Monday, February 23, 2015

Selected Publications and Speeches by Mario L. Baeza

PUBLICATIONS AND SPEECHES:

“Mario Baeza ’74: ‘An American Success Story’”. Second Celebration of Latino Alumni. Harvard Law School. October 11, 2012

“Bottom-Fishing With Latin America’s Newest Financiers,” published by Fortune, April 26, 1999.

“U.S. National Interests and the Western Hemisphere: Economic and Political Constants/Changes in Latin America,” (co-author) presented at the Ninety-Fourth American Assembly Conference, May 28-31, 1998, published by The American Assembly/Columbia University.

“Investing in International Private Equity,” DealQuest ’98: The 1998 Private Equity Markets Summit, May 4-7, 1998.

“The Search for the Perfect Gift Horse,” published by LatinFinance, May 1988.

“Introduction to Investments in Private Equity for Companies,” International Business Communications Conference, Brazil, March 10, 1998.

“Expanding Options for Exiting Investments,” Latin America Private Equity Forum, World Research Group, Miami, Florida, January 28-30, 1998.

“Brazil/Argentina: a Review of Cross-Border M&A Transactions,” Institute for Private Investors, November, 1997.

“Identifying Risk and Implementing Findings for Structuring Investments,” Investing in Latin American Private Equity, Institute for International Research, Miami, Florida, September 15 & 16, 1997.

“Challenges Facing Brazilian Companies in a Globally Competitive Economy,” Fórum Das Américas Conference, Monte Carlo, Monaco, October, 1997.

“On the Road to Mexico: Many Obstacles Stand in the Path of Joint Ventures,” published by New York Law Journal, June 1, 1993.

“A Global Perspective,” published by LatinFinance in 1993 Latin Securities Law, a special June 1993 supplement.

“Strategic Alliances: Making the Most of a Hemispheric Market,” published at the Uniting the Markets of the Americas Conference, February 11-12, 1992.

“Investing in Mexico in the 1990s – What Do New Investors Look For?,” The Conference Board Reports, Mexico City, December 1991.

“Trends and Innovations: Insights into Mexican Deals and Dealmakers,” published at The Mexican Economic Agenda for the 1990s’ Conference, September 23-24, 1991.

“The Future of the Legal Profession in the 21st Century,” Keynote Address, the 1991 Association of American Law Schools Annual Meeting, January 4, 1991. (Reprinted in the Harvard Law Bulletin and excerpted in The National Law
Journal.)

“Property Rights, Forms of Ownership and Incentives,” Keynote Address at Moscow Conference: Paving the Way to the Market Economy, Moscow, U.S.S.R., September 17-19, 1990.

“Life Without Drexel: Mergers & Acquisitions into the Nineties,” published by Global Economic Action Institute, March 27, 1990. International Financing of U.S. Takeovers (editor), published by Practicing Law Institute, January 1990.

“1992: Threat or Opportunity to Non-Europeans: The Future of Commercial and Financial Flows,” published at the International Leaders Conference, co-sponsored by The Council for the United States and Italy, The Council for the United States and Germany and The French-American Foundation, Taormina, Sicily, December 7-9, 1989.

“International Financing of U.S. Takeovers -- A General Overview,” published by Practising Law Institute in International Financing of U.S. Takeovers, December 1989 (co-author).

“UPDATE ‘89 -- Utilizing ESOPs as a Tool of Corporate Finance in Leveraged Buyouts, Acquisitions & Defensive Strategies,” published by Practising Law Institute in Financing Leveraged Buyouts and Acquisitions, May 1989.

“A Closer Look at Defensive ESOPs,” published by Insights, March 1989 (co-author).

“Risks in Adopting an ESOP as a Defensive Measure,” published by Directorship, July 1989.

“Recent Developments in Leveraged Buyouts,” published by The Practising Law Institute in Acquisitions and Mergers 1988, July 1988.

“Utilizing ESOPs as a Tool of Corporate Finance in Leveraged Buyouts and Recapitalizations,” published by the Bank Lending Institute, November 1987, and by The Practising Law Institute in ESOPs 1988, April 1988.

“Acquisition and Exploitation of Mass-Market Software,” published by The Practising Law Institute, June 1986.

“The Use of Employee Stock Ownership Plans in Financing Private Acquisitions,” published by the Bank Lending Institute and the Banking Law Institute, May 1986.

“Acquisition and Exploitation of Custom Software,” published by The Practising Law Institute, June 1985.

“Industrial Application of Genetic Engineering: Negotiating Research and Development Contracts,” published by the American Law Institute-American Bar Association, April
1985.

“Practical Approaches to Custom Computer Software Acquisition and Licensing,” published by New York State Bar Association/Continuing Legal Education, November 1, 1984.

“Safeguarding the First Amendment in the Telecommunications Era” (Review of Pool: Technologies of Freedom), 97 Harvard Law Review, 1983.

Telecommunications Reregulation and Deregulation: The Impact on Opportunities for Minorities,” Testimony of Mario L. Baeza Before the U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Consumer Protection and Finance, September 19, 1983.

“Pricing and Recoupment Policies for Commercially Useful Technology Resulting from NASA Programs,” a report prepared for NASA by the Rand Corporation, R-1671-NASA,
January 1975, 166 pages (co-author).


“Efficiency, Equality and Justice in Admissions Procedures to Higher Education: A Constitutional Model for Resolving Conflicting Goals and Competing Claims,” 3 The Black Law Journal 132 (Harvard Law School Special Edition) (1974).

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

The Latino Educational Crisis: Towards a New Approach to Preparing Latino Children for Success in School and in Life

______________________________________


The Latino Education Crisis:
Towards A New Approach to Preparing Latino Children for Success in School and in Life



A
White Paper
and
Call to Action

Mario L. Baeza
Founder and Chairman
V-me Media, Inc.









November 19, 2009
______________________________________
Table of Contents

  • Preface
  • Executive Summary
  • Introduction
  • Section One: Latino Education: Is Pre-K Enough?
  • The Scope of the Problem
  • Once Behind, Never Even
  • Lurking Behind the Achievement Gap
  • The Pre-K Reform Movement
  • Different Approaches and Dissenting Voices
  • Challenges Facing Pre-K
  • Meeting the Needs of English Language Learners
  • Current Programs for English Language Learners
  • The Push Toward Bilingualism
  • Conclusion
  • Section Two: Children’s Educational Television
  • The Children’s Television Workshop Model
  • Key Research into Educational Programs’ Effectiveness
  • Beyond Sesame Street
  • Section Three: Closing the Gap: Preparing Latino Children to Succeed in School
  • An Action Agenda for Bridging the Latino Achievement Gap
  • Conclusion
  • Bibliography
  • About the Author
  • Appendix 1: Description of V-me’s Spanish Language and Bilingual Education Programming



Preface

On March 6, 2007, with the formal launch of broadcasts over public television stations across the nation, V-Me Media, Inc. ushered in a new era of high quality educational, informational and entertainment programming for monolingual and bilingual Spanish speakers. V-Me is the product of a unique public/private partnership between a private investor group and WNET/Thirteen, the New York-based flagship station of the Public Broadcasting System. V-Me was formed in large part to fill the need for high-quality, relevant educational programming – a category of programming that has until now been unavailable to the millions of Spanish-speaking Latino families in the United States.
V-Me has an affiliated television network of more than 30 public television stations, expected to grow to 50 stations by the end of 2008, covering virtually every major Hispanic market in the country. It is also distributed nationally via satellite by the Dish Satellite Networks and Direct TV. V-Me is now in 36 million U.S. homes, approximately 5 million of them, Hispanic homes, and after digital conversion in 2009, will be in 70 million U.S. homes, including 90 percent of all Hispanic households. In 2009 V-Me will also be available free over the air and can be received through an inexpensive digital box, replacing over-the-air antennae.

Today, staggering numbers of Latino youngsters start school behind their non-Latino white peers, and can never catch up. Secondary school Latino students fare no better, suffering the highest high school dropout rate of any ethnic or racial group in the country. The problem is compounded by the vexing issues facing English Language Learners (ELLs). Given V-Me’s current and future reach and television’s proven power to entertain and teach, V-Me’s added media resources could play a valuable role in the fight to close the Latino educational achievement gap.

Indeed, V-Me has already begun the process. Not only does V-Me broadcast five hours per day of children’s educational programming in Spanish, but also V-Me is actively working with the National Institute of Early Childhood Research (NIEER) on a series of presentations and research proposals designed to test the effectiveness of incorporating V-Me’s children’s programming into bilingual pre-school curricula. As a first step, V-me is collaborating with NIEER on a two-hour workshop to be presented at the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NYAEYC) conference to be held from June 8-11, 2008 in New Orleans. The workshop will seek to demonstrate to an influential cross-section of educators, administrators, researchers and curriculum specialists how V-Me’s children’s educational programming can be used effectively in bilingual or dual immersion classrooms, as well as at home with parents, to further Spanish and English language acquisition by both ELLs and English dominant children.

We believe more can and must be done, and are prepared as an organization to do our share. Fortunately, with its strong roots in public television, V-Me is intimately familiar with the process of creating children’s educational television programming, as well as high-quality entertainment for adolescents and adults, that informs and educates as it entertains. We understand however, that to make a difference will require intense collaboration with schools and school districts, researchers, linguists, educators, curriculum specialists and creative producers. Together, we can create, promote and use effectively the multimedia programming that V-Me and other producers of targeted educational television develop.

Toward that end, this White Paper and Call to Action lays out a framework for an Action Agenda intended to jump-start the process of developing a new and far-reaching effort to put the proven tools of children’s educational television and the important work of so many others to combined use in service of closing the yawning achievement gap that divides Latino and other minority children from their white peers.

We hope and expect that this effort will be the beginning of a long and worthwhile journey.

Mario L. Baeza
Founder and Chairman
V-Me Media, Inc.
Executive Summary

A variety of research studies using a range of measures, have conclusively demonstrated that Latino schoolchildren in the United States lag behind their non-Hispanic white peers. That achievement gap does not wait until high school or even middle school to appear, neither does it emerge during the elementary years. For the most part, Latino children arrive at the schoolhouse door already lagging. Once behind, they generally remain behind, and suffer lower test scores and higher dropout rates, as a result.

This white paper examines the causes and reviews current initiatives for closing the achievement gap as it affects Latinos, and focuses on two largely unrelated – at least so far – approaches: the pre-K movement and children’s educational television. It concludes with a call for a national convening of stakeholders, including educators, researchers, broadcasters, policymakers, philanthropists and others, to develop a national action agenda that includes publicly broadcasted Spanish language children’s educational television and other new on and off-line media delivery systems as an integral part of the strategy to combat the problem.

Section One: Latino Education: Is Pre-K Enough?

