Additive Schooling in Subtractive Times

Ofelia García, Lesley Bartlett

Description

Additive Schooling in Subtractive Times documents the unusually successful efforts of one New York City high school to educate Dominican immigrant youth, at a time when Latino immigrants constitute a growing and vulnerable population in the nation's secondary schools. Based on four and a half years of qualitative research, the book examines the schooling of teens in the Dominican Republic, the social and linguistic challenges the immigrant teens face in Washington Heights, and how Gregorio Luperon High School works with the community to respond to those challenges. The staff at Luperon see their students as emergent bilinguals and adhere to a culturally and linguistically additive approach.

After offering a history of the school's formation, the authors detail the ways in which federal No Child Left Behind policies, New York State accountability measures, and New York City's educational reforms under Mayor Michael Bloomberg complicated the school's efforts. The book then describes the dynamic bilingual pedagogical approach adopted within the school to help students develop academic Spanish and English. Focusing on the lives of twenty immigrant youth, Bartlett and Garcia also show that, although the school achieves high completion rates, the graduating students nevertheless face difficult postsecondary educational and work environments that too often consign them to the ranks of the working poor.

Sujets

• Hispanic American Studies
• Ethnic Studies
• Social Science
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Index of urban studies articles
• Education
• Anthropology
• American
• Immigration

Informations

• Publié par: Vanderbilt University Press
• Date de parution: 29 août 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780826517647
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Additive Schooling in Subtractive Times Bilingual Education and Dominican Immigrant Youth in the Heights

Lesley Bartlett and Ofelia García

Additive Schooling in Subtractive Times

Additive Schooling in Subtractive Times

Bilingual Education and Dominican Immigrant Youth in the Heights

Lesley Bartlett and Ofelia García Foreword by Angela Valenzuela

V U PNashville ANDERBILT NIVERSITY RESS

© 2011 by Vanderbilt University Press Nasville, Tennessee 37235 All rigts reserved First printing 2011

his book is printed on acid-free paper made from 30% post-consumer recycled content. Manufactured in te United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bartlett, Lesley. Additive scooling in subtractive times : bilingual education and Dominican immigrant yout in te Heigts / Lesley Bartlett and Ofelia García ; foreword by Angela Valenzuela. p. cm. Includes bibliograpical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8265-1762-3 (clot edition : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-8265-1763-0 (pbk. edition : alk. paper) 1. Education, Bilingual—New York (State)—New York 2. Dominican Americans—Education (Secondary)—New York (State)—New York. I. García, Ofelia. II. Title. LC3733.N5B37 2011 370.117′50974711—dc22 2010046395

To te faculty, staff, administrators, parents, and students of Gregorio Luperón Hig Scool, past and present, and to te Wasington Heigts community, for teacing us so muc.

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Contents

Foreword by Angela Valenzuela

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Scooling Immigrant Yout

In te Heigts: Dominican Yout Immigrate to New York

Education Policy as Social Context

From Subtractive to Additive Scooling: he History of Gregorio Luperón Hig Scool

Languaging at Luperón

Callenges Facing Immigrant Yout at Luperón

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Social Capital and Additive Scooling at Luperón 189

he Political Economy of Education: Trajectories of Luperón Students troug Scool and Beyond

Educating Immigrant Yout: Lessons Learned

Notes

References

Index

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Foreword

L B  O G’ text,Additive Scool- ing in Subtractive Times: Bilingual Education and Dominican Immigrant Yout in te Heigts, is long overdue. It tells te tale of te eroic struggles of Gregorio Luperón Hig Scool and a community committed not only to its survival but also to its advancement. Starting as a newcomer scool for immigrant, mostly Dominican yout in New York, it later becomes a four-year ig scool in a context of bot canging demograpics and ac- countability demands related, in particular, to an intensification of testing.  Wile immigrant parents, teir cildren, and teir teacers are fully invested in te idea of students learning te Englis language well and quickly, teir desire to see tese cildren progress at a reasonable rate and graduate is too often frustrated by ig-stakes tests wit elusive and cal- lenging vocabulary, no visual support, and istorical and cultural refer- ences tat tese yout cannot access because of te embedded assump- tions of tese tests. hat is, te tests implicitly assume an entire scooling experience in te Englis language and are tus systematically inappropri- ate for immigrant, newcomer yout wose exposure to academic Englis and academic discourse is generally not comparable to tat of teir U.S.- born counterparts. he autors cite tis disconnect between policy and demograpics as a key culprit in te insurmountable barrier tat ig- stakes exams present for scool completion despite Luperón’s iger suc- cess rate in tis regard relative to its peer institutions in New York.  Notwitstanding tese significant, policy-driven urdles, Luperón’s sociocultural, social justice approac to learning provides an effective counterbalance to te institutional impulse to sacrifice some curriculum in te service of test preparation. Four years is not enoug time for all, or even most, cildren at Luperón to learn at a level comparable to te

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