Learning
How To Advance Minority Students

An Escalante student takes on his teacher's mission in East L.A.

In 1988, the movie Stand and Deliver told the story of Jaime Escalante's dramatic success in teaching calculus to low-income, Hispanic students at Garfield High School in East Los Angeles.

But there was a lot more to Escalante's formula than the charisma and determination shown in the film, according to NEA member Roy Márquez, who teaches calculus at Garfield today.

Márquez should know--he was in Escalante's original break-through class of 1982, the class that scored so high on the Advanced Placement test, Educational Testing Service didn't believe them and made many of the students (not Márquez) take the test again.

Just as the high numbers of minority students in special education are attracting attention (see cover story), so are the low numbers in programs like the College Board's Advanced Placement that boost students toward success in college and good jobs.

The College Board reports 4.9 percent of AP test takers last year were African-American. That's up from 4.3 percent in 1998, but African-American students make up 17.2 percent of the total student population according to the U.S. Department of Education.

Hispanic students are 15.6 percent of all students. Their share of AP test takers has risen from 8.6 percent in 1998 to 10.7 percent in 2002.

Educators all over the country are trying to figure out how to improve those numbers, and Escalante's program is a good place to start.

"It's not as simple an equation as the film and some reactionary politicians set it out to be," Márquez says. "The impression was that all you need is the desire--'ganas' in Spanish. That trivializes the challenges of education. It's much more complex. There are issues of resources at different schools, preparation of teachers, and kids coming to school ready or not ready to learn based on their home environment."

The film showed students coming into Escalante's calculus class totally unprepared and, by dint of superior effort, flying through the AP test in a few short months. Actually, says Márquez, his class had already studied advanced math for several years. Escalante led the development of a multi-year series of high-level classes, and calculus was only the culmination.

A major focus of Márquez's efforts today is to rebuild that system, working with other math teachers in the high school and even in the feeder schools to mesh their curricula and raise standards.

Good preparation involves teaching students to think, "moving away from drill and kill to more open-ended explorations," Márquez says. "Drill is vital, but not to the exclusion of critical thinking."

Learning calculus without enough preparation is a gargantuan task. But it's a task Márquez and his students are taking on.

Márquez tells his classes they should plan on two-and-a-half hours of homework every night, plus more work outside the normal school calendar. Garfield is on a year-round, four-months-on, two-months-off schedule. For the first month of the break, Márquez's classes come to school two hours every day.

So two essential ingredients in a successful advanced program are: a series of rigorous courses and incredibly hard work.

What else is in Márquez's recipe?

• Parent support--"That doesn't mean parents coming to school to photocopy for me," he explains. "It means sending me their kids ready to learn. Some of it is basic: They cannot be hungry. They have to feel secure. They need a place to study at home. "But beyond that, the parents need to create a situation where literacy and thinking and education are valued, which in our society, for the most part, is not what's going on."
• Class size--"It really matters," says MMárquez. "I've taught as few as 15 and as many as 37, and 37 was pretty unmanageable." His big classes don't have discipline problems, but the level of teacher-student interaction required for a challenging educational experience is hard to achieve with huge classes. Márquez thinks 20 is a good number.
• A skillful teacher who is serious about high standards--"You have to expect a lot, and they have to perceive that you genuinely care that they do well," says Márquez. "That was possibly Escalante's strength, more than pedagogy. It was that sense of genuine caring for the success or failure of his students."

Márquez says Garfield's AP program now involves between 5 and 10 percent of the students. There are 18 AP courses, taught by about 20 teachers.

The College Board didn't pay much attention to increasing minority participation until just a few years ago, but now the Board is eager to help schools do better, says Ayeola Boothe Kinlaw, the Board's associate director for this effort. That help includes information about successful models around the country, which incorporate many of the ingredients in Márquez's recipe. The board also reduces AP test fees for low-income students. Government programs help cover these fees as well.

But AP courses can't benefit low-income students if they don't get in, and many potentially successful students don't have good grades before they enter AP. So the College Board now recommends accepting students with mediocre records if they are willing to take the challenge. Some of the Board's model programs go to extraordinary lengths to find and recruit promising minority students--everything from entering their names in a drawing for a new car to personal phone calls from the superintendent.

At Garfield, students don't need a high grade point average to qualify, they just have to be willing to do an awful lot of work. No more work, of course, than their teachers.

Márquez, incidentally, doesn't get paid for those extra hours. Why does a man with a degree in computer science put in long hours teaching when he could be making much more money outside?

"Part of it is selfish," says Márquez. "I want to live in a world full of thinking people when I get older. And part of it is, I'm making a difference in their lives."

--Alain Jehlen

For more: E-mail Roy Márquez, roy_marquez@earthlink.net. Order the College Board's booklet of model programs at 800/323-7155.

[Dilemma]
What do you do when you think student work is parent work?

I have students answer a few key questions from their assignment. Students who did the work finish quickly. When students have problems locating the answers, I offer a private conference. I ask them to explain which parts of the assignment they completed and which parts an adult did. Once we agree that this isn't an accurate reflection of their work, I offer a "Redo," after school under the direction of a teacher. I call home and explain the situation to the parents.

Julie Moore
Junior high school teacher
Seabeck, Washington

Once, I let students finish a test at home. One student, who didn't have the neatest of printing, turned in her test with cursive writing that obviously was not hers, but looked like her grandmother's. Grandma's grade was below 50 percent, so I let it stand!

Sometimes, if a student struggles with printing or cursive, parents may just play secretary to help get the homework done, so you have to be careful when suggesting a parent did the work.

I check homework, but I don't make it a part of the grade. This helps reduce the parent-doing-the-homework problem.

Karyn Keck
Fifth-grade teacher
Chino Hills, California

To ensure that parents do not become overly immersed in completing children's schoolwork, teachers could emphasize which part of the assignment the child is responsible for and which part parent and child can work on together. Being specific is the key.

Gwendolyn Lewis-Fondren
English and language arts teacher, 7-12
Sumner, Mississippi

When I encounter this problem, I plan a quiz for the whole class to pinpoint who is actually doing the work. It is not only parents, but sometimes a student's peers who do the homework. I then speak to the class in general about the results of the quiz and let them know my suspicions. Normally students receive this news positively. I tell them assistance is available after school and during my planning period and that they need not rely on someone else to do their work.

I also contact parents and ask them not to do this. I explain that they can keep providing guidance, but should let their sons and daughters do their own work.

Victor Garcia
Spanish teacher
New Bern, North Carolina

I have had several situations in which I suspected that a parent was completing a child's homework. When the parent picked up the child after school, I let the parent know how wonderful I thought it was that he or she wanted to take an active role in the child's education, but I also indicated that helping to do the homework would hinder the child's academic performance as reflected on classroom assessments and possibly the report card.

Colleen Hovanec
Elementary Instructional facilitator
Lancaster, Pennsylvania

I bring the child up to my desk and say, "I am glad your Mom wants to help you, but please remember you need to do the actual work." I give the child another copy of the assignment to do again. If it happens again, I talk to the parent.

Michelle Beany
Third-grade teacher
Youngstown, Ohio

Got an answer?

How do you help a student who enters your class in the middle of the year?
E-mail your answer to dilemma2@list.nea.org.

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