THREE YEAR REPORT

Latino High School Youth in Indianapolis: The El Puente Project in Retrospect May 2001-June 2004

JosĂŠ R. Rosario Professor of Education Felipe Vargas Research Assistant Center for Urban and Multicultural Education School of Education Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis 902 West New York Street Indianapolis, IN 46202

December 2004

Acknowledgements

Mounting demonstration projects are challenging and exciting. They are also labor intensive and require ample resources to design and implement. But the results are surely rewarding, for those who are served as well as for those who serve. As in all worthy projects, one can never write about them without acknowledging the contributions of all those who a hand in co-constructing them. In the case of El Puente, the hands were many and the names numerous and important: Sister Marikay Duffy, Executive Director, Hispanic Education Center; Khaula Murtadha, Executive Dean, School of Education, Indiana University-Indianapolis; Christine Wedam-Rosario, Project Associate, El Puente Project; Richar Torres, Student Development Coordinator, El Puente Project; Ernesto Herrera, Student Development Coordinator, El Puente Project; Nora Ramirez, Family Development Coordinator, El Puente Project; Rita Cano, Family Development Coordinator, El Puente Project; Maura Pereira, Community Resource Coordinator, El Puente Project; Matthew Iobst, Research Assistant, El Puente Project; Felipe Vargas, Research Assistant, El Puente Project; Mr. Roy Simpson, Principal, Northwest High School; Ms. Peggy Clark, Principal, Arsenal Technical High School; Ms. Dorian Pinner, Assistant Principal, Northwest High School; Ms. Sylvia Schneirov, Counselor, Arsenal Technical High School; and Ms. Marilee Updike, Director, ENL/Bilingual Program, Indianapolis Public Schools.

Also important and not too numerous to mention either are the donors who saw value in our work and gave generously of their resources to support it: The Annie E. Casey Foundation; Bank One; Central Indiana Foundation; Effroymson Fund; Hoover Family Foundation; Irwin Mortage; Lumina Foundation for Education; Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust; and State Farm. Without these benefactors, all those already named, and the many volunteers who at one time or another gave willingly of their time, energy, and resources to support activities, El Puente would never have touched the life of the students and families to whom it was committed to serving. The students and families brought vibrancy and hope to our efforts, and for that we are also truly grateful.

Contents

Executive Summary............................................................................................................ 1 Introduction.........................................................................................................................3 I Background.......................................................................................................................5 II The Project......................................................................................................................11 III Project Outcomes..........................................................................................................18 IV Conclusions and Recommendations.............................................................................24 References..........................................................................................................................31

Executive Summary

Currently, Latinos are significantly underrepresented on college campuses in Indiana and the nation, and the gap is likely to grow if the pattern continues. According to the Educational Testing Service (1999), the education gap between Latino and non-Latino White youth can be closed “if we increase college participation among Hispanic youth by 10 percentage points” (p. 10). El Puente, which is Spanish for “the bridge,” was launched in May 2001 in response to this call.

El Puente was envisioned as a community-based project of the Hispanic Education Center (HEC) in Indianapolis, Indiana, and the Center for Urban and Multicultural Education (CUME), a unit of the School of Education at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI). As CUME’s primary partner, HEC provided the personnel and technical support needed to develop, implement, evaluate, and institutionalize El Puente. Working closely with HEC as co-partners and serving primarily as project sites were Arsenal Technical High School, Northwest High School, and the three middle schools feeding Arsenal and Northwest: Harshman, Gambold, and Washington. The other partners included Harmony School Service Learning Demonstration Project, the IU Center for the Study of Global Change, and IES (Institúto de Enseñanza Secundaria) La Madraza, a sister secondary school in Granada, Spain.

El Puente was premised on a belief in social justice. It rightly assumed that to ensure the development of social and human capital within the Latino community, Latino youth must be assured fair and equal access to educational opportunity. The project aimed to retain immigrant and non-immigrant Latino youth in high school, encourage them to graduate, and prepare them to pursue a post-secondary education.

El Puente was designed to support as many as 200 high school students and their families with comprehensive services embodied in four major components: youth leadership, academic preparation, parent involvement, and cultural and global awareness. In youth leadership, the aim was to convince students that they had a powerful role to play in shaping their own lives. We sought to engage them in recognizing and valuing the advantages of developing one’s full potential, owning up to one’s rights and responsibilities, demonstrating respect for oneself and others, and contributing to the development of one’s community through service to others. Overall, we envisioned empowering high school Latinos to empower themselves.

Academic preparation and cultural and global awareness were meant to complement leadership development by expecting and rewarding scholarly achievement, graduation from and learning beyond high school, and understanding and appreciating human diversity in language and culture. Parental involvement was intended to support and reinforce the other three. Without the mobilization and active participation of parents, not just at home but also at school, not much else would matter—or at least that is what we believed and how we reasoned.

During its three-year demonstration phase, El Puente reached 201 families, slightly more than it projected.

Approximately 140 of these families were connected to the target high schools (Arsenal Technical and Northwest), and 61 were connected to the target middle schools (Harshman and Gambold). This total represented 6 % of the total Hispanic students enrolled in the Indianapolis Public School District (3571); 41% of the total Hispanic students in the target high schools (345); and 32% of the total Hispanic students in the middle schools (193).

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All students who reached their senior year while in the project graduated, and most went on to pursue a college education. In 2003, all ten El Puente seniors graduated, three with honors. Of the ten, five enrolled at Ivy Technical College in Indianapolis, one returned to Mexico to work, one started a family, and three were working to save resources to enroll at Ivy Tech, whose changes in residency requirements made it more affordable for nonpermanent residents.

In 2004, twenty graduated. Of the twenty, four went on to private universities, four to four-year public universities, eleven to two-year technical schools, and one went to work. While only one of the graduates qualified for financial aid, ten received modest scholarships from private sources. Most, however, went to work full-time to cover costs.

As “lessons” from the experience, the project advances the following propositions as guides to programs aimed at improving the education of Latino youth: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Identify needs and abilities of Latino students early.

Highly structured activities work best.

Volunteer tutors have limited effectiveness.

Have clear standards.

Work closely with school personnel.

Communicate with and help parents network.

Establish communities of support.

Organize and mobilize school design teams.

Working with first generation immigrant families is labor intensive.

While important, home visits may not be sustainable in the long-term.

Give students and parents a voice in program matters.

Hold family events on weekends.

Latino students must be coaxed to engage opportunities.

Employ bilingual professionals.

Weave evaluation into project activities to ensure “best practice.”

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Introduction

This report documents the story of the El Puente Project (the bridge), a three-year demonstration effort that aimed to build on “best practice” in the retention of Latino youth in public schools. Based in Indianapolis, Indiana, El Puente brought together the Hispanic Education Center (HEC), a 501(c)(3) community-based organization, and the Center for Urban and Multicultural Education (CUME), a unit of the School of Education at Indiana University Purdue University in Indianapolis. The partnership sought to engage Latino youth academically in school and socially in community life. In reporting on the project, our objective is simply to add another perspective to the emerging literature on what works best to retain Latino youth in school and prepare them better as they struggle to attain a post-secondary education.

Dropping Out Among Latino Youth The most common statistic for calculating the school dropout rate in the United States is the “status dropout rate.” This rate “represents the fraction of a population in a given age bracket [16- to 19-year-olds] that has not completed high school and is not enrolled in school” (Fry, 2003, p. 2). The rate is perhaps the most accurate reading of how many 16- to 19-year olds in the nation have completed high school. When applied to Latinos educated in the U.S., this measure brings mixed news, some of it good, some of it bad.

In keeping with the trend for all ethnic groups, the Latino dropout rate fell in the 1990s, from 21.6 percent in 1990 to 21.0 in 2000. That is the good news. The bad news is that Latinos are still more likely to drop out than other youths. In 2000, 21 percent of 16- to 19-year-old Latinos were dropouts, as compared to 8 percent of white youth and 12 percent of African American youth. Latino dropouts also increased in absolute numbers, from 347,000 to 529,000, an increase of 52 percent. Fry (op. cit.) sums up the problem this way: Even after removing the immigrants educated abroad from the calculations, Latino youth in U.S. schools are at a disadvantage compared to their peers in other ethnic and racial groups. The dropout rate of 15 percent for U.S.-educated 16- to 19-year-old Latino youth is higher than the comparable rate for African- Americans, 12 percent, and since the estimated dropout rate for white youth is 8 percent, Latino youth educated in the U.S. are about twice as likely to drop out of school as their white peers. (p.7) Another piece of this mixed puzzle is that immigrant Latinos educated in the U.S. are much less likely to drop out. While the dropout rate for all immigrant Latinos is 34%, the dropout rate for immigrant Latinos educated in the U.S. is 18%. For those educated abroad, the rate is 90%. Overall, foreign-born Latinos fare worse than native-born Latinos. Compared to the 18% rate for foreign-born Latinos, for example, the rate for nativeborn Latinos is 14%. But among the foreign-born educated in the U.S., Latinos of Mexican descent rank highest.

