Print Issue: July 17, 2002

President's Commission Visits Hispanic School, 'Village' Supported By Atlanta Parish

By Priscilla Greear, Staff Writer

Anna Cablik, mistress of ceremonies, stands behind Solidarity School students as they recite the Pledge of Allegiance to open the meeting. (Photos by Michael Alexander)

ATLANTA - U.S. Treasurer Rosario Marín and leaders of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans pulled off Roswell Road the evening of June 24 and into a strip shopping center.

In addition to a grocery store and a dry cleaners, the strip has a Catholic outreach center and bilingual school, which has cut crime and raised community spirit in this poor Hispanic pocket of Atlanta.

The national group was meeting here to gather information on ways to improve academic achievement among Hispanics, who have this country's highest high school dropout rate.

In the shopping center, known as Solidarity Mission Village, Holy Spirit Church offers adult literacy and computer classes, counseling services, classes for stay-at-home mothers in crafts, self-esteem and faith, and various other services.

Frank Hanna, a member of Holy Spirit and backer of the Solidarity School, co-chairs the President's Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans established last October by President Bush.

"The commission was interested in coming to Solidarity Mission Village because within the village is Solidarity School and the school is not removed from the community," Hanna said in an interview. "It is an integral part of the community and parents are recognized as an integral part of the education process . . . These kids are educated (and) they are having some success."

"Education is not an issue just for students but for the entire family. You must look at the role of family in pursuit of education."

He applauds the role the U.S. Catholic Church has played in education and would like this to be brought to bear.

"The fact is that Catholic schools for over 100 years in this country have played an instrumental role in educating the poor and those who are marginalized, particularly immigrants to this country. I think it's critical that the Catholic Church be able to continue in that role. I think it's been invaluable, first for people the church has (educated), and second for the country and society at large."

During the panel discussion U.S. Treasurer Rosario Marín, left, is joined by Brian Jones, general counsel for the U.S. Department of Education, and presidential commission co-chairs Enedelia Schofield and Frank Hanna.

The role of the family and the importance of reaching Hispanic immigrant parents and empowering them to better understand and support their children's education, even when they are uneducated and don't know English, were some of the topics addressed. Other barriers discussed include the need for youth to work to support their families, a lack of supplemental language support services, teachers discouraging the undocumented academically and gang members in schools.

Against a backdrop of large American flags, speakers gathered in the renovated basement of the outreach center, and addressed Hispanic parents, students, a sprinkling of priests, including commission member Father Jose Hoyos of Dale City, Va., and other community supporters. Solidarity School children, wearing uniforms of red polo shirts and khaki skirts and pants, opened the event reciting the Pledge of Allegiance with their hands on their hearts.

The commission is holding meetings in areas with Hispanics around the country. Topics being addressed include educators, community partnerships, government resources and accessibility. The final report due to President Bush in March 2003 will address the progress of Hispanics in closing the achievement gap and attaining goals of the president's No Child Left Behind Act passed in January; development, monitoring and coordination of federal efforts to promote high quality education for Hispanics; ways to increase parental, state, local, private sector, and community involvement in improving education; and ways to maximize the effectiveness of federal education initiatives within the Hispanic community.

Maggy Martinez, a teacher at Clayton College and State University, Morrow, and a school board candidate for Clayton County, District I, raises a question during the question and answer session.

New efforts are desperately needed, as the White House reports more than 30 percent of Hispanic students drop out. On the 2000 National Assessment of Educational Progress, 40 percent of white fourth-graders scored at or above proficient in reading while just 16 percent of Hispanics scored as proficient; and just 10 percent of Hispanics get a college education.

Marín, whose department assists the commission, called these statistics "tragic."

"This is scandalous. If this were occurring in other communities it would be unacceptable and neither can it be acceptable for this community . . . We are not going to tolerate it," said Marín. "This is a very, very important mission that President Bush has charged us with . . . It is so important because the president knows of the great need that exists to educate our children and he doesn't think that there is any excuse that every child doesn't learn."

U.S. Treasurer Rosario Marín, an ex-officio member of the President's Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans, speaks at the Atlanta town hall meeting. Marín is the highest-ranking Latina in the Bush administration.

The highest ranking Latina in the Bush administration, Marín told attendees how, after growing up in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Mexico City, she immigrated to the United States with her mother, who worked as a seamstress, and her father, who cleaned buildings. When she enrolled in school she scored 27 on the IQ test (100 is average) due to her limited English proficiency.

"I tell you this because if I was able to do it, any of you are able to do it, and your children are able to do it . . . I'm just like you, an immigrant who came to this country with a desire to excel. I'm not better than others, but I'm not less than others."

