Why High School Graduation Remains an Important Achievement for Chicanos/Latinos

The same year my son began kindergarten was the same year I started teaching high school. After completing a Ph.D. in Education in 2015, instead of working in higher education as I anticipated, I was called to teach Ethnic Studies in high school classrooms to be in schools that sometimes feel like the “Mexican Schools” I teach about from the 1940s. As Teaching Tolerance has documented in these Mexican Schools, “Many Anglo educators did not expect, or encourage, Chicano students to advance beyond the eighth grade. Instead, the curriculum at the Mexican schools was designed, as one district superintendent put it, “to help these children take their place in society.”

From Community College to Ph.D., It Doesn’t Matter How Long it Takes You

It doesn’t matter how long it takes you. I told this to my students recently. I often give extra words of encouragement to the students who don’t even think they can go to college because they find themselves short on credits, in a continuation school, or in general feel as if they are incapable of … Continue reading From Community College to Ph.D., It Doesn’t Matter How Long it Takes You