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Minority Students
Review of Cummins' "Empowering Minority Students"
Jim Cummins, professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, considers that the personal and institutional methods of providing instruction to minority students must be redefined to improve their educational performance outcomes. He theorizes that past failures in compensatory and bilingual education has been a result of "bicultural ambivalence" and the current methodology must be reformed to empower minority students by encouraging them to embrace their native language and culture. He believes that this requires improved interactions at three levels: between teacher and student, schools and minority communities, and the cultural groups to the larger society. The framework Cummins proposes to rework the educational institution for the benefit of the minority student involves incorporating the student's language into the school program, encouraging the participation of the minority community with the school, promoting the student's use of language to improve his learning development, and the advocating of minority student support in the educational community. He believes that reaching out to the minority student body, to provide them the language tools and support necessary to reverse their failure rates, will empower them to succeed in their educational endeavors.
To expand on one point in the proposed framework, the discussion on cultural and linguistic incorporation in the curriculum presents an interesting dichotomy among minority groups. Statistics show that school dropout rates for Latin populations is about 40 to 50%, whereas other groups (i.e. The Asian population) that are not perceived with the same "inferior" status, via economic and social discrimination, may continue to thrive, despite language and cultural differences. Thus, it is conceivable that current methods of bilingual education are failing to support the whole of minority groups, and adjusting present educational systems to eliminate the attitude of minority inferiority will benefit groups like the Hispanic population.
empowering minority students with first language different from the language of instruction. The author maintains that despite the development or incorporation of various programs for minority students, it appears that there exists a significant achievement gap between majority and minority students indicating something inherently wrong with the measures adopted so far. The author rejects both the "inadequate exposure" and "linguistic mismatch" arguments because it appears that both have their
This encouragement and the ability to have opportunities are at the heart of what Conchas (2006) is trying to say. There are many individuals who are for the tracking system, and many who are against it. They all have their reasons, and while most of them are good ones, both sides cannot always be correct. One case raised in favor of tracking is based on the research information that students
This study has noted that educators are noting better methods to assist these students rather than placing them in special education classes which fail to assist these students in school or across the span of their lifetime endeavors. RECOMMENDATIONS Recommendations arising from this review of literature in this study include the recommendation that different methods be utilized in assisting culturally and linguistically diverse students in the school setting. Among these methods
Education Class Size vs. School Vouchers on the Achievement of Minority Students The continuous achievement gap between African-American students and their white peers is a major problem in American education. The gap in fourth-grade reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) diminished in the 1970s, but since the early 1980s it has remained unchanged. Evidence from many studies suggests that African-American students may benefit more than other students from improvement in
Minority Transfers to Four-Year Universities In California today, over 70% of public school students and 50% of those in community colleges are black and Hispanic and the entire education system suffered greatly because of budget shortfalls in the last three years. Community colleges have an open admissions policy, unlike four-year universities, but also have a high drop-out rate for poor and minority students. According to the UCLA Civil Rights Project, in
Student Engagement Post-Secondary Education Kuh, Cruze, Shoup, Kinzie, Gonyea (2008) provided that a college or post-secondary education degree is crucial in attaining individual, communal and societal achievement or progress. A high school diploma has lesser weight compared to a college degree and a person with it is believed to have acquired relevant knowledge and growth that would be cognitively and economically beneficial to him. To the community and society in general,