The recent decision by the Houston Independent School District to open a new alternative high school for older immigrant students is a welcome option for disadvantaged youths in our community.
As Lee High School Principal Steve Amstutz correctly noted: "Many of these students drop out. The need to contribute financially to their households supersedes the necessity of a high school education, and under the traditional high school structure, there's no mercy for them."
Like Houston, school districts around the country have begun adjusting their schedules and programs to accommodate students from different backgrounds.
Like Houston, a growing number of school districts realize that improving the educational experiences of poor and minority students requires more flexibility, more resources and more commitment than we've provided in the past.
We are losing Hispanic-American students all along the education continuum, noted "From Risk to Opportunity," a 2003 report of the President's Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanic-Americans.
Among the problems cited in the report: low expectations, weak instruction, limited parent and community involvement, and no accountability for results.
Those findings are not new to us at Project GRAD (Graduation Really Achieves Dreams). For more than a decade, we have worked with educators, parents and community activists in the toughest areas of Houston to improve the odds that every child will succeed. We have learned that preparing disadvantaged students for higher education requires a comprehensive set of academic and family supports starting in kindergarten and extending through college.
Consider the experiences of Gustavo Rivera, a 1998 graduate of HISD's Davis High School who earned a bachelor's degree in anthropology from Princeton University and is now enrolled in a Ph.D. program at the University of Chicago. In a new book, Whatever it Takes: The Project GRAD Story (Teachers College Press), Rivera attributed his success to obtaining paid internships and enrolling in enrichment courses at the University of Houston-Downtown and Cornell University while still in high school.
"These were unimaginable opportunities for a poor immigrant student," Rivera said. "For inner-city kids, all the parents, contacts and relations, they're mechanics and painters, hard-working people, but still not professional. You don't know what a dentist does or what kind of a lifestyle a lawyer maintains. ... Things are vague until you connect with someone who has that dream of yours."
Felipe Hernandez, another Davis graduate who earned a degree in Geographic Information Systems from Southwest Texas State University in 2000, said his spark came from a mentor who nurtured him throughout high school and college.
"I have told friends that except for this guy I would never have gone to college," said Hernandez, who manages databases for Conoco. "Coming from a family that didn't go to school, I had no one to tell me about university life. I just expected to graduate from high school and get a job in the neighborhood. I had no ambition. Mike told me what I could look forward to and be."
Summer college institutes, paid internships and mentors typically aren't provided to disadvantaged students, as they are in Project GRAD schools. Yet such accommodations are crucial to helping these students catch up to their peers. While HISD's recognition that older immigrant students need alternative schedules is an important step in this process, we must continue adapting our educational programs if we want all of our children to excel. As a community, we can't afford to let their dreams disappear.
Hughes is the executive director of Project GRAD Houston, a nonprofit organization that has been rated by the Ford Foundation as one of the top school reform models in the United States.
