Quality Education for Latinos and Latinas: Print and Oral Skills for All Students, K–College

17. Quality Education and the Teachers in the Classroom

Quality education and the teachers in the classroom We have championed a quality education for Latinos and Latinas, one that can be pursued and dispensed to all students because, we contend, too many Spanishspeaking Americans, in particular, drop out of school in numbers that have hobbled too many generations. Stating how many actually leave their schooling is difficult because most school districts count dropout students differently, and such statistics understandably are not what schools like to inquire into, much less announce to the public. During the past decade, a number of “alternative school programs” have been created by school officials, backed by state and federal government legislative financing, to help students who do not respond to the regular education programs. These programs, variously known with acronymic names that suggest extra or special efforts by school districts, are designed to provide the kind of help and attention to students who have been disruptive, who become pregnant, who lag behind, or who require more time and opportunities to sort out home, personal, or grade-level problems. Reliable statistics on these newer programs are also difficult to secure, again, because the idea is to provide physical spaces in the schools for students to address individual or group issues that interfere with grade-level pursuits. Although experienced teachers would naturally do the most good in such alternative programs, too many of the regular school classes and programs today are unfortunately being staffed with substitute teachers or with people recruited from other lines of work. Schools, indeed, are now in need of so many teachers, given the burgeoning student population , that hiring competent, fully trained teachers has been a problem for years. A principal who had long served a working-class neighborhood in Los Angeles, for example, was forced to hire “waiters, actresses, butchers , writers and even a Navy chaplain,” according to a 2001 newspaper article. “U.S. Census data show a rising tide of school enrollment—a Chapter 17 188 conclusion record 49 million students this year—that is due to grow over the next four years before leveling off. Meanwhile, the bulk of the nation’s teaching force is nearing retirement age, with most teachers in their mid-40s to early 50s.” A Boston-based nationwide agency that recruits teachers “found that nearly all major urban school districts urgently need teachers in at least one subject area, with more crucial needs in specialty areas. The report also states that 60 percent of urban districts, such as Los Angeles, allow non-certified teachers in the classroom under emergency licenses and hire long-term substitute teachers.”1 Can noncertified teachers recruited from the general working population deliver a quality education to students who have experiences in the schools like the ones that we have presented in these pages? Not likely. A recent study by the National Commission on the High-School Senior Year “says that while 70 percent of today’s high-school graduates enroll in some form of postsecondary education, only half of those who enroll at four-year institutions leave with a degree.” The main reason for this low retention rate? Such students simply were not prepared well enough in high school for the rigors of college academics, the report concludes.2 It remains clear that if educators and legislators do not work together to address the many problems that we have discussed for students of color at some length in this book, we believe that the education of Hispanic as well as non-Hispanic students will continue to decline. Given that prospect, we end by strongly recommending that a coherent comprehensive plan like the print and oral approach that we espouse here be adopted as soon as possible. Until our state legislatures and federal government choose to make K–16 our country’s number one priority, with the proper attendant financial support, education in the United States does not have a better alternative that we can see. quality education and the teachers in the classroom 189 End-of-year note from a seventh-grade student: Thank you very much for many things. For worrying about us, for caring about us. I appreciate you and would defend you as if you were my mother. And please forgive me for what happened, for worrying. Please forgive us for the bad things that happened. I lost your confidence. Some day I will repay you for the help...