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Focus Group Findings
Contents
Introduction
Education
Health
Introduction
In 1996, the First National Summit on Young Latinos was held in San Antonio, Texas. The summit was the culmination of focus groups held around the country on issues affecting young Latinos. Much was learned from the focus groups, and NLCI’s community action initiatives became the answers to the findings. While there have been advances in the Latino communities, young Latinos continue to lag behind.
While the findings from the focus groups have proved invaluable over the years, NLCI staff felt that it was imperative that new information needed to be gathered. While NLCI has conducted focus groups whenever new programs or initiatives were conceived, none were focused on specifically the status of young Latinos. NLCI staff elected to hold focus groups in early 2009, prior to the public forum, to determine the community’s views on two subjects: health and education and the impact on Latino children.
This year, NLCI staff, working with its community partners, held focus groups in Miami, Fl; Houston, TX; Los Angeles, CA; and Chicago, IL. Parents, professionals and youth were included. The focus groups were open forums where people could speak freely about not only their concerns in these two areas, but also their dreams. What we found confirmed what we suspected−many young Latinos are not graduating or receiving the services they need because of the circumstances in which they live. (back to top)
Education
“The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America’s Schools” a summary of findings released by McKinsey and Company in April 2009 states that “…America’s racial achievement gap worsens the longer children are in school. Between the forth and twelfth grades, for example, the gap versus white students math scores grows 41% for Latinos and 22% for blacks.” The McKinsey report also found that “Blacks and Latinos are overrepresented among low-scoring students and underrepresented at the top. Across reading and math, less than 3% of black and Latino children are at the advanced level; by twelfth grade it is less than 1%....This lagging representation among top performers matters to economic outcomes, because high achievers tend to be those who attend the top colleges and reap the highest earnings over their lives.”
Understanding the challenges young Latinos face on a daily basis NLCI staff asked participants of the focus groups the following questions regarding education:
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Do you feel that your schools have prepared you/or the young people in your community for the future? Why or why not?
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Are the resources that help students find opportunities for continued/higher education available? (ie counselors and information)
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What do you think needs to change to insure that young Latinos graduate?
The responses to the education questions were very similar from city to city. They included:
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Most classrooms are overcrowded with teachers burdened with too many children. Classrooms with a 35 to 1 ration are common in Miami; in Los Angeles, it was reported that teachers could have up to 45 students.
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Because of the changes to the system, teachers are spending the majority of the year “teaching to the test.” Some teachers’ bonuses or the schools’ ratings are tied to how well the children do on the test. One former teacher in Miami, Fl., described teaching the children how to take the test from September-March, leaving only two months to cover the curriculum they would need for the next year. Parents and professionals were very frustrated..
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Professionals and parents felt that the educational system did not allow the children to be children nor did it institute in them a love of learning or any joy whatsoever in the process. So much emphasis is placed on the test that the joy of discovery of learning new skills and information was lost in the stress of having to pass the test. Teachers explained that even if the child was doing well in the regular school work (4.0 for example) if they failed the test, they would fail the year. The teachers felt that this put too much emphasis on something that was difficult for students without taking into account any of the other work they had accomplished.
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In California, students who have been at the school for at least three months have to take the test, regardless of the fact that they do not speak, read or write English. Students age out—if they don’t pass the test by 18, then they are out of school. There is a 51% drop out rate in California.
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Teachers and parents both felt that to assess a child’s knowledge and skills was important as with testing, but to only use a test to pass or fail a child was not right, because not all children do well on test and it doesn’t mean they are failures---but with this test it does.
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Families spoke of the burden of having to buy supplies for the school, including Kleenex, copy paper, etc. If a family has more than one or two children, the start-up costs for each school year can run as high as $150 or more per child. This does not include any uniforms that they may need.
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Young people in Los Angeles spoke of the inadequate number of books, making it difficult to study. They explained that often there were only enough books for one section, so the books had to stay in the classroom.
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Families in Miami were frustrated because they had to print homework worksheets from emails. Many of them did not have a printer at home, so needed to go to the library. Because of the incredible congestion in Miami, it could take an hour or more to get home and to the library. Most of the libraries’ hours were cut, so they were having difficulty printing the worksheets.
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Services are being cut, and parents who do not understand the system or who cannot navigate it are at a loss as to how they can help their children. If their child has an individualized learning plan, the parent must request the services and continue to monitor to ensure the child is receiving the appropriate services.