"We know that if you don't graduate from high school your income through your life is going to be very limited," she said.

She reminded parents their sacrifices are necessary to give their children more opportunity. "I hope and I feel that our community is going to overcome, but only through education and with you being strength for your children and hope and support for your children."

Hanna spoke about the Mission Village, which was established in January 2001, serving around 3,000 Hispanic families. The school offers an extended day, an 11-month school year and will serve 60 children in K-third grade in the coming year, with planned growth of an additional grade each year. Students are given instruction in Spanish as needed initially but by the end of their second year are pursuing a rigorous curriculum entirely in English.

"The village has stabilized the lives of countless families," he said. "We wanted to design a school within this community that addresses the particular needs that we've found. We want the school to be the focal point of the entire community and I think it is becoming just that. Urban renewal does not work without the mediating institutions that have always formed the heart of a village-schools, places of worship and public spaces. At the SMV we try to incorporate all of those. We see joy and hope in the eyes of the children."

"The fact of the matter is this is not an issue that is cured only within the four walls of the classroom," Hanna continued. "We have to be very holistic in the way we look at this issue. We need to look at the best practices that are out there."

Brian Jones, general counsel for the Department of Education, said the president's bipartisan education bill requires that academic progress be broken down into the subgroups of race, socioeconomic disadvantage, disability and limited English proficiency.

"No longer can a state or local school district sort of lump everybody together and turn to the federal government and say, 'Hey, we're making great progress as a big group,'" he said. "You've got to show that students in those particular groups are making progress if you're going to keep your federal funding and the status quo intact in your school."

Under the law, parents are required to receive new information on the entire school's progress and if it isn't meeting required standards two years in a row they can put their child in another school. If the school doesn't improve in four to five years it is subject to being completely reorganized. By the end of the 2005-06 school year, all teachers will be required to have a bachelor's degree, to have state teaching certification and to have passed a state proficiency exam in the subject matter they teach.

Father Jaime Barona, pastor of St. Matthew Church, Winder, expresses to the panel the frustrations many good Hispanic students have to encounter.

In a question and answer segment, Father Jaime Barona, pastor of St. Matthew's Church, Winder, spoke of how he ministers to many smart but undocumented students who fall into discouragement, as without papers in Georgia they have to pay out-of-state college tuition.

"I share with them all the frustrations and limitations and all the obstacles they have to face day by day," he said. "I've got students who earn A+ and they just get to the point that they can't go any further because they don't have a Social Security (number), they cannot apply for a scholarship, they cannot apply for anything, so they get really frustrated. In the end, I have known this, many people drop out and they lose hope. And I think it's a tragedy. And I think if we could see a little bit further we can help all of these people better."

Commissioners encouraged persons to contact their legislators about tuition rates, as Texas and California have done away with that policy and other states are in the process of changing it. In an interview later, Frank Ros, chairman of the Georgia Commission on Hispanic Affairs, created by Gov. Roy Barnes last year, said the tuition issue and the language barrier in education are two of five areas his group is addressing. He commented on the necessity of improving Hispanic academic achievement in Georgia for the state's well-being, noting how better-educated Hispanics contribute more to the economy in taxes, depend less on federal support and have lower teen pregnancy rates.

"The objective is to make the state of Georgia the best it can be and you've got to create a level playing field for all people. And education is the great neutralizer," Ros said.

Pilar Castañedar, a member of the Church of the Transfiguration, Marietta, and her 3-year-old daughter Isabella listen during the town hall meeting.

Maria Garcia of Duluth told commissioners about her concern that her 12-, 14- and 16-year-old children and many of their friends all know Hispanics in gangs in school.

"They are so afraid. I've asked several kids from several schools about gangs and I was so amazed," she said. "How can we help out schools to be part of getting kids out of these gang situations?"

Garcia, a Mexican immigrant, said her 16-year-old has struggled through the years with self-esteem as she's struggled with English, but that she tries to help her see her gift of being bilingual. "She lost self-esteem from being different from other kids, as other kids learned so fast compared to her."

The meeting gave Garcia a greater sense of parents' important role in their children's education. "We cannot forget about why we came here-to do better and get the best of the U.S."

Hanna later noted how the president's education initiative shares the same principle with the church that every child has dignity.

"I think this country, its foundational principle is the idea that every American should have equal opportunity to realize their potential. The notion of the legislation that no child should be left behind resonates with that foundational principle. It's also a principle of the Catholic Church that every single human being is important because they're a child of God," he said. "Part of our obligation as a society is to make sure we do not ignore any of those children whatever ethnic origin they happen to be. That's a principle of our church and one principle behind this commission."