To address these shortcomings, Gandara recommends:
- Earlier intervention to help identify academic strengths that can be nurtured among students who may not have the resources to reach their potential otherwise.
- Schools building on the strengths that students bring to the classroom, including their home language skills.
- Schools placing special attention on intensive academic-English instruction.
- Schools and programs finding ways to better target and distribute resources to these students.
- Developing special interventions that help these students gain access to rigorous college-preparatory courses and integrating those interventions into schools.
- Providing frank information to both students and parents about the real costs of college, and the various means of financing it; offering information to all Latino students who have demonstrated the ability to gain admission to four-year colleges and universities, and their parents, about the benefits and liabilities of attending nearby, less-demanding institutions.
- Cultivating counselors who come from the same background as their students and who understand and can communicate with the students’ parents.
“Fragile Futures” can be downloaded for free at <www.ets.org/research/pic>.
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