The achievement gap dividing Latino and white children is far-reaching and amply documented, and the nation’s schools have been and continue to be unprepared for the demographic wave that has already begun to roll into classrooms. Key points in this area include:
  • Latino children enter kindergarten already in educational arrears, already on the short end of an achievement gap. That gap persists, even widens, through elementary and secondary school. For example, data gathered over the course of many years for the federal government’s National Assessment of Educational Progress reports demonstrates that by the time children reach fourth grade, large and persistent gaps have opened between Latino and white children in both reading and math. The gap widens in the middle school years.
  • The achievement gap between Latino children and white children is about more than language. Nearly 75 percent of kindergarteners from Hispanic families have one or more recognized risk factors for failure in school, compared with 20 percent of those from non-Hispanic white families.
  • Much research demonstrates the value of early education to make sure children come to kindergarten with certain basic skills, ready to learn. For example, longitudinal studies have demonstrated that “children who went to preschool were less likely to be held back in higher grades and more likely to graduate.” This recognition has driven a movement for more pre-kindergarten programs across the nation. The need for pre-K programs for Latino children came into very sharp focus in the wake of the 2000 Census Report, which confirmed the rapid growth of the Latino population, as well as the incomeeducational achievement gap between non-Hispanic whites and Hispanics and African Americans.
  • Other research has identified important economic and societal benefits from investment in pre-K.
  • Armed with compelling economic analyses, educational research and fairness and equity arguments, the pre-K movement has gained substantial national momentum in the past five years. In all, 38 states are helping local governments finance pre-K programs and spent approximately $4.2 billion in 2007, an increase of 75 percent from two years ago.
  • The effort to ramp up pre-K programs around the nation faces daunting challenges. First is the sheer scope of the effort. By one account, it “represents one of the most significant expansions in public education in the 90 years since World War I, when kindergarten first became standard in public schools.” Other problems include the need to expand access for Hispanic children, the absence of a consensus curricular approach, and the problem of making sure programs are of high quality.
  • An even more significant challenge confronting the pre-K movement is the growing number of pre-K English Language Learners (ELL) – youngsters who arrive at school speaking a language other than English. The issue has taken on particular urgency in states with large ELL populations, including California, New York, Texas, Florida and Illinois. Some 30 percent of Latino children in the United States are considered English Language Learners, and according to data reported by the states, ELL children account for a little over 10 percent of the total pre-K to twelfth-grade student population. More significantly, the ELL population is growing at a faster rate than the overall student population.
  • From the political debate surrounding immigration issues, one might conclude that most of these students were undocumented immigrants. In fact, well over 90 percent of immigrant children are legal U.S. citizens
  • In general, schools offer ELL students one of four basic programs: English Immersion or Structured English Immersion; English as a Second Language (ESL), sometimes known as English Plus Spanish; transitional bilingual programs in which content areas are taught in Spanish for the first few years (usually in the kindergarten through third-grade years) while students are developing their English skills; and Dual Language Immersion, in which children are taught courses in both languages from an early age with the goal of having them become fluent in both English and Spanish by sixth grade.
  • The most promising approach today for ELL students appears to be Dual language (DL) Immersion, in which half the classes are taught in Spanish and half in English. Classrooms are comprised of 50% Spanish dominant and 50% English dominant pupils. (These programs have been especially popular among English dominant families who wish their children to become bilingual at an early age.) A recent success story for DL can be found at Dixie Downs Elementary School in Washington County, Utah. At the beginning of the first school year, 31 percent of first-graders were reading at grade level in English. By the end of the year, 58 percent were at grade level. Another important argument for DL programs is that research conducted in the specific context of pre-school also supports it as a solution.
  • The current political push for English-only instruction stands in sharp contrast to a large body of research that “increasingly shows that most young children are not only capable of learning two languages [but also] that bilingualism confers cognitive, cultural and economic advantages.” 
Section Two: Children’s Educational Television

  • Children’s educational television has a demonstrated track record of success with children of all ethnicities and income levels, and offers important opportunities to make inroads on the achievement gap. It plays an important role in the early education of America’s children. It has evolved so far beyond its original mission of focusing on minority and low-income children, and its viewing audience is now so diverse and large, that it is no longer thought of as a dedicated resource in the fight to close the “achievement gap,” and is instead regarded as a tool for preparing all children for the academic challenges that await them. Key points include:
  • The Sesame Workshop, originally named the Children’s Television Workshop (CTW), has pioneered a research-based approach to developing its programming. “Under the CTW Model, producers, researchers and educational content specialists collaborate closely throughout the life of a project, from its initial inception through the completion of the final product. Each group brings its unique perspective to the table to ensure that the results will be entertaining, educationally sound, and both appealing and comprehensible to the target audience.”
  • More than 1,000 studies have focused on Sesame Street’s effectiveness alone. For example, among three- to five-year olds, researchers found that heavier viewers of Sesame Street showed significantly greater growth than non-viewers in an assortment of academic skills related to the alphabet, sorting and classification, numbers, shapes and relational terms.
  • In another study, researchers followed low-SES preschoolers over a three-year period, and found that watching educational television correlated positively with the “amount of time children spent reading and in educational activities, as well as their letter-word knowledge, math skills, vocabulary size, and school readiness on age-appropriate standardized tests.
  • Other children’s educational television programs have had a similarly impressive impact. These include Dragon Tales, Between the Lions, Blue’s Clues and Square One TV.
  • The evidence indicates that the programming is effective, improving viewers’ skills in ways that help them achieve in school. That appears to be true regardless of income, ethnicity or native language. But it does not appear to close the achievement gap. Three reasons stand out.
    • First, children’s educational television programming lifts not just minority and low-income children, but white, middle- and upper-income children, as well.
    • Second, Latino children from Spanish speaking homes who view programs in English are less likely to make significant educational gains as a result.
    • Third, children from low-income families register smaller gains from watching children’s educational television than middle- and upper-income, probably because they lack a variety of important supports – parents’ educational attainment, time spent being read to, etc. Indeed, many of these are also ELL children, and research has amply demonstrated that the combination of risk factors is powerful.
Section Three: Bridging the Gap: Towards a New Approach

Developers of children’s educational television targeted to the Latino population, including English Language Learners, and the pre-K movement can and should cooperate on an action agenda to transform the landscape of educational opportunity for minority children.
In order to seed change, support existing initiatives and programs, and foster new approaches, V-Me is prepared to commit significant organizational resources to the task of supporting families, children, educators, researchers and others in the challenge of closing the achievement gap. The first step in that effort should be a national convening, bringing together all the various stakeholders – researchers, educators, Latino leaders, children’s advocates, children’s programming experts and others – to construct a long-term Action Agenda that will build on the progress that is already within sight by identifying creative ways in which targeted educational television programming, particularly new programming created for ELL children, can be incorporated into pre-school, elementary and secondary school curricula.


Introduction

Despite decades of effort, the achievement gap between white and minority students in the United States persists. As an outgrowth of the civil rights movement and a follow-up to desegregation of public schools, the nation first began to shape policy approaches to address the problem in the 1960s. The Head Start program, still in operation despite periodic attempts to de-fund or dismantle it, was the first broad national attempt to address the problem. Now more than 40 years on, it continues to provide services to children of low-income families.

A second 1960s initiative aimed at the achievement gap was the use of public television to broadcast children’s educational television programming, most notably Sesame Street.
Having come to life separately and been led by different communities of experts using very different structures, the initiatives evolved separately as well. Today, each claims its own camp of supporters among key politicians, educators, activists, child psychologists and researchers.

When these efforts began in the 1960s, the achievement gap was largely understood in white/black terms: African American students had lower test scores and poorer grades than white students, and the initiatives were aimed at closing the gap. But in the years since, it has also come to be seen as a white/brown issue, reflecting the sharp increase in the nation’s Latino population, as well as the particular challenges Latino students face.

Despite progress over the years, the achievement gap persists. In fact, among certain Latino subgroups, it has actually widened. This harsh reality has given rise to a renewed emphasis on pre-Kindergarten education, and an acknowledgment that more and better pre-K programs are needed to meet the needs of today’s Latino children and children of low income families.

But just what those programs should look like is the topic of some debate. Many argue that a “bricks and mortar” approach is in order. Armed with research studies demonstrating that high quality pre-K programs can materially improve children’s school readiness and elevate reading and math test scores among elementary school students, supporters have focused on providing Latino families greater access to programs by building more pre-schools in Hispanic neighborhoods, integrating curricula with kindergarten and primary grade expectations, hiring and training more pre-K teachers and attempting to recruit more bilingual teachers, pressing for “high quality” pre-K programs, and campaigning to increase awareness of the benefits of pre-school among Latino families.

One downside of this approach, something supporters acknowledge, is that it will take up to 20 years of investment in infrastructure, teacher training and certification, core curricula development and outreach to achieve the desired results. As a result, it will require sustained and substantial appropriations from federal, state and local governments, as well as research support from foundations and other non-governmental agencies. In the meantime, generations of Latino children will likely be lost.

A second approach is offered by supporters of children’s educational television. They cite the more than 1,000 research studies that have found that children’s educational television improves preschoolers’ math, reading and science scores; helps develop such key analytical and phonological skills as problem-solving, vocabulary acquisition and conflict resolution; and promotes pro-social behavior and school readiness. They also note the great success of
Sesame Street
and its progeny-programming that was initially funded by the federal government and the philanthropic community with the goal of closing the achievement gap among minority and disadvantaged children, but that has since become mainstream fare for children in all demographic groups.

Indeed, one reading of the impact of such programming is that it has raised the learning bar by fostering new generations of children who entered pre-school able to pre-read and equipped with a basic understanding of mathematical and phonological concepts. Although minority and low-income children improved significantly by viewing children’s educational television, so did white, middle- and upper-income children. As a result, the achievement gap did not close measurably, thus obscuring the important impact of children’s television programming.

So far, politicians, school boards, leading researchers and their foundation supporters, led by the Pew Charitable Trusts, have largely gravitated toward the bricks and mortar approach. While they may, as individuals, remember the impact on their children of
Sesame Street
and other public television programs, their policy and funding choices suggest they do not see children’s television programming as a significant part of the solution.

The problem has become all the more pressing in recent years, as a result of a dramatic increase in the number of children coming from immigrant families where only Spanish is spoken in the home. For the most part, established brick and mortar programs, including Head Start, are unprepared to deal with this significant demographic wave. Studies show that Spanish-dominant children do not fare well in English-only pre-school programs.

By contrast, children exposed to basic concepts in their native language have a more successful outcome and can transition more easily to an English-only curriculum by first grade. To take advantage of the opportunity that research suggests, Spanish language or bilingual programs will need to be developed, bilingual teachers will need to be recruited, and the transition to English-only kindergarten programs will need to be worked through. All of these issues have policy, and particularly funding, implications, of course, particularly for cities and towns that find their demographics shifting and a new and different student population emerging.
Section One: Latino Education: Is Pre-K Enough?

Two facts about the Latino population in the United States are relevant to any discussion about closing the educational achievement gap. First, Latinos are the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population, and have overtaken African Americans as the nation’s largest minority group. Second, Latinos are the least educated racial or ethnic group in the United States.[1]

The Scope of The Problem

In fact, as a group, Latino children enter kindergarten already in educational arrears, already on the short end of an achievement gap. In a 2006 study by Drs. Sean Reardon and Claudia Galindo, 46 percent of Hispanic children starting kindergarten could not read at or above Level 1, a stage at which children are able to recognize letters, compared to 27 percent of non-Hispanic whites.[2] Other research has found similar disparities among Latino and white children at higher levels. Separate data gathered over the course of many years for the federal government’s National Assessment of Educational Progress reports demonstrates that by the time children reach fourth grade, large and persistent gaps have opened between Latino and white children in both reading and math. The gap widens in the middle school years.[3]

Table 1*
Percentage of Children Scoring at  or above Levels 1, 2, 3 and 4 in Reading at the Start of Kindergarten[4]


Group
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Level 4
Third Generation Whites
73
34
20
4
All Hispanics
54
20
10
2
Mexican Descent
51
19
10
2
Cuban Descent
67
25
12
2
Puerto Rican Descent
62
26
14
2
Central American Descent
52
18
11
1
South American Descent
60
26
15
5
Source: Reardon, S.F., and Galindo, C. (2006). Patterns of Hispanics Students’ Math and English Literacy Test Scores Report to the National Task Force on Early Childhood Education for Hispanics. Tempe, Arizona: Arizona State University.
*Excludes approximately 30 percent of Spanish dominant children who were not proficient enough in English to take the basic kindergarten assessment tests.

Table 2
Percentage of Children Scoring Below the Basic Level in Math

Source: National Institute for Early Education Research, Preschool Policy Brief, March 2007, Issue 13.

 

Source: NAEP 2005

Source: National Institute for Early Education Research, Preshcool Policy Brief, March 2007, Issue 13.

