Bilingual Education and Latino Civil Rights

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 44% of students nationwide are minorities, but nearly 90% of teachers are white. Polls and surveys further read that if there were more African American male teachers, the dropout rate would decrease while the graduation rate increases. In urban societies most African American teens would be more likely to succeed if there were more black males instructing secondary classrooms. Perhaps more importantly, the average black teenager is raised within a single parented home, typically with their father being absent. Not only does the absence of father’s affect the home financially, but also emotionally and socially destruct the family.

Many English Language Learners are born in the United States (Goldenberg, 2008). These students have only attended the school system in America. However, the achievement levels are nowhere near the level of their peers. According to Calderon, Slavin, and Sanchez (2011) “these students, who have been in U.S. schools since kindergarten, are still classified as limited English proficient when they reach middle or high school— suggesting strongly that preschool and elementary programs are not adequately addressing the needs of English learners.” The achievement gap between English Language Learners and native English speaking students is extremely high. English Language Learners tests scores are low.

Since 2000, the primary school enrolment rate in developing regions has reached 91%. Although, access does not always mean quality of education, or completion of primary school. As of now, 103 million youth worldwide still lack basic literacy skills, and more than 60% are women. There are still gross inequalities in work and wages, lots of unpaid “women’s work” such as child care and discrimination in public decision-making, on a lighter note, there are more girls are in school now compared than compared to 2000. A majority of regions have reached gender parity in primary education and the percentage of females being paid for labor is also

According to a study by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in 2012, 50.9% of low income students who graduated high school attended a 2-4 year college, down from 58.4% in 2007 (Desilver). Here it is evident that the gap is only getting worse over time. This is also assuming that they even graduate high school. According to another study by NCES, 7.4% of low income students dropped out of high school in 2009, 5 times greater than the amount of high income students who dropped out (Chapman, 18). The achievement gap’s grasp on the American education system is prevalent especially in California.

In the modern, technological world we live in, 92% of low-income school teachers say that technology has a major impact on their ability to access content, resources and materials, but only 18% say that their students have access to their necessary materials (3). Children in poverty are not receiving the resources essential for them to prosper in education and, therefore, usually drop out. Students from low-income schools are 7 times more likely to drop out and not earn a degree than students from wealthy families

According to the US Census Bureau, America’s official poverty rate in 2012 was 15.0 percent, representing 46.1 million people living on or below the poverty line. In that same year, 26.5 million people ages 18 to 64 (13.7%) were in poverty compared to 16.1 million children under 18 (21.8%) and 3.9 million ages 65 and older (9.1%). As far as education goes, 49.4 million people are enrolled in school from pre-k to 12th grade. With 14.9 million high school students, the current dropout rate for all American states combined is 7 percent, 1.1 million students, and the main causes of dropouts are due to poverty. California is known for being one of the wealthiest states in America but it is also known for being one of the poorest.

As the result, labor market for blue collar occupations has been shrinking in recent years. Based on Census 2000 data, a suburb of southeast Los Angeles County, California, where dropout rate was nearly 50%, 28% of its inhabitants are impoverished, which is twice the state average of 14%. Even before the financial crisis, nearly half of dropouts were unable to seek paid employment during an entire year. In additional to financial difficulties, high school dropouts are trend to become involved with justice ... ... middle of paper ... ...t dropouts used to describe school life. The school was located in major drug-traffic area of a low income community which is literally one step away for those youth to go on street, engage gang activity and use drug.

Previous Page There is a great divide between rich school districts and poor school districts in respect to students’ achievements. Many of the poor school districts’ student population consists of minorities, which adds to the stereotypes of minorities not being intelligent. “These students, for whom a strong education is especially essential, are being left behind - and being left behind in greater and greater numbers over the past decade” (“Equity” par 1). One way that this problem has occurred is that in many poor districts, many of the teachers are not certified in the area in which they teach. In fact, forty percent of the Math teachers teaching in poor districts and thirty-one percent of the English teachers teaching in poor districts do not the proper certification for the subject they are teaching.

About half of Americans who grew up in poor families but didn’t have the ability to progress within their education are considered as lower class. This type of relation between U.S. education and poverty in the country can be viewed by almost anybody within all grades of any public school. This idea can be viewed within the earliest level of education, such as pre-primary education, where a lot of poor Americans will start with disadvantages. A lot of parents who earn about less than $15,000 every year don’t have the ability to afford a pre-primary education for all their children. This behaves a big disadvantage for a lot of poor Americans because students who participated in preschool education were less likely to repeat a grade.

Most children in urban areas come from families who are at or near the poverty level. As reported by the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP), about fifteen million children in America live in families with incomes below the federal poverty threshold. Although there are some high-poverty schools that are successful, the majority of these urban students attending high-poverty schools receive a poor education. High-poverty schools are not staffed with highly qualified and experienced teachers, and reading materials are outdated. In the article "Unequal Education" Teri Pecoskie discusses the issues of educational inequalities in urban school systems.