Latinos are the largest ethnic minority in the United States, yet Latino students are the least likely of all the major ethnic groups to graduate from high school, go on to college, and earn a degree. In 2000, only 10 percent of Latinos nationwide had earned a college degree, compared with 18 percent of African Americans and 34 percent of European Americans (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2001). This undereducation of Latino students constitutes a social and economic liability for the United States.
The education gap begins, of course, long before students start to think about going to college. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, 41 percent of white students are proficient in reading by 4th grade, compared with only 15 percent of Latino students. By 12th grade—a point by which a significant number of lower-performing students have already dropped out of school—only about one-fourth (26 percent) of Latinos have achieved proficiency in reading, compared with almost one-half (47 percent) of white students (NCES, 1999, 2003). Ultimately, between one-third and one-half of all Latino students who begin school in the United States drop out of high school and fail to receive a diploma (Orfield, Losen, Wald, & Swanson, 2004; Rumberger & Rodriguez, 2002).
Why do Latino students fare so poorly in school and continue on to college in such small numbers? What can be done to counteract this trend? Research during the last several years provides some answers.
Out of Reach
Latino families often lack the social capital that is so essential for students to gain a foothold in society. In her book Home Advantage, Lareau (1989) described the way middle-class parents—predominantly whites—advocate on behalf of their children and locate the resources in public schools to support their children's success. They know how bureaucracies work, and they have easy access to people in key decision-making posts. Lareau showed how this social capital is out of reach for low-income parents and their children.
Parents' earnings and education, two factors closely related to social capital, predict students' school performance and education attainment (Puma et al., 1997). As far as parent earnings are concerned, recent census data show that Latino workers, on average, earn less than either blacks or whites at almost all levels of education (U.S. Census Bureau, 2001). Information about parent education is reflected in data that the College Board collects on the education backgrounds of parents of students who are taking the SAT and planning to go on to college. The differences in parent income and education by ethnicity are startling, with Latinos lagging considerably behind other groups. Looking at the education backgrounds of the parents of SAT takers, only 1 percent of the white parents and 5 percent of the black parents do not have a high school diploma, compared with 27 percent of the Mexican American parents.
In addition to family background factors, Latinos are likely to attend overcrowded, underfunded urban or rural schools in which disproportionate percentages of teachers are not well qualified to teach (Rhoads, 2003). The curriculum in these schools tends to be weaker than that in middle-class suburban schools, and Latino students generally have less access to rigorous coursework and advanced placement classes (Betts, Rueben, & Dannenberg, 2000). In California—the state with the largest number of Latino students in the United States—schools average more than 850 students for each counselor. As a result, few students receive personal attention geared toward helping them prepare for college (California Department of Education, 2003). Further, approximately half of Latinos in the Southwest are primarily Spanish speakers who have varying degrees of English proficiency. Schools in these areas have been notoriously weak in meeting the needs of English language learners. Recent data show that teachers with one or more English learners in their classrooms have had, on average, only four hours of professional development during the last five years that targets the needs of these students (Zehler et al., 2003).
Finally, considerable research has demonstrated the importance of expectations—both teachers' and other adults' expectations for students and students' expectations for themselves. Teachers are more likely to have lower expectations for their Latino students than for their white students (Romo & Falbo, 1996; Rosenholtz & Simpson, 1984), and Latinos are more likely to have lower expectations for themselves (Kao & Tienda, 1995). Clustered together in impoverished schools with weak curriculums, inexperienced teachers, and low expectations, students generally find schoolwork a waste of time. Unlike middle-class students in suburban schools, low-income Latino students rarely, if ever, discuss academic topics or postsecondary plans with their friends (Gándara, O'Hara, & Gutiérrez, 2004). When they do go on to a postsecondary education, they generally attend a two-year college and are unlikely to transfer to a four-year college or gain a four-year degree (Gándara & Chávez, 2003).