About 40% of immigrant 16- to 19-year-olds of Mexican descent are dropouts. This is much worse than the 13 percent dropout rate among immigrants from South America.

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On What Works for Latinos Much has been written in recent years about the kinds of programs that work to retain Latinos in school through their high school years (see, for example, Lockwood & Secada, 1999; Siobhan & Ramos; White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans, 2000; Santiago & Brown, 2004). What works for Latino youth, according to these reports, are programs that: • • • • • •

have adequate funding and provide comprehensive services, including case management; provide services in Spanish and consciously and explicitly incorporate Latino cultures into the program; actively involve parents in the academic experiences of their children, value parents as an asset and a resource, and are sensitive to family circumstances and traditions; explicitly provide tools and opportunities for youth development and involve youth in the process; have a dedicated and professional staff with a significant Latino presence; involve the community as a support system to help youth achieve their goals.

Bermudez and Marquez (1996) have also shed some light on why many school programs typically do not work for Latinos. Arguing that “culturally and linguistically diverse families remain alienated from the school system,” they include in their roster of barriers such factors as “(a) lack of English language skills, (b) lack of understanding of the home-school partnership, (c) lack of understanding of the school system, (d) lack of confidence, (e) work interference, (f) negative past experiences with schools, and (g) insensitivity and hostility on the part of school personnel” (p. 3).

About this report This report is based on information collected during the course of El Puente’s development, mobilization, and implementation. While much of our data was obtained through observations, interviews, field notes, program application materials, and other project-related documents, some of it came by request from the Indianapolis public school district. All data were gathered and retrieved by the Hispanic Education Center with technical assistance from the Center for Urban and Multicultural Center.

There are four major sections to this document. The first section provides background to situating the project against a broader context and describe the origins of the project and the partners who contributed to the effort. In Section II, we turn to the project itself to lay out its mission, its constituent components, the pilot schools, the characteristics of the population served, and how the project was organized, managed, and staffed.

In Sections III and IV, the focus is on project implementation and project outcomes respectively. Treatment of lessons learned from El Puente is provided in Section V.

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I Background

El Puente emerged at a time when the Latino population in the Indianapolis metropolitan area has been growing rapidly, and the public schools have been struggling to respond appropriately. When the project was launched, the Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) were experiencing a growth rate of over 200% in the number of Latino students enrolled. Eight Indianapolis elementary schools were reporting a Latino population of 20% to 40% of the student body. In this section, we provide some historical perspective to this emerging presence of Latinos in Indianapolis. We also broaden the discussion to describe the project’s origins.

Latinos in Indianapolis Latinos have been coming to Indianapolis at least since the latter part of the nineteenth century (Guthrie, Briere, and Moore, 1995). The earliest known recorded evidence of a Latino presence in Indianapolis is the 1870 census, which reported fourteen “foreign-born” residents believed to be of Hispanic background living in the city. While half were from Cuba, Mexico, and Spain, the others were from the West Indies and Central and South America (Ibid., p.1).

By 1910, the fourteen immigrants recorded in 1870 had grown to thirty-three. They were twelve Mexicans, six Spaniards, six Central and South Americans, and fifteen Cubans and West Indians. Guthrie et al. (op.cit.) also report on “an undetermined number of Puerto Ricans classified as native-born rather than foreign-born” (p. 2). In 1970, over 6,700 Latinos were reported to be living in the greater Indianapolis area.

The largest boom in Indianapolis’ Latino population came between 1990 and 2000. In 2000, for example, 16 percent (33, 290) of Latinos in Indiana were living in Marion County, an increase of 394% since 1990.

Approximately 92 % or 30,636 were living in the city proper. Of those, 21,053 or 69% reported being of Mexican descent. The rest were Puerto Rican (6%), Cuban (1%), or “other” (24%). This is a population composed mostly of newcomers. Of the 29,638 who claim Spanish as their primary language, 15,728 (53%) speak English less than “very well” (U.S. Census Bureau, 2004).

For the most part, Latinos have come to Indianapolis to work and be with family. Prior to World War I, besides fleeing revolution in Mexico, many were lured by the attractive jobs created by Eli Lilly’s expansion into Latin America. The majority of the others came to satisfy American labor shortages via the federal bracero programs during World War II. After World War II, rising opportunities for more fruitful employment was the stimulus for a large number of them. Migrant work in the fields, meat packing plants, the manufacturing industry, construction jobs, and growing opportunities in the hotel and tourism industry and other sectors of the city’s booming service economy account for much of the migration we are experiencing today.

With the founding of the Mexican Social Club in 1958, Latinos in the city began to make their presence known. There are few indications prior to 1958 of widespread awareness, even within the Latino population itself, that Latinos were growing in the city. The arrival of Cuban refugees throughout the 1960s contributed significantly to increasing awareness, and, before long, other organizations emerged in response to the challenges posed by a growing and vibrant community. Today, there are multiple public and private agencies, religious organizations, community-based groups, radio stations, and print media outlets serving Latinos in the Indianapolis metropolitan area.

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Origins of the El Puente Project

In 1998, with a small grant from the Indiana Campus Compact (ICC), the Center for Urban and Multicultural Education (CUME), a unit of the School of Education (SOE) at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), launched a community engagement project that ultimately led to the development of El Puente. CUME, originally created in 1979 to assist school districts in matters related to desegregation and social integration, turned its attention in 1998 to issues of community engagement and school reform after about ten years of inactivity. As an outgrowth of that shift in mission, the ICC project represented CUME’s new approach to urban school reform: to mobilize resources to support neighborhood groups and/or community-based organizations (CBO’s) interested in rebuilding community support for educational improvement. The project was an opportunity for CUME to enhance its catalytic role in school reform and community development.

The ICC project called for the assignment of an SOE faculty member to Arsenal Technical High School, one of the five high schools in the Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS), to collaborate with school personnel on how best to meet the needs of Latino students by engaging CBOs in the process. At the time, no other high school in the district had more Latino students than Tech.

Most of the Latino students at Tech were immigrants or “newcomers,” with about 63% of them enrolled in the district’s ENL/Bilingual program. Chief among the complaints of school personnel concerning these newcomers was that less than 10% of those who enrolled were graduating. So there was considerable interest within the school in figuring out how to reach, retain, and graduate more of these recent arrivals.

In 1998, Tech served over 2,500 students (most of whom--close to 65%--were Black) and offered no fewer than thirteen areas of academic study and six magnet/options programs. Students also had access to twelve interscholastic sports and close to sixty student clubs and organizations. About 175 full-time teachers were employed at the school. There was also a core administrative staff consisting of the principal, three assistant principals, a curriculum core director, seven guidance counselors, and three social workers. The project’s contribution to this administrative structure was to create a coordinating body or design team responsible for serving Latino students and for dealing primarily with retention issues. This design team consisted of ten members: one of the assistant principals, three of the counselors, three of the social workers, the ENL teacher, a bilingual specialist, and the IUPUI faculty member, who served as the team’s convener.

By early June, 1999, when the design team had its last meeting, only four of the members were left: the assistant principal, one counselor, the ENL teacher, the bilingual specialist, and the IUPUI faculty member. In one respect, this kind of attrition was natural, in that those who remained were the ones most directly involved in project activities. From another perspective, however, this loss in membership was emblematic of how student retention was viewed in the school. Student retention at Tech was not seen as a collective problem. The problem fell to counseling and social work, and that is why counselors and social workers composed most of the membership of the committee. But as the project unfolded, it became increasingly associated with only those members of the committee with institutional connection to the Latino population (such as the ENL teacher, the bilingual specialist, and the counselor to whom the Latino students were assigned). Members with no direct connection to the population, therefore, gradually stopped coming to coordinating sessions.

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For the most part, the design team functioned well, and, while members never assessed in any systematic way the impact of project activities, since the project had neither the time nor the resources to conduct a systematic evaluation, they were able to sense, from informal observations, interviews, and conversations with students and other school staff, that the activities had created excitement and interest among Latino students, who seemed proud and eager to connect with school and community activities. Furthermore, the team’s efforts led to four outcomes that helped set the stage for a much larger project: (1) a student survey; (2) the creation of Club Latino, a student-led organization; (3) a cross-cultural exchange initiative; and the (4) development of connections with the Hispanic Education Center (HEC).

Student Survey Among the first issues the design team addressed at its first planning session was the lack of reliable data on the school’s Latino population. No one seemed to know with any precision how many students there really were, what they were like, and what they thought about the school. So we agreed to design and administer a survey to those students identified as Latino by either surname and/or enrollment in ENL.1 Of the 47 students identified through this process, only one did not see himself as Latino. The survey found fewer students than a number of committee members believed existed, which was closer to 100. The survey, which was administered in Spanish to those students with limited English proficiency, consisted of 38 items, and it took approximately 45 minutes to administer. Although strong efforts were made to survey every student, only 33 or 70% of the total completed the survey.

After tabulating the results, the team decided to engage the students in a conversation about what they seemed to be saying. To facilitate discussion, the findings were reduced to twenty statements as shown in Table 1 These were then shared with the students during a one-hour “rap” session.