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Buildings are inadequate and dirty. Garfield High School in Los Angeles has rats in the hallways.
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Everyone felt that parent involvement was important, but understood that many parents simply do not have the time. Many work two or three jobs to make ends meet, and the family demands are greater when there are more children.
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Spanish speaking children are still labeled as special education students and placed in back of class.
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When asked if there were resources available for young people to find opportunities for higher education participants in Los Angeles, Chicago, and
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Miami responded that there were few people to help and that a parent needed to understand the system to be able to navigate and help their child. Again, budget cuts and overcrowding have severely hampered the school’s ability to provide adequate resources.
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A mother in Houston spoke of a special teacher that noticed her children, and worked diligently to ensure they were placed in gifted classes and helped the family with some of their legal issues.
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All felt that better teacher preparation, as well as hiring teachers that “look” like the students was important. They also felt that creating a curriculum that allowed children to learn and to discover the joy in learning, one that taught critical thinking skills, was essential to their successful graduation.
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All participants asked for smaller classrooms and innovative teachers.
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Remove the obstacles so that children can learn.
(back to top)
Health
In 2007 14.8 million Hispanics were uninsured (32.1%) a decrease from 15.3  million in 2006 and of this population. Latino children in comparison to white non-Latino children were almost three times as likely to be uninsured in 2007. Despite the growing numbers, the resources available to support the Latino community are few, and those for Latino children are even fewer. U.S. Census data paints a picture of the worst statistics for Latino children—lower educational attainment, higher teen pregnancy rates and obesity rates, and highest rates of uninsured children, to name a few.
The Surgeon General’s T-O-D-O-S Report stated that while Latinos have the highest rate of labor force participation of any population group, they also are the poorest. The report also stated that one-third of the population is uninsured. This means that Latinos’ access to affordable, available and portable care is severely limited. Within the Hispanic sub-groups, Mexican-Americans suffer from higher levels of diabetes, while Puerto Ricans suffer disproportionally higher rates of infant mortality, HIV/Aids and asthma.
Young Latinos’ numerous health challenges are being addressed by caring professionals in the communities in which they live, but unfortunately, access, availability to services and culturally and linguistically appropriate and relevant information are still an issue with which families must contend. While the majority of Latinos reside in the states and cities which have traditionally been strongholds for the population, other communities are seeing a surge in the population. These communities are found in Georgia, Nevada, Washington, the Carolinas and Tennessee, to name a few. These emerging Latino communities have fewer organizations or the infrastructure to deal with the influx of a new population that arrives with so many challenges.
Understanding the challenges young Latinos face on a daily basis NLCI staff asked participants of the focus groups the following questions on health:
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What resources are available for creating a healthy community for young Latinos?
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What are the barriers? (access to health, safe communities, cost, insurance, etc)
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What needs to change?
Responses to the health questions included:
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In Chicago, the participants responded that the health promoters were an integral part in not only providing services, but getting information out to the members of the community.
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In all of the communities they explained that while there were parks and other resources, many times it was too dangerous to walk to the park, etc.
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Rival gangs have marked off their territory, and even if it’s a small area, residents are scared to cross into rival territory.
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Professionals in Los Angeles felt that there were few resources available and the current economic crises had made health care even more of an issue. Parents who lost their jobs could not qualify for assistance because their “income” was too high; at the same time, deductibles were also high.
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One participant spoke of having dangerously high blood pressure and going to the emergency room at UCLA, because the other emergency room had closed. She lost her job, and does not have insurance. She waited 17 hours and never saw a doctor; she was not “sick enough.”
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Mental health services were almost non-existent.
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There is a “food desert” in many of the communities. There are no grocery stores that can provide fresh fruit and vegetables to the communities.
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The Chicago professionals spoke of the “brown fields” in the neighborhoods, abandoned toxic waste sites that pollute the neighborhood.
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One neighborhood in Chicago has the seventh highest pediatric asthma rate in the nation.
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Clients are still distrustful of clinics and other institutions. They fear giving their personal information because of their immigrant status.
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Other barriers to access are the language barrier and lack of transportation.
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Participants in Chicago felt that there needed to be more cooperation between clinics and other organizations serving the populations. They also felt that a greater emphasis on preventative measures was important.
(back to top)
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