Latino Students and the Massachusetts Public Schools

Note: This report was originally published in paper format and later transferred to be accessible 
on the web, so there may be some formatting problems.

The education of Latino children in Massachusetts has been an illusive ideal for the Latino community. During the 1950’s and 1960’s, large numbers of Latino children went uneducated. Studies of the time reveal that, for example, in Boston, thousands of Latino children who had a right to do so were not attending school because of the exclusionary practices of the school system. The children of the Puerto Rican migrant workers, who made up the bulk of the community at that time, faced many barriers in their attempts to enroll in school. Those that did enroll faced English-only classrooms and little space for the valuation of their culture. The experience in Boston was not unique, but rather, it became a part of a movement of Latino parents focused on the development of education opportunities for Latino children that led to the establishment of the bilingual education programs across the nation. The struggle in Massachusetts led to the first mandated state bilingual education program in the Unites States.

 By the 1970’s, Latino enrollments in Massachusetts had increased significantly as the population grew and the bilingual programs were established.  Growing numbers of Latino children enrolled in schools in Boston, Lawrence and Springfield, the areas of largest concentration, while others began to settle in Worcester, Lowell and Chelsea, that soon became large Latino settlements as well.   In Boston, where most Latino children went to school, education was illusive as the city exploded in the violent reaction that followed the Federal Court’s order to desegregate the Boston Public Schools in the early 1970’s.   Latino parents found themselves torn between the ideals of desegregation and the need to protect their multiracial children in a system polarized racially in black and white.  Much organizing energy from the community and its advocates went into seeking protection for Latino children in the desegregation process as well as into guaranteeing an effective implementation of the Bilingual Education program.     

 Struggles for access to the state’s educational institutions segued by the 1980’s into very dire outcomes for Latino children in the Commonwealth’s public schools.     Although one could argue that in the last two decades Latinos had earned a “place” in the educational institutions of the State, the outcomes of Latino children demonstrated just how tenuous that “place” was and how vulnerable Latino children remained in the educational institutions of the Commonwealth. Through the decade, Latino children had the lowest levels of achievement and the highest drop out and truancy rates of any group.[ii]  By this time Latino children filled the classrooms in many cities and towns of the Commonwealth.

 By 1990’s, the State had embarked on a process of educational reform.   And there was no group that would stand to gain more than Latinos from changes that led to an improvement in the experience of children in the schools.  But almost ten years into the process and close to forty years after the struggle to gain the right of public education for Latino children in Massachusetts began, this report will bring a mixed set of news.  On the one hand, Latino enrollments have continued to grow through the 1990’s.  Latino children now attend school throughout the Commonwealth and represent a much broader range of national groups, expanding the original group of Puerto Ricans to include Dominicans and Central and South Americans.   On the other hand, almost ten years of educational reform initiatives seem to have left Latinos untouched.  The Massachusetts Department of Education (DOE) cohort drop out data for 1998 projects that 29% of Latino 9^th graders in Massachusetts will probably not finish high school, again the largest rate for any group in the state..  And Latinos have the highest rates of failure in all areas and for all grades in the first year of testing using the Massachusetts Comprehensive Achievement System (MCAS).[iii]

 This report presents basic information about Latino students in the public schools of Massachusetts.  We present first recent population data on Latino youth and its enrollment in the public schools, highlighting those areas of the Commonwealth where Latinos are densely concentrated.   The report then proceeds to the achievement of Latino students in the schools, highlighting recently published cohort drop out data and MCAS test results for Latinos.  Finally, we focus on the after-high school plans of Latino high school graduates.  

 

1.       Massachusetts Latino Youth Population

Mid-decade population reports document that the Latino population of Massachusetts has continued to experience rapid growth in the first half of the 1990’s.    Between 1990 and 1995, the numbers of Latinos in Massachusetts grew from 287,561 to 344,068 or close to 20%.[iv]   Assuming a similar rate of growth through the decade, about 400,000 Latinos will greet the new Millenium in Massachusetts.     

 Although this is a substantial rate of growth, current growth rates in reality  represent a significant slow down when compared to the rates of growth of the past decades.  Between 1980 and 1990 the rate of growth of the state’s Latino population was 104% and it was even greater than that, at 113%, between 1970 and 1980.[v] It appears that after several decades of prodigious growth, the Latino population of Massachusetts is stabilizing.