Considerable discussion followed the presentation of these statements, with much of it centered on the students’ lack of engagement in school and community life. Although students confirmed their reported disengagement, they were also quick to explain why. While some cited personal characteristics, such as shyness and fear, others pointed to the need to generate income and care for younger siblings at home. Still others thought laziness and peer pressure contributed to their lack of involvement.

When they were asked what it would take to integrate them more into the life of the school and the community, they were just as quick to tell us what they thought. For some time, they argued, a number of them had been requesting a club or an organization they could call their own, but no one had responded. School personnel present at the session confirmed the claim. But they also alluded to the students’ past failure to follow through with the sort of commitments and requirements that the creation of such an organization in the school demanded.

In the view of staff, any school-sponsored group needed to have an academic-related mission. Organizing for purely social reasons was not a sufficiently compelling reason.

As was typical of them when confronted by school personnel with views contrary to their own, students neither confirmed nor denied what they heard. But when asked whether they were prepared to work within the framework of school policy to establish a student group, several students were nominated and selected to steer the formation process. This agreement was reached at the discussion session in early October. By early November 1999, the students had established an organization with the assistance of the ENL teacher, the bilingual specialist, and their academic counselor.

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TABLE 1. Synthesis of Survey Findings Reported by Tech Latino Students

1.

Most of you are here because either you were born here or your parents came to work here.

2.

Almost all of you have been in Indianapolis for more than a year.

3.

Most of you came to Indianapolis with your parents.

4.

Most of you live with your families or relatives.

5.

Most of you speak both English and Spanish at home. Some of you speak only Spanish, and some speak only English.

6.

Most of you have never been left back in school.

7.

Almost all of you have attended public schools in the U.S., with most attending public schools in Indianapolis.

8.

Most of you came to Tech after middle school.

9.

Most of you like being at Tech and there are three main reasons why: --you feel safe.

--there are others like you here.

--you feel teachers care about you.

10.

The main reasons you give for not liking Tech are: --lack of discipline --too much work.

--not enough computers.

11.

Almost all of you are here because you want to get ahead: --you want to go to college.

--you want to get a good job.

--you want to get a trade.

12.

Since you are here because you want to get ahead, you also tell us that you want to do well.

13.

The biggest worry for most of you is failing your subjects and not graduating.

14.

Your problems right now are very different. Some of you worry because you don’t know what to do after high school. Others don’t find school work interesting. And still others have family responsibilities.

15.

According to most of you, Tech has two main problems right now: --students don’t respect teachers.

--gangs and drugs.

16.

You would like Tech more if there were more students like you. Other reasons you give are students who cared more about school, less and easier school work, and more security.

17.

The things Tech can do to make you like the school more fall into three groups: --support and care for you more.

--bother you less.

--give less work.

18.

Very few of you are involved in a school club or organization. Those who are involved are involved in sports or JROTC. 19.

After school, almost all of you either go to work or go home to do homework, watch television, or hangout with friends. You are not very much involved in school or community activities. During the weekend, almost all of you are involved in personal or family activities. Almost none of you are involved in school or community activities.

20.

You like to help others in the community through teaching or service.

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Club Latino The students construed their new club, christened Club Latino, as a service-oriented organization dedicated to the promotion of intercultural understanding, community development, and Latino student retention in school.

The students’ first opportunity to share this mission in a public way came when members were invited to appear on “Indianapolis Habla Espanol,” a live program on WAV TV 53 aimed at the local Latino community. For this occasion, Club Latino was linked to the Latino Student Association (LSA) at IUPUI, and two members from that organization accompanied two students representing Club Latino to the television interview. The linkage proved useful, for the LSA later organized a shadowing activity which brought for the first time fifteen Club Latino students to the IUPUI campus during Hispanic Heritage month.

The club’s second outreach venture developed as a result of an invitation members received to participate in a Youth as Resources of Central Indiana (YARCI) initiative called “Youth Campaign for Healthy Choices.”

This opportunity developed from a workshop that the Director of YAR conducted at Tech at the request of the design team, which was interested in linking YAR to the retention efforts. Although at first the idea was to target only Latino students, the decision was made to open the workshop to all interested students.

A program of United Way Community Service Council, YARCI is a youth development program that provides small grants on a competitive basis to youth groups that want to implement volunteer community service learning projects. The YARCI grant Club Latino pursued was awarded under a non-competitive program open to only five organizations. For the grant, club members agreed to reach out to middle and elementary school students to motivate them to take a stand against drug abuse and for a healthier life. Two Latino Club members were later selected to sit on the YARCI board.

Club Latino was also included in a proposal submitted to the Indiana Department of Education for support of a service learning project. Under this initiative, ENL and Latino Club students were mobilized to develop a Civic Learning Center that engaged them in the provision of services to the Tech Spanish speaking community. Students tutored younger students; provided child care to parents attending school-related activities; and disseminated information about civil rights, school policies, access to health services, and preparation of tax returns.

Cross-cultural Exchange This effort emerged from an interest on the part of the design team to explore cultural exchange as a school retention strategy. Typically, students who are at risk of dropping out lack access to cross-cultural exchange programs, which tend to be highly selective and open only to college-bound students with high grade point averages in language and international programs. What if these kinds of opportunities were accessible to underrepresented at risk youth, such as the Latino students at Tech? Would they be more motivated to stay in school?

Using compressed video technology, the design team sought to create “virtual” cultural exchanges between Tech students and students at the Institúto de Enseñanza Secundaria (IES) La Madraza in Granada, Spain. With support from the Indiana University Center for the Study of Global Change, the team sponsored three sessions between students, but only two were actually convened due to technical difficulties. An average of fifteen students from Granada and Indianapolis participated in each of the transmissions, which allowed students to question each other about such issues as school violence, popular culture, racial and ethnic differences, social and religious

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customs, community service, and work and other after-school activities. To prepare for the encounters, students used e-mail and snail mail to exchange information (e.g., video recordings, photographs, and written material) about their respective schools, personal interests, and backgrounds.

Connections with HEC As intimated earlier, a primary objective of the ICC project was to forge linkages with community-based organizations interested in serving the education needs of Tech Latino students. An organization the ICC project targeted in this connection was HEC, a not-for-profit [501 (c) 3] organization based in Indianapolis. Reasons for seeking out HEC were its sixteen-year history working effectively in the Latino community and a reputation well known to donors, philanthropic groups, and other service providers in the Indianapolis metropolitan area.

Another reason for partnering with HEC was Tech’s earlier association with HEC. Tech had been involved in the HEC-sponsored VIDA (Visiting Indianapolis Discovering Friends) program whose purpose was to assist Latino students gain access to post-secondary education. The project began in 1989 and ended in 1992.

Making connections with HEC proved useful. Shortly after securing the commitment of the organization, the plan for a long-term project was drafted and submitted to a local foundation for review. The project proposal sought support for a three-year demonstration program that would be developed and administered by HEC in collaboration with CUME and two IPS schools, Tech and Northwest High School. While the initial funds received for the project were considerably less than was requested, they were sufficient to launch what came to be known as the El Puente Project.

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II Project Currently, Latinos are significantly underrepresented on college campuses in Indiana and the nation, and the gap is likely to grow if the pattern continues. According to the Educational Testing Service (1999), the education gap between Latino and non-Latino White youth can be closed by 2015 “if we increase college participation among Hispanic youth by 10 percentage points” (p. 10). El Puente, which is Spanish for “the bridge,” was launched in May 2001 in response to this call.

As a three-year demonstration project, El Puente was premised on a belief in social justice. It assumed rightly that to ensure the development of social and human capital within the Latino community, Latino youth must be assured fair and equal access to educational opportunity. The project aimed to retain immigrant and nonimmigrant Latino youth in high school, encourage them to graduate, and prepare them to pursue a post-secondary education. We provide a fuller account of this mission in the sections that follow. We start with the project’s components and goals and then move to organization and staffing, implementation activities, and demonstration sites. We conclude with an account of the population served.

Components and Goals El Puente’s mission to support, enrich, and advocate for the education of Hispanic youth was guided by four goals: (1) increase parent expectations, participation in, and knowledge of how to support students’ education and post-secondary school goals; (2) increase student leadership skills and involvement in school and community service; (3) increase student academic performance and social preparation for college or postsecondary education; and (4) increase student understanding of cross-cultural communication and global issues, as well as their familiarity with the technology that supports global interconnectedness. In pursuing these goals, the project sought to provide Latino youth with challenging contexts, the kind of opportunities that would help them develop the confidence, capacities and competencies needed to overcome the linguistic and cultural barriers that too often impede high school completion and access to post-secondary schooling. The project was particularly concerned as well with engaging Latino youth in the development of the leadership and civic engagement skills required to strengthen and contribute to the growth and vitality of their local community.

El Puente was designed to support as many as 200 high school students and their families with comprehensive services embodied in four major components: youth leadership, academic preparation, parent involvement, and cultural and global awareness. In youth leadership, the aim was to convince students that they had a powerful role to play in shaping their own lives. We sought to engage them in recognizing and valuing the advantages of developing one’s full potential, owning up to one’s rights and responsibilities, demonstrating respect for oneself and others, and contributing to the development of one’s community through service to others. Overall, we envisioned empowering high school Latinos to empower themselves.