The National Center for Education Statistics, an agency of the U.S. Department of Education, reports similar findings in a longitudinal study tracking reading and math proficiency from 1998 to 2005.[5] According to the data, Latino children trail white children across the board, and significantly.


Table 4

Table 5

The gap persists through high school, again according to data from a longitudinal study from the U.S. Department of Education, even after accounting for socio-economic differences, such as family income and parents’ educational level. The study, which followed students from kindergarten through tenth grade, found that more than 20 percent of all Hispanic sophomores were unable to achieve at level 1 (simple reading comprehension of text) and thus were not reading at the minimum level required for high school academic work.[6]

Table 6

Reading
Proficiency of Hispanics and White High School Sophomores in 2002
Group
Percentage at or above Reading Proficiency Level

Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Hispanic
79.2
28.0
2.8
White
93.9
56.0
11.4
Source: “Para Nuestros Niños: Expanding and Improving Early Education for Hispanics March 2004”[7]

Inviting though it might be to view the Latino educational achievement gap as a problem for first- and second-generation children of immigrants, the data indicate otherwise. Although significant progress is made by the third generation, the achievement gaps persist.[8]

This spiraling sequence of poor test results leads to the highest high school dropout rates of any ethnic or racial group in the United States. In 2005, the last year for which data are available, the Latino dropout rate doubled the rate for African Americans and tripled the rate for whites.


Table 7
Percentage of high school dropouts (status dropouts) among persons 16 to 24 years old, by race/ethnicity: Selected years, 1972-2005
Year
Total1
Race/ethnicity2
White
Black
Hispanic
1972
14.6
12.3
21.3
34.3
1980
14.1
11.4
19.1
35.2
1985
12.6
10.4
15.2
27.6
1990
12.1
9.0
13.2
32.4
1995
12.0
8.6
12.1
30.0
1996
11.1
7.3
13.0
29.4
1997
11.0
7.6
13.4
25.3
1998
11.8
7.7
13.8
29.5
1999
11.2
7.3
12.6
28.6
2000
10.9
6.9
13.1
27.8
2001
10.7
7.3
10.9
27.0
2002
10.5
6.5
11.3
25.7
2003
9.9
6.3
10.9
23.5
2004
10.3
6.8
11.8
23.8
2005
9.4
6.0
10.4
22.4
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. (2007). The Condition of Education 2007 (NCES 2007-064), Indicator 23.

These national statistics tend to obscure even deeper problems in specific states or cities. In many of urban areas with high Latinos population, dropout rates are significantly higher. For example, in the state of New York, as a result of more stringent graduation requirements, one in two Latino students in seventh grade today are likely to drop out before twelfth grade.[9] In the Los Angeles Unified School District, the Latino dropout rate is close to 65 percent.[10]


Once Behind, Never Even

In examining the various studies, a hard truth rings through: children who enter kindergarten well behind their peers will almost certainly not catch up, absent major intervention.[11] As they grow older, they fall farther behind, increasingly overwhelmed by academic demands for which they have insufficient preparation, and demoralized by a steady stream of D’s and C’s. Many eventually drop out.
Not surprisingly, the gap persists beyond secondary school. Only 16 percent of U.S. Latinos will earn college degrees, compared to 34 percent of whites. That number is even smaller among foreign-born Latinos: As of 2000, only 7 percent will earn a college degree.[12]


Lurking Behind the Achievement Gap

The achievement gap between Latino children and white children is about more than language. Nearly 75 percent of kindergarteners from Hispanic families have one or more recognized risk factors for failure in school, compared with 20 percent of those from non-Hispanic white families.[13] Indeed, the “proportion of children with two or more risk factors is five times larger among Hispanics (33 percent) and four times larger among African American families (27 percent) … than among non-Hispanic whites (6 percent)”.[14] Those risk factors include:


  1. Having a mother with less than a high school education;
  2. Poverty, as defined by whether a family is eligible for welfare or food stamps;
  3. Having a parent whose primary language is not English; and
  4. Living in a single-parent family [15]
Latino children fare poorly on all four measures.

Mother’s Educational Attainment. In the eight and under age group, 44 percent of Latino children have mothers who did not graduate high school (versus 9 percent of non-Hispanic whites).[16] Only 4 percent of Mexican-American children in immigrant families have a mother with a college degree, while 64 percent have a mother who did not complete high school, 36 percent have a mother who did not progress beyond eighth grade, and 11 percent have a mother who did not progress beyond fourth grade.[17]

Poverty. Approximately 58 percent of Latino children are from low-income families (27 percent of non-Hispanic whites), 63 percent are from immigrant families living below the federal poverty line.[18]

Parent’s Primary Language. As of 2000, 56 percent of Latino infants had mothers born outside the United States,[19] and 54 percent of Hispanic parents spoke mostly Spanish or solely Spanish in the home. Among parents who used non-parental childcare regularly, 60 percent said Spanish was the primary language used in childcare.[20]
 
Single Parents. In 2000, 23 percent of Hispanic children (0-8) were from single-parent homes, compared to 15 percent for non-Hispanic whites.


The Pre-K Reform Movement

This mountain of disturbing data about the educational challenges facing Latino and other minority children has inspired a renewed focus on pre-kindergarten programs.

The need for pre-K programs for Latino children came into very sharp focus in the wake of the 2000 Census Report, which confirmed the rapid growth of the Latino population, as well as the income and educational achievement gap between non-Hispanic whites and Hispanics and African Americans. In the face of these concerns, longitudinal studies have demonstrated that “children who went to preschool were less likely to be held back in higher grades and more likely to graduate.”[21] Indeed, where pre-K programs are of high quality, they have especially profound results. One study concluded that participation in high-quality pre-K increased high school graduation rates by as much as 29 percent, while reducing grade retention rates by 44 percent, and improving standardized test scores in both reading and math.[22]

Other research has identified important economic and societal benefits from investment in pre-K. Research by Dr. Art Rolnich, economist and Research Director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, found that early education programs produce a 16-percent rate of return over the long term, the result of lower crime, fewer welfare payments and higher earnings.[23] Professor Louis Hechmar, a Nobel laureate economist at the University of Chicago, found that “extending preschool to the 4 million children under five then living in poverty would produce a net benefit to the economy of more than $511 billion.”[24]

Armed with these compelling economic facts, educational research and fairness and equity arguments, the pre-K movement has gained substantial national momentum in the past five years.
In all, 38 states are helping local governments finance pre-K programs and spent approximately $4.2 billion in 2007, an increase of 75 percent from two years ago.[25] In 2007, at least 29 governors recommended increases in state pre-K funding, proposing to infuse an additional $800 million into pre-K programs and provide access to 100,000 additional three- and four-year-olds.[26]

The argument has also begun to resonate in Washington, D.C., where issues of global competitiveness are increasingly seen as intertwined with the educational achievement of Latinos, African Americans and other minorities who will in a generation account for 40 percent of the U.S. population and an even greater percentage of the U.S. workforce.


Different Approach and Dissenting Voices

While supporters of increased pre-K are united in their view that more investment and more programs are needed, they divide into two camps over the issue of how far-reaching the initiative should be. One view favors government-funded universal pre-K for all three- and/or four-year-olds, reflecting the belief of many educators that pre-K is “the new first grade.”[27] A second view favors targeting government-funded pre-K programs primarily to low-income families, on the model of Head Start, as a way to close the achievement gap and make these children more productive members of society.[28] This second view seems to have gained more traction at the state government level: most existing state programs are restricted to children from homes whose family income is below the poverty line.

The pre-K movement also has its skeptics, who generally argue that it is either an inappropriate role for government or too costly an investment. Douglas Becharow of the American Enterprise Institute, for example, questions the return-on-investment findings of Dr. Rolnich and others.[29] Some critics point to the comparatively modest improvements in school readiness among low socio-economic status students attributed to the Early Head Start program, a federal program aimed at infants and toddlers.[30] Early Head Start Programs offer comprehensive services including parent education, healthcare and childcare.[31]


Challenges Facing Pre-K

Such concerns have not slowed the enthusiasm for ramping up pre-K programs around the nation, but the effort faces daunting challenges. First is the sheer scope of the effort. By one account, it “represents one of the most significant expansions in public education in the 90 years since World War I, when kindergarten first became standard in public schools.”[32] As such, in addition to requiring a societal consensus, it will require major efforts, leadership and resources from state and local governments, the federal government, private foundations, educational researchers and grassroots organizations. As noted by the National Task Force on Early Education for Hispanics:
Realistically, it will take a generation to build a much more robust early childhood education system for the nation’s young, including young Hispanics. Major expansions of—or changes in—early childhood systems take years to execute, as efforts by states to develop extensive pre-K programs over the past decade have demonstrated. It can take 10 to 15 years to design, test and longitudinally evaluate a new or significantly modified K-3, pre-K or infant/toddler strategy. Moreover, it should be expected that new strategies that show benefits will often need to be improved—which can add years more to the development process. Thus, the Task Force has formulated its recommendations using a 5- to 20-year time horizon.
Following are several key challenges facing the pre-K movement, particularly with respect to meeting the needs of Latino children.

1. Expanding Access for Hispanic Children

A recent study conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center examined the percentage of Hispanic enrollment in public schools in 49 states and Washington, D.C. and found that more than 56 percent of Hispanics went to schools that were 50- to 90-percent or more Hispanic.[33] That might suggest that Latino communities would be easier to reach with pre-K programs, but research suggests otherwise. For example, research by Los Angeles Universal Pre-School (LAUP) and First 5 California, a state government commission, found that public pre-schools in Los Angeles were not, by and large, located in any of the Hispanic communities most at risk.[34] Similarly, Dr. Bruce Fuller of the University of California, Berkeley, conducted a study that found that “the counties with the densest Latino populations in Los Angeles and Chicago were the least likely to have child-care centers and pre-K programs.”[35] LAUP is in the process of an ambitious, ten-year, $500 million program, funded by First 5 California, to build or enroll in-home and center-based programs predominantly in Hispanic neighborhoods, find and train more teachers, and engage in outreach to increase enrollment and parental participation. To date LAUP has created space to serve more than 14,000 of the 100,000-plus four-year-olds living in Los Angeles County.[36]

The access problem goes beyond “bricks and mortar” issues, of course. The very risk factors that correlate with poor academic outcomes also correlate with under-representation in pre-school programs. Thus, according to the 2005 National Household Education Survey, 30 percent of Hispanic three-year-olds attend center-based pre-schools, compared to 46 percent of non-Hispanic children of that age.[37]

One discredited explanation for the gap is the suggestion that low attendance in pre-school programs by Latinos is culturally-based, that Latino parents prefer to keep children at home until it is time to go to school. A 2006 survey of 1,000 Hispanic families in ten cities conducted by the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute largely put that issue to rest. The survey found:
  • More than 90 percent of Hispanics felt that it is very important or somewhat important for children to attend pre-K.
  • Ninety-seven percent said they would send their children to publicly funded, voluntary pre-K if it were available in their community.
  • Sixty-nine percent said they believe pre-K is an important priority for the government to address now.
  • When asked what they regarded as strong arguments for the benefits of pre-K:
    • Eighty-five percent of the respondents cited the capacity of pre-K to help children learn early literacy skills;
    • Eighty percent cited the opportunity to acquire social skills;
    • Eighty-seven percent noted the capacity of pre-K to help children learn English and become prepared for kindergarten.[38]
Indeed, survey research consistently finds that Latino families value pre-K at a 15 percent higher rate than do other populations.[39] In short, the problem is not demand, but supply, and knowledge about availability and accessibility.

