Schools face language gap

As state's Hispanic population booms, supply of teachers still lags

Debby Abe; The News Tribune
From: http://www.tribnet.com/frame.asp?/news/top_stories/1220a11.html

The percentage of Hispanic schoolteachers lags far behind the exploding number of Hispanic students across the state and in several South Sound districts, according to a Hispanic education group.

In Tacoma, for instance, the number of Hispanic students more than tripled over the past 15 years, from 601 students in 1986 to 2,566 last year.

Hispanics made up 7.5 percent of all Tacoma students, but just 2 percent of the district's teachers, according to an analysis by the Latino/a Educational Achievement Project.

"We're not saying that only Latinos can teach Latinos," said Ricardo Sanchez, project director. "We know there are a lot of people of all colors doing a good job teaching our kids, but we deserve to be partners in this educational process.

"In too many cases we're not."

Sanchez analyzed statistics from the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction to develop a demographic profile of Hispanic students and school personnel.

His 2-year-old organization is a statewide partnership of six school districts, including Tacoma and Seattle, several colleges and universities and community groups. Sponsored by the Seattle-based community development group Concilio for the Spanish Speaking, the project works to improve the academic achievement of Hispanic students.

Sanchez, who is traveling to districts around the state to present his analysis, recently shared the statistics at a Tacoma School Board meeting.

Statewide, Hispanics have been the fastest-growing ethnic group of students since 1986, the earliest year for which statistics were available. They made up 10.2 percent of students, numbering 37,689 last school year, a jump of 173 percent since 1986, according to Sanchez's analysis.

Although the largest concentrations of Hispanic students remained in Eastern Washington school districts, Western Washington saw considerable growth.

Seattle had the third-highest number of Hispanic students (4,930) last school year, while Tacoma ranked sixth. Clover Park, with 1,371 Hispanic students, ranked 20th, and Federal Way, with 1,463, ranked 14th.

Several factors explain the rise, Sanchez said.

Many foreign-born Hispanics have become citizens under the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, and have begun to raise families or bring relatives into the country. Since Hispanics as a group are younger than other segments of the population, they have a higher birth rate.

Many come to Washington as agricultural workers and stay year-round, he said.

The percentage of Hispanic school personnel hasn't kept pace with student growth.

Last school year, there was one white teacher for every 16 white students in the state. By contrast, one Hispanic teacher existed for every 100 Hispanic students.

The statewide rate of minority teachers for each respective ethnic group of black, Asian and American Indian students was about one to 66.

In the two Pierce County districts with the most Hispanic students, the Hispanic teacher-student rate was slightly higher.

Tacoma had one Hispanic teacher per 83 Hispanic students. In Clover Park, the ratio was one per 98 Hispanic students; in Federal Way, one per 106.

Building a support system

Sanchez believes Hispanic educators increase the chance for academic success of Hispanic children.

Hispanic teachers serve as positive role models, both for new immigrants and children whose parents or grandparents settled in the United States. Second- and third-generation youth often face problems of alienation, feeling distanced from both their parents' culture and mainstream society, Sanchez said.

"That's where the issue of gangs comes up," he said. "They're looking for a support system."

Hispanics also are more likely to speak Spanish. About 60 percent of Hispanic students statewide need enough help with English to participate in a bilingual education program.

Miguel Villahermosa said his ability to speak Spanish definitely helps him communicate with Hispanic students and parents at Foss High School, where the school's 120 Hispanics make up 6.4 percent of the student body.

"They have a better sense that I might understand where they're coming from," said Villahermosa, an assistant principal.

But Villahermosa, who is of Puerto Rican descent, also cautioned: "Not all the Hispanic cultures are the same. There's an implied assumption that they are.... I don't automatically assume I understand what a kid from Colombia is about."

Villahermosa is among just a handful of Hispanic administrators in Tacoma. As in the state, Tacoma has far more Hispanic teacher's aides, who perform a valuable service but don't have the training of certified instructors.

While Hispanics made up 2 percent of the state's teachers, they represented 7 percent of teacher aides, the personnel category with the highest percentage of Hispanics in Sanchez's analysis.

Increasingly, Sanchez said, teachers and administrators tell him: "It's bilingual aides who teach our kids because the teachers can't communicate with them."

The challenges often add up to poor performance in school. The state's Hispanic fourth-, seventh- and 10th-graders, for instance, ranked last of all ethnic groups in reading, writing and listening on the 2001 Washington Assessment of Student Learning, Sanchez said. They were second to last, behind black students, in math.

The situation will take on more importance when the 10th-grade WASL becomes required for graduation, starting in 2008, Sanchez said.

Stepping up recruiting

It's no easy job to hire and retain Hispanic educators, administrators say.

"Finding any teacher right now is hard," said Lincoln High School Principal Grant Hosford. "To find one that also speaks a couple of languages and is of a certain ethnicity makes it even more difficult."

Part of the challenge is the comparatively small pool of Hispanic educators. Hispanics' low high school graduation rate, which trails that of whites, blacks and Asian Americans nationwide, means fewer enter college.

Meanwhile, not all school districts have made it a priority to seek Hispanic teachers, said Rodrigo Barron, supervisor of bilingual, migrant and community outreach for the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

When districts do recruit, Barron said, competition abounds from other states that offer higher salaries and better benefits.

Tacoma and Clover Park officials said their districts are stepping up efforts to hire more Hispanics and other ethnic minorities as teachers.

Both districts recruit staff members from parts of the country with large minority populations, including the Southwest.

"We try to make personal relationships with university staff so they become familiar with Clover Park," said district spokeswoman Kim Prentice. "It's that building of relationships that brings people of a variety of ethnic backgrounds to our district."

Besides visiting targeted universities, Tacoma will invite graduates from those schools to a job fair for teachers in March.

"It's really important for our staffing population to align with what our student population looks like," said Hertica Martin, who oversees Tacoma's staff recruiting, "so students can see different kinds of role models in different roles."

But she also stressed the district won't hire minorities solely because of their ethnic background. "The bottom line is we're going to hire the best person to teach our kids."

* Staff writer Debby Abe covers schools. Reach her at 253-597-8694 or debby.abe@mail.tribnet.com.

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