Education Problem Facing Mexican Americans

Introduction

The Mexican Americans are Americans of full or partial Mexican descent. They comprise 11.5% of the united states population. History shows Mexicans have continuously been discriminated against in many social issues. One of the social issues is education whereby they experience a poorly integrated education system. This research paper explains a. research project on the education system of Mexican Americans.

Lack of education opportunities

Mexican community lacks education opportunities whereby the schools are inferior with limited resources that is they have few qualified instructors to educate the Latinos. Limited amenities such as classes, libraries, and others are scarce and to meet the large percentage of the community.

Language barriers

The Mexican Americans who speak little or no English face language barriers when introduced to schools in their early years. This may result in a future disadvantage in their social and academic success. Hence, they are limited to few academic opportunities due to their limited language skills compared to the whites who are fully bilingual in English speaking. This limits students' access to the post-education system while those who achieve it face challenges due to lower language skills and knowledge gaps. These students have few opportunities to participate in activities that support cognitive and social development.

Acculturation

This is an ecological factor that can distract or enhance a Child’s potential to learn. It is the process of adopting the social patterns or cultural traits of another group. Mexican students have to adopt the American culture and new language which leads to facing new challenges and experiences such as how to communicate with teachers, absorb knowledge and navigate the education system.

Discrimination and prejudice in schools

Mexican children are discriminated against and negatively judged due to their different race, culture, and language leading to mental disorders in such children. These students feel less motivated to participate in the school's activities, less represented in terms of numbers, and additionally more disconnected in the school. This results in poor performance in their education.

The strategies to address the education problem of Mexican Americans

Instead of using traditional strategies, the government should adopt the following teaching strategies in the Mexican schools such as culturally responsive teaching, cooperative learning, instructional learning, and technology-enriched instruction to replace the traditional learning methods.

School funding and professional development

Whereby the government should provide adequate funds for the Mexican schools to build more classrooms and purchase more education materials such as books, desks, and chairs. Professional development states that teachers need diversity training to provide proper education and increase in recruitment and retention of qualified teachers in their schools. Also, schools need to connect with the community and greater parental involvement in the education system.

Early education system and post-education system

The beginning of early education is important. Research shows that children who acquire cognitive and other academic skills before starting school perform better academically. Moreover, this research body points out that skills acquisition and cognitive development are cumulates over the life cycle. Whereby, children who possess skills at an early age are more likely to gain more skills as they age Mexican children are encouraged to acquire early childhood education, and other programs focused on developing skills could be a huge benefit to them academically since in later years the cost of educating youth is more expensive. They should access and retain post-secondary education. This includes; provision of higher education, services, and support so that the students actually graduate.

Campaigns against discrimination

The government and other volunteers should campaign against the prejudice and discrimination of the Mexican community. They should be included in the constitution as registered citizens and enjoy their rights without any form of discrimination. Also, the government should provide equal resources in these schools like in the white schools.

Various costs were incurred in the proposed program.

Administration costs

The expenses are associated with the direction and management of the program. The administration cost typically includes salaries, bonuses, and wages for the teachers and other personnel, professional fees and office supplies for both the students and teachers, and other expenses not directly associated with the execution of the program.

Services costs

These include Costs of adopting the various teaching strategies in schools such as cooperative learning, technology-enriched instruction, and others. Also adoption of the early childhood education and post-education system in the Mexican schools.

Transportation costs

These costs are incurred when the government transports learning materials to the schools, Building and construction materials to build more classrooms, library and other amenities in the Mexican schools.

Possible areas or people of resistance.

Students

The students may resist the new education program as it requires them to invest mentally and emotionally to understand. Some students fail to understand the impact of this education system in their lives and hence may tend to be resistant to change.

Parents

To improve the education system of the Mexicans, parents have to be part of the change and play an important role. Since most of these parents are illiterate and many speak little or no English they tend to resist change because they may not understand its impact or due to negligence.

Teachers

Due to few qualified instructors in these schools, the present teachers are overwhelmed with work to train and teach the students. Application of a new system such as teaching strategies may lead to more work which leads to overworking and increase in stressful situations to them thereby resisting any improvements in the Hispanics education system.

The government

The government may lack to support the Mexican schools by failing to fund their projects thereby leading to inadequate funds to provide necessary resources required in promoting high education in these schools.

Community

The Mexican community may resist change by not supporting the schools. Whereby the community may donate funds or volunteer in some school projects such as the construction of new classrooms and other facilities.

Identify and interview professionals committed to change.

Due to the significant evidence illustrating poor education of Mexican students, we reached out to some professionals who are actively working in Hispanic education for their ideas and reactions on how to implement change in the education system.

Mitchell Roldan, El Collegial Charter School; Dean of Students/Parents Liaison

He stated that to achieve change in Mexicans schools must be keen on the degree of training provided to the teachers, counseling administrators, and staff. The staff should be trained in some aspects such as cultural appropriateness, acquiring language skills, and a general understanding of relevant issues to the community for change to happen.

Also, parents should be incorporated in the curriculum as a method to empower, organize and advocate for the needs of their children, and schools with Latino students who are lagging should investigate their teaching models used in the classrooms. Finally, she said that Mexican students had a unique linguistic need and language acquisition which was essential to their academic progress.

Monica Hurtado, Voices of Racial Justice; Racial Justice and Health Equity Organizer

A community member requested to rethink the achievement gap and instead consider using a term which community members have already adopted: equity or opportunity gap. The achievement gap term reinforces the notion that individuals are solely responsible for becoming better educated and minimizes the role that social conditions and structural barriers play in preventing a person’s readiness to learn and achieve better educational outcomes.

In the educational system, Hispanics are experience discrimination and prejudice due to their race, culture, and language. Therefore, we need to collect data on the causes and effects of this discrimination and find solutions to address disparities in education. Examples of questions might include: What data will be needed to identify and explain differences in performance between children of color and their white counterparts? How can we collect more meaningful data to lead policy work in education?”

Isabel Duran-Graybow, Youth Development Clinic-Based Project, School/College Connector

The youth coordinator raised awareness that the gap between different ethnicities does not affect students alone but all of us culturally and socially. Thereby closing the gap is a priority. She also said that research supports that the United States education system does not provide high-quality education to the minority and low-income children needed to compete on the same level with their white peers. Hence, they fail to educate all children leading to a predictable result whereby eventually the students will not have the capacity to succeed in college or compete in today’s economy. The effects entail increased poverty, crime, and incarceration, and decreased productivity and quality of life.