2. Creating a Consensus Curriculum

Making pre-K available and getting children to attend poses one set of problems. Deciding on what to teach them poses another. Educators have not yet settled on a consensus pre-K curricular model, and so pre-K programs use a wide range of curricula, with a variety of ongoing test programs and pilot studies. Moreover, the research community has not settled the question of whether pre-K should be available for three-year-olds in addition to four-year-olds, whether half-day or full-day programs are more effective, the extent to which pre-K programs should be integrated into K-3 curricula, or the extent to which parental involvement should be considered critical or ancillary to the curriculum. In addition, standards and test measurements for judging progress and achievement are also under development.

3. Making Sure Programs are of High Quality

Consensus has emerged around the idea that, for pre-K to work, programs must be of high quality. Dr. Steven Barnett of the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER), with support from the Pew Charitable Trusts, evaluated the programmatic elements of Head Start and other pre-school programs around the nation. NIEER established stringent requirements for class size, student-teacher ratios, teacher certification, interactivity of the curriculum and overall learning environment. The results were mixed, with many programs deemed marginal at best. “Far too many of the pre-school programs available to children today are not good enough,” the NIEER Report concludes. A low quality pre-K program does not produce significant benefits in terms of school readiness.


Meeting the Needs of English Language Learners

An even more significant challenge confronting the pre-K movement is the growing number of pre-K English Language Learners (ELL) – youngsters who arrive at school speaking a language other than English. The issue has taken on particular urgency states with large ELL populations, including California, New York, Texas, Florida and Illinois.

Some 30 percent of Latino children in the United States are considered English Language Learners. According to data reported by the states, ELL children account for a little over 10 percent of the total pre-K to twelfth-grade student population.













Table 9
ELL Growth Since 1993-94



More significantly, the ELL population is growing fast, far faster than the overall student population in the United States. Since the 1993-94 school year, the enrolled ELL K-12 population in American schools has increased by more than 65 percent. During that same time, the overall student population has gone up slightly over 9 percent. The trend shows no sign of slowing anytime soon.


Table 10
YEAR
TOTAL K-12 ENROLLMENT
K-12 GROWTH SINCE 1993-94
ELL ENROLLMENT
ELL GROWTH SINCE 1993-94
93-94
45,443,389
0%
3,037,922
0%
94-95
47,745,835
5.07%
3,184,696
4.83%
95-96
47,582,665
4.71%
3,228,799
6.28%
96-97
46,714,980
2.80%
3,452,073
13.63%
97-98
46,023,969
1.28%
3,470,268
14.23%
98-99
46,153,266
1.56%
3,540,673
16.55%
99-00
47,356,089
4.21%
4,416,580
45.38%
00-01
47,665,483
4.89%
4,584,947
50.92%
01-02
48,296,777
6.28%
4,750,920
56.39%
02-03
49,478,583
8.88%
5,044,361
66.05%
03-04
49,619,117
9.19%
5,014,437
65.06%





Source: U.S. Department of Education, Office of English Language Acquisition, Language Enhancement and Academic Achievement for Limited English Proficient Students (OELA).http://www.netc.org/focus/images/pdf/ell.pdf

To be clear, these ELL children are the ones who are typically omitted from data gauging the Latino achievement gap, because they lack the English language skills to take kindergarten assessment tests. A close look at this Latino ELL student population reveals a dire picture. In both English and math, these children lag far behind their more English-proficient Latino classmates, a group that itself lags behind non-Hispanic white students.


Table 11*
Percentage of ELL Hispanic and Non-ELL Hispanics Scoring Below the Basic Level in Reading and Math



*Source: National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) 2005. As cited in National Institute for Early Education Research, Preschool Policy Brief, March 2007, Issue 13.

In Texas and New York, two states with large Latino populations, the gap between ELL Latinos and non-Hispanic whites runs as high as 60 percentage points.


Table 12*
States with the Largest ELL Achievement Gaps
(in percentage points)
MATHEMATICS
READING
Grade 4
Grade 8
Grade 4
Grade 8
California
37

48

48

49
Texas

26

60

44

61
New York
41

60

55

62
Florida

34

48

44

49
Illinois

52

51

60

50
Arizona

46

51

51

54
New Jersey
31

-

-

-
Washington
35

47

45

48
Massachusetts
27

59

46

62
Georgia

46

48

53

-
North Carolina
19

40

44

36
*Source: 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)

From the political debate surrounding immigration issues, one might conclude that most of these students were undocumented immigrants. In fact, well over 90 percent of immigrant children are legal U.S. citizens. As of 2000, just 1.5 percent of pre-K to fifth-grade students and 2.8 percent of sixth- to twelfth-grade students were first-generation, undocumented immigrants.[40]

Table 13
*Source: The New Demography of American Schools, pg. 10

Latino intellectual and political leadership has begun to coalesce around the need to provide special services to ELL Latinos. In addition, as a result of the standards movement and the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), public schools and school systems nationally are under pressure to produce student populations that pass strict standardized tests. As a consequence, these schools have become allies of the ELL movement as they look for new thinking and strategies for how, given their limited resources, to teach this population.


Current Programs for English Language Learners

a. English Immersion

In general, schools offer ELL students one of four basic programs. The first and most common is English Immersion or Structured English Immersion programs. Sometimes referred to as “submersion” programs, these programs are based on a “sink or swim” philosophy, in which students with limited or no English proficiency are taught in English, with remedial help made available. In structured English Immersion, ELL students are pulled out of their all-English classes to take extra instruction in English language development. In both variants of this model, students are expected to make annual gains in their academic English language fluency so that they can be reclassified out of the ELL ranks within a few years. Unfortunately, most ELL students sink in immersion programs.

According to data from the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the school district with the highest percentage of ELL students in the nation, as well as one of the biggest, more than 87 percent of elementary school ELL students are enrolled in a Structured English Immersion program, with just over 5 percent enrolled in a mainstream English program, and the balance enrolled in alternative bilingual programs. In secondary grades the relationship is reversed, with 79 percent of ELL students enrolled in mainstream English courses and the balance in Structured English Immersion.[41] That reversal might lead one to surmise that the ELL programs were successful in improving the English fluency of ELL students. Such was not the case.

As required under California State Law and NCLB, the LAUSD conducts an annual evaluation of its ELL program, looking to see whether and to what extent ELL students are progressing toward English Language proficiency. The results of the most recent data collection, published in a December 2007 report, are dismal:
  • Nearly 60 percent of all ELL students enrolled in the district for their entire elementary school (K-5) years have not learned sufficient English to be reclassified.
  • Fifty percent of all ELL students made no progress in 2006-07 in terms of their English language abilities.
  • Sixty-six percent of all ELL students who received their entire elementary (K-5) instruction in the district failed either the writing or the reading component of the California Standards Test in English Language Arts. Fifty-three percent of elementary school ELL students and 81 percent of secondary school ELL students failed the test by scoring “below or far below” the basic level.
  • On the Math component of the California Standards Test, 41 percent of elementary school ELL students failed, while 83.4 percent of secondary school ELL students failed by scoring “below or far below” the basic level.[42]

Such results are cause for genuine alarm. Indeed, the 2007 results marked the third year the District had failed to meet the academic achievement targets for ELL students, so, as required by NCLB, parents were notified of the failure and the District developed an improvement plan.[43] Still, as poor as the performance of the District has been, it posted better results for ELL students than five of its counterpart large California school districts (San Diego, San Jose, Santa Ana, Oakland and Long Beach).

The Los Angeles findings are not entirely surprising given the District’s use of English Immersion, the effectiveness of which has not been sufficiently demonstrated by research.[44] Indeed, to the contrary, studies have consistently found that Spanish-speaking ELL students have a more productive educational experience when the teacher speaks some Spanish in the classroom.[45]
Nevertheless, Spanish-speaking ELL students are dispersing throughout the United States and increasingly finding themselves in schools that have historically served a homogeneous English-speaking student population and are now unprepared for ELL students. Data compiled by the respected education research organization, Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL), casts light on the problem. McREL looked at data spanning the decade of the 1990s, in the seven states of its Central Region service area – Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming – and found huge growth in the number of pre-K and elementary ELL students in all but one state:[46]

Table 14
Percentage Change in Number of Pre-K to Fifth Grade ELL Students: 1990-2000:
Colorado
163%
Kansas
87%
Missouri
43%
Nebraska
350%
North Dakota
-22%
South Dakota
264%
Wyoming
59%
*Source: English Language Learners: A Growing Population, p. 2

McREL also found that few teachers in these states were trained to deal with ELL students, and that few are bilingual. Despite the changing demographics in the states, more than 67 percent of teachers in large towns, 58 percent of teachers in central cities and 82 percent of teachers in rural locales have never participated in professional development classes for addressing the needs of ELL students.[47] Moreover, of the teachers who did teach ELL students, less than 13 percent had received eight hours of training in how to teach ELL students in the preceding three years.[48]
McREL also noted that the problem is made all the more complicated because the poorest school districts typically enroll the highest number of ELL students.[49] Such districts usually lack the financial wherewithal to hire bilingual teachers and design specialized curricula.
So for a variety of reasons, some political, some pedagogical, some related to funding, English immersion appears to be here to stay. However, it is on a clear collision course with NCLB’s requirement that schools use research-based language instruction curricula to deal with ELL students and show annual progress toward the goal of their acquiring English proficiency.[50]

b. English as a Second Language

The second most common approach is English as a Second Language (ESL), sometimes known as
English Pl
us Spanish. This category includes a wide range of methodologies and levels of formality. The more formal programs resemble Structured English Immersion programs. In many cases, a special class will be created for ELL students to review their English language subjects with a bilingual teacher who will assist them, in Spanish, if necessary. In other cases, bilingual teachers teaching in English will pause the class and explain a concept in Spanish for ELL students. In some of these classes, ELL students are allowed to respond to a question or participate in class discussions using a combination of English and/or Spanish. The main goal of this kind of instruction is to establish English proficiency. However, the lack of consistent standards, teaching methods and accountability often creates problems for schools under NCLB and has made it difficult to assess on a national basis the relative success or failure of these programs.

c. Transitional Bilingual Programs

The third type of program is a transitional bilingual program in which content areas are taught in Spanish for the first few years (usually in the kindergarten through third-grade years) while students are developing their English skills. As ELL students become more proficient in English, they are expected to be reclassified to an all-English program. These programs have tended to be successful, although they are not widely in use for both political reasons and the difficulty of recruiting qualified bilingual teachers.

Three findings from related research support this pedagogical approach:
  • “Academic knowledge and skills acquired through one language pave the way for related knowledge and skills in another language”.[51] In other words, language-minority students have the ability to take advantage of higher order vocabulary skills learned in the first language, such as the ability to provide formal definitions, take advantage of cognates and interpret metaphors, when speaking a second language.[52] 
  • English skills when learned as a second language are best acquired by students who first have strong oral and literacy skills in their native language.[53] First-language literacy is related in other important ways to literacy development in English, including word and pseudo-word reading, reading comprehension, reading strategies, spelling and writing. Language-minority students who are literate in their first language are likely to be at an advantage in the acquisition of English literacy. This finding is based on studies of older students and adults.
  • Language skills are acquired best when used as a means of instruction rather than just the focus of instruction.[54]
Finally, transitional bilingual programs could help alleviate the problem that, in addition to their problems mastering academic English, many ELLs can neither speak nor read Spanish well, especially academic Spanish. Linguistically, they end up with the worst of all worlds.
Another important reason that Spanish-only curricula, particularly in the pre-K context, have not been favored is that in a number of states, most notably California, Arizona and Massachusetts, voters have passed English-only laws that seek to require English Immersion. For example, California’s Proposition 227, passed in June 1998, declared:

All children in California public schools shall be taught English by being taught in English. In particular, this shall require that all children be placed in English-language classrooms. Children who are English learners shall be educated through sheltered English immersion during a temporary transition period not normally intended to exceed one year.

As a result of Proposition 227, the percentage of ELL students in bilingual education programs has dropped significantly in the state. Some ELL students continue in bilingual programs, as a result of a waiver procedure that parents can initiate requiring that their child be placed in a bilingual class. In many cases, teachers are encouraging the placement into bilingual classes by contacting parents and urging them to fill out the waiver.[55] Nevertheless, the impact of Proposition 227 is marked.