 

Through the last three decades, the numbers of Latinos have continued to grow in their areas of concentration as well as spread themselves across the Commonwealth. In 1970, only Boston had a Latino population of more than 10,000 people.[vi]  By 1980, the Latino communities of Lawrence and Springfield had attained that size and Boston’s Latino population had doubled.[vii] By 1990, Holyoke, Lowell and Worcester also had Latino populations of more than 10,000 persons, while the population of Boston had again doubled and the one of Lawrence had tripled.[viii] By 1995, Lynn and Chelsea had attained a population of 10,000 with Cambridge, Framingham, New Bedford and Brockton rapidly approaching that number as well.[ix]  Boston’s Latino population in 1995 was estimated at 76,868; in 25 years, the population of Boston had increased seven-fold.

Massachusetts Latinos are also an increasingly diverse group when one considers their national backgrounds.  Historically, Puerto Ricans have represented the largest national group within the Latino population, about 75% or more through the 1970’s.[x]   By 1990, Puerto Ricans accounted for 53% of Massachusetts’ Latinos, the remainder made up by Dominicans, Central Americans, South Americans, Mexicans and Cubans.[xi] 

 

In 1995, two out of every five Latinos (39.9%) was a person under 19 years of age.   Latino youth compose a large portion of the Latino population, a larger share than white, black, and Asian youth represent within their respective groups. This means that the Latino population tends to be young. And, in fact, they are the youngest group in the state with a median age of 22 years, down from 24 in 1990. 

 

Along with the overall Latino population, the number of Latino youth in Massachusetts has increased.  From 1990 to 1995 the numbers of Latinos that were 19 years of age or younger increased from 120,825 to 137,165, a rate of growth of 13.5, only slightly lower than that of the overall Latino population. 

Among Massachusetts youth 19 years of age or younger, Latinos are the second largest group, second only to white children and adolescents. Latinos ages 19 and younger, represent 8.8% of all persons of that cohort in Massachusetts. Since 1990, Latino youth are the largest minority youth population in the Commonwealth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

But, as is true of the overall Latino population, it appears that the growth in the Latino youth population is also slowing down.  Between 1990 and 1995, the rate of growth of the Latino youth was the lowest of all minority youth groups, second only to the white youth population which decreased in size.  During this time, all minority groups increased their share of in size, but this tendency was slightly lower among Latino youth.

 

 

2. School Enrollments

 

In 1997, 92,306 Latino students were enrolled in public schools in Massachusetts, accounting for 9.7% of the total number of children enrolled in grades K-12 in the state.    This represents a growth of 81.5%, from the 50.866 Latino school children counted in 1987. 

 

As is the case for the population growth, the geographic distribution of Latino school enrollments mirrors the structure and dynamic of the distribution of the Latino population

in the State.  Boston has the largest number of Latinos and of Latino enrollments, but Latinos make up a lower percentage of the population and the enrollments in the city.

 

 

Table 1. 

Rank Order of School Districts According to the Number of Latinos Enrolled[xii] and the Percentage of Students that are Latino, 1997

 

Number of Latinos Enrolled		Percent Latino
State	92,306	Lawrence	78.4
Boston	15,889	Holyoke	68.7
Springfield	9,535	Chelsea	65.2
Lawrence	8,983	Springfield	40.1
Worcester	6,220	Southbridge	31.8
Holyoke	5,144	Worcester	26.9
Lowell	3,455	Boston	25.7
Lynn	3,431	Fitchburg	24.9
Chelsea	3,421	Salem	24.7
New Bedford	2,007	Lynn	24.3
Brockton	1,938	Lowell	21.8
Fitchburg	1,365	Somerville	18.3
Salem	1,196	Waltham	17.1
Chicopee	1,096	Framingham	15.5
Framingham	1,182	Chicopee	14.6
Haverhill	1,090	Cambridge	14.3
Somerville	1,031	State	9.7

Other cities and towns have by far denser Latino populations and by extension, much higher percentage of Latino children in their classrooms. For example, in 1997, Boston had the highest number of Latino students enrolled in its schools (15,899) as has been the case for almost 30 years.  Latinos account for about 25% of the Boston enrollments.  In contrast, school districts such as Lawrence, Holyoke and Chelsea, had much fewer students enrolled, but Latino students accounted for 78.4, 68.7 and 65.2 percent,  respectively, of the total number of students enrolled in those districts.  The students represented in Table 1 account for 76.6% of the Latino children enrolled in grades K-12 in Massachusetts.

