This article asserts that schools have tremendous positive power over the lives of students--the power to teach them academics; the power to socialize them to be engaged citizens; the power to transform their lives in positive ways--but schools also have negative power: the power to mark a student with a discipline record; the power to force a…

Increasingly, mainstream teachers rather than specialist language teachers (English as a Second Language, bilingual teachers) are expected to work with English language learners (ELLs) in their classrooms. This reality has drawn attention to the quality and content of the teacher preparation for this group of ELL teachers. Situated within this…

This essay powerfully describes the rise of a neoliberal or "casino capitalism" as a punishing state that has been largely ignored by the mainstream media but is actively resisted by young people around the world. I highlight the pervasive use of violence and the celebration of war-like values that are no longer restricted to a…

Where dominant models of urban school reform often regard immigrant communities as obstacles that must be managed or reduced, the two projects analyzed in this study ("Alianza" and the Project) regard the community as a powerful source of knowledge and as partners working towards educational improvement (Nygreen, 2009). This paper analyses the…

The purpose of this article is to increase understanding of the factors that most significantly influenced the decision made by the Tucson Unified School District to implement the Mexican American Studies program in the late 1990's and early 2000's. This article outlines the process that led to the adoption of the program. The article further…

This article uses story as a process to highlight the work in a South Texas community that focuses on the education of youth and the development of community. The work is guided by a new consciousness of place, community engagement, and identity formation. The work is local, but breaking the isolation of youth, families, and ideas has been part of…

In 2002, the New Mexico State University College Assistance Migrant Program (NMSU CAMP) was created to increase the number of baccalaureate degrees held by students from farmworker backgrounds by mediating structural impediments that typically normalize post-secondary inequities for this population. Migrant and seasonal farmworker students are…

In this article, we use narrative theory to analyze and discuss how one Salvadoran youth, Thomas, constructed three different yet overlapping narratives, including a digital story, on his family's movement across borders. We describe how each telling of his narratives is situated in time and space, where Thomas reveals his understandings of…

The work of addressing the challenge of the education of Latinos/as has begun through, among other efforts, the National Latino/a Education Research and Policy Project, or NLERAP. Beginning in 2000 as a national initiative of the Centro de Estudios Puertorriquenos at Hunter College, NLERAP's goal has been to add multiple Latino/a perspectives to…

The work of addressing the challenge of the education of Latinos/as has begun through, among other efforts, the National Latino/a Education Research and Policy Project (NLERAP). Beginning in 2000 as a national initiative of the Centro de Estudios Puertorriquenos at Hunter College, NLERAP's goal has been to add multiple Latino/a perspectives to the…

From the start, NLERAP has been based on two major premises: one is that a sociocultural and sociopolitical approach to learning is more effective than a traditional approach, particularly in the case of populations that have historically been marginalized through their education; and the second is that research is more meaningful and inclusive…

This article presents a brief demographic portrait, with particular emphasis on school-related issues, that points to the dire situation of Latino/a education. According to the 2010 Census, the number of Hispanics (the term used in government data) currently was 50,477,594 million, an increase of 43 percent since 2000, making this group the…

The problem of low academic attainment for Latino/a students may be a result of the situation at the K-12 levels, a situation that is beyond the control of students or their families (Martinez, 2003). Analyses of school success must take into account the social and political hierarchies in schools, school systems, and communities, as well as the…

As discussed throughout this paper, many institutional and instructional strategies can facilitate higher achievement among Latino/a students. Many of these are effective partly because of the relationships they foster. But we also want to point out a few concrete examples of supportive constructive relationships. The common thread in these…

As we have seen throughout this paper, the education of Latino/a students is in crisis. At the same time, based on our review of promising practices and creative projects, we also believe that this is a time of great opportunity. There are a number of areas that are especially crucial in improving the education of Latinos/as. Based on our critical…