Table 15



In this context, arguing for Spanish-only programs is a political non-starter. Proposition 227 was passed precisely in response to arguments that low achievement and high dropout rates for ELL students were caused by “costly experimental language programs.”[56] A number of other states are currently contemplating English-only initiatives

d. Dual Language Immersion Programs

The most promising program today for ELL students just happens to be one of the most promising programs for English-only speaking students—namely, Dual Language (DL) Immersion.
DL programs grew in number as a result of the 1994 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the forerunner of No Child Left Behind. Under ESEA, the U.S. Department of Education for the first time actively promoted the development of educational programs whose goal was dual language competency both for non-English native language students as well as for students whose home language was solely English. The Department envisioned programs designed to create dual language competencies in students, without sacrificing their success in school or beyond. Unique among program alternatives, the goals of DL, accordingly, are to provide high-quality instruction for ELL students and simultaneously provide instruction in a second language for English-speaking students. Schools offering DL programs teach children language through content, with teachers using teaching methods that ensure children’s comprehension, and using content lessons to convey vocabulary and language structure. The programs generally strive for half language-minority students and half native English-speaking students in each classroom, and also aim to teach cross-cultural awareness.[57]

Two basic models of DL programs are in use. In programs using the “50:50” approach, instruction is in Spanish for half of the day and in English for the other half. In the “90:10” model, kindergarten children spend 90 percent of the day in Spanish, with the level decreasing to 50 percent over a period of years (usually, by third grade), with the amount of English increasing inversely.
More than 400 DL programs are in operation in the United States, and the number is increasing rapidly. The programs are popular both with ELL students and native English speakers. More important, they appear to be effective: research indicates that “DL is an excellent model for academic achievement for all children.[58]

A recent example is the current enthusiasm surrounding the DL program at Dixie Downs Elementary School in Washington County, Utah. During its initial implementation phase, the program stirred local opposition to teaching Spanish and English equally in a public school. Eighteen months later, school officials and parents were delighted with the results. At the beginning of the first school year, 31 percent of first-graders were reading at grade level in English. By the end of the year, 58 percent were at grade level. The school also passed its yearly progress goals of having at least 10 percent fewer children fail grade level testing than the year before.
According to school officials, 40 students opted out of the program because their parents feared that participation could slow the progress of their monolingual children – a position articulated by the local Citizens Council on Illegal Immigration, which argued that “total immersion of non-English kids into English language courses, until they can join regular classes, is the only way to go.”[59] On the other hand, school officials are quick to point out that 137 students transferred in from other areas, representing more than 100 new families. Interestingly, many of these families came from higher-income areas, specifically so that their children could become bilingual. Interest in the dual immersion program increased overall enrollment in the school to the point that it now operates at capacity, while officials look to hire more aides for larger classroom sizes.
The program also appears to have fostered a level of cross-cultural tolerance not always in evidence. Even though the school’s population has traditionally been low-income and Spanish-speaking households, school officials are finding that “the students are accepting of each other and have learned how to work successfully together.”[60] Of Dixie Downs total enrollment of 516 students, 330 are enrolled in the DL program.

Another example of the popularity of these programs can be found in the Liberty Bell Elementary School in the Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania. In that case, the program is so popular among non-Latinos that, according to me one parent, Kimberly DelSordo,
for the past several years parents have camped at the school for sign-ups since it is a first-come-first-served process. The year my first child was eligible for the program, the line formed on Friday evening for Monday morning enrollment. I still remember that we were number "7" and my husband spent three nights in a tent on the school sidewalk. We have never doubted that decision; we made many good friends that weekend, and our kids have flourished in the program.
Among the most prominent studies supporting the benefits of DL is an evaluation of the Key School in Arlington, Virginia, where researchers found that 100 percent of Spanish-speaking ELL students demonstrated oral English fluency by third and sixth grades. They also found that English writing samples from Spanish speaking ELL students were “indistinguishable from those of native English speakers,” and all were of high quality.”[61]

A somewhat older study of the Amigos Dual Immersion Program in Cambridge, Massachusetts, found that third-graders performed consistently at grade level, which included native monolingual English students.[62] The study also found that students from Amigos outperformed their Spanish ELL peers in more conventional bilingual education programs (i.e., English as a Second Language or ESL) in math and reading, as well as in Spanish and English.[63] These and similar results have been confirmed by numerous other researchers, including a seven-year study undertaken by the Center for Applied Linguistics, which collected data from 344 students in 11 Spanish-English DL programs around the country.[64] That study concluded:

There is widespread acceptance of the value of DL programs. These programs “can work for all students, allowing them to meet high academic standards, function in two languages at high levels of academic excellence and share cultural understandings not possible through more traditional educational efforts…. Having all U.S. students become fluent in more than one language is not only a marketable skill in today’s increasingly diverse and global society, but, as the students mentioned demonstrate, it can also contribute to increased cognitive flexibility and high achievement in math, science and language arts.[65]

Research conducted in the specific context of pre-school also supports dual-language immersion as a promising program. In one such study, by NIEER, three- and four-year-olds were randomly assigned to a DL class or an English-only immersion class. Approximately half the children were Spanish-dominant and half English-dominant. The DL program alternated between Spanish and English classes weekly. All classrooms used the same curriculum.[66] The DL program and the English-only programs were compared on a variety of measures, including how well they fostered students’ growth in language, emerging literacy and mathematical skills. According to the researchers:

Children in both DL and EI programs made strong gains on English language measures of achievement. No significant differences between treatment groups were found on English language measures. However, only the DL children made gains in Spanish language acquisition. In fact, Spanish language children gained against Spanish language norms while their peers in the EI program lost ground against Spanish language norms.[67]

Such results are further evidence of the benefits of the dual-immersion approach, and particularly its applicability to pre-school.[68]

Apart from DL programs, the overall body of evidence on the effectiveness of bilingual programs is mixed, presumably due to the uneven quality of bilingual programs across the country. They are, for example, constrained by the shortage of trained teachers, and they encounter political resistance from those who paint the programs as a “boutique” alternative, and argue against teaching in Spanish where tax dollars are involved.


The Push Towards Bilingualism

The push for English-only instruction stands in sharp contrast to a large body of research that “increasingly shows that most young children are not only capable of learning two languages [but also] that bilingualism confers cognitive, cultural and economic advantages.”[69] Historically, bilingualism early in life was thought to confuse children and interfere with their ability to develop normal cognitive functions and succeed academically.[70] This notion was repudiated by a landmark study by Elizabeth Peal and Wallace Lambert demonstrating the general superiority of bilinguals over monolinguals in a wide range of intelligence tests and school achievement.”[71] Subsequent research has found that “bilingualism has been associated with a greater awareness of and sensitivity to linguistic structure, an awareness that is transferred and generalized to certain early literacy and non-verbal skills.”[72]


Researchers have conducted countless studies on bilingualism, touching on virtually every aspect of the way in which second and additional languages are learned, how they are processed within the brain, whether a second language interferes with primary language acquisition or whether it enhances it, and the preferred methods in teaching a second language. Some key research findings related to bilinguals and bilingualism include:
  • Knowing more than one language leads to greater cognitive flexibility. Stronger vocabulary and more diversified syntactical skills result in greater mental agility and enhanced cognitive processes.[73]
  • Although bilingual children may at first have smaller vocabularies in each language (but equal or greater vocabulary considering both languages) than monolingual children in their own language, bilinguals have a greater understanding of language structure.[74]
  • Bilingual children (four to eight years old) demonstrate a clear advantage over monolinguals in solving problems and tasks requiring specific attention to verbal and non-verbal cues.[75]
  • In a test of the cognitive processes of students 14 to 16 years of age, bilingual students exhibited superior learning strategies, after controlling for social factors, gender, scholastic achievement and language proficiency.[76]
  • Data from a test designed to introduce syntactic ambiguity that had to be resolved in order to make sense of problems revealed that bilingual children used more advanced cognitive and linguistic strategies to resolve ambiguities than did monolingual children. Similarly, bilingual children have been found to outperform their monolingual peers in the ability to ignore “red herrings” and other false or irrelevant facts in answering complex questions or solving complex problems.[77]
  • A recent study found that Hispanic students from bilingual households “obtained .6 more years of education and earned bachelor’s degrees at three times the rate of Hispanics in English monolingual households (15.6 percent versus 4.6 percent). They also entered high school occupations at twice the rate of English monolinguals.”[78]
In addition to these results, experts agree that, to achieve native-like fluency in a second language, a child needs to acquire the primary elements of the second language before age six and the final elements before age twelve. During these early years, research demonstrates, the child’s brain can easily grasp multiple languages and will learn important “inhibitory reflexes,” so that he or she will use the correct language depending on the context.[79] The development of these inhibitory reflexes is highly correlated with superior cognitive development.[80] Moreover, a substantial body of evidence suggests that second languages are stored and activated in different parts of the brain, thus causing no interference with primary language acquisition.[81] The ability of the brain to switch back and forth between language storage and activation areas is also correlated to high cognitive functioning. In the field of psycholinguistics, failure to develop bilingualism early in life is regarded as a missed opportunity for higher brain development.[82]

All of this research suggests that bilinguals are on average “smarter,” and their brains more flexible and adaptable, than monolinguals. For this and other reasons, pre-K, ELL and bilingualism advocates are coming together around issues of early childhood education and the preferred methods for second language acquisition.


Conclusion

In sum, the Latino education crisis continues largely unabated, with no solid research or political consensus on how best to address it in the context of pre-K, elementary or secondary schooling. One thing is clear: In the case of ELLs, the growing movement towards requiring English Immersion as a solution is not supported by the research and it is responsible for system-wide failures in the education of ELLs, as in the case of California's major school districts. Best practices point to DL programs as a real advance for all involved, followed by transitional bilingual programs, both of which are backed by extensive research supporting the cognitive and other benefits of developing and maintaining a firm grounding in one's native language, while learning a second.





Section Two: Children's Educational Television

This is not the first time that the nation has confronted an educational achievement gap. In the mid-1960s, amidst the ongoing battles over desegregation of the public schools, education reformers also began to focus on a significant achievement gap separating white and African American students. One effort that grew out of this concern was children’s educational television.

The television programming that resulted was creative, engaging, intelligent, and most significant, effective. In particular, Sesame Street, the originator of the genre, has played a vital role in enabling millions of preschool children to develop fundamental academic and cognitive skills that benefit them not just in elementary school, but throughout their academic experience.

Unlike the Head Start model specifically targeting, and indeed restricted to, low-income families,
Sesame Street
and the Children’s Television Workshop that created and produced it quickly moved away from a commitment to help “close the achievement gap.” Given its runaway success with all U.S. children in its first year, by its second season, Children’s Television Workshop leaders took the view that, there is a basic level of literacy whose achievement opens up greatly expanded opportunities for employment and many other privileges. While
Sesame Street
could not determine which group of students would cross the line first, it could – and did – aim to ensure that the maximum number possible would do so.[83]

Children’s educational television continues to play an important role in the early education of America’s children, and it has evolved so far beyond its original mission, and its viewers are so diverse and large a group of children, that it is no longer thought of as a dedicated resource in the fight to close the “achievement gap,” and is instead regarded as a tool for preparing all children for the academic challenges that await them.


