[EDEQUITY Immigrant Dialogue] Closing statement by Dilys Schoorman

From: Dilys Schoorman (dschoorm@fau.edu)
Date: Fri Feb 09 2001 - 16:32:24 EST


It's been an interesting week of discussion, with a variety of issues
surfacing. It seems that we are only scratching the surface of this complex
experience called "immigration". I am both honored and deeply gratified to
have been part of this conversation. I hope that I will be able to continue
this dialogue on a more person-to-person basis once the "official"
discussion is over.

I want to focus my closing statement on a topic that was posed but seemed
to remain unaddressed? even though I had hoped that some of my colleagues
(whom I hastily enrolled in the listserv!) would weigh in. The question
was posed about effective school-community partnership efforts. I have been
involved in some of these efforts, which vary in scope.

The one with which I have the most involvement, funded by a federal grant,
is essentially a network of community agencies (such as health clinics,
migrant resources centers, churches, universities) whose efforts are
spearheaded by a group of 8 parent liaisons and 3 counselors (all
multilingual and of varied cultural backgrounds). They visit about three
schools a day Monday through Thursday to address issues that arise
pertaining to immigrant students. These "issues" range from the fact that a
student is having behavior problems, or severe absenteeism, or simply
cannot see the board in class. The parent liaison (or counselor, depending
on the specific problem) tries to "take care" of the problem through the
"network" by meeting with the child's family, investigating the basis of
the problems, or finding a health clinic that will provide free eye
glasses.

In the afternoons and evenings, the parent liaisons also supervise tutoring
which is offered by community agencies, or offer multilingual workshops to
families to inform them about educational policies (e.g. immunization
requirements, interpreting a report card, college entrance requirements).
They talk with students at tutoring centers to find out about
school-related problems which can then be relayed to the school. In a
recent conference presentation I noted that the role of the parent liaisons
and counselors (team members) could be characterized according to the
following themes:
a) community magnets (parents seek out team members at their weekly hair
appointments, in church etc. for advice)
b) advocates (team members act on behalf of families at school meetings;
e.g. to ask why a child wasn't enrolled in Math classes)
c) road maps (team members direct families to venues for assistance in
health, educational, legal and other issues)
d) door knockers (team members make home visits to prevent dropping out or
truancy), and
e) cultural brokers (team members are cultural border crossers serving as
translators and interpreting differences in cultural mores for US educators
and immigrant parents).

>From the point of view of immigrant education, this project seems to be
addressing a critical need. One cannot doubt that the community is much
better served and informed because of the presence of these project
workers, who are of the cultural background and language group as the
students. The workers are tireless and undaunted in their efforts.

Yet, the key question here is, "How do we know/ measure the effectiveness
of such efforts?" What is effective? To some of us immersed in the
literature who read about the need for grass-roots, community-oriented,
holistic approaches to the integration of immigrations into the community,
these address the crucial gap! However, this project, as is the case with
many other such community-based efforts, might also be seen as
"ineffective" because many measure "effectiveness" in terms of standardized
test scores. The fact of the matter is, that unless effectiveness can be
measured in terms of these scores, many such projects will not be funded.

The problems with such a narrow measure of effectiveness are: 1) At this
point of time, the project is not linked with any class room based
adaptations. Test scores still rest in great part on the quality of
instruction which, if at all, is addressed very indirectly in this project.
2) Although there is a significant gain in the attendance rate, or drop in
the truancy or drop-out rate, the focus on test scores does not give credit
for the fact that the students are actually present!! Clearly that is a
very necessary first step!!
3) Unfortunately, the efforts of some of these project workers are viewed
by educators with negativity, because when they bring back to school a
child who was on the brink of dropping out. The school sees that child as a
person who is going to bring down the average test grade for the school. In
other words, when one focuses on test scores, it is better to keep the
potential drop outs away from the class, rather than bring them back to
school!!
4) While it is conceivable to note that the efforts of this project will
ultimately result in increased academic achievement, this result is only an
indirect and long-term consequence. We have to find alternate ways of
evaluating the success of these community projects. Funding agencies also
need to recognize the need for alternative evaluation paradigms.

This is a problem with which I have struggled for a long time. It is
especially interesting because the people who are truly invested in the
issues facing immigrant children, often tend to be social workers, not
researchers. They are about "doing" rather than about record keeping. When
I informed them about the need to record all the their accomplishments and
daily struggles, I recognized from their reactions that they felt they
would rather be "doing" rather than "keeping score". Record keeping would
keep them from doing what they felt was more important, increasing their
clerical work and decreasing their social work.

In general I have found that community programs that involve the families
of immigrant students tend to be more successful in helping children to
bridge the gap between the cultures of their home and school. Having the
families "on board", both supporting AND understanding the US educational
system is a tremendous boon.

Thanks once again to everyone!

Dr. Dilys Schoorman, <dschoorm@fau.edu>
Dept. of Teacher Education
College of Education, Room 485
Florida Atlantic University
777 Glades Road
Boca Raton, FL 33431-0991
Phone: 561-297-3003
Fax: 561-297-3335



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