Academic preparation and cultural and global awareness were meant to complement leadership development by expecting and rewarding scholarly achievement, graduation from and learning beyond high school, and understanding and appreciating human diversity in language and culture. Parental involvement was intended to support and reinforce the other three. Without the mobilization and active participation of parents, not just at home but also at school, not much else would matter—or at least that is what we believed and how we reasoned.

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Organization and Staffing El Puente was envisioned as a community-based project of HEC and CUME. As CUME’s primary partner, HEC provided the personnel and technical support needed to develop, implement, evaluate, and institutionalize El Puente. Working closely with HEC as co-partners and serving primarily as project sites were Arsenal Technical High School, Northwest High School, and the three middle schools feeding Arsenal and Northwest: Harshman, Gambold, and Washington. The other partners included Harmony School Service Learning Demonstration Project, the IU Center for the Study of Global Change, and IES (Instituto de Ensenanza Secundaria) La Madraza, a sister secondary school in Granada, Spain.

CUME’s role was to provide technical assistance to the project under a sub-contract with HEC. This arrangement allowed an SOE faculty to serve as project director and to supervise two, full-time, HEC project development teams, and one part-time HEC project associate. One project team was assigned to one school community (Arsenal and its corresponding middle school feeder, Harshman Middle School), and one was assigned to a second school community (Northwest and Gambold and Washington Middle Schools). Each team consisted of one Family Development Coordinator (FDC) and one Student Development Coordinator (SDC). Each team provided school and family support services to the families and students participating in the project. The project associate supported the project director in managing the project and in assisting project staff as required. Also supporting the project director was a graduate assistant (GA) based at the university. The role of the GA was to coordinate program evaluation services.

Implementation Activities The project was implemented over a three-year period through an array of parent and student activities.

These are summarized in Table 2 in relation to project goals. While most activities were project-sponsored, others were not. The project often took advantage of activities sponsored by other groups and organizations and referred students and parents to them, particularly during the summer, when the project’s main function was to collaborate with and support other programs rather than sponsor its own.

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TABLE 2. Project Activities in Relation to Project Goals GOALS

Activities

1. Increase parent expectations, participation in, and knowledge of how to support students’ education and post-secondary school goals.

Sponsored annual fall open house.

Recruited families for more active participation.

Sponsored family communication workshops for parents and students.

Sponsored monthly parent meetings.

Conducted home visits.

Sponsored end-of-year celebrations to recognize academic achievement and community service.

Sponsored ESL instruction for parents.

Supported participation of parents in local workshops and conferences, as well as involvement in school and community groups.

2. Increase student leadership skills and involvement in school and community service.

Sponsored youth leadership workshops.

Sponsored student participation in summer pre-college programs and other youth-oriented conferences and workshops.

Sponsored annual year-end camping trip.

Sponsored college visits.

Sponsored field trips to local businesses, corporations, and cultural institutions.

Sponsored out-of-state field trips to Washington DC to participate in activities in support of DREAM Act, and to Chicago, Illinois to visit Cristo Rey High School and participate in conference sponsored by local youth repertory group.

3. Increase student academic performance and social preparation for college or post-secondary education.

Monitored student academic performance.

Piloted ESL support class entitled Overcoming Obstacles at Arsenal Tech.

Sponsored after school speaker series, Junior/Senior meetings, ESL instruction, tutoring, and project-based learning program to increase motivation, English language development, and overall academic performance.

Sponsored mentorship program.

Co-sponsored META at IUPUI. Sponsored Family College Fairs.

Sponsored transition-to-high school program for 8th graders at feeder middle schools.

4. Increase student understanding of cross-cultural communication and global issues, as well as their familiarity with the technology that supports global interconnectedness.

Sponsored compressed videoconferences linking project students with high school students in sister school in Granada, Spain.

Sponsored student participation in International Summer Institute at the IU Center for the Study of Global Change in Bloomington, Indiana.

13

For the most part, all project-sponsored activities were held after school, in the evenings, or on weekends. Only when it was deemed educationally appropriate and if the schools sanctioned it were students ever released from classes to participate in project-sponsored activities, such as college visits or other field trips. With the exception of parent meetings and student-parent workshops, which were deliberately designed to bring students and parents together to encourage more frequent and effective communication in the family, all workshops and activities were aimed at students, although parents always had the option to attend them, and some often did.

After-school activities were typically held in the schools. But the location of other activities tended to vary depending on purpose, family transportation needs, and costs. There was considerable thought given as well to project institutionalization, to integrating activities into the life of the school whenever possible. Having project staff co-located in the schools contributed significantly to this integration goal.

Demonstration Sites The project never secured sufficient funds to include in its full array of services the middle school feeders it targeted. The most resources would allow was the development of a modest transition program that permitted project staff in the spring to educate eighth graders and their parents about how to succeed in high school and to prepare for a post-secondary education. Participants were also informed about the high schools receiving them and how El Puente would serve them if they were to enroll in the project. Beyond this, the project limited coverage to two high schools: Arsenal Technical and Northwest.

Arsenal Technical High School Opened in 1912, Tech is by no means small, with a teaching force of 161 teachers averaging 48 years of age. As the center of one of the five “boundary areas� that make up the Indianapolis Public Schools, the school, located on the eastside of Indianapolis, is an imposing, beautifully designed campus consisting of approximately 76 acres that formerly served as a national arsenal established by an act of Congress in July 1862. There are currently sixteen historic and modern buildings spread across the campus. In addition to the IPS Career & Technology Center (CTC), the school is also the home for a number of IPS magnet options: the Applied Academics for Technology Magnet for freshmen and sophomores interested in enrolling in the CTC; the Foreign Language Magnet for students who want to pursue studies in Russian, Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese; the Math-Science Magnet for students interested in advanced mathematics and science, as well as an opportunity to complete up to forty college credit hours at local universities; and, the Health Professions Magnet for students interested in allied health sciences.

In 2003-04, the project’s third year of demonstration, school enrollment at Tech stood at 2,179, as compared to 2,317 in 2001-02 and 2,199 in 2002-03. The ethnic background in 2003-04 was 68% Black, 25% White, 5% Hispanic, and 2% Asian, Native American, and Multi-racial. In 2001-02 and 2002-03, the Latino population was 4.6% and 4.8% respectively. Students on free/reduced lunch in 2003-04 composed 75% of the population.

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According to state law, Indiana high school students must pass the Graduate Qualifying Exam (GQE) in order to qualify for a high school diploma. The GQE is part of the Indiana Statewide Testing for Educational Progress-Plus (ISTEP+) assessment system, consisting of two parts (English/Language Arts and Mathematics) and administered in the fall of a student’s sophomore year (Grade 10). The performance of Tech’s sophomores on this measure for the three years of demonstration (2001-02, 2002-03, and 2003-04) is provided in Table 3, which shows the three major ethnic groups in the school scoring consistently behind their state counterparts. Latinos in particular fell well below state averages, especially in English/Language Arts, with passing rates under 30%, compared with statewide rates around 50% and White rates around 75%. In the second and third years of the project, Tech Latinos fared better, with passing rates of 42%, compared with state Latino rates around 50% and White rates around 75%.

TABLE 3. Arsenal Tech 10th Grade ISTEP+ Passing Rates: 2001-2004

Northwest High School Northwest is a smaller and younger school by comparison. Opened in 1963, the school is located in the Northwest quadrant of Indianapolis. It consists of fourteen departments, six administrators, and ninety-seven teachers with an average age of forty-eight years. The school is also home to a district kindergarten program, and the district’s Business and Finance Magnet. A four-year program, the Business and Finance magnet offers students a college preparatory curriculum with special emphasis on courses related to business management, accounting, and finance. The program also sponsors a summer internship for students who have completed their junior year, and a mentorship program that matches juniors with volunteer business professionals.

In 2003-04, Northwest’s school enrollment peaked at 1,575, a decline from what it was in 2002-03 (1,588) and 2001-02 (1,718). The ethnic mix in 2003-04 consisted of 61% Black, 15% Latino, 22% White, and 2% Asian and Multi-racial. In comparison to 2003-04, the Latino population in the previous two years was smaller, 10.7% in 2001-2002 and 13.2% in 2002-03. The population on free/reduced lunch was 70%.

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In Table 4, we provide performance data similar to Tech’s to show that the groups fared no better at Northwest than they did at Tech, with Latinos often performing well below 20% in 2001-02 and 2003-04. In 2002-03, Latinos scored 9% below their state average in English/Language Arts (42% versus 51%), and surpassed their state average by 2% in Mathematics (52% versus 50%).

