Organizations Aim To Topple Hispanics' Educational Barriers

Hispanics are the fastest growing minority group in the United States, predicted to reach about 15 percent of the population within the next two years. But these numbers are not reflected in the percentages of Hispanic students in college and graduate school. As debate swirls over what is causing Hispanic students to drop out of the educational system, several organizations are working to increase the numbers of Hispanic students in the pipeline to science programs in four-year colleges, as well as to increase the ranks of those going on to graduate or professional schools. Despite seemingly overwhelming odds, some of these groups have managed to achieve a notable degree of success. The U.S. Hispanic population is ethnically diverse, consisting of Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, South Americans and people from the Caribbean and Spain, whose socioeconomic and even medical problems differ. "Every one of our disciplines should reflect that diversity," states Beltran Navarro, a consultant and Latino advocate in Baltimore. But the educational barriers that face young Hispanics are vast, notes microbiologist John F. Alderete of the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. He cites a series of barriers-what he calls "variables" (see Commentary on page 8)-that prevent Hispanic students from achieving in school: poverty, poor health, single parenthood, out-of-wedlock births, environmental toxicity, domestic violence, and a lack of mentoring support for those students who do reach college. Other significant barriers include a lack of knowledge of English and families who have had little or no formal education. PARENTAL OUTREACH: ASPIRA's Al Staropoli notes that his group helps Latino parents become involved in their children's education. Alderete and others are not optimistic that the nation can change fast enough to offer opportunities for Hispanics. But activists like Al Staropoli, manager of math and science programs for ASPIRA, a national organization based in Washington, D.C., working to develop education and leadership in young Latinos and Puerto Ricans, see hopeful signs. "Over the last five years, the number of Hispanic managers in medicine and health has quadrupled," he points out. President Clinton has announced an education initiative that would put $200 million in the 1999 budget to aid Hispanic students (C. Georges, Wall Street Journal, Jan. 13, 1998, page A3). A report by the American Council on Education (ACE) notes that "the Hispanic college-age population has grown by 62 percent during the past 10 years, and by 31 percent since 1990" (D.J. Carter, R. Wilson, Minorities in Higher Education. 1996-97 Fifteenth Annual Status Report. Washington, D.C., ACE, April 1997). While a sizable number of Hispanics are old enough to go to college, few are getting there. In 1995, 58.6 percent of all Hispanics between the ages of 18 and 24 had completed high school, compared with nearly 77 percent of African Americans and 82 percent of whites in the same age group, according to data summarized by ACE. The figures aren't all disheartening. More Hispanics are enrolled in two- and four-year colleges than ever before. ACE reports that between 1984 and 1995, Hispanic college enrollment increased 104.4 percent, greater than that for any minority group except Asian Americans (with whom there was a tenth of a percentage point difference). During the same period, Hispanics' total graduate school enrollment increased 112.6 percent, and their professional school enrollment jumped 72.9 percent. Between 1985 and 1994, they achieved a 72.2 percent increase in numbers of biological sciences bachelor's degrees received, a 139.9 percent increase in master's degrees in the health professions, and a 64 percent increase in doctoral degrees in life sciences. But this translates to only 332 Hispanics receiving life sciences Ph.D.'s in 1995, the same number granted the year before. And in 1995, Hispanics earned 13.1 percent fewer doctorates in the physical sciences than they did in 1994. Figures show that Hispanics who pursue higher education tend to go into the social sciences and the humanities. In 1995-96, nearly 34 percent of all Hispanic full-time undergraduate faculty were in these two fields; only about 4 percent each were in biology or the physical sciences. 