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Immigrants and Schools
With Jorge Ruiz-de-Velasco
Research associate, Urban Institute
Wednesday, May 30, 2001

Census data show that in coming years, more teachers will be in front of classes that look like those at Arlington's Washington-Lee High School, which is a melting pot of nationalities and backgrounds. Already, one in five children in U.S. schools is the child of an immigrant, creating complex situations for students and teachers alike.

The situation at Washington-Lee was detailed in a three-part series by The Post's Emily Wax, "A School Divided/Una Escuela Separada."
Part One: Latino Teens Yearn for a Voice
Part Two: Latinos, Whites Cling to Own Social Circles
Part Three: Newest Arrivals Face Biggest Hurdles

Jorge Ruiz-de-Velasco is a research associate in the Urban Institute's Education Policy Center. A lawyer and political scientist, the focus of his work has been on the politics of education, the study of change in educational organizations, and the implications of education reform for disadvantaged students. He is a co-author of an Urban Institute study, "Overlooked and Undeserved: Immigrant Students in U.S. Secondary Schools."

Transcript follows:

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

washingtonpost.com: Jorge, thanks for joining us today. To start, can you tell us a little bit about the Urban Institute study you were a part of, and what some of the significant findings were?

Jorge Ruiz-de-Velasco: The Urban Institute report draws on lessons from a program of immigrant education demonstration projects funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Those projects were in California and Maryland, Prince George's County.

The report focuses on the challenges facing immigrant teens in high school, as well as the challenges facing the teachers who work with them. We found, for example, that one of the biggest challenges at the High School and Middle School level derives from the way that secondary schools are organized. Specifically, departmentalization in secondary schools isolates language development teachers and their students in ways that create barriers to effective teaching and learning.

fairfax: I love this series, it was terrifically interesting. Particularly since a few weeks ago The Post had a bit on JEB Stuart high school and diversity--it asks us to look closer at schools that perhaps outwardly seem to be integrating students culturally. I attended a Fairfax County high school nearly a decade ago, and remember similar cultural problems described here. We mixed well in small pockets, but not in large groups. When you did see students able to cross the barriers--set up by the school and by themselves--how well did they work? Were they all somewhat lackluster, as the one you describe between two highly successful girls, one Latina and one white? Did you see any significant steps possible to helping students actively break down the barriers themselves?

Jorge Ruiz-de-Velasco: I did not work on the Post article you describe. However,
one of the demonstration programs we discuss in our study "Overlooked and Undeserved" did make a strong effort to address within-school social segregation of students. They established an "Ambassador's Program" that focused on pairing newcomer students with native-born students at the school. This program showed good results in helping introduce new students to the norms of the school and helped break down some of the social barriers of the type that were described by Emily Wax in her excellent story for the Post.

If you are interested in learning more about this "Ambassador's Program" at Alisal High School in Salinas, California, you can contact Ann Jaramillo at an organization called California Tomorrow. She directed the program. They can be reached on the web at www.californiatomorrow.org

Our report is also available online (free) at:
www.urban.org/pdfs/overlooked.pdf

Alexandria, VA: Do you really feel that the American educational system is to blame for the lack of achievement by Latinos. If so How do you explain the great success enjoy by other minorities

Jorge Ruiz-de-Velasco: I do not believe that either the Post article or the Urban Institute study I have discussed assesses "blame." Certainly, the educational outcomes of any group, Latinos included, are mediated by a large number of factors: poverty, social segregation, immigration status, etc..

Our study, and the Post series, I believe, is directed at a central question: how can our schools better respond to the needs of ALL students, Latinos included. The question is important for any publicly supported system.

Arlington: How can parents of non-immigrants help the situation? My daughter goes to W-L but all her friends are American.

Jorge Ruiz-de-Velasco: You raise a good question, one that I do not believe has
been addressed by any study that I am aware of...so I don't have a good answer. However, drawing on some parent involvement programs I have observed, it appears that parents, teachers, and administrators who serve as mentors or sponsors for student clubs and activities (e.g., student council etc) can do much to promote newcomer student engagement in those activities and thereby lessen social segregation of students.

Fairfax, VA: What should be done for public school systems as a whole, to make them more accessible to immigrant students? This is such a complex problem, since it involves so many issues, cultural and linguistic. It seems like the first place to start is with administration and teachers. How can school systems teach their employees to not separate or segregate immigrant or ESL students and to teach them the complex curriculum they deserve, while being aware of language issues? How can we stop teachers (as well as other students) from dismissing these students, who are just as deserving of a good education as native English speakers?