The Children's Educational Television Model

The Children’s Television Workshop (CTW) was initially funded with $8 million ($57 million in 2007 equivalent dollars) in grants from the U.S. Department of Education, the Carnegie Foundation and the Ford Foundation, among others.[84] Its purpose was to harness the ever broadening reach of television to serve “poor children [who] had few available resources. Nursery schools and other opportunities for formal early education experiences were in short supply. Those that did exist were available only to those families that could afford them.... Television could be a way to reach many, if not most, of the children who were in need of such help.”[85] Thus, CTW’s initial funded mandate was to,
create, broadcast, promote and evaluate an experimental educational television series of 130 hour-long programs that would seek to advance the school readiness of three- to five-year-old children, with special emphasis on the needs of youngsters from low-income and minority backgrounds.[86]

At the time, of course, the targeted minority children were principally African American.
CTW successfully accomplished its objective by fostering collaboration among commercial producers, educators and researchers. “Under the CTW Model, producers, researchers and educational content specialists collaborate closely throughout the life of a project, from its initial inception through the completion of the final product. Each group brings its unique perspective to the table to ensure that the results will be entertaining, educationally sound, and both appealing and comprehensible to the target audience.”[87]

The emphasis on research is worth noting. CTW relies on formative research to pre-test distinct elements of the show, an approach that has proved critical to the success of the series.[88] The testing is aimed at determining whether a select group watching particular elements are actually able to accomplish the educational objective of the tested element. Research is also aimed at bringing the “child’s eye” to the process, answering such questions as whether a health message is better carried by a green dinosaur or a red parrot, or how many times a learning unit needs to be repeated before a three-year-old learns its content. Often, the results of formative research lead to changes in the production that are made before a show airs nationally.

The second key area of research is summative research, which is used to evaluate what, in fact, children who watched the show learn, and how their performance on various tests is affected by watching a particular show. The results of the summative research are also fed back to the production and curriculum teams and used to inform future decisions.
In general, summative researchers pre-test and post-test children who have seen Sesame Street episodes, comparing the results with a control group of children who have not, and compare how each group performs with respect to a variety of measurements, such as vocabulary augmentation, number recognition and manipulation, etc.

This approach was created in the earliest days of the Children’s Television Workshop, and it continues today, even after the organization was renamed the Sesame Workshop in 2000. Tests are rigorously conducted, data is statistically controlled for factors that could influence the data other than viewing Sesame Street – age, sex, geographic location, socio-economic status, parents’ educational level, and whether the child watches Sesame Street at home or in a school environment.[89] These test results have long been essential to program funders, who understandably expect to see positive results before renewing funding.


Key Research into Educational Programs' Effectiveness

More than 1,000 studies have focused on
Sesame Street
’s effectiveness alone. The most significant are longitudinal studies that follow a child from his on her earliest exposure to children’s educational television through elementary and, in some cases, secondary school. Key findings that emerge include:

  • Among three- to five-year olds, heavier viewers of
    Sesame Street
    showed significantly greater growth than non-viewers in an assortment of academic skills related to the alphabet, sorting and classification, numbers, shapes and relational terms. The areas that showed the greatest effects have been those most emphasized on
    Sesame Street
    .[90] These effects held after controlling for a number of variables, including whether the viewer was a native English or Spanish speaker.[91] In a follow-up study conducted a year later on the same children, kindergarten teachers rated frequent Sesame Street viewers (not identified to them as such) as better prepared for school than their non-viewing peers based on such issues as verbal and quantitative readiness, attitude towards school and peer relationships.[92]
  • In another study, researchers followed low-SES preschoolers over a three-year period, and found that watching educational television correlated positively with the “amount of time children spent reading and in educational activities, as well as their letter-word knowledge, math skills, vocabulary size, and school readiness on age-appropriate standardized tests.”[93] Teachers also rated these children as better adjusted to school.
  • In a 2001 study, the U.S. Department of Education analyzed data on 10,000 students dating back to 1993. Results indicated that preschoolers who viewed
    Sesame Street
    were better able to recognize letters and tell connected stories when pretending to read. Moreover, in the first and second grade, these former preschoolers were likely to be able to read story books on their own and were less in need of remedial help.[94] Another key study found that educational television viewing in early childhood significantly correlated to reading and TV-watching habits in adolescence. The more youngsters watched children’s educational television early in life, the more they were interested as adolescents in watching educational programming and reading.[95]
  • In a re-contact study looking at two segments of a high school student population, one group whose members had been frequent viewers of Sesame Street and other children’s educational programming, and another whose members were non-viewers, researchers found that
    Sesame Street
    viewers had “significantly higher grades in English, Mathematics and Science in junior high or high school. They also read books more often, showed higher academic self-esteem and placed a higher value on academic performance”[96] These differences held true even after statistically removing the effects of early language skills and family background.
The educational benefits of
Sesame Street
were also demonstrated in studies of international co-productions. For example, a 1996 Summative Study involving Plaza Sesamo,, a Mexican co-production, found significant differences in cognitive skills, with Plaza Sesamo viewers holding a clear advantage, particularly in the areas of literacy and mathematics.[97]



Beyond Sesame Street

Other children’s educational television programs have had a similarly impressive impact.


  • Dragon Tales is described by its creators as a school-readiness project.[98] The show was designed to encourage young children to pursue challenges that will help their growth and development, to help them recognize multiple ways to approach and learn from obstacles in their lives, and to help them understand that trying and failing is a natural and valuable part of learning.[99] In a comprehensive study, Dragon Tales viewers demonstrated a significant increase in the frequency with which they took on challenging tasks, took the lead in organizing play with others, shared with older children, and cooperated with others. Researchers also concluded that Dragon Tales helped spark considerable interaction between child and parent. 
  • Between the Lions is designed to foster the literacy skills of its viewers, with a target audience of children between the ages of three and seven. The program seeks to “foster the literacy skills of its viewers while playfully demonstrating the joys of reading.”[100] In a summative evaluation of Between the Lions, 164 kindergarten and first-grade schoolchildren were tested before and after regular exposure to the show. Children who watched Between the Lions improved significantly more than the control group in the areas of letter identification, phonemic awareness, letter-sound correspondence and a general measure of reading ability. The controlled group watched other educational programming focused on math skills.[101] 
  • Blue’s Clues was designed to promote mastery of thinking and problem-solving skills among pre-K children. Research indicates it is accomplishing its objective. A study of 120 preschool children found a significant gain in problem-solving skills, gains that increased over time.[102] Researchers developed more than 50 different pictorial tests to assess the extent to which regular Blue’s Clues viewers had learned sequencing, patterning, relational concepts, transformations, and other skills related to creativity and problem solving.[103] During the first season of the program, regular Blue’s Clues watchers scored 80 percent on the tests, while non-viewers scored 60 percent. The gap between viewers and non-viewers increased during the second season, with the regular viewers achieving an average score of 87 percent, while the control group scored 56 percent. Researchers tested the same group of children on riddle comprehension, deciphering, creative thinking, pattern perception, expressive vocabulary, non-verbal skills and the ability to solve new problems. In each area, Blue’s Clues viewers outscored non-viewers.[104] 
  • Square One TV was designed to “promote positive attitudes and enthusiasm for mathematics, to encourage the use and application of problem-solving process, and to present mathematical content in an interesting, accessible and meaningful manner.”[105] In one study of the program, researchers administered pre-tests and post-tests to groups of viewers and non-viewers, and found that viewers scored significantly lower than non-viewers in the pre-test (before watching the program) and significantly higher on the post-test (after watching) on measures of the number and variety of problem-solving actions and techniques used and the mathematical completeness and sophistication of the solutions.[106]
Has Children’s Educational Television Closed the Achievement Gap?

Little doubt remains about the effectiveness of children’s educational programming in preparing preschoolers for kindergarten and in developing literacy, mathematical and cognitive skills crucial to those children in their elementary and secondary school experience. But does it close the achievement gap between white students and Latino, specifically Spanish-speaking ELL, students?

The evidence indicates that the programming is effective, improving viewers’ skills in ways that help them achieve in school. That appears to be true regardless of income, ethnicity or native language. But it does not appear to close the achievement gap. Three reasons stand out.

First, children’s educational television programming lifts not just minority and low-income children, but white, middle- and upper-income children, as well. So while it produces gains among Latino and low-income children, those gains are matched, even exceeded, by white children from wealthier families. Of course, it is hardly an indictment of children’s educational television to say that it has an important and positive impact on children of all incomes and ethnicities. But it does help explain why the achievement gap is not narrowing.

Second, the extent of the impact of children’s educational television varies on the basis of, by now, predictable risk factors. Among them is language. Not surprisingly, research has found that ELL children do not learn as much from English programming as do English-speaking children. As one study concluded:

Language turned out to be a “suppressor variable” in that Hispanic American children often viewed
Sesame Street
, but, having English as a second language, performed less well than the average native English-speaking children in the sample.[107]

Third, children from low-income families register smaller gains from watching children’s educational television than middle- and upper-income, probably because they lack a variety of important supports – parents’ educational attainment, time spent being read to, etc. Indeed, many of these are also ELL children, and research has amply demonstrated that the combination of risk factors is powerful.

So while children’s educational television improves the skills of low-income and ELL students, the achievement gap persists. Children who view the programs outpace the rest of their non-viewing cohort, but the gap between different groups of viewers remains. The result is that low-income students, and low-income ELL students in particular, are likely to enter kindergarten already on the short end of an achievement gap. Many of them have watched and learned from children’s educational television, and are likely to be more advanced than their non-viewing peers, but they are nevertheless behind.







Section Three: Closing the Gap: Preparing Latino Children to Succeed in School

As distressing as the persistence of the achievement gap between white and minority students is, there are several reasons for optimism that real progress is within reach.

First, we know we can make progress in improving students’ chances of succeeding in school, because we’ve already done it. One significant measure of that is the declining rate of high school drop-outs. According to the U.S. Department of Education, the drop-out rate for Latino students has declined from one in three in 1972 to just over one in five today. Over the same period, African American and white dropout rates have both been cut in half. The African American dropout rate has declined from one in five to one in ten, while the white dropout rate has gone from one in eight to one in sixteen. The bad news is the disparity between the different groups, but the good news is the overall trend line of declining drop-outs, demonstrating that progress is not just possible, but ongoing.

Second, we know from research that we can make progress with pre-K students in particular. Pre-K prepares children for what they will encounter in school, and has both short- and long-term benefits, a significant increase in graduation rates for pre-K students chief among the latter.

Third, we know some specific educational approaches work. Research described in this white paper, for example, demonstrates the value of early learning, and pre-K in particular, and points the way toward a bilingual approach to education (i.e., Dual Language Immersion) that allows Spanish-speaking children to learn both academic Spanish and English and keep up with their English-speaking classmates in the substantive areas at the same time.

Fourth, we know that children’s educational television, when devised with the attention to research demonstrated by the Sesame Workshop, can be a most powerful tool in preparing pre-K children for the classroom. Reams of data make clear that children’s educational television has great impact on children who watch it. Indeed, in the sole study focused on ELL students in a bilingual classroom setting, researchers concluded that ELL viewers achieved strong language-skill gains from viewing Between the Lions.[108]

Fifth, making that record of success all the more significant is the knowledge that children’s educational television has strong penetration into, and is very popular among, low-income, black and Latino families, including those in which the mother does not speak English as their first language.[109] One study found that 83 percent of children from the poorest communities were regular viewers of
Sesame Street
, a higher percentage than in non-poor communities.[110] In addition, nearly 90 percent of Latino preschoolers had watched Sesame Street before starting school, a clear indication that Latino families value children’s educational television,[111] and that the programming is reaching these audiences.

Sixth, the growing political strength of the Latino population in the United States adds real urgency to efforts to address the issue, and real political rewards for politicians and policymakers who are able do address it in ways that are effective and not punitive.
How best to turn these reasons for optimism into an effective, nationwide program or programs to close the Latino education gap?

An Action Agenda for Bridging the Latino Achievement Gap

Closing the persistent achievement gap dividing Latino children from their white peers will require contributions from several quarters.