 

Latino enrollments in Massachusetts increased by 85% from 1987 to 1997.  This means many school districts have experienced growth in the number of Latino students attending their schools.    But some Massachusetts school districts have experienced very significant growths in the population of Latino students, in some cases, these doubled or tripled in those 10 years.  Table 2 school districts with the largest rates of growth of Latino students.    Given the pressures on the school system when the population of its students changes rapidly, these are districts that are managing a very large change in their midst.

 

 

Table 2.  Massachusetts School Districts with the Highest Rates of Growth in Latino Enrollments, 1987-1997 

 

Percent Change
Sommerville	301.1
Lynn	244.1
Chicopee	235.1
Salem	170.5
Methuen	140.4
Haverhill	130.3
Chelsea	126.9
State	81.5

 

3.  Educational Outcomes of Latino Students

 

How well are Latino children in Massachusetts doing in school?  The school experience of individual children is usually measured by their performance in the classroom and is something that varies greatly.  How well a students does depends, among many factors, on the quality of the school, the ability of the teacher and other school personnel, the readiness and motivation of the child and the support he/she has from his/her family. 

 

The aggregate of those individual experiences, though, results in facts that do provide some indication of how Latinos as a group are faring in the public schools of Massachusetts.  The number of students that complete school and those that drop out without finishing high school, the number of graduates that continue their education or professional training, and students’ scores in standardized tests are some of the measures that educational systems use to assess these outcomes.

 

In this report, we discuss first the Latino drop out rates over the last 7 years followed by a discussion of the results of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) tests for Latino children as possible indicators of educational outcomes for Latinos in the absence of more precise studies.  We also take a look at the post graduation plans of Latino students in Massachusetts and the numbers that continue their education. These analyses are conducted with data available from the Massachusetts Department of Education.

 

Dropping Out

 

Data on the number of students who stop attending school prior to graduation for reasons other than transfer to another school began to be collected in Massachusetts during school year 1986 -1987.  At that time, annual and projected cohort drop-out rates for Latinos were the highest of all racial-ethnic groups in the state. [xiii] 

 

That pattern has continued as is evident by the data provided in Tables 6.[xiv]  More than one out of every four Latino 9^th graders is projected to drop out of school before finishing high school.  This rate is almost three times that of the caucasian students.

 

Annual drop out rates for the last seven years for all racial-ethnic groups is presented in Table 7. This is the percentage of children from each group that drop out each year.  In this case also, Latino rates have remained consistently higher than those of any other group in the state throughout this period.  

 

Looking at trends over the last seven years, we find that the overall rate has dropped very slightly.  It is evident that there was a marked downward trend during 1996 and 1997 among all minority groups, and more sharply among Asians.  This trend downward has reversed itself in the last year, when rates for all minorities increased, again more markedly among Asians.  Asians demonstrated their highest drop out rates during the last seven years during 1997-1998.

 

MCAS Results

 

Many educators have challenged the validity of standardized tests in measuring the true educational achievement of children.  This has been particularly so in relationship to the testing of children that do not belong to the dominant class, race and/or cultural group.  What do standardized tests really measure and whether or not there are racial and

Table 7

Massachusetts Public High School Annual Drop Out Rates By Race And Ethnicity, AY1992-93 to 1997-98

class biases inherent in these tests are unresolved critical questions that have direct impact on the appropriate use of their results. The usual recommendation by educators is that standardized testing be treated as one element -of many- in evaluating students performance.

 

Nevertheless, recent educational reform initiatives in the United States have tended to rely on standardized tests as the way to measure the outcomes of children in educational programs.   In many cases, outcome on one test determines the promotion of children from one grade to another or the graduation of high school students. 

 

In Massachusetts, the 1993 Educational Reform Act showcased the MCAS test as the primary measure of students achievement in required areas of knowledge prioritized in the state law.  These tests began to be required of 4^th, 8^th and 10^th graders beginning in 1998 and in subsequent years both the numbers of grades and the areas tested will broadened.   Curriculum frameworks are now being developed to assure that the material that appears in the tests is taught in the classrooms.[xv]

 

What makes the MCAS an important fact for both students and educators is the use that will be made of its scores.  Beginning in 2001 current state educational policy will require 10^th graders to obtain a passing score in Math, English and Language Arts, Science and Technology and Social Sciences in order to graduate from high school.  The first graduating class affected is the class of 2003.   Since scores are available at the school and classroom level, there are also proposals to use student MCAS outcomes in the evaluation of teachers and schools.   

