achievement gap

My neighbor always says, “If you don’t know Spanish already, you’d better learn it, because the Latinos saved Phillips; we owe them that much.” In the 1990’s, a wave of immigration increased the Hispanic population of the Phillip’s neighborhood by over 500% (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000). Today, once vacant Lake Street retail space is occupied by Latino-owned businesses.

A little background on the community in which I work: it is comprised mainly of hispanic immigrants from Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Peru, and Columbia. I work in an elementary school where about 90% of the parents are Spanish speaking only. When conversating with many of these parents, it has come to my attention that they desperately need/want to learn the English language.