First, while the issue affects many communities, two entities stand out as particularly central to the challenge of closing the gap: the pre-K community and the producers of children’s educational programming. By and large, these communities operate in separate spheres, at least to date. But through dialogue aimed at developing a deeper understanding of the landscape, they can come together to chart a course and adopt a series of actions to amplify existing efforts and make progress.

In order to seed change, support existing initiatives and programs, and foster new approaches, V-Me is prepared to commit significant organizational resources to the task of supporting families, children, educators, researchers and others in the challenge of closing the achievement gap. The first step in that effort should be a national convening, bringing together all the various stakeholders – researchers, educators, Latino leaders, children’s advocates, children’s programming experts and others – to construct a long-term Action Agenda that will seize those opportunities for progress that are already within sight, including the incorporation of or targeted and effective use of Spanish language and bilingual educational television and programming, and also identify areas for future research, experimentation, program development and other activity that will create long-term progress.
For its part, V-Me stands ready to help in a number of areas, leading where appropriate, but also working to facilitate the work of partners as they take on pieces of the Action Agenda.

1. Empowering Latino Families to Prepare their Children for School

The task of preparing children for school begins, as it inevitably must, at home. For parents who do not speak English, that can be a daunting challenge. These parents need and want help, and a variety of institutions stand ready to provide it. For example, V-Me plans to partner with the American Academy of Pediatricians and with Reach Out and Read; among other institutions, to develop a national take-home kit for parents of two-year-olds. The kit will include literacy information, reading materials and samples of V-Me’s quality children’s television programming.

2. Helping Schools Address the Learning Needs of Latino Children

V-Me stands prepared to work with Head Start and Early Head Start facilities, as well as other institutions, to test quality children’s programming aimed at pre-K children, especially ELLs.

3. Encouraging Communities to Tap into Existing Systems of Support

V-Me is prepared to work with the major churches and community organizations, such as Catholic Charities, the National Council of La Raza, to work in Latino communities to amplify existing community-based programs and drive increased participation through airing Public service announcements (PSAs). One example is the Lee y Seras initiative (www.leeyseras.net).

4. Encouraging Local, State and Federal Governments to Support Validated Learning Approaches

V-Me is prepared to work with educational experts and various organizations to compile research demonstrating what types of initiatives are most effective in reaching ELL students, and to urge increased reliance on research-based strategies and programs.

5. Partnering with Business Leaders to Build Support for Latino Children

V-Me plans to partner with leaders of the business community, including the U.S. and Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, to engage businesses in the dialogue about closing the achievement gap for young Latinos. 

6. Encouraging the Academic and Philanthropic Communities to Fund and Conduct Research to Drive Thoughtful Curricular Choices

V-Me, working with partners, will engage the academic community to continue to conduct research identifying and validating promising approaches. In addition, V-Me will work to connect academics with the philanthropic community, in order to facilitate the conduct and dissemination of such research.


7. Leveraging New and Existing Media to Communicate, Promote and Support the Action Agenda

Once the various stakeholders have met to establish an Action Agenda, V-Me will work with various media outlets, both mainstream and Hispanic, to promote the Agenda and apply pressure and accountability to the key partners.

Conclusion

For too long, Latinos and other minority students in the United States have lagged behind their white peers. Their “failure” is not their doing. Rather, it is a reflection of their exposure to key risk factors and the failure of a number of American institutions to acknowledge and address the problems that result from a rapidly changing demographic profile. These children will bear personally the burden of this institutional failure for the rest of their lives. Their children, however, need not. The time for a new approach has arrived, and the necessary tools are within reach.


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About the Author

Mario L. Baeza
Chairman and CEO
The Baeza Group, LLC
Founder and Chairman
V-Me Media, Inc.



joint venture with Def Jam/Murder Inc. records. Ashanti's first album sold over 5 million records, received numerous Grammy nominations and a Grammy for best female R&B vocal performance, erican Music Awards and 3 Billboard Awards. She also was entered into the Guinness Book of Records for being the first female to have four songs in the top ten pop charts at the same time, a feat equaled only by the Beatles. In 2004, AJM Records and Baeza Music Publishing were awarded two ASCAP awards for singles released on Ashanti's second album. In 2007 AJM Records released the soundtrack to a feature film entitled, “Downtown – A Street Tale”, featuring performances by Irene Cara and Petula Clark
In 2003, Mr. Baeza was appointed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg to serve as Chair of the New York City Latin Media and Entertainment Commission. The Commission has as its objective to make New York City once again the Latin media and entertainment capital of the world. The Commission includes prominent Latino and media industry leaders in New York and already has a record of notable successes.
In 2004, Mr. Baeza was a U.S. Congressional appointee to the Independent Task Force in TV Measurement, which was created to review and analyze Nielsen Media Research's recruitment and sampling methodologies, with a particular focus on their impact on people of color. The Task Force's groundbreaking report and recommendations were accepted wholesale by Nielsen and changed Nielsen's approach to doing business in African-American, Latino and Asian communities.
In 2005, Mr. Baeza was elected Chairman of the Upper Manhattan Development Zone, a quasi-public entity that is authorized to disburse over $250,000,000 in financings and investments (and in grants to non-profit cultural institutions) all for the purpose of spurring economic development and job growth in Harlem and the South Bronx, New York.
In 2006, after six years of work, The Baeza Group partnered with WNET/Thirteen, the flagship PBS affiliate station, to form V-Me Media, Inc., a new national Spanish language television network distributed through the digital channels of public television affiliate stations. The channel officially launched on March 6, 2007 reaching over 28 million homes and will cover over 50 million homes and 72% of the U.S. Hispanic population by the end of 2007, making it the fastest growing and one of the most widely distributed networks of its kind. Mr. Baeza serves as V-Me's Founder and Executive Chairman.
Mr. Baeza is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Cornell University (where he was graduated in three years with honors and distinction in all subjects) and a graduate of Harvard Law School. Mr. Baeza has been a Herman Phleger Visiting Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and a Lecturer in Law at Harvard Law School, where he taught a large lecture course entitled, "New Technology and the Law."
He is a member of the Board of Directors of Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. (NYSE:ADP), where he is a member of the Executive Committee and chairs the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee; he was the lead director of Tommy Hilfiger Corporation (NYSE:OM), until its sale in May 2006, and is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Ariel Mutual Funds complex, the largest minority-owned asset management firm in the United States. In 2007 he joined the Board of the Israel Discount Bank of New York and in 2008 joined the Board of Brown Shoe Company, Inc. (NYSE:BWS). Mr. Baeza is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Inc. (former member of the Board).
His charitable activities include membership on the boards of directors of The Hispanic Federation, Inc., Catholic Charities, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the Cuban Artists Fund and Channel Thirteen/WNET.
Mr. Baeza has been featured as one of “The 100 Most Powerful Latinos” by Poder magazine and one of “The 100 Influentials” by Hispanic Business magazine.
Mario L. Baeza is the founder and controlling shareholder of Baeza & Co., which was formed in 1995 in order to create the first U.S. Hispanic-owned merchant banking firm focusing on the Pan-Hispanic region. In 1996, Baeza & Co. entered into a partnership with Trust Company of the West, a global asset manager with approximately $90 billion under management, for the purpose of forming TCW/Latin America Partners ("TCW/LAP"). Led by Baeza & Co., in 1997 TCW/LAP raised $230 million in committed funds and thereby became one of the pioneering Latin America-focused private equity funds. Baeza & Co. provided the entire management team for TCW/LAP and the anchor clients for the funds TCW/LAP managed.
Mario L. Baeza served as Chairman and CEO of TCW/LAP from its inception until 2003 and as Chairman until 2006. In 2003, Mr. Baeza formed The Baeza Group, a Hispanic-owned alternative investment firm specializing in the management of private equity investments targeting the U.S. Hispanic domestic emerging market and hedge fund products centered around global macro strategies.
From 1994 to 1996, Mr. Baeza was President of Wasserstein Perella International Limited and Chairman and CEO of Grupo Wasserstein Perella, a Latin America focused joint venture between Baeza & Co. and Wasserstein Perella. From 1974 to 1994, Mr. Baeza was an associate and then, at the age of 29, became a partner of the international law firm of Debevoise & Plimpton where he specialized in domestic and international mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance and the negotiation and structuring of private equity funds and private equity investments. Mr. Baeza also founded and was the head of the firm's Latin America Group and, prior to that, its ESOP leveraged buyout practice, as well as its telecommunications and new technology practice. Mr. Baeza was consistently the top or one of the top billing partners of the firm.
Mr. Baeza has had a long and successful career in media. In 1992, Mr. Baeza, together with Wynton Marsalis, Gordon Davis, Albert Murray and Nat Leventhal, co-founded Jazz@LincolnCenter which became a full constituent of Lincoln Center co-equal with the Metropolitan Opera, NY Philharmonic and American Ballet Theatre. In 2004, Jazz@Lincoln Center moved to its new home in the Time-Warner Center after a successful $130 million capital campaign, the largest for Jazz music in history. Led by Wynton Marsalis, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra has become the most celebrated Jazz orchestra of its day and the organization's educational and outreach programs have become role models for other arts organizations.
Mr. Baeza also founded, Hillside Broadcasting Corp., which acquired a controlling interest in WWAY-TV (Wilmington, N.C.) and KSLA-TV (Shrevesport, La.), both ABC television station affiliates, and significant interests in WKRS (FM) and WOR (AM) radio stations in New York City. All properties were eventually sold at substantial premiums to their acquisition cost.
In 2000, Mr. Baeza formed AJM Records, an independent record label, that signed and successfully launched the career of “Ashanti” in a

Appendix 1: Description of V-me’s Spanish Language and Bilingual Education Programming






[1] Pew Hispanic Center (2002) Educational Attainment: Better than meets the eye, but large challenges still remain. (Online: http://pewhispanic.org/factsheets/factsheet.php?FactsheetID=3 accessed January 7, 2008).

[2] Reardon and Galindo, Patterns of Hispanic Students’ Math and English Literacy Test Scores, as quoted in National Task Force on Early Childhood Education for Hispanics, “Expanding and Improving Early Education for Hispanics,” Para Nuestros Niños, March 2007, 13-15 [hereafter cited as Task Force “Expanding and Improving Early Education for Hispanics,” with all citations to National Task Force on Early Childhood Education for Hispanics, “Expanding and Improving Early Education for Hispanics”].

[3] National Assessments of Educational Progress reports over three to four decades in reading, math, science, and writing were interpreted by the Task Force, “Expanding and Improving Early Education for Hispanics,” March 2007, 13-15.

[4] According to the National Center for Education Statistics, as quoted in Task Force “Expanding and Improving Early Education for Hispanics,” 14. Level 1 indicates the ability to recognize letters, Level 2 indicates readers possess words, Level 3 indicates readers understand ending sound of words, and Level 4 indicates readers possess sight recognition of words. 

[5] Eugene Garcia, Ph.D., and Danielle A. Gonzales M.Ed. “Pre-K and Latinos the Foundation for America's Future,” Pre-K Now, July 2006, 8-9 [hereafter cited as PLA with all citations referring to “Pre-K and Latinos the Foundation for America's Future,” Pre-K Now, July 2006].

[6] Task Force: “Expanding and Improving Early Education for Hispanics March 2004.”

[7] Task Force: “Expanding and Improving Early Education for Hispanics March 2004.”

[8] Task Force, “Expanding and Improving Early Education for Hispanics,” 15-17. The Reardon & Galindo (2006) study found that third-generation Mexican Americans were more likely to start kindergarten having had a pre-school experience and therefore started with proficiency in letter recognition and understanding beginning and ending sounds of words (Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3). By fifth grade, these third-generation Mexican Americans had solid reading comprehension skills in English, whereas more than a majority of the first- and second-generation Mexican Americans did not. But an achievement gap still persisted between third-generation Mexican Americans and third-generation whites at kindergarten and at the end of fifth grade.