TABLE 4. Northwest 10th Grade ISTEP+ Passing Rates: 2001-2004

Eligibility and Retention Criteria All project guidelines were described in a student and parent handbook distributed to students during recruitment periods. As outlined in this handbook, the project was open to any Latino student enrolled in one of the demonstration schools. To be eligible, a student needed only to demonstrate a status of good-standing, meaning he or she was not serving a suspension or expulsion from school. To stay, students had to remain in goodstanding and maintain a C grade average. Falling below a C meant likely probation with a required commitment to improve. Failing to demonstrate improvement or progress towards improvement would result in expulsion from the project with an invitation to re-enroll after documenting improvements in grades. Suspensions called for automatic probation, and expulsions for automatic termination. No student could be enrolled without a home visit and a signed parental consent on file.

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Population Served During its three-year demonstration phase, El Puente reached 201 families, slightly more than it projected.

Approximately 140 of these families were connected to the target high schools (Arsenal Technical and Northwest), and 61 were connected to the target middle schools (Harshman and Gambold). This total represented 6 % of the total Latino students enrolled in IPS (3571); 41% of the total Latino students in the target high schools (345); and 32% of the total Latino students in the middle schools (193).

TABLE 5. Distribution of El Puente students

A breakdown of the gender and distribution of students who were still active in the project when demonstration ended is shown in Table 5. Most of the students, which represented the bulk of all those recruited over the three-year period, came from families where parents were employed full-time (78%), had not graduated from high school (80%), and whose net income was less than $19,520 per year (77%). A large majority of the students (68%) also came from families whose country of origin was Mexico. A breakdown of the country of origin of all students enrolled over the three years is shown in Table 6.

TABLE 6. Country of Origin

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III Project Outcomes El Puente was never meant to function as a “controlled experiment� in the classical sense of the term.

Neither resources nor interest permitted it. The project was always seen as a modest programmatic opportunity to demonstrate that with caring, academic and emotional support, the right guidance, and clear expectations, Latino students would rise to the occasion. They would commit to overcoming linguistic and cultural obstacles and perform as expected. Are there data, however, to suggest that the project may have had an impact? In this section, we consider such data in three areas: student performance, parent involvement, and organizational reform.

Student Performance Retention A breakdown of the students recruited for more active participation in the project is shown in Table 7.

Of the 140 enrolled, 85 were still enrolled in the pilot high schools when demonstration ended, and 56 of these were still active in project activities. Twenty-three (23) of the 140 either transferred to other in-state (15) or outof-state schools (7), or returned to their country of origin (1); 31 graduated from high school; and 1 was expelled from school and dismissed from the project. Only 19% or 27 students enrolled left the project for reasons other than transfers or moves (i.e., work, family responsibilities at home, or project activities did not meet their needs).

None dropped out of school, and, while they perceived the schools as tough environments with a long history of violence and racial tension, all those who reached their senior year while in the project graduated.

TABLE 7. Target Population

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Academic Performance The results in Figures 1-7, which report data retrieved from IPS, illustrate the academic achievement of participating students.2 As shown in Figures 1 and 2, for example, all students enrolled in the project performed comparatively well considering the legal, linguistic, and cultural obstacles they tend to face. The highest gains were in 2003-2004. On a four-point scale, the mean cumulative GPA of El Puente students was 2.87 (2.96 for Tech and 2.79 for Northwest), slightly higher than the mean for all IPS students (2.64).

Figure 2.

Achievement of El Puente Students in Comparsion to Achievement of all IPS Students as Measured by GPA

Figure 1.

Achievement of El Puente Students as Measured by GPA at Project Schools

2.96

3.0

2.96

3.0

2.82

2.82

2.79 2.46

2.5

2.79

2.1

2.0

1.79

1.5

1.5

1.0

1.0

0.5

0.5

0.0

2001-2002

0.0

Northwest

Arsenal Technical

2002-2003

2.64

2.46

2.5

2.1

2.0

2.73

1.79

Arsenal Technical

2001-2002

2003-2004

Northwest

2002-2003

IPS

2003-2004

Most notable is how the performance of El Puente students compared to that of students who reported Spanish as their home language (Figure 3). In comparison to this group, the most comparable to our population, El Puente students performed significantly better (2.7 versus 2.22 in 2003-2004 and 2.87 versus 2.25 in 2002Figure 3.

2003).

Achievement of El Puente Students in Comparison to All IPS Students who Report Spanish as Home Language as Measured by GPA

3.0%%

2.87 2.7

2.5 2.22

2.0

2.25

1.92

1.5 1.0 0.5 0.0

2001-2002

2

IPS Spanish as home language

EPP

2002-2003

2003-2004

Some IPS achievement data were not available for all three years.

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In general, females, in keeping with national trends, outperformed males at both schools, with females at Tech performing slightly better than those at Northwest (Figures 4-5). In terms of course failures, the number of students failing at least one course dropped significantly. Between 2001 and 2004, for example, the course failure rate dropped by 37% (Figures 6-7). Not surprisingly, most of the failures still included English and Math.

Figure 5.

El Puente Project Student Achievement by Gender and by School as Measured by GPA

Figure 4.

El Puente Student Achievement by gender as Measured by GPA

2.96

3.0 2.5

2.81

3.5

2.78

FEMALE

MALE

2.96

2.50

2.79

3.0 2.82

2.0

2.79

2.1

2.5

1.79

2.79

2.79 2.46 1.79

1.5

2.0

1.0

1.5

0.5

1.0

0.0

0.5 2002-2003

2003-2004

0.0

Northwest

2003-2004

80

56

71%

70

2.50

2.50

60

41

40

Arsenal Technical

Figure 7.

Percentage of El Puente Students Failing At Least One Course in 2001-2002, 2002-2003, and 2003-2004 School Years

Figure 6.

Number of El Puente Students Failing At Least One Course

50

Northwest

2002-2003

FEMALE

MALE

60

Arsenal Technical

1.79

50

55% 1.79

40

30 19

20

34%

30 20

10 0

10 2001-2002

2002-2003

2003-2004

0

2001-2002

2002-2003

2003-2004

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Attendance at Post-Secondary Programs and Institutions Keeping students in school and getting them to graduate was a formidable challenge. But perhaps more challenging still was helping students secure access to post-secondary schooling. What made this particularly difficult was the immigration status of many of the students the project served. Since the majority of them (over 90%) were “undocumented,” securing the financial resources necessary to cover college costs was a major obstacle for them.

Nevertheless, all students who reached their senior year while in the project graduated, and most went on to pursue a college education. In 2003, for example, all ten El Puente seniors graduated, three with honors. Of the ten, five enrolled at Ivy Technical College in Indianapolis, one returned to Mexico to work, one started a family, and three were working to save resources to enroll at Ivy Tech, whose changes in residency requirements made it more affordable for non-permanent residents.

In 2004, twenty graduated. Of the twenty, four went on to private universities, four to four-year public universities, eleven to two-year technical schools, and one went to work. While only one of the graduates qualified for financial aid, ten received modest scholarships from private sources. Most, however, went to work full-time to cover costs.

Parent Involvement It is clear that most parents were satisfied with the project. While turnouts at project functions were never as high as staff would have liked, parents did attend tem and were grateful for the services. Of course, some participated more than others, either because they had the time or because they felt they had the self-confidence and requisite skills to do so. As a result, a number of these more active parents came to assume the leadership positions in the parent councils the project established at the two schools, as well as in the PTSA and the parent center developed at one of the schools. Some also became more involved and integrated in school and community life by visiting classrooms, interacting with school personnel, and attending workshops, conferences, and cultural events sponsored by local groups and organizations in the city.

While it is not clear how many parents became more interested in and supportive of their children’s education, there is evidence to suggest that they did. One student, for example, reported on how her mother became more involved by renewing her own education in Indianapolis. A glimpse of how others became more engaged is represented by the case of Ana, which seems typical of the pattern.

Ana’s parents began to support her education only after noticing how active she had become in the community, and how well she was performing in school. At first, Ana reported, “they did not see the point in giving your time and your energy selflessly.” After seeing her graduate from school, receive various recognitions, and enroll in college, Ana’s parents began to respond differently not only towards her, but also towards her younger siblings.

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Organizational Reform Organizational reform was never an explicit goal of El Puente. But as demonstration projects often do, they always leave their mark on the institutions and organizations that mount them. El Puente proved to be no exception in this regard.

Perhaps the most indelible prints were left on the culture of partnering institutions, which became fairly evident in their increased capacity to address the education needs of Latino high school youth. In the case of the demonstration schools, for example, the influence could be seen in the investment of new resources and in the realignment of existing ones to address the new demands posed by the increasing linguistic and cultural diversity introduced by Latino students. The creation of a learning center to provide academic support to those struggling with English and new courses was the response by one of the schools. This same school found the resources necessary to match those provided by the district’s ENL/Bilingual program to employ a “bilingual facilitator” who would continue the work initiated by the project.

The impact in the second school may not have been as pronounced, but, given the history of the organization in facing its newcomers, the more modest effect was significant nevertheless. The school finally shifted the assignment of Latino students from the non-bilingual counselor who served them to the bilingual counselor on staff who did not. They are gradually reducing the number of students they use to interpret and are hiring qualified interpreters. In addition to increases in qualified bilingual assistants and a home visit specialist, the school is making proactive decisions to better serve there Latino students. The school is also using El Puente students in the National Honor Society to visit the feeder middle and elementary schools to mentor, to share their dreams, and inform younger students about the need to stay in school, graduate, and pursue a post-secondary education.

