Still Falling Through the Cracks: Revisiting the Latina/o Education Pipeline by Lindsay Pérez Huber, Maria C. Malagón, Brianna R. Ramírez, Lorena Camargo Gonzalez, Alberto Jimenez, and Verónica N. Vélez addresses how gaps in educational attainment for Latina/o students have been widening over the past decade rather than narrowing and that Latina/o students are still “falling through the cracks.” The authors then go through reports from 2006-2014, with each report having recommendations for the improvement of educational conditions and outcomes for Latina/o students in each brief and report. Some of the things that they talked about in the reports were a necessity to require ethnic studies courses in California for all high school students. They also talked about promoting high-stakes engagement for Latino students by training staff to provide an educational space in which students feel safe and comfortable. Students were also feeling that their were poor institutional practices and that the teachers assumed they were deficient, not allowing them to test out this could be improved by grabbing institutional data collection. Going with the previous topic, students should also learn the importance of placement exams with better classroom instruction in basic skills. Going through the school system for the last 12 years, I agree with a majority of these points, as it is very difficult to test out of classes and teacher instruction can be greatly improved through classes with a lack of effort from various teachers. The author then began to talk about colleges and their campus climate, referring to multiple henious acts done, and began talking about how they should do climate assessments and take action based off of their results. This is actually vary relatable with the N word being drawn in the snow a few weeks ago, and I agree that colleges should monitor acts like these and take action based off of the reports that they see. Overall, the ideas in this article build up on each other, leading to the final point where the author talks about the limited Latina/o graduation rates and how institutions should find the right faculty and provide adequate support regarding these processes.
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