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Study: Pre-kindergarten programs can aid Hispanic students Tuesday, Apr 24, 2007 By John Lyon Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - Significant achievement gaps exist between white and Hispanic students, but effective pre-kindergarten programs can help reduce those gaps, the head of a national task force said Monday. Speaking at a news conference at the state Capitol, Eugene Garcia of Arizona State University said the fact that Hispanic students lag behind their white classmates is a great concern because Hispanics constitute one-fifth of the nation's children ages 8 and under. Their numbers are growing at a faster pace than other ethnic groups because of immigration and high birth rates, he said. Garcia is chairman of the National Task Force on Early Childhood Education for Hispanics, which was established in 2004 and includes comedian Bill Cosby among its members. Garcia has been traveling across the country giving talks on the task force's study, "Para Nuestros Ninos," or "For Our Children," since the study was released in March. The Little Rock-based Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation helped fund the study. About 24 percent of all babies born in the Unites States in 2005, or nearly 1 million babies, were Hispanic, Garcia said. The number of Hispanic babies born in Arkansas rose from 1,004 in 1995 to 4,037 in 2005. "This is a population that's coming your way. This is not a population that's dissipating," he said. The study found that Hispanic students were not significantly behind white students in basic reading and math skills - recognizing letters and numbers - at the start of kindergarten, but differences in achievement became more pronounced as instruction progressed to more complex tasks. Garcia said when other ethnic groups lag behind white students, the differences correspond to differences in socioeconomic status, but "for Hispanics, you cannot explain the achievement gap in those terms." Even the most well-to-do Hispanic students tend to perform below white students, indicating that factors other than income have to be taken into account, Garcia said. Hispanic children are more likely than other children to face language and cultural barriers, reside in crowded housing and have parents without a high school education, he said. Hispanic students do enjoy some advantages over white students, however, including a greater likelihood of having two parents in the home, fewer health problems and stronger extended-family relationships, the study found. "They have a pretty supportive family situation," Garcia said. The task force made several recommendations for state and federal government, including expanding pre-kindergarten programs and increasing the number of bilingual teachers in pre-kindergarten through third grade. In the balanced budget he presented to the Legislature this year, Gov. Mike Beebe included $40 million to expand pre-kindergarten programs. Beebe spokesman Matt DeCample said Monday he was not aware of any earmarking of money specifically to aid Hispanic students. Tonya Russell, director of the state Department of Health and Human Services' Division of Child Care and Early Childhood Education, said the division has funded the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences' Welcome the Children Project for the past several years. The project "really focuses on cultural diversity and meeting the needs of English language-learner children, not just limited to Hispanics but more broadly, but certainly in the past few years very focused on that, and there are many bilingual staff affiliated with that," she said. "I think that's one important thing that we will continue to look at." Dee Cox, program manager for the state Department of Education, said she expected the study to be discussed at future meetings. "I think it confirms what we're seeing in our schools every day," she said. "We're very concerned, but we're also aware and we're starting to make plans how we can meet those needs," she said. State Rep. Rick Green, R-Van Buren, said he supports pre-kindergarten education but does not support increasing public services to benefit the children of illegal immigrants. "I'm sympathetic toward children that are here and it's not their decision, but if we condone that and we condone giving out all sorts of benefits to the children of illegals, I believe what we're doing then is, we're never going to enforce the law of the land, which is, in order to obtain those benefits you need to be a legal citizen," he said. Scott Miller, also of Arizona State University and executive director of the task force, responded by noting that the overwhelming majority of Hispanic students were born in the United States and therefore are American citizens. "Are we going to deny schooling to an American citizen?" he said. |