The project contributed significantly to HEC’s ability to attract donors and resources it had not been able to attract before. El Puente represented the largest grant the HEC had ever secured. A year after launching the El Puente Project, HEC was awarded the second largest grant in its seventeen-year history. Substantive increases in resources allowed for the employment of new staff, upgrades in technology and other infrastructure, and additional expansion in operations, such as the opening of a language lab for English instruction.

El Puente also enabled HEC to make a noticeable shift in function. Prior to the El Puente Project, HEC operations were focused mostly on direct service provision. The knowledge of program design and youth development, the creation of curriculum materials, the development of a student database, and the increased visibility in the community that El Puente generated has given the center a reason to expand its role to include delivery of technical assistance to schools and other youth-serving organizations. HEC expected to test this new role during the replication of El Puente.

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El Puente never envisioned reforming the residency requirements of Indiana colleges and universities. But it did not take long after launching the project to see the need for intervention in this area. Since most of the students the project was attracting were “undocumented,” a condition that made them ineligible for in-state tuition, as well as state and federal financial aid, seeking changes in college residency requirements became inevitable. The project partnered with a coalition of “concerned citizens” who lobbied state colleges and universities for reform in their admissions practices. As a result, project students became eligible to pay in-state fees at Ivy Tech as long as they had: (1) attended one or more Indiana high schools for at least three years; (2) graduated from an Indiana high school or received a high school equivalency diploma in Indiana; and (3) signed an affidavit pledging to apply for permanent residency of the U.S. as soon as they are eligible. This change in policy has already affected hundreds of students across Indiana, an outcome the project never imagined pursuing or expected.

Finally, at CUME, El Puente was part of a broader strategy to develop a larger and more meaningful role for the IU School of Education in community building in Indianapolis by mobilizing community-based organizations and their satellite support networks on behalf of education. CUME focused on Latino youth because it saw needs other groups and organizations were not addressing. In taking on the project, CUME sought to test and develop its capacity in community mobilization. The center never pursued the El Puente Project as an opportunity to build a university or campus-based program for Latino youth. The thrust of the effort was always focused on building community-based capacity, and to that extent HEC is a much stronger organization due to the partnership with CUME. In This regard, CUME has also demonstrated and strengthened its own capacity as a catalytic and mobilizing force. Perhaps the most visible measure of this claim at the moment is the invitation extended to CUME by its primary donor to request a continuation grant to expand its efforts.

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IV Conclusions and Recommendations In the previous section, we provided performance data to show how project students fared against other students in IPS. It is clear from that data that while the project may have worked for many students, it did not work for all. How do we account for the difference in outcomes? To the extent El Puente was not a classical experiment, with the usual features typically associated with such an enterprise (i.e., random assignments to control and experimental groups, strict controls on delivery of treatment, and corresponding systematic collection of data), it is impossible to explain fully why the project worked, even in the most constrained sense of the term. The best we can offer is a reasoned hypothesis about why El Puente may have worked for some students and not others based on data that rose naturally out of the project, as well as on a series of in-depth case studies of all project graduates.

To explain student outcomes is thus one purpose of this section. The other is to summarize the “lessons” we take away from the experience. The matter of explanation is first.

Explaining Student Outcomes Four primary factors appear to explain student outcomes. One speaks to how students came to participate in the project. We term that self-selection. Two others refer to the characteristics or traits of the students who elected to participate: a predisposition to succeed and a resliliency to persevere. The fourth describes how El Puente functioned, and we call that El Puente as “familia” and support system.

Self-Selection Students chose El Puente for a variety of reasons. Some chose it because it gave them something “fun” to do; others because their parents, siblings, or friends encouraged them to; still others because of the program opportunities it offered. But not a single student enrolled because he or she had no other options. All enrolled out of choice, and the mere fact they did sets them apart from others. Thus, it is likely that the students performed well because they are the sort that would. In the absence of a comparable group against which to compare how project students may have differed from others, particularly those who, when given the chance, opted not to join, we are left with identifying student traits that may explain why students opted to participate, remained in the project, and performed well. Two stand out in particular: a predisposition to succeed and a resiliency to persevere.

Predisposition to succeed and resiliency to persevere By predisposition to succeed we mean a student’s inclination or personal desire to perform well and achieve personal goals. Resiliency to persevere describes a student’s unwavering determination to confront and overcome any and all obstacles that appear to interfere with the pursuit of personal goals. Students who chose to participate and worked dutifully to stay on track appear to share both traits. Jaime Santana and Ana Mendoz typify what we have in mind.

Jaime Santana. From Puebla, Mexico, Jaime joined El Puente in his freshman year. When he was eleven years old his parents moved to Chicago, Illinois, in pursuit of “a better life for themselves and their children.”

When the day came for Jaime to follow his parents, he received a bus ticket to the Mexico-Arizona border. From there he negotiated a price with a coyote for safe passage into the United States.

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On the first day of the journey, he and the others traveling with him were stopped and robbed of everything they owned. They continued on their way only to be caught by immigration officials and returned to the border, where he rested with a group of paisas before trying again. While his second try failed, the third proved to be a blessing in disguise.

After two days in the Arizona desert, one with no food or water, he was picked up by a family and taken to a holding house where arrangements between a coyote and his parents were made. By the time Jaime arrived in Chicago, he was twelve years of age. His new environment proved much different from his rural Puebla. He was beaten up soon after arriving and forced to join the local Latin Kings street gang, in part for safety, but mostly because that is what most of the other newcomers he knew had done to survive. A year later, he was happy to hear some good news: his father was moving to Indianapolis.

Jaime had always “just gotten by in school.” Now in his senior year, he is an officer in NJROTC with a 3.9 GPA. Along the way, he learned to fight and how to survive. He was determined, as he put it, “to be somebody.”

He plans to attend Indiana University and major in telecommunications.

Ana Mendoza. Much like Jaime, Ana was born and spent the first 12 years of her life in Tepic, Nayarit, Mexico. Her family emigrated in the summer of 1997 to the southwest side of Indianapolis, Indiana. Her experiences document a difficult transition to American society for not only herself, but also for her single mother struggling to raise four children. Ana was accepted into the Math/Science magnet program at Tech and graduated with honors. She was a member of the Mayor’s Youth Council for Community Service as a senior, and that experience led to her current participation on the Mayor’s Commission on Latino Affairs. Furthermore, she received awards from the Indianapolis Urban League, the Hispanic Education Center, and is a Who’s Who Among American High School Students.

As a child, Ana had dreams of being a doctor because she “would see that they helped people.” As a witness to the dedication of a doctor in her community, she told herself that she also wanted to help others. At some point, she realized that she could serve her community in many other ways Currently, her main goal and priority is to attain a college education. She enjoys the hard work of community service and is happiest while helping others. At her age, her thinking on community engagement and social reform is profound. She believes the political system in America has “too much cheese and onions.” Ana believes that the body politic of Hispanic communities “do not understand what is really happening to our people. They only know what is going on through others and many critically important things tend to get lost in translation.” The people in positions of control and power are supposedly helping the Hispanic community but seem always to fail because of their misconceptions of the imigrantes.

Ana believes that she inherited her drive from her father, who now lives in California. She claims her father was involved in the workers union in Nayarit and was also the president of the colonia. Although she has selflessly dedicated herself to the Hispanic community by learning, leading, and serving, Ana is not satisfied with her achievements. Because she is a non permanent resident, she is legally barred from the opportunities afforded to U.S. citizens. Her “undocumented” status has been a heavy burden on her life chances, the betterment of her family, and her psychological and/or mental health. She would like to be able to qualify for financial aid or at least take out loans that would permit her to attend school full time. Ana lives with and copes with a reality that the majority of society cannot comprehend.

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Ana began thinking deeply about the obstacles she would have to overcome soon after beginning her studies at the Math/Science magnet program. Ana recalls that her mother had not always been very supportive of her community involvement and academic pursuits. The school and El Puente were responsible for her discipline, structure, and subsequent realization of the challenges that were ahead. The teachers in the magnet program “were very insistent,” she says, and “provided all the support we needed, and had high expectations in every area of our work. They were continually monitoring our grades. If they went down or if we failed to submit assignments, we would be asked why it was happening or if there is anything that they could do to help us succeed. It made a difference.”

It was in Ana’s sophomore year that she realized she was different from everyone else in her magnet program. Every door she knocked on and every person who answered her phone calls confirmed her devastating realization: she would never be able to enjoy her liberties and freedom as other human beings do in this land simply because of who she was when she was born. Her strength is always questioned when she overhears “folks talking about immigrants and describing them as having nothing to offer this nation and that all newcomers are nothing, invisible, worthless. Ana believes that these things have empowered her because she knows that those claims are not true. She is somebody, she gives to others in fact, she believes that she may do more than most, and she also understands that there are many people fortunate to have been born here and take it for granted. She no longer feels as if she does not matter and realizes that it is more important for her and her family to go to school and fulfill their dreams. Although she had to begin at Ivy Tech she is confident that she will get into a university and continue her studies.

