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2010 National Immigrant Integration Conference - Strategy
SessionsEarly Education and Families
October 1, 2010
This panel discussed early education for immigrant youth and
family involvement in the educationalsystem. Looking at a variety
of programs from across the country, as well as the relationship
betweenresearch and practice, the panelists gave a broad-based
introduction to the many issues involved in earlyeducation for
immigrant families. The chair, Virginia Zanger, began the session
by saying that the peoplespeaking represent innovative approaches
for early education for immigrant families. In 2007, there was
aTaskforce on Education for Hispanics, and these speeches will show
how some of those recommendationsare put in practice.
The first speaker was Taylor Moreno, the Assistant Director of
AVANCE in El Paso, Texas. Shedescribed El Paso as a large city that
is 26% foreign born, which faces challenges including the fact that
45%of young kids are in poverty and there is low education among
adults. AVANCE works to assure that
poverty does not lead to education failure. It has 17 sites in
public schools serving 1500 people, and workson an
intergenerational approach to early childhood development and
literacy that involves parents andgives them parenting skills.
AVANCE focuses on three common barriers to early childhood
education:Awareness, by going door to door to inform people of
their program; Accessibility, by being strategicallylocated,
partnering with public transit to provide bussing, and by being a
free program; andResponsiveness, by responding to the needs of the
families. AVANCE provides comprehensive servicesincluding a
27-lesson core curriculum, toy making that builds connections among
parents along with beingan educational activity for the students,
parenting classes, and a home component. They repeat the
lessonsmultiple times to make sure the ideas get across. Kids that
go through AVANCE outrank their peers onstandardized tests, high
school graduation and college entrance. By changing kids and
parents, AVANCEchanges whole families.
The second speaker was Cristina Wong, the Coordinator for
English Language Learners in the SanFrancisco School System. As a
policy advocate in the area of language access before taking this
position,Wong felt there was always a lack of immigrant parents
voices, due to a lack of organizing in the Asiancommunity, so she
started a parents organizing project. After getting training from
the Bay Area ParentLeadership Network, where they would later bring
parents to become organizers themselves, they begantheir
organizing. Parents gravitated toward the project because it dealt
with common ground issues amongthe diverse community, such as the
difficulties that immigrant families often face in adjusting to a
newsociety. The organizing project worked with other
service-providing CBOs, so that once peoplesimmediate needs were
met they asked parents to be involved in the advocacy. One issue
that parentsfocused on was language access, and they started
building a network through one to one relationships, such
that it was the relationships among parents that kept them
coming to meetings despite how busy they were.
The school system wants parents to be involved within their own
schools, and Wongs offices triesto involve parents through such
programs as the English Learner Advisory Council, which is a key
vehicle ofparent involvement. Often, principals are not able to
foster parent involvement, so that is why they partnerwith the
district to help parents get involved and give them tools. School
districts need to work to involveparents, and the San Francisco
schools have a District Parent Engagement Plan, which tries to
change theculture of the school site and make parents true partners
in their kids education.
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Mona Abo-Zena is a research at Tufts that focuses on the role of
religion in child development inschools. She began with the
assertion that children are not adults, and asks, what is the
immigrant contextfor a child? Varying identities of race, gender,
etc., should be taken into context, as well as developmental,
contextual, legal, and individual factors that contribute to the
lives of immigrant children. She also notedthe issue of
acculturative stress, including the silent period where children do
not speak English yet,different customs and feeling foreign,
financial stability, legal standing, discrimination and
isolation,loneliness and feeling uprooted, and the feeling of being
at the margin of both worlds at the point of noreturn. In terms of
strategies for responding to these stressors, Abo-Zena highlighted
the importance ofdeveloping bi-cultural competencies in education,
individual mentors, community and social support, andintegrating
past, present, and future (or, bringing order to the immigrant
childs re-ordered natural world).
She emphasized the intersectionality of developmental contexts,
including race, ethnicity, gender,socioeconomic status, religion,
and age. She particularly noted that it is necessary to measure
economicneed in a more effective way, taking into account the
different on-ramps for todays immigrants (whether
foreign students or unskilled laborers) and the dual economic
reference systems that immigrant inhabit,such as the issue of
remittances back to the home country. Another important need is for
truly accessibleservices that incorporate economic, cultural,
social, and linguistic accessibility while enforcing standards
ofcultural competence and anti-bias programming. Lastly, she
highlighted the importance of meaningfulparent engagement,
emphasizing the role of home as a childs first school, the level of
ease for parents tocome to school, teaching immigrants how to be
involved at school, giving early education credentials forimmigrant
parents, and partnering with other organizations.
The fourth speaker was Fred Gitner, the Assistant Director for
the New Americans Program at theQueens Library. This library system
serves an extremely diverse population in Queens County, NY.
Theyhave 3 models. The first is the school-linked program, which
partners with a particular elementary school
and uses technology as a tool in literacy education. The second
is the Pre-K ESOL program, which provides12-week classes for
families so that they do interactive activities together as a
family. The third is LiteracyZone, which is a statewide program in
New York that is meant to close the achievement gap by
meetingliteracy needs from birth to adult. This also features
Welcome Centers that link new immigrants toservices, and the
Ravenswood Library in Queens County is a Welcome Center Annex.
Families participate12 hours a week, and the program supports
families to reach educational and economic sustainability.
Thecurriculum also integrates parents knowledge, experience, and
skills into the curriculum to be a good wayfor kids to learn more
about their parents. He provided tips including: promote enriching
home literacy,and build capacity of families to interact.
The last speaker was Donna Cohen-Avery, Associate Commissioner
of Field Operations for the
Early Education Department of Massachusetts. This was the first
department in the country that focused onearly education, and is
five years old. They are currently developing policies that are
pro-English LanguageLearners.
Their department works with a mixed delivery system of early
education that includes familychildcare, which is a popular form of
childcare that is run out of peoples private homes. However,
thedepartment has faced challenges in licensing this type of
childcare which is often provided through informal,
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unlicensed providers, particularly in immigrant communities like
theBrazilian community of Framingham, MA. The department tried to
license these providers, but they had noPortuguese speaking
licensors. The
local state representative from Framingham was listening to the
Brazilian community which was concerned
with child care, and she convened the discussion between the
community and the Early Educationdepartment. Eventually it was
decided that the community would focus on licensing these family
childcareproviders. The department did a training in Portuguese for
the community which many attended. Theyfound that ministers were a
key entry into the community. Overall, it was successful, but it
was tough tolicense a lot of these providers because of the
standard of the facilities and the documentation status of
thechildcare providers.
One audience member asked the panel how to deal with special
needs/developmental delay issueswith parents from different
cultures. Taylor Moreno said that AVANCE works with specialists who
come toAVANCE and parents are more receptive because they are
present at the program while the specialist isworking with their
child. Cristina Wong added that the more that special education
becomes a rallying
point for parents, and more parents are educated about special
needs, the stigma goes down.