Jorge Ruiz-de-Velasco: Your question is at the heart of our study. In brief, one of the central reform activities in all demonstration schools was to extend professional development around language learning to ALL teachers in the school, not only the ESL/Bilingual teachers. Veteran mainstream teachers, principals, and counselors we interview uniformly stated that their understanding and ability to work effectively with language learners changed dramatically in response to training. Studies suggest that too few mainstream teachers get adequate training in how to infuse language learning throughout the curricula...despite the fact that more of these teachers have newcomer students in their classrooms.

Alexandria, VA: Can you tell us more about your background? Where did you go to high school and how did you deal with some of the issues that Emily Wax pointed out in her series of articles?

Jorge Ruiz-de-Velasco: I was born in south Texas of Mexican immigrant parents. I think a great advantage I had was that I went to school in a town that, because of its proximity to the border, had a long history of working with English language learners. As we report, the strong immigration of the 80's and 90's is now making itself felt in new areas of the country, Virginia and Maryland included.

College Park,MD: Has the Latino students' sense of identity changed over the past couple of years? Is it different between recent immigrants and between those from the east and west coasts?
In The Post articles about Latino students in Arlington, I noticed that most students kept referring to themselves as Spanish kids. Having grown up in LA as a first generation Latina I was shocked that these kids were calling themselves Spanish and a bit frustrated because I hear other people calling us Spanish also.

Jorge Ruiz-de-Velasco: I understand that identity is an important factor in educational outcomes (see for example work by Ruben Rumbaut and others). However, I do not study this aspect of education. I do believe some of the differences you observe are regional as well as differences between first and second generation immigrants.

Fairfax, VA: Regarding the balance between cultures:

A friend teaches at a Fairfax County junior high school where probably 75% of students are ESL. During a discussion at a cookout, his assistant principal told us that a major discipline issue was that boys from certain cultures would refuse to do what their teachers wanted because "they -the teachers] were merely women." Their fathers are no different, refusing even to talk to females in authority positions.

At the same time, girls do not participate in classroom exercises, because they have been taught that their opinion, voice, thoughts, do not matter. Or, they can't do homework because they must take care of younger siblings.

How should schools balance the need to help students maintain their native cultures with the need to express that certain ideas and beliefs just don't hold water here.

Jorge Ruiz-de-Velasco: Without discounting the experience of the teachers and administrators you have spoken with, I would caution against ascribing too much of the behavior you describe to culture. It is notable that a majority of school Teachers in Latin America are women. And teachers, male and female, demand respect in the classroom there, as here. So I am not sure what your friends have described can be so easily tied to culture.

Instead, they might be observing differences in learning styles or teaching norms. My understanding from the literature on this, is that many Latino students and African American students are accustomed to a more directive style of communication at home and are unfamiliar with the more constructive, negotiative, styles that are rewarded in some schools. These differences would lead to misunderstanding and mis-cues in communications between students and teachers. A better understanding of these differences would go a long way to helping teachers work with newcomers and with other students in a multi-cultural environment.

Vienna, VA: Buenos tardes, Jorge. What, in your opinion, makes for the huge number of persons of Latin-American heritage in Arlington, Alexandria, and the Baileys area of Fairfax county? The areas near the Rio Grande and southwestern borders in TX, NM, AZ, and CA would be obvious, but what is it about the inner suburbs of Virginia that attract so many minorities, and especially Latinos, in droves? An enormous amount of the population growth here in the VA suburbs is due to Latino immigration. Just out of curiosity...why so many here? This country is 50 states and 3 million square miles. I am not racist and I don't want to sound racist, but I cannot help but wonder just out of curiosity what attracts so many here? The labor and job market? Plentiful housing? Government assistance? Your thoughts?

Jorge Ruiz-de-Velasco: Much of the current immigration to this area by Central Americans is fueled by family ties and family reunification. (I am not sure, however, why the Washington area INNITIALLY became such a magnet for Central American immigration during the 1980's war years in Central America.) You are correct that the suburbs attract newcomers because that is where they find jobs (especially in the low-skilled and semi-skilled markets) and it is also where affordable housing can be found. As you may know from early 2000 census results, Latino immigrant families tend often to be two-parent households with children. Housing for this type of family is extremely difficult to find in the District...and is more affordable in suburban areas of Prince George's County, Arlington, and Fairfax county.