 

High stakes, exit testing is not unique to Massachusetts.  Nineteen states have exit exams required for graduation, including states with large Latino populations such as New York, Texas and California.  The results have been that large number of children, particularly Black and Latino children have not passed these tests placing them at risk for not graduating from high school or not being promoted to the next grade.

 

Advocates of high stake testing propose that “knowing the truth” about the failure of schools to impart the knowledge that has been determined that children need in order to lead useful working lives will shock the educational systems into changing the way it goes about educating children and supporting their learning.  Updating curricula so that they are more attuned to current demands is taking place in some systems.  Others are being challenged to include math and science classes for all students and to implement advance placement classes in all schools.  Others are beginning to invest in summer school, tutoring and after school programs to assure that youngsters receive the extra support they need.  

 

But there are also problems. Some of the problems relate to the fairness of testing when students, particularly weaker students and those not attending advanced classes, will be tested on material they have never been taught.  Tests, rightly so, are geared to assess pre-determined expected outcomes but there are no mechanisms in place to assure that instruction leading to those outcomes is actually talking place in the classroom for all students.  This is particularly so in the early years of the reform process and as teachers re-learn themselves the requirements of the new curricula.    

 

Other concerns focus on the risk of increasing the drop out rates for the most vulnerable populations.  This may happen in several ways.  One way is the impact of labeling children as failures early in their educational career, for some as early as the 4^th grade.   Another is the retention in grade as a way to redress failure without taking into account the need for changing the conditions that led to student failure in the first place.  It also happens as students in the latter grades give up and drop out once they fail the test the first or second times.[xvi]   The increases in drop out rates has already been documented in California and Texas, systems that implemented this type of testing already.  

 

Testing, specially when used to evaluate whole schools or districts also has effects on the dynamics of the school.  The first effect is the increase in the tendency of the system to “cream” their student bodies, putting priority on those students that are seem as likely to pass and do well on the test.  The fear here is that schools will counsel weak students away from school in order guarantee better scores.   This too will also tend to increase the number of drop outs.     Secondly is the increase in cheating as schools and teachers try to artificially increase students’ scores.  Both have already been documented in other areas of the country.

 

With this as a backdrop we begin the discussion of the results of the first administration of the MCAS test.  We discuss first the overall results of the test and in particular the racial differences in test outcomes followed by an in depth discussion of the outcomes for Latinos in the state.

 

The 1998 MCAS tests.  In the spring of 1998, the MCAS tests began to be administered to Massachusetts students[xvii] in grades 4, 8 and 10.  About 208,000 children from all school districts took the tests in the three of English Language Arts, Mathematics and Science and Technology.[xviii]  Test takers included regular education students, special education students and students with limited English proficiency.  

 

Special attention was given to the testing of limited English proficiency students.  These students   were tested in English when they had been in school in the U.S. for more than 3 years or when they had been recommended for mainstream classes for the 1998-1999 school year, regardless of the years of school in the U.S..   Native Spanish speakers, in some situations, were required to take the Spanish/English Version of the Mathematics and the Science and Technology tests.  Included here were native Spanish-speaking students that :

§          had been enrolled in U.S. schools for 3 years or less;

§          had been enrolled in the Transitional Bilingual Education Program or that received English as a Second Language support and were not recommended for mainstream classes during 1998-1999;

§          were able to read and write in Spanish.[xix]

 

Reports of the test results provided by the Department of Education offer four levels of performance in each area of knowledge for each grade: advanced, proficient, needs improvement and failing. It offered both a score range and a descriptive standard for each of the levels. According to the Massachusetts Department of Education, the criteria for each level were the following:

Advanced : where students demonstrate a comprehensive and in depth understanding of rigorous subject matter and provide sophisticated solutions to complex problems.  (Score ranges between 260-280)

Proficient : at this level students demonstrate a solid understanding of challenging subject matter and solve a wide variety of problems. (Score ranges between 240-259)

Needs Improvement : at this level students demonstrate partial under-standing of subject matter and solve simple problems.  (Score ranges between 220 and 239)

Failing : where students demonstrate minimal understanding of subject matter and do not solve even simple problems.  (Score ranges between 200 and 219).[xx] 

 

In general, Massachusetts students’ scores on this first administration of the MCAS test were low.  Statewide Average scaled scores for all subjects and at all grade levels only reached the level of “needs improvement”; 52% of 10^th graders and 42% of 8^th graders had a failing score in math; and less than 11% of students (at any level) achieved an “advanced” rating in any subject (grade 4 math had the largest percentage of advanced students).[xxi]    

 

As worrisome as these aggregated scores were, the fact is that they covered very deep differences among test takers.  There was wide variation among school districts and  among individual schools within a district. [xxii]  Experts have pointed to both in-school and out of school factors which influence student performance on standardized tests like MCAS.[xxiii]

And, as we will show in this report, there were also differences among groups of students in the state when the race of the test taker was taken into account.  These differences are large and important to consider, particularly in view of the use that will be made of the MCAS test outcomes.  

