Latino K-12 Schools: Redesigned for Student Success

(Paperback, Second Edition)

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This book is a comprehensive guide for educators and policy makers who are ready to create schools for Latinos (particularly Mexican Americans), such that students will be successful in learning and achieving in K-12 grades and college and help to advance society in the 21st century. The contents address how to redefine schools for a new century and goes well beyond school reform. It speaks to educators on adopting a positive mindset, one that sees Latinos with assets, not deficits and on expanding the schools purpose to serve not just students but the local community. The author also emphasizes how to gain better understanding about Latino students and families, to lose stereotypic thinking, to engage families and local community resources in a more productive way, to gather information and help evaluate school/program effectiveness (and not just testing students on standardized test), and how schools can help themselves develop much needed financial and human resources.

Reviews

""The revised edition of Dr. Valverde's Latino K-12 School: Designed for Student Success is a very timely and significant contribution that critically informs the major educational challenge facing a great many of our nation's public schools--more effectively educating Mexican American/Latino students, a group that who will grow to be the majority in many states and local communities throughout this country. School board members, legislators and other policy-makers can directly benefit from Dr. Valverde's critical insights on the dysfunctional 'reform' focused efforts of the past; his recommendations regarding integration of assessment as a diagnostic tool to guide and inform student learning; his perspective that re-design requires a reaching out to Latino parents and communities as partners in achieving educational success for all students; and, the author's informed recommendations that schools focus on 'creative use' of available time and resources, and more effectively and creatively integrating technology in instruction. Finally state policy makers must recognize and accept the author's perspective that effective re-design requires the investment of resources to convert these ideas and practices into realities, and that failure to move forward portends education and economic anemia for decades to come."" --Albert P. Cortez, Policy Director, Intercultural Development Research Association, San Antonio, Texas

""As the number of Latino children in our schools continues to grow, student success will be based on acceptance of this fact along with the mindset that these children, regardless of background influences, can and will learn. Latino K-12 Schools: Designed for Success, offers principals and teachers, among those involved in education, a look into transforming schools into havens of understanding and acceptance of environmental factors, culture, language usage, and the need for parental and community involvement, and of their influence on the teaching/learning process and student success. This knowledge should guide meaningful changes to programs to ensure that each student is receiving the maximum opportunity to succeed. Overall an in-depth look at the need for school transformation, not reform, with helpful ways to begin to make it happen."" --Raymond Rodriguez, Retired principal, Long Beach School District, California

"This book offers a message of hope for everyone involved in transforming our schools into effective learning communities that work for students with diverse backgrounds, especially Latino populations. In fact, many of the programs supported by the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics surface throughout the text. This book should be in the hands of everyone on the front lines serving the growing population of Hispanic students." --Dr. Kent Scribner, Member, White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics, Superintendent, Phoenix Union High School District, Arizona

"The central premise of this policy empowering exposition is that success for 21st century Latino students entails redefinition and transformation of the schools. The process for reconceptualization is democracy in action, not just in rhetoric. Policy makers will benefit from and instructional leaders will celebrate the emphasis on language, parent and community engagement, and cultural understanding as major building blocks for the newly conceived schools. School board members in particular will appreciate that recommendations are set in the context of current social and demographic realities yet leave ample scope for tailoring to fit local circumstances." --Rosa Castro Feinberg, Board Member, Dade County Schools, Associate Professor (Retired), Florida International University

Author Bio

Dr. Leonard A. Valverde is a professor emeritus from Arizona State University. His 45 years in education spans over both K-12 public schools, higher education, two-year colleges, and undergraduate/graduate level universities. He has focused on teaching, supervision of instruction, and administration, covering both national and international study.