Getting Serious About Improving Hispanic Children's Chances

Hispanic children are the fastest-growing ethnic group in the United States, yet they are doing worse in school than any of their peers. They need urgent attention, says a new Social Policy Report from the Society of Research in Child Development, which recommends many steps to be taken by government, educational and community organizations.

Two of the boldest calls to action are to:

• Establish and strengthen dual-language programs, which have been shown in recent studies to be more effective than English-only programs at bridging achievement gaps for Hispanic children.
• Provide more pre-kindergarten programs to Hispanic children, who have been shown in some studies to be less likely to attend preschool.

The report, which was written by Eugene Garcia and Bryant Jensen of Arizona State University, is summarized in a helpful policy brief. Here's an excerpt, outlining recommendations on the federal and state levels:

The federal government should:

• Develop, evaluate, and expand programs to raise the number of preschool and early elementary teachers proficient in English and Spanish
• Develop, evaluate, and expand programs to recruit Spanish speakers trained to teach students a second language to work as classroom language specialists
• Expand dual-language programs through Head Start, Early Head Start, and other federal programs
• Expand national and international databases that assess students’ academic performance

State governments should:

• Collaborate with local communities to offer high-quality educational experiences at different times of the day and week to meet families’ scheduling needs
• Provide Hispanic 3- and 4-year-olds access to free, state-funded, high-quality preschool programs
• Give qualified preschool teachers pay and benefits equal to public school teachers
• Establish information systems for districts and state education departments to 1) learn more about students’ race/ethnicity, parents’ education, family income, immigrant generation status, national origin, and primary language spoken at home, 2) monitor the academic progress of different groups of students, and 3) gauge policies’ and programs’ effectiveness over time

 

 

 

 

(Photo from SRCD's policy brief page.)