Bridging the Gap
The High School Puente project—the word puente means bridge in Spanish—came about in 1994 in response to these crushing statistics. With help from such groups as the Carnegie Foundation and the DeWitt Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund, the project developed as an offshoot of a program serving 45 community colleges in California. The new model serves 36 California high schools. Whereas the community college program has enjoyed enormous success in facilitating the transfer of Latino students from two-year colleges to four-year colleges, the high school program is geared toward moving students directly from high school to four-year colleges, where overall chances for students to earn a college degree are greater.
The High School Puente project emphasizes three practices: rigorous instruction in writing and literature; mentoring that provides missing social capital and, in some cases, a peer partner who acts as a guide through the early transition into high school; and intensive college preparatory counseling to address student and parent information deficits. The project overtly acknowledges that Latino culture can be an instructional asset in motivating and preparing these students for college. Successful professionals from the students' Latino community interact with students and share the ways in which their roots in their community and culture have supported their professional achievements.
Instruction
Students involved in the program take two years of college preparatory English in academically heterogeneous classes in 9th and 10th grade. A highly trained Puente teacher instructs students in the writing process and in developing writing portfolios. Students learn to critique their writing, assess their progress, and set high performance standards for themselves.
Puente English classes model the kind of instruction normally reserved for gifted or advanced writers. Students must write daily, and they receive instruction in a number of writing formats: literary analyses, personal narratives, community-based reports, critical essays, and research papers. Students maintain writing folders and select their best work at the end of the year to create their portfolios. All students are required to read between four and 12 books independently, above and beyond the books assigned in class. They hone their writing skills by working in small groups and responding to one another's writing, an experience that helps them become better, more critical readers.
The teacher also weaves acclaimed Latino literature into the regular 9th and 10th grade literature curriculum, including such authors as Sandra Cisneros (The House on Mango Street), Gary Soto (Living Up the Street), Victor Villaseñor (Rain of Gold), and Luis Valdez (Zoot Suit). In one lesson we observed, a teacher had students compare marriage arrangements in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet with those in Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate.
In interviews and open-ended questions on annual surveys, students talk about their surprise and pride when they encounter famous Latino writers for the first time. The connections students draw between their own and the authors' experiences leave an indelible impression. One student was nearly brought to tears when she read The House on Mango Street, which deals with a young girl's experience in the Latino section of Chicago. “I didn't know that Latinos wrote books,” she said, “and that they had experiences like mine.”
The curriculum also includes community-based folklore and assignments that incorporate parents and other family members and mentors as sources for research activity. One activity focuses on dichos, meaning proverbs in Spanish. Dichos are important in Latino culture because they serve as guidelines for appropriate behavior and demonstrate life lessons. A teacher might ask a student to bring a favorite dicho to class and discuss its meaning. This is a wonderful opportunity for critically analyzing both language and culture.
Puente teachers receive several weeks of training each year in Latino literature, cultural awareness, the writing process, teaching in heterogeneous classrooms, and portfolio assessment. Although some of this training is provided during a summer institute, teachers receive continual instruction throughout the school year at regularly scheduled one- and two-day workshops.
Mentoring
A community mentor liaison seeks out appropriate mentors from the community, trains them, and matches them to students in the program. Mentors represent successful individuals in various occupations, such as teachers, lawyers, doctors, engineers, scientists, and businesspeople. The mentor liaison also works with the counselor to plan and arrange appropriate activities for mentors and students, such as attending a concert or community cultural event as a group.
Mentors are encouraged to maintain relationships with students for a minimum of two years, during which time they should meet monthly with students, either individually or in groups. Mentors are also urged to meet with the students' families, preferably in the student's homes. Most students believe that it is important for mentors to communicate with parents, so mentors generally need to be able to speak Spanish. As one young man noted, “It's important to me that my mentor explain to my parents the things I need to do to go to college.”
The mentoring component of Puente now includes a peer partners program, which pairs 9th graders—and eventually 10th graders—with 11th or 12th graders who serve as high school guides. The peer partners program also provides an opportunity for younger students to meet with older Puente students in a closely monitored and structured environment. One 9th grader would often meet his peer partner in the morning before school started. Being seen with an older student gave him status at school and provided him with a sense of belonging that was crucial as he adjusted to high school.
