Economic Segregation in the Rio Grande Valley Schools
There has been much attention to problems with education in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas lately. Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Social Organization of Schools reported that many Valley high schools were in fact “drop out factories” because 40% or more of the starting freshman class never graduates. Ongoing studies by the U.S. Department of Education have always shown a gap between white students and minorities. Lately the gap between white students and non-immigrant Hispanics has been narrowing but the gap between white students and immigrant Hispanics has been increasing. The term “English Language Learner” has come into common use to describe immigrants whose primary language is not English and have difficulties with English proficiency.
Beginning the 1990’s academic studies of English proficiency, comprehension, and mathematical problems solving where evaluated for Hispanic ELLs. At that time it was noted that even with intensive classroom intervention that alone was not sufficient to improve their skills. Improvement was only seen when the co-existent social problems were also addressed. This lead to the concept of teachers and the education community becoming involved with social programs such as nutrition support and family counseling. Education was seen to work best when it was a shared community effort.
In June 2008 the Pew Hispanic Center released a report on “The Role of Schools in the English Language Learner Achievement Gap”. This study showed that Hispanic ELLs with poor achievement where becoming concentrated and isolated in schools in poor neighborhoods which had no whites or English primary language students. There was a strong correlation between poor outcomes of segregated Hispanic ELLs and the better outcomes of ELLs in integrated less poor schools. This effect was most seen in Texas.
In the early 1970’s when I was a McHi student in McAllen, Texas there was only about a 30,000 population. Most of the poorest Hispanics lived in the “La Retama” and “La Paloma” neighborhoods in South McAllen. The Valley has always been different than much of California and Florida in that most of the middle and upper class families have not abandoned the public school system even today. There were just a few elementary schools, two middle schools, and one high school. Students of different incomes mixed early on in the system.
In my graduating class were several immigrant students from very poor families who went on to become physicians, lawyers, CEO of a major oil company, accountants, architects, engineers, pharmacists, and other professions. Most of these students had better Spanish than English speaking skills and had poor parents who spoke little or no English. They did have in common a shared high expectation for future achievement that was reinforced by very supportive college preparatory programs especially in mathematics. In addition they were in peer groups of sports activities or other activities in the school that nurtured their ambitions. Their parents valued education as a priority for their children.
Its not an uncommon story in American history to hear that successful Americans have come from a small town. Maybe that is because the small town is the best example of an integrated society. Today the Valley is over 1 million people in population. Although the U.S. Census says the population is at least 90% Hispanic that does not mean we are an integrated society. The growing urbanization of the Rio Grande Valley has no doubt contributed to an isolation of poor Hispanics. The chance of a poor Hispanic families sharing the same public schools as affluent more educated Hispanics is diminishing especially at the elementary school level.
The high drop-out rate of Hispanic students is not a teacher problem or education problem alone. It is a societal problem whose response requires all of the community to be involved. After my retirement, my former secretary took up teaching elementary school late in life. Her experience of being a single mother of three and maturity of years was a great asset for the difficult task of teaching so often done by recent college graduates who have never been around young children whilst growing up. Churches, business, and community organizations need to step in and play the role of advocate for the schools. Everyone’s interest is served by lowering the dropout rate of Hispanics.
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