[9] Anthony de Jesús and Daniel W. Vasquez, “Exploring The Education Profile and Pipeline For Latinos in New York State,” Policy Brief, Vol. 2, No. 2, Fall 2005, 12-13.

[10] Task Force, “Expanding and Improving Early Education For Hispanics,” 23.

[11] Rathburn, A., & West, J. (2004). From Kindergarten Through Third Grade: Children’s Beginning School Experiences. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics; Ingels, S.J., Burns, L.J., Chen, X., Cataldi, E.F., and Charleston, S. (2005). Initial Results from the Base Year of the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics; Perie, Grigg, and Donahue (2005); [Perie, Grigg, and Dion (2005)].

[12] Ibid.

[13] U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Entering Kindergarten: A Portrait of American Children When They Begin School: Findings from the Condition of Education 2000, Nicholas Zill and Jerry West, NCES 2001-035. (Washington, D.C. 2001), 18. 

[14] From Risk To Opportunity,” (Washington, D.C. The White house Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans, 2003).

[15] Task Force, “Expanding and Improving Early Education for Hispanics,” 11.

[16] Ibid., pg.10.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Ibid., pg. 11.

[19] Ibid.

[20] Ibid., pg. 11.

[21] The Wall Street Journal [New York], “Growing Up,” August 9, 2007.

[22] Walter S. Gilliam and Edward F. Zigler, “State Efforts to Evaluate the Effects of Prekindergarten: 1977 to 2003,” (New Haven: Yale University Child Study Center, 2004); Arthur Reynolds, Success in Early Intervention: The Chicago Child-Parent Centers (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2000), as cited in PLA, 9.

[23] The Wall Street Journal, [New York], “Growing Up,” August 9, 2007.

[24] Ibid.

[25] Ibid.

[26] Governors’ Pre-K Proposal Fiscal Year 2008, (Washington, D.C. 2007): Pre-K Now, Leadership Matters, page 1.

[27] Newsweek [New York], “The New First Grade,” October 15, 2007.

[28] Task Force, “Expanding and Improving Early Education for Hispanics,” 6.

[29] Wall Street Journal [New York], “Growing Up,” August 9, 2007.

[30] Task Force “Expanding and Improving Early Education for Hispanics,” 28.

[31] Ibid.

[32] Pre-K Now, Votes Count: Legislative Action on Pre-K Fiscal Yr. 2008, 2.

[33] Pew Hispanic Center Analysis of US Department of Education Common Code of Data Public Elementary/Secondary School Universe Surveys, 2005-2006.

[34] Los Angeles Universal Preschool Master Plan, Karen Hill Scott, Ed. D. February 12, 2004.

[35] All Our Children, the Health & Education of Children Immigrants, report from the Foundation of Child Development, October 2007, 15.

[36] Karen Hill-Scott, Ed. D., Los Angels Pre-School Master Plan, 2004.

[37] Luisa M. Laosa and Pat Andsworth, “Is Public Pre-K Preparing Hispanic Children to Succeed in School?”

[38] Zarate and Perez, “Latino Public Opinion Survey of Pre-Kinder Programs: Knowledge, Preferences and Public Support,” as cited in PLA.

[39] Peter D. Hert Research Associates, “Voter’s Attitudes toward Pre-K (Washington, DC: Pre-K Now, 2005) as cited in PLA.

[40] The New Demography of American Schools, pg. 10

[41] Achieving A+ Summit, Acquisition of English Academic Achievement For All, Fact Book, chart from the Office of Research and Evaluation, December, 2007.

[42] Ibid.

[43] Ibid.

[44] Guzman, “Learning English,” 58.

[45] Green, J.P. (1998). A Meta-Analysis of the Effectiveness of Bilingual Education. Claremont, CA: Thomas Rivera Policy Insitute; Slavin, R.E., and Cheung, A. (2005). “A Synthesis of Research on Language of Reading Instruction for English Language Learners,” Review of Educational Research, 75(2), 247-284; Rolstad, K., Mahoney, K., and Glass, G.V. (2005). “The Big Picture: A Meta-Analysis of Program Effectiveness Research on English Language Learners,” Educational Policy, 19(4),572-594. As cited in Task Force, “Expanding and Improving Early Education for Hispanics,” 40.

[46] Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning, English Language Learners: A Growing Population, p. 2

[47] Kathleen Flynn and Jane Hill, English Language Learners: A Growing Population, Policy Brief, Dec 2005. [hereafter cited as A Growing Population, with all citations referring to English Language Learners: A Growing Population, Policy Brief 3].

[48] Ibid.

[49] A Growing Population, 2.

[50] Ibid., pg., 3.

[51] Eugene Garcia, Bryant Jensen. Dual Language Programs in the U.S. Schools - An alternative to Monocultural, Monolingual Education 1/17/06 [hereafter cited as Dual Language Programs, with all citations referring to Eugene Garcia, Bryant Jensen, Dual Language Programs in the U.S. Schools - An alternative to Monocultural, Monolingual Education] 3.

[52] Edited by Diane August and Timothy Shanahan. Developing Reading and Writing in Second Language Learners, Lessons from the Report of the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth, 2006. pg 8.

[53] Lanauze, M., & Snow, C (1989). The relation between first and second language writing skills: Evidence from Puerto Rican elementary school children in bilingual programs. Theory into Practice, 31, 132-141. Saunders, W., & Goldenberg, C. (1999). The effects of instructional conversations and literature logs on the story comprehension and thematic understanding of English proficient and limited English proficient students. Washington, DC: Center for Research on Education, Diversity, and Excellence (CREDE). As cited in Dual Language Programs, 3.

[54] Dual Language Programs, 4.

[55] California Secretary of State, Proposition 227, English language in Public Schools, Initiative Statute. http://primary 98. sos.ca.gov / VoterGuide / Propositions / 227 text.htm (accessed January 7, 2008).

[56] Christine H. Rossel, “The Near End Of Bilingual Education,” Education Next, Fall 2002., 48

[57] Garcia & Jensen, “Dual Language Programs,” 2.

[58] Ibid., pg. 4.

[59] David Demille, “Bilingual Effort Earns Props,” The Spectrum, December 15, 2007 (Online http://www.thespectrum.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071215/NEWS01/712150308 accessed 17 December 2007).

[60] Ibid.

[61] Garcia & Jensen, “Dual Language Programs,” 4.

[62] Ibid.

[63] Ibid., pg. 5.

[64] Ibid.

[65] Ibid., pg. 6.

[66] W. Steven Barnett, Donald J. Yarosz, Jessica Thomas, Kwanghee Jung, Dulce Blanco, “Two-way and monolingual English immersion in pre-school education: An experimental comparison,” Early Childhood Quarterly no. 22 (2007), 278. [hereafter cited as Barnett et al., “Two Way Immersion,” with all citations referring to Two-way and Monolingual English immersion in pre-school education: An experimental comparison].

[67] PLA., 9.

[68] Ibid.

[69] Bialystok E., “Second-language acquisition and bilingualism at an early age and the impact on early cognitive development.” In: Tremblay RE, Barr RG, Peters RDeV, eds. Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development [online]. Montreal, Quebec: Centre of Excellence for Early Childhood Development; 2006: 1-4. Available at: http://www.excellence-earlychildhood.ca/documents/ BialystokANGxp.pdf.

[70] Ibid.

[71]. Ibid.

[72] Linda M. Espinoza, “Young English Language Learners in the U.S.,” (in press). Second language 
acquisition in early childhood. In New, R. & Cochran, M. (EDs.). Early Childhood Education. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group. [hereafter cited as: Espinoza, “Young ELL students in the U.S. with all citations referring to “Young English Language Learners in the U.S.”].

[73] Joseph M. Guzman, “Learning English,” Education Next, (Fall 2002), [hereafter cited as: Guzman, “Learning English” with all citations referring to “Learning English,” Education Next].

[74] Ellen Bialystok, “Levels of Bilingualism and Levels of Linguistic Awareness,” Developmental Psychology 1988;24(4):560-567 as quoted in Bialystok, “Second Language Acquisition,” 2.

[75] Bialystok, “Second Language Acquisition,” 2.

[76] Guzman “Learning English,” 61.

[77] Guzman, “Learning English,” p. 65.

[78] Ibid.

[79] Ellen Bialystok et al., “Attention and Inhibition In Bilingual Children: Evidence From The dimensional change card sort task.,” 325-339 as quoted in Bialystok, “Second Language Acquisition,” 2.

[80] Bialystok, “Second Language Acquisition,” 3.

[81] Kim, K.H.S., Relkin, N. R., Lee, K. M., & Hirsch, J.(1997). “Distinct Cortical Areas Associated With Native and Second Languages,” 70:347-366 as quoted in Monika Ekiert, “The Bilingual Brain,” 4.

[82] Ibid.

[83] Shalom M. Fisch and Rosemarie T. Truglio, “G is for Growing: Thirty Years of Research on Children and
Sesame Street
,” (eds, Lawrence Earlbaum Associates, Mahwah, 2001), 5. [hereafter cited as Fisch et al., “G is for Growing,” with all citations referring to G is for Growing Thirty years of Research on Children and
Sesame Street
].

[84] Fisch et al., “G is for Growing,” 4, 26.

[85] Ibid., p.26.

[86] Ibid., p.4

[87] Ibid., xvi.

[88] Ibid., pg. 4.

[89] Shalom Fisch, “Learning from Television,” Televizione, December 13, 2005, 10 [hereafter cited as Fisch, “Learning from TV,” with all citations referring to Learning from Television].

[90] Fisch, “Learning from TV,” p.10.

[91] Ibid.

[92] Ibid., p.11.

[93] Ibid.

[94] Ibid.

[95] Daniel R. Anderson, “Early Childhood Viewing and Adolescent Behavior, “Monographs of The 
Society for Research In Child Development, 2001, 66 (1, Serial No. 264) [hereafter cited as Anderson et al. “Childhood Viewing and Adolescent Behavior,” with all citations referring to Early Childhood Viewing and Adolescent Behavior].

[96] Fisch et al., “G is for Growing,” 137-139.

[97] Shalom M. Fisch, “Children’s Learning from Educational Television:
Sesame Street
and Beyond,” (Lawrence Earlbaum Associates, Mahwah, 2004) 27-28.

[98] Sesame Workshop website: http://www.sesameWorkshop.org/dragontales/

[99] Langbourne W. Rust, “Summative Evaluation of Dragon Tales.” (Final Report conducted for 
Sesame Workshop, 2001) 4 [hereafter cited as Rust, “Dragon Tales” with all citations referring to Summative Evaluation of Dragon Tales].

[100] Between the Lions PBS website: http://pbskids.org/lions/parentsteachers/program/, viewed February 24, 2008

[101] Deborah L. Linebarger, Ph.D., “Summative Evaluation of Between The Lions: A Final Report to NGBH Educational Foundation,” (University of Kansas, July 2, 2000) 4 [hereafter cited as Linebarger, “Between The Lions”].

[102] Daniel R. Anderson, “Researching Blue’s Clues: Viewing Behavior and Impact,” Media Psychology, 2 (2000): 107.

[103] Ibid.

[104] Daniel R Anderson, (2000) “Researching Blue’s Clues: Viewing Behavior and Impact.” (pg.187-190) NJ: Lawrence Earlbaum Associates, Inc.

[105] Edward T. Esty, Shamol M. Fisch, “ Square One TV: Using Television to Enhance Children’s Problem Solving.” (Children’s Television Workshop, New York, 1991), 2.

[106] Ibid. p 4, p 21.

[107] Fisch et al., “G is for Growing,” p. 109.

[108] Uchikoshi, Y.(2006). Early Reading in Bilingualism Kindergarten: Can Educational Television 
Help? Scientific Studies of Reading, Volume 10 (pp.89-120). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

[109] Fisch et al., “G is for Growing,” p. 118.

[110] Ibid., p.119.

[111] Ibid.