Please--No Excuses

It was reported yesterday that Utah is among five other states including the District of Columbia to have a racial gap between white and Latino students larger than the national average. What was especially disturbing to me was the excuses that were being made as to why this is the case.

One excuse made by Mark Peterson from the State Board of Education was that Utah's Hispanic population is exploding. He said, "Over the last 20 years in Utah, our population has gotten much more diverse. We've gone from 3% Hispanic students to 15%, or from 1 in 26 students to 1 in 7 students." There are other states that have the Hispanic population growing at a faster rate that have more success with their Hispanic students.

Another excuse Peterson made was that the sort of remedies needed to address the issue are fairly expensive. Research has shown that one of the most effective methods for closing the achievement gap for Latino students is a quality dual immersion program. From my research and experience dual immersion programs are cost effective.

Another excuse made by Peterson was that many of Utah's Hispanic students don't speak English while Hispanic students in California are more likely to be born in the U.S. and therefore, grow up learning the English language. It's true that Latinos who speak English do better academically, but California is not a panacea for its education of Latino students. Plus, there are other states that have a faster growing non-English speaking Latino student population that are experiencing greater success with this student population.

An excuse made by Christina Morales, a member of the state school board's Coalition of Minorities Advisory Committee, was that we have too few minority educators in schools. It's true that more Latino educators would be wonderful for a variety of reasons including making minority parents feel more comfortable as well as being role models and mentors for Latino students. Yet, more Latino educators is not sufficient. I recently read the book Words Were All We Had by María de la Luz Reyes and in this book she notes numerous examples of where Latino students had Latino educators who did a lot of damage and wounded their souls. I have also witnessed first hand a Latino administrator who was so out of touch with the Latino parents in the school that the parents fought for his resignation. Also, the research of George Monsivais found that Latino teachers felt as unprepared as White teachers to effectively teach Latino students. In other words, they, too, needed to learn the most effective methods and strategies.

Other excuses such as poverty, parents' eduction levels and/or lack of familiarity with the school system, stereotyping in schools, etc. were given as well as to why there is this disparity. It's true that these issues are real. Yet, there are schools throughout the nation that are succeeding in spite of these real barriers. We must learn from these success stories and quit making excuses if the achievement gap is to be closed.