K–16 Educational Pipeline

Overview

Figure 1 from the 2000 U.S. Census data provides an overview of the pipeline. The Asian American category encompasses an extraordinarily large number of different ethnic backgrounds, each with a vastly different historical immigration background. A large portion of the Asian American numbers are those who identify as Japanese, East Indian, Korean, or Chinese. Traditionally, immigrants from these areas have been middle to upper class with high levels of education. Thus, their children often have high educational attainment. However, other Asian students, such as the Hmong, are mostly working-class or poor immigrants who are struggling to succeed in the educational system. Umbrella categories such as Latina/o or Asian American, while useful in sorting large amounts of data, are also problematic in that they often obscure trends within population subgroups.

Elementary/Primary Education

The early years of education have been shown to be quite important to the overall progress of students. At this level of the pipeline, students from some racial, ethnic, social class, and linguistic groups are faced with a host of equity barriers in education. These barriers include a curriculum that does not reflect the cultures of students of color, standardized testing, and schools that are poorly funded.

In 2010, the Texas State Board of Education adopted new guidelines that require more emphasis on Christian beliefs and will likely result in less attention given to racial and ethnic groups in the textbooks adopted by the state. This, along with the fact that much of the history taught during [Page 1296]these years focuses on the heroes and holidays of the United States, becomes problematic when focusing on students of color. The social studies standards in California require that fourth grade history students learn about the historical places and people specific to their own state. This means that students of color must learn the history of the Catholic missions; however, Native students are not taught that the missions in California were the main location for the violent assimilation of Native Americans in California. Textbooks influence the ways in which students of color see themselves in history. The textbook standards in Texas and in California suggest the need for critical multicultural standards to be introduced into the curriculum.

...