Gittleson on Immigrant Assimilation

Robert Gittleson sent me a message with some interesting insights that I wanted to share with you:

The other day, I sent you an item about an English-Spanish immersion program that I felt was somewhat germane to the assimilation issue. Today I read something that also underscores the progress being made on that front here in Los Angeles. As I’m sure you are aware, many people point to the low test scores in Los Angeles Schools, and blame it on the illegal immigrant / Hispanic influx, (and unfortunately, they are partially correct). However, the results from this years testing offer some interesting insights. First of all, the Latino 10th graders who passed the math exam rose this year from 57% to 64%, and the Latino 10th grade English scores went up this year from 62% to 67%. These scores were below the overall state averages, but not demonstrably so -78% math / 79% English, (I know, scary). Actually, the overall averages from LAUSD were close to the Latino scores. What I found very interesting, was that while these scores were low, they were higher then the African-American scores, (49/54% math – 63/64% English). To my way of thinking, the Latino scores reflect the fact that many parents are English challenged, and perhaps somewhat limited in their own educations, while many of these students probably use English as their second language. The fact that their scores are improving, coupled with the fact that the scores of the lifelong English speaking African-American students are lower then their Latino counterparts, shows me that at least the Latino kids are trying. Perhaps the year to year improvement might also be at least partially reflective of the fact that their are probably fewer new arrivals within the past year, due to the enforcement environment, but that is only a guess on my part. In any event, I find these facts to be positive. When the nay-sayers say that Latinos aren’t trying to assimilate, we can point to this as an example that they are. When they say that the Latinos bring down the American test scores, we can point to the fact that their scores are actually better then other disadvantaged minorities, who happen to be American citizens. http://www.dailynews.com/portlet/article/html/imageDisplay.jsp?contentItemRelationshipId=2095335

KJ