'COMPASSION' NEEDED: Cornell's Eloy Rodriguez laments that young Hispanic students are not being adequately supported. The pipeline problem-how to keep Hispanics in school and, once they are in school, encourage them to continue into college-is particularly evident in scientific fields. States Eloy Rodriguez, a professor of biology at Cornell University, who works extensively with minority youngsters, "It's tough to strive when a system lacks compassion and does not care to infuse young minds with the passion of learning, critical thinking, and writing." "Basically, it boils down to language," contends Erendira Rangel-Palacios, a young chemistry teacher at San Diego's Southwest High School. Her fall 1995 master's thesis at San Diego State University addressed the effect of students' ethnic group and language spoken on their propensity to take the high school biology, chemistry, and physics courses required for college entrance. To graduate high school in California, students must be able to complete a writing sample. Her school, near the Mexican border, educates "many newcomers." Because the stress is on being able to complete the writing sample acceptably, they focus on English language courses and take easy courses in their other subjects, including science, she notes. Alderete explains that the demands of living in poverty are a major impediment to educational success for many Hispanics. Increased health problems, including greater rates of sexually transmitted diseases, cancers, and infectious diseases, mitigate against academic achievement, as do the greater likelihood of living in environments contaminated by toxins (see Opinion on page 7). "When you've got crisis management in the health of people, how can you expect them to take honors classes?" he asks. Staropoli sees the lack of access to technology by minorities as a major problem. He cites a 1995 study by the Office of Technology Assessment that reported on computer resources available to schools (Teachers and Technology: Making the Connection, Washington, D.C., OTA, 1995; page 100). "In [middle] schools with less than 4 percent minority enrollments, there is one computer for every 14 students, while in schools with more than 24 percent minority enrollment, there is one computer for every 18 students," he states. "This may not seem significant unless you are one of the four students who doesn't have regular access to a computer." All of these factors mitigate against Hispanic youth entering college at all, let alone deciding to become scientists. It's even harder to induce young Hispanic women to enter science, says Angela Ginorio, director of the Northwest Center for Research on Women at the University of Washington, Seattle. "In working at the high school level, we have found we need to sell the idea to the parents, especially for girls, that science is a possibility for their child-a desirable possibility for their child." She adds that some Hispanic families might view a young woman's choice of a scientific career as transforming her into "a non-Latina, non-woman." Cornell's Rodriguez agrees with Ginorio that parental involvement is essential for academic success. However, he explains, "Parents-many of whom do not have junior high or high school degrees-must be taught how to assist their children in the excitement of learning, critical thinking, reading, and writing." Once in college, the student faces new hurdles. Ginorio explains that Latino and Native American students need to feel like part of a community, especially in science, to succeed. For Puerto Rican and Mexican students, she continues, "the sense of belonging to a community and the sense of how their family fits into the community" are important. Students from rural communities, many of whom know no one who had graduated from college, need "affirmation from that one person who has gone already," a role model from their own culture and socioeconomic class, Ginorio states. David Burgess, chairman of the biological sciences department at the University of Pittsburgh, recently wrote several articles on barriers to minority students entering graduate school (D.R. Burgess, Chronicle of Higher Education, Oct. 10, 1997, page B7; D.R. Burgess, Journal of NIH Research, 9:17, 1997). He contends that a community of peer mentors is crucial. Although good mentors may be of any race, it is important for minorities to see "graduate students of color as teaching assistants" and "faculty of color teaching their science courses," he says. Yet, the academic system does not reward faculty for their work in recruiting minorities, but rather rewards them based on their research, thus providing little motivation for faculty to mentor minority students. BRIDGE PROGRAM: High school chemistry teacher Erendira Rangel-Palacios mentors Hispanic students who aim to go to college. Despite the difficulties, there are opportunities for Hispanics to continue their education. San Diego's Southwest High School, where Rangel-Palacios teaches, has a successful program called Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID). "Many of our students come into the school in ninth grade with no thought of going to college, and by graduation are headed for University of California [at] San Diego, Berkeley, etc.," says Rochelle Wolf, Southwest's math department chairwoman. The four-year colleges of the University of California have a bridge program with some of the community colleges in the state system. Rangel-Palacios says that students have a list of courses they must take and know what grades they need in order to enter the four-year school. These programs also work with students on four-year college admission. Pittsburgh's Burgess applauds these actions: "I think that's where the efforts have to be-on these bridging programs between community colleges and research universities." Several programs have been set up to reach Latino parents. Project PRISM (Partners for Reform in Science and Math) is a series of videos and other Spanish language educational materials presented to parents in three workshops: math and science at home, math and science at school, and math and science in the community, explains ASPIRA's Staropoli. These materials-developed in concert with the National Council of La Raza, a Washington, D.C.