Counseling
The counseling component is, in many ways, the heart of the Puente program. Counselors each have approximately 240 students across two high school sites, less than one-third the normal load for a counselor in a California high school. The counselor ensures that students are placed in college preparatory classes, that any academic deficiencies are quickly addressed, and that students have the information necessary to prepare for postsecondary education. Counselors also participate in some Puente classroom activities, such as a planned writing experience or a session on university admission requirements. Counselors arrange for college visits, field trips, and parent/mentor meetings and events. Most oversee the Puente Club—an extramural organization in which students get together for social events that support their college preparatory activities, such as car washes and bake sales to help finance field trips.
An important objective of High School Puente is strengthening the identity of the students so they feel empowered—not disadvantaged—by their Latino heritage. The program emphasizes the importance of pairing students with Latino counselors. Drawing from their own experiences, these counselors can explain to students how they successfully navigated the road from high school to college to career.
Key Findings
To test the effectiveness of Puente in preparing students for postsecondary education, we collected survey data during a four-year period on 2,000 students—approximately 1,000 Puente students across California and 1,000 non-Puente students (half of whom were Latino) who were enrolled in the same classes as the Puente students. We asked these students about their aspirations, their attitudes toward school, and their preparation for postsecondary education. (Findings for this large data set are reported in Gándara, 2002.) We also followed a matched group of 75 Puente students and 75 non-Puente Latino students through the four years of high school. These students were matched on age, gender, socioeconomic status, and 8th grade reading scores and grade point averages. At the end of 12th grade, 144 students remained in the sample. Examining the college-going patterns for these students who looked almost exactly alike at the point of entry into high school, we found that the Puente students from the class of 1998 attended four-year colleges in much larger numbers—43 percent—than did students from the non-Puente group, whose attendance rate was only 24 percent. A final data collection in 2000 located 62 students (31 Puente, 31 non-Puente) from the original sample who had enrolled in college: Seventy-five percent of the Puente students were continuing in college, compared with 55 percent of the non-Puente students.
- The counselor influenced how hard they worked in school. Puente: 49 percent agreed; non-Puente: 16 percent agreed.
- The counselor influenced their decision to go to college. Puente: 58 percent agreed; non-Puente: 22 percent agreed.
- The teacher influenced their decision to go to college. Puente: 37 percent agreed; non-Puente: 23 percent agreed.
- The counselor influenced their goals. Puente: 34 percent agreed; non-Puente: 18 percent agreed.
- By 12th grade, they had all the information they needed to apply to college. Puente: 82 percent agreed; non-Puente: 59 percent agreed.
These data suggest that Puente teachers and counselors—and the consistency of their impact over time—are invaluable components of the program.
There is also evidence that some of the Puente program's results may be due to students maintaining primary friendships at school. School friendships are an important indicator of student engagement, and they reduce the likelihood that students will drop out. One of the objectives of the program is to build a cohort of students who support one another and who have high expectations both for themselves and for others in the program. The program appears to have met that objective: Forty-two percent of Puente students—compared with 32 percent of non-Puente students—reported having the same close friends throughout high school. A significant portion of the Puente students—two-thirds—also indicated that they “hung out” with other Puente students at school.
Going Forward
Students' academic trajectories are set early in the school years (Barr & Dreeben, 1983). For the great majority of students, year-to-year performance is highly predictable—in part because students are relatively consistent in their performance and in part because institutions respond to specific students in consistent ways. The statewide sample of 2,000 students highlighted the differences in Latino and non-Latino students' experiences with schooling. Nonetheless, Puente students had significantly better outcomes than their non-Puente peers did: They applied to and attended four-year colleges at nearly double the rate of the non-Puente students who began high school with comparable grades and test scores.
Judging from the discussions we have observed in Puente classrooms, the program has opened Latino students up to new possibilities and insights. Perhaps these students will find more enjoyment in reading. Perhaps they will become more skilled at analyzing complex issues. And perhaps this instruction will bear fruit in Puente students' college performance.