 

Racial Differences. Results of the first set of MCAS tests in Massachusetts focus on outcomes for white, black, Asian/Pacific Islander, Latino, and Native American students as well as students that reported that they were of mixed race or background.[xxiv]  The latter were reported as a separate category. 

 

The results parallel those achieved in the use of other standardized tests such as the SAT and other high stake, exit tests: white and Asian students’ outcomes far outpaced those of Blacks, Latinos and Native Americans.    Mixed race children has scored that were similar to those of white and Asian students.  The comparison of the overall scores for each racial group, offered in Table 8, gives perhaps the best picture of these differences. 

 

Tables 9, 10 and 11 presents the percent of students of each group that scored as failing, according to Department of education parameters, in each of the areas of the test: English Language Arts, Mathematics and Science and Technology.   Beginning in grade 4, it can be observed that Latino, Black and Native American failure rates are much higher than that of whites, Asians and the mixed race group.  In the earlier grade,

 

Grade 4 MCAS Results By Race, 1998

(Percent Failing)

 

 

 

Source: Report of 1998 Statewide and District Results by Race and Ethnicity, Massachusetts Department of Education, Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) Results, June 1999

 

Grade 8 MCAS Results By Race, 1998

(Percent Failing)

 

 

 

Source: Report of 1998 Statewide and District Results by Race and Ethnicity, Massachusetts Department of Education, Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) Results, June 1999

 

Grade 10 MCAS Results By Race, 1998

(Percent Failing)

 

 

 

Source: Report of 1998 Statewide and District Results by Race and Ethnicity,  Massachusetts Department of Education,  Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) Results, June 1999

 

 

the differences are slightly sharper in Math than in the other two areas of knowledge.  By the 8^th grade, the differences between the scores of whites and Asians and those of Blacks, Latinos and Native Americans are now quite pronounced in both Math and Science.  These differences will hold through the high school test years.  

 

A Closer Look at the Situation of Latinos.  As was true of the drop out rates, the outcomes of Latino students are the worst in the state.  In every grade and across every area of knowledge, Latino students rank lower than other racial/ethnic groups.   This means that Latinos are at the most vulnerable position in the state in regards to the negative outcomes that are predicted for the use of high stakes standardized tests.  

 

The Latino outcomes in the MCAS test are disheartening.   Latinos’ overall score is the lowest in the state; scaled scores in all grades and in all areas were below those of the average scaled scores for the state.  Scaled scores for Latinos in Math and Science represented “failing” in both the 8^th and 10^th grade.  Scaled scores were better in English Language Arts where both 4^th and 8^th graders scored in the “needs improvement” range. 

 

Table 12 shows the MCAS scores for Latino students across the state.  We highlight here the scores of those students at either end of the spectrum: those that achieved scores of “proficient” and above and those that failed the MCAS tests.

 

Overall, Latino children in the earlier grades tested better than those in the highest grades.  In the fourth grade, the grade where Latinos did best, scaled scores reached “needs improvement” in all areas.  In the 8^th grade, it did so only in English Language Arts. By the 10^th grade, Latino scaled scores reflected failing scores in all areas.

 

The scores of tenth graders are significant in that current state educational policy stipulates that, beginning in 2003, in order to graduate from high school, 10^th graders must pass all sections of the MCAS.   In 1998, 83 percent of Latino 10^th graders scored

failing in math and 70% did so in Science and Technology.  If the 1998 tests had counted as a pre-requisite for the high school diploma, as will happen in 2003, more than 80% of the Latino students graduating in the year 2000 would not receive a high school diploma. 

 

 

Table 12

Statewide Latino MCAS Results, 1998

(Proficient or better and Failing)

 

GRADE 10

	Percent Proficient and above	Percent Failing
English Language Arts	11	58
Mathematics	5	83
Science and Technology	4	70

 

GRADE 8

	Percent Proficient and above	Percent Failing
English Language Arts	20	38
Mathematics	6	79
Science and Technology	5	80

 

GRADE 4

	Percent Proficient and above	Percent Failing
English Language Arts	3	39
Mathematics	9