Latino students will make up nearly 30% of all public school enrollment by the end of the decade. How are schools preparing for them?
In late September in El Paso, Texas, residents of the Chamizal barrio and mothers Cemelli de Atzlan and Hilda Villegas held a vigil. They were mourning what they consider a crisis in barrio schools: pandemic disruptions , a shortage of teachers , the lack of culturally sensitive or dual-language programming, overcrowding and historical neglect.
The women, leaders of the group Familias Unidas por la Educación and the group of about 40 who met outside of Bowie High School were upset about what they say is a failure of local and federal leadership to invest in the schools in their border town.
“Our fear is what’s going to happen to our children. You added two to three years to the loss of education. What is the future of the 2,000 to 3,000 kids in the barrio?” Villegas said in an interview.
The kids who live in the Chamizal community represent some of the tens of thousands of Latino young people in the United States who will soon be the second-largest group of students in the nation’s public schools, behind […]
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