-based Hispanic advocacy group, along with the National Urban League and funded by the St. Davids, Pa.- based Annenberg Foundation-are to impress upon parents the value of math and science education, and "how to get involved in math and science at home," adds Staropoli. Other organizations, such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Lawrence Hall of Science, a public science museum at University of California, Berkeley, have developed bilingual materials for bringing mathematics from the school to the family. The ASPIRA Parents for Educational Excellence Program (APEX), according to Staropoli, "reaches out to Latino parents who desire to become involved in their children's education but may not be sure where to start." It teaches parents about the school system and how to communicate with it, among other skills. Approximately 1,000 low-income, urban Hispanic parents have gone through the program nationally, Staropoli says. For information on the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Minority Ph.D. Program, which includes undergraduate research support, contact Ted Greenwood at (212) 649- 1645. Fax: (212) 757-5117. E-mail: Greenwood@sloan.org. Statistics on graduate students' race, sex, and citizenship are available from the National Science Foundation at: http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs. Project PRISM maintains a Web site: http://www.kyprism.org. Additional reading: Beating the Odds: How the Poor Get to College, by Arthur Levine and Jana Nidiffer (San Francisco, Jossey-Bass Inc., 1996). Over the Ivy Walls: The Educational Mobility of Low Income Chicanos, by Patricia C. Gandara (Albany, N.Y., State University of New York Press, 1995). The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in New York helps to fill the pipeline of minority students moving from undergraduate to Ph.D. programs. The foundation supports both undergraduate and graduate education for minority students through its Minority Ph.D. Program. "Our objective is to increase the number of underrepresented minority students getting Ph.D.'s in science and engineering [including mathematics] by 100 a year," states program officer Ted Greenwood. The foundation also works to increase the number of minority undergraduates feeding into graduate schools through support of undergraduate departments that have a record of "sending a significant number of their graduates on for Ph.D.'s," he says. The University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez, as well as the University of New Mexico and New Mexico State University, which both have significant numbers of Hispanic students, have entered the program. In their graduate program, the foundation will work with individual faculty members, faculty groups, and, on occasion, departments, and will fund up to $30,000, which the faculty member may use in any way he or she wishes. "Most or all goes directly to the student in one way or another," says Greenwood. This money is not for a graduate department to take on additional students, but to ease the burden of the department in funding one underrepresented-minority student. Pittsburgh's Burgess believes that increasing numbers of minority graduate students requires changes within the structure and function of universities. He made a number of suggestions in his article in the Chronicle of Higher Education. He recommends pay raises or added teaching assistantships for departments that increase minority admissions and recruiting locally (rather than overseas as, he claims, many departments do). He also urges scientists to become personally involved in the outreach effort, spending "a week or two at colleges and universities that enroll large proportions of minority students" to discuss science, give career advice, and aid in applying to graduate programs. He further suggests that scientists do long-distance mentoring, if necessary, of promising undergraduate students at other schools. Is Clinton's proposed $200 million likely to help the situation? "Hopefully, the community itself and leaders of the community will have more input into the implementation dealing with education, dealing with policy, or dealing with health," says Latino advocate Navarro. He points out that people in the Latino community usually do not have access to the politicians and decision-makers. Without that access, he contends, the community has no control on how funds are spent.

Organizations Aim To Topple Hispanics' Educational Barriers

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