Patricia Gandara, co-director of the Civil Rights Project at the University of California at Los Angeles, will discuss the looming educational crisis for Latinos, the nation's largest and most rapidly growing minority group, at a presentation at Teachers College on Thursday, February 26.

 

Gandara, who co-authored the recently published The Latino Education Crisis: The Consequences of Failed Social Policies (Harvard University Press, 2009) with University of Washington colleague Frances Contreras, will speak from 5 to 7 p.m. in Grace Dodge Hall Room 179. The book chronicles the cumulative disadvantages faced by many Latino children in the American school system, where one in five students is now of Hispanic descent. It also outlines policies that could ameliorate the crisis, including early intervention, integrated social services and the preparation and recruitment of teachers with specific skills to help Latino children and their families.

 

A former bilingual school psychologist and director of education research for the California Assembly, Gandara has focused on examining educational equity and access for low-income and ethnic-minority students, as well as the education of Mexican-origin youth. She is the author of numerous articles and books, including Over the Ivy Walls: The Educational Mobility of Low Income Chicanos (State University of New York Press, 1995).

The lecture is sponsored by the Faculty Working Group on Latin American Migration at TC and the Institute of Latin American Studies at Columbia University.