends more on the evolution of the American economic structure and on which forces become hegemonic in politics than on the characteristics of the group” (197). The findings of our longitudinal study show something similar: while Dominican immigrant youth are generally encountering success at Luper ón, their social mobility is conditioned by larger economic structures and the ethnoracial stratification of postsecondary education. In this chapter, we examine the experiences of the focal youth in our study as they transition out of Luperón into further schooling or work and family obligations. The chapter asks: To what extent is Luperón able to facilitate social and economic mobility for its students, given the political economic context? Our analysis demonstrates that although Luperón manages to get a higher proportion of its students through graduation and on to college than its peer institutions, many of the students end up taking low-wage jobs in the service and retail sectors with little opportunity for economic advancement, while those who go on to further schooling commonly end up studying part-time at community colleges with diminishing returns. 212 Additive Schooling in Subtractive Times Thus, while the additive schooling experienced at Luperón is promising, the subtractive times severely constrain the social and economic trajectories of these youth. These sobering findings underscore the ways in which broader economic and social structures hamper schools’ efforts to promote social change. In what follows, we look specifically at the factors shaping students’ decisions to drop out, we consider the types of work secured by students after graduation, and we examine the educational trajectories of those students who continue on to postsecondary levels of education. Persistence through High School As mentioned in Chapter 1, Latino immigrant students have significant difficulties completing high school. Poverty, residential segregation, and low-quality schooling both before moving to the United States and (often ) upon arrival are only a few of the factors that diminish their persistence . According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in 2000, Hispanics aged 16–24 born outside the United States had a status dropout rate of 44.2 percent (NCES 2001, 15; see also Fry and Lowell 2002).1 This exorbitant figure includes many youth who came to the United States as teens and, though school-age, never sought a formal education. Foreignborn students who arrive as adolescents and enroll in school are highly vulnerable to dropping out. While only 8 percent of the nation’s teens are foreign born, 25 percent of teen dropouts were born outside the United States (Fry 2005, 1). Many of these youth did not make adequate progress before arriving, and the transition further dampened their chances of graduation. Youth from Mexico predominate, but youth from Central America and the Caribbean are also overrepresented among dropouts (see Table 1). Dropout rates declined from 1990 to 2000 for all student populations , including foreign-born students; nevertheless, these high numbers are cause for concern. Latino immigrant youth in New York City show abysmal persistence rates. In their analysis of the New York City Department of Education data for the cohort that entered high school in 1995, Rosenbaum and Cortina (2004) found that approximately 39 percent of Latino foreignborn students successfully graduated with a high school diploma. Different ethnic groups experienced markedly differentiated levels of success: only 34 percent of Mexican-born students and just under 40 percent of Dominican- and Salvadoran-born students graduated, while more than 50 Trajectories of Lupéron Students through School and Beyond 213 Table 1. School dropout rates of foreign-born fifteen- to seventeen-year-olds, by place of birth (in percentage) Early Childhood Immigrant Recent Arrival Place of birth 1990 2000 1990 2000 Mexico 11.1 8.1 36.4 32.6 El Salvador 7.5 5.3 20.6 23.9 Guatemala 5.5 6.5 23.5 26.9 Nicaragua 4.4 4.0 8.5 8.1...