Our claim here, of course, is not that the predisposition to succeed and resiliency to persevere reflected in these cases alone account for the performance of project students. Causal connections, to say nothing of correlations, are much more complex than that. The traits may in fact need to combine with other factors, such as parental support, for example, to produce academic outcomes. Our argument is much more narrow, and to assert differently would require more research. The claim is simply that we seem to have hit on a theme that appears consistently in narrative accounts of successful racial minorities with similar educational experiences and backgrounds (see, for example, Thomas, 1967; Rodriguez, 1982; Comer, 1988; and Suskind, 1998).

El Puente as “familia” and support system In their study of school dropouts, Gary Wehlage and his collaborators (1989) point to several practices that contribute to student engagement and high school completion. Chief among these is the ability of school personnel to create communities of support that demonstrate concern for how students perform, and also express that concern in genuine, effective, and caring ways. We believe this factor accounts as well for much of the student success in El Puente. Functioning as a kind of familia, a safe haven, a place of cultural affirmation, personal security, and emotional support and safety, the project managed to create a plausibility structure (Burger and Luckmann, 1966) that worked to protect and nurture Latino students, and motivate them to succeed.

For one student, El Puente is for the student “who really needs help to learn and become someone in life.”

“It is good,” she says, “because…they care about you. El Puente is not for people who just don’t care and just want to have fun and do whatever they feel. They help us want to work hard because nobody can take away our education.”

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In the view of another, “El Puente helps students stay in school, graduate, attend a college or university…it advocates for our social development and helps us become leaders.” To a project graduate now completing his associate degree, “El Puente is a family that will always support you and be there when you need it.”

Another graduate left Upward Bound and decided to join El Puente because she “felt more comfortable among Latinos and the project provided a stronger sense of family.” She also thought “it was good to get involved, and they seemed like they cared…they monitor you, they call you whenever they have new meetings and things like that. Specially, they call the parents…because my counselor or nobody that spoke English never called my parents, not even my teacher. I liked it because they helped my parents out by teaching them to understand how the systems work in school, like how to understand the credits that need to be earned and all that. It’s great because they always knew what’s going on in school. El Puente was always there when I needed information, like on scholarships and so forth.”

A third senior summarized student sentiments this way: When I first arrived, I was extremely quiet. I had two jobs and hardly spoke to anyone.

But now I speak more and get along with everyone in El Puente. I joined El Puente because I wanted help setting goals, choosing a university, and obtaining scholarships.

The young people who join El Puente need to want to do well. That’s the only way to get ahead, get a career, and meet one’s objective. For me, it is not the idea of realizing the American dream, staying here, and overcoming barriers. It is about returning to our country and working so that the people won’t have to leave their families. The solution is not to bring people here while your country is left without meaning. El Puente helps [us] have an open mind towards the world we live in, which is always changing. El Puente is very concerned and involves us in our history and culture, so that we can come to know who we are and where we’re headed.

After year one, El Puente’s attrition rate was near 50%. In years two and three, the rate dropped to less than 5%. So while it may have served as a safe haven and support structure, it appears that El Puente was not for everyone. The project seems to have attracted a particular kind of student, the sort with the characteristics described earlier. Students who perceived the project as helpful and supportive tended to stay. Those who perceived it solely as a “hang out,” an opportunity “to be with friends and have fun,” tended to leave. On the basis of what we know from tracking them, not a single one of the twenty-one who did not stay long graduated.

Lessons Learned As intimated earlier, El Puente was always seen as a demonstration project offering unique opportunities for learning about what works best for high school Latino youth: in keeping them on the graduation and postsecondary education track, in involving their parents in their education, in speaking on their behalf, and in institutionalizing reforms friendly to their performance. It is fair to say El Puente proved fruitful in this regard.

We can point to at least fourteen propositions we see as “lessons” that others may find useful.

Proposition 1: Identify needs and abilities of Latino students early. Latino students exhibit a wide range of skills and abilities that need to be identified as soon as they enter high school. Those with weak academic skills need special intensive classes in which skills can be directly taught bilingually/biculturally. Those with strong skills need to be placed in a more challenging curriculum. Students with special needs often go unidentified. This requires working more closely with school counselors to identify and place students in appropriate classes.

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Proposition 2: Highly structured activities work best. Highly structured activities conducted mostly in Spanish, that are intellectually and emotionally challenging, have the greatest impact. Students learning English in a content class taught in English are usually intellectually under-stimulated. Courses, such as the “Overcoming Obstacles” course the project piloted at Arsenal Tech, are needed to motivate, challenge, and enable students to use a variety of learning strategies in their content courses.

Proposition 3: Volunteer tutors have limited effectiveness. Effective academic tutoring requires consistent attendance, clear objectives, and well-qualified, assertive tutors. Bilingual/bicultural tutors are typically more effective than English-only tutors.

Proposition 4: Have clear standards. Clear, written set of behavior and achievement standards help raise students’ and parents’ expectations and guide intervention strategies. The parent and student handbook the project developed in August 2002 is an excellent exemplar of what we mean.

Proposition 5: Work closely with school personnel. Close work with school personnel is needed to integrate students into the life of the school. It is important to help school personnel engage students with their classes/ teachers and with extra-curricular activities, guidance, testing, and tutoring services of the school. Sponsoring activities that integrate the Latino students into the life of the school are also crucial. Students need challenging, structured, supervised after-school activities.

Proposition 6: Communicate with and help parents network. Close communication with parents and helping parents to network with each other is critical. Parents welcome home visits and activities that provide them with opportunities to share and network among themselves.

Proposition 7: Establish communities of support. As research amply demonstrates, communities of support are essential to encouraging and promoting academic achievement. Any project that seeks to make a lasting impact on Latino youth cannot afford to ignore this long-standing and irrefutable finding.

Proposition 8: Organize and mobilize design teams. School design teams are effective mechanisms for generating ownership and mobilizing support and resources for school change. We learned this from the project’s involvement at Northwest via the creation of a learning center with the mission of serving the diverse needs of Hispanic students. A design team composed of key stakeholders facilitated the center’s development and broadened support for the venture. It is a lesson we expect to carry to the institutionalization, expansion, and replication of the project.

Proposition 9: Working with first generation immigrant families is labor intensive. Immigrant newcomers bring unique and diverse needs to our city. Their lack of skills, lack of fluency in English, and their unfamiliarity with the nation’s culture and institutions, complicate their lives and impede their access to resources. To serve them effectively requires ample time, support, and consistent and structured service. It is not sufficient to provide them with information, to expect them to assimilate it, and then to wait for them to act on it. That is a common presumption that El Puente’s experience cannot confirm. On the contrary, we found that after intensive intervention on our part--through correspondence, phone calls and face-to-face interaction--the results in many cases were far from satisfying. Parents did not follow through with their commitments and neither did their children.

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Proposition 10: While important, home visits may not be sustainable in the long-term. Home visits were an important part of the El Puente Project. We relied on them for family outreach as well as parent training. They helped secure the trust, support, and confidence we needed to operate the program. Without this component, we risked diminishing the project’s impact. Yet, as we replicate and expand the program, we realize this component is not sustainable in the form we implemented it. It would indeed be rare to find a school with sufficient resources to dedicate a full-time person to visiting families. Much more realistic is for a full-time person to serve multiple schools. How to modify the component to fit that kind of needed adaptation is a challenge facing project replication.

Proposition 11: Students and parents need a voice. Giving students and parents voice in the project is important to project development. We found it effective to engage students and parents in project development and decision making through the creation of student and parent councils at each school. These councils advised project staff in program matters, represented the El Puente Project family in school and community affairs, and provided leadership and support in project activities. The effect of these groups on building shared ownership, as well as on the degree of parent and student participation in project affairs, was significant.

Proposition 12: Hold family events on weekends. Families are more likely to turn out for events held on weekends than those held on weekdays. The reasons why families do not turn out for project activities and events are as varied as the families themselves. Work, of course, is the reason parents cite most for not attending parent functions, a factor that might explain what we have experienced: that weekday activities tend not to be as well attended as those held during weekends, Friday evenings or Saturdays. In October 2002, for example, we were surprised at the turnout when we switched the college night and family education fair to a Friday evening. The attendance more than tripled from the previous year. We noticed as well that while turnout at Saturday parent workshops and meetings had been relatively high, turnout at monthly parent meetings, typically held on weekday evenings, was not.

Proposition 13: Latino students are often much too reluctant to engage opportunities. We experienced difficulties convincing students to take advantage of educational opportunities that emerged during the year— whether tutoring, mentoring, or workshops. This was particularly the case with program options available to them during the summer. Often students were reluctant to participate because of fear, desire to pursue work or other experiences instead of academic activities, or responsibilities at home. Helping students experience in a vital and self-affirming way that the fulfillment of aspirations depends on their academic effort, discipline, work habits, resiliency and perseverance to overcome obstacles was perhaps the greatest developmental challenge for the students and the El Puente Project staff. This was especially true for students whose educational background was weak, whose family experiences did not support educational aspirations, and whose habits of mind were not academically-oriented. We had to revise curriculum activities continually to maximize student engagement and learning, as well as to create opportunities to work with school personnel to address the challenge during the school day.

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Proposition 14: Increase the supply of bilingual professionals. If we are to meet the demand for educational services in the increasing Latino community, the supply of bilingual professionals who are adequately prepared and properly credentialed needs to be increased, for the numbers are sorely limited. Finding highly trained and knowledgeable bilingual personnel to staff the El Puente Project was perhaps the most formidable obstacle we faced. Much too often we were forced, to the detriment of project development, to employ out-of-state bilingual consultants unfamiliar with local needs, or to rely on local non-bilingual professionals who required the support of translation. Moreover, we found that the bilingual professionals available to us lacking adequate experience and preparation to serve the educational needs of Latino youth and their parents.

Proposition 15: Without weaving research into practice, the search for “best practice” is futile. It is wrong to think that the search for “best practice” will advance without weaving research into practice and weaving practice into research. This is not a call for more rigorous formative and summative evaluations of social programs; nor is it a call for action-research—or at least not as these two kinds of activities are typically understood. It is a call, rather, for staffing social programs with personnel who are knowledgeable about and sensitive to the need for research, and how that research must be weaved into practice. The search for “best practice” is essentially a search for research-based practice and practice-based research. This is a formidable challenge. While it is standard practice for program benefactors to require evaluation plans as a condition for funding, they are also reluctant to invest in evaluation plans that appear too costly. There is a naïve assumption that building research into programs can be done “on the run” and “on the cheap.” But our experience suggests otherwise. The search for “best practice” as we define it require substantive investments to realize. ______________________________

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References Berger, Peter L., and Luckmann, Thomas. The Social Construction of Reality. New York: Anchor Books, 1966.

Bermudez, Andrea B., and Marquez, Judith A. An Examination of a Four-Way Collaborative to Increase Parental Involvement in the Schools. The Journal of Educational Issues of Language Minority Students, Volume 16, Summer 1996.

Comer, James. Maggie’s American Dream. New York: Plume, 1988.

Educational Testing Service. Education=Success. Princeton, NJ: Author, 1999.

Fry, Richard. Hispanic Youth Dropping Out of U.S. Schools: Measuring the Challenge. Washington, D.C.: Pew Hispanic Center, 2003.

Guthrie, Charles, Briere, Dan, and Moore, Mary. The Indianapolis Hispanic Community. Indianapolis, IN: University of Indianapolis Press, 1995.

Lockwood, Anne, and Secada, Walter. Transforming Education for Hispanic Youth. Washington, D.C.: The Center for the Study of Language and Education, The George Washington University, 1999.

Nicolau, Siobhan, and Ramos, Carmen Lydia. Together is Better: Building Strong Relationships Between Schools and Hispanic Parents. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2001.

Rodriguez, Richard. Hunger of Memory. New York: Bantam, 1982.

Santiago, Deborah, and Brown, Sarita. What Works for Latino Students. Washington, D.C.: Excelencia in Education, 2004.

Suskind, Ron. A Hope in the Unseen. New York: Broadway Books, 1998.

Thomas, Piri. Down These Means Streets. New York: New American Library, 1967.

U.S. Census Bureau. “Table DP-2. Profile of Selected Social Characteristics: 2000.” Washington, D.C.: Author, 2004.

U.S. Department of Education. White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans.

Washington, D.C. U.S. Government Printing Office, 2000.

Wehlage, Gary, Rutter, Robert, Smith, Gregory, Lesko, Nancy, and Fernadez, Richardo: Reducing the Risk: Schools as Communities of Support. London: The Falmer Press, 1989.

Appendix 1: Student Survey

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Arsenal Technical High School Student Survey Survey of Hispanic Students Tech teachers and staff want to make Tech a better place for you and all the other students who come here. So we are asking you to help us in this effort by answering the questions below.

There are no right or wrong answers to the questions we are asking. THIS IS NOT A TEST. It is also not necessary for you to let us know who you are by writing your name on the questionnaire. All we want you to do is to complete the statements by checking the response that makes the best sense to you. Please check ONLY ONE unless you are asked to check more than one. If you don’t like any of the choices listed, check OTHER and then WRITE IN your best answer in the space provided. Please write clearly. Print if you have to.

Think carefully about each of the statements before answering. It is also important that you complete ALL the statements because that is the only way we will be able to know you. We want to be in the best position to do what we can to make the school a good place for you so you can stay at Tech and graduate. However, if for some reason you prefer not to complete a particular statement, please feel free to skip over it. REMEMBER: THIS IS NOT A TEST. 1. I am: male female 2.

I am a: freshman sophomore junior senior other (specify)

3.

I am: Puerto Rican Mexican-American Cuban other (specify)

4. My age is: 14 15 16 17 other (specify)

5. My parents are: together deceased divorced separated other (specify) 6. I live: with my mother, father, and brothers/sisters with just my mother and father with just my mother with just my father with just my brother/sister with my grandparents with my aunt/uncle with someone else (specify) in a shelter 7. My father: works in an office works in a factory works neither in an office or a factory is not working right now is retired is on social security is disabled other (specify)

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8. My mother: is a housewife works at home works in an office works in a factory works neither in an office or a factory is not working right now is retired is on social security is disabled other (specify)

13. I came to Indianapolis from: another part of Indiana (specify) another state (specify) another country (specify) 14. I came to Indianapolis with: my mother and father my father only my mother only my grandparents other (specify)

9. My father: 15. I am in Indianapolis because: did not finish high school finished high school completed GED finished some college finished high school and college I don’t know other (specify)

I have always lived here my parents came to look for work my parents came to be with other family members other (specify)

16. Indianapolis is where I and: 10. My mother: did not finish high school finished high school completed GED finished some college finished high school and college I don’t know

my brothers and sisters live my brothers and sisters, and my parents live my brothers and sisters, my parents, and my grandparents live my brothers and sisters, my parents, my grandparents, and aunts and uncles live other (specify)

11. I have had to repeat a grade: 17. At home, I speak: never in elementary school in middle school in high school

only Spanish only English both English and Spanish other (specify)

12. I have been living in Indianapolis for: 18. Before coming to Tech, I attended a school in: Less than a month Less than six months A year More than a year More than four years

Indianapolis another part of Indiana (specify) another state (specify) another country (specify)

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19. The school I attended before coming to Tech was: (check all that apply) public private small large urban suburban rural 20. Before coming to Tech, I had completed: less than one year of high school more than one year of high school less than two years of high school more than two years of high school less than three years of high school more than three years of high school less than four years of high school more than four years of high school 21. The one thing I love most about Tech is: that I feel safe here that there are other Hispanic Students here that teachers care about me here other (specify) 22. The one thing I hate most about Tech is: that I don’t feel safe here that there are not many Hispanic students here that teachers do not care about me here other (specify) 23. The main reason I am at Tech is: I want to go to college I want to get a good job to learn a trade I have no choice there is nothing else for me to do other (specify)

24. The thing that scares me most about Tech is: failing my subjects and not being able to graduate being hurt by gangs getting into drugs other (specify) 25. My biggest problem right now is that: I rather be working than going to school I have family responsibilities I don’t get along with my teachers I can’t speak English I don’t find work interesting I just don’t know what I want to do after high school I’m not getting along with my parents I don’t like Tech I’m scared to come to school other (specify) 26. I think the biggest problem at Tech right now is that: teachers don’t really care what happens to me the school is too big the school is not teaching me English there are gangs around students use drugs students don’t respect their teachers other (specify) 27. The teachers I have at Tech have been there to help me when I have needed them the most.

True False I haven’t really needed them 28. If I were given a choice right now whether to stay at Tech or leave I would: stay leave not sure

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29. I feel Tech is: a safe place to be not a safe place to be

36. List the kinds of things you do during the week after school: 37. List the kinds of things you do during the weekend:

30. Tech is a school I: feel good about do not feel good about 31. I feel the best when: I get good grades 38. List the kinds of things you like to do to help others my parents tell me how good I’ve been in your community: I do well in sports my teachers give the feeling that they care about me other (specify) 32. I would like Tech more if: teachers cared more about me there were more Hispanic students I knew more English other (specify) 33. My goal right now is: to graduate and go to college to graduate and go to work just graduate other (specify) 34. The things Tech teachers and staff can do to make me like the school more are:

35. List the school clubs and organizations you belong to:

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We enrich, support, and advocate for the education of Latino youth.

El Puente Publications Copyright © 2006 by El Puente Project. All rights reserved.

Permission to download and make copies of this publication is granted for personal and educational uses only.

A Partnership Project of the Center for Urban and Multicultural Education (CUME) School of Education Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) 902 W. New York Street Indianapolis, IN 46202 José R. Rosario, Ph.D. Professor of Education and El Puente Project Director

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