October 3, 2002 | Read Time: 7 minutes
When leaders of the National Council of La Raza, a nonprofit group in Washington, were looking for
ways to improve education for poor Hispanic children, they agreed that the stakes were so high that a big gamble was in order.
So they decided to try to raise $40-million to open 100 schools across the nation by 2010. And not just any schools, but charter schools — public institutions that, because they are free of some government regulations in exchange for heightened accountability, have more control over such items as personnel, curriculum, and the organization of the school day and year.
La Raza already has raised $10-million for the effort, and local affiliates have opened five schools. Twenty more are in the planning stage.
Education experts say La Raza’s plan is by far the most far-reaching and well-supported among the growing number of nonprofit organizations starting charter schools.
“I don’t know of any other national nonprofit that has set a goal that ambitious,” says Bryan Hassel, president of Public Impact, a company in Chapel Hill, N.C., that advises foundations, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies on education issues. “In fact, I can’t think of another national nonprofit that has even set a numerical goal.”
Most of the charter-school money La Raza has raised came from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation ($6.7-million) and the Walton Family Foundation ($3-million), with smaller grants from the Annie E. Casey Foundation ($200,000) and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation ($100,000).
Getting Kids to Graduate
Overseeing the project is Anthony J. Colon, a former teacher and longtime administrator in New York City public and parochial schools. He also ran a charter school in California.
By helping many of its 290 local affiliates open schools rather than continue to try to improve existing ones, La Raza hopes to increase the number of Hispanics who graduate from high school and college, says Mr. Colon.
Fifty-seven percent of Hispanics 25 or older have at least a high-school diploma, compared with 88 percent of white non-Hispanics, according to the federal National Center for Education Statistics. Eleven percent of Hispanics 25 or older have at least a bachelor’s degree, compared with 28 percent of non-Hispanic whites, according to the center.
Besides raising Hispanic graduation rates, La Raza officials hope to encourage more Hispanic people to gain economic security by becoming doctors, lawyers, and other skilled professionals.
“Lots of people think that we are trying to do something radical by trying to get these charter schools off the ground,” says Mr. Colon. “But all we want to do is be able to go to college, to graduate, to get a job, and to buy a home, which is not radical at all.”
In addition, he says, La Raza is trying to create more-effective models for teaching Hispanic children that other schools can use.
“Charter schools afford us an opportunity to be in the driver’s seat,” he says. “Now, instead of trying to convince people that the strategies we are trying to use with English-language learners are good for our kids, this allows us to implement the kinds of programs we think are going to benefit our kids.”
Training Teachers
On the wall of Mr. Colon’s office is a map of the United States covered with an array of multicolored pins, indicating La Raza charter schools in various stages of development.
One pin marks the location of Academia Cesar Chavez, which opened last fall in St. Paul. It serves a population that is 97 percent Hispanic. About half the students are recent immigrants, and 83 percent come from low-income families.
“The traditional schools were failing our children, so we as community people said, ‘Ya basta.’ [That’s enough.] Our children are getting lost,” says Ramona A. de Rosales, the school’s executive director.
The National Council of La Raza provided her with extensive training to help her with such tasks as managing a budget and working effectively with a board. The academy’s teachers attend professional-development institutes that the council holds to showcase the best ways to teach Hispanic children.
Because the school has only 190 students, its pupils receive more personalized attention than many public-school pupils receive. Ms. de Rosales says such attention is especially important for children who are recent émigrés, are learning English for the first time, or face other obstacles because they live in poverty.
‘Groundswell of Interest’
When La Raza announced its charter-school project two years ago, it planned to open 50 schools by 2005. But its affiliates were so enthusiastic about the venture that it expanded that goal to 100 schools by 2010.
“It is a reflection of the groundswell of interest from the [Hispanic] community that has forced them to up the ante,” says Hector Villagra, regional counsel of the Los Angeles office of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
He adds, “From our perspective, it is very hard to continue telling parents to have faith in the public-school system, when years pass and things don’t appear to be moving forward.”
The National Council of La Raza will distribute most of its charter-school grants to affiliates that are starting schools.
Each affiliate will be eligible for up to $400,000 in support. Once a school is operating, it will have to rely on government support or raise money on its own.
La Raza’s plan is not without critics.
Alex Molnar, director of the Education Policy Studies Laboratory at Arizona State University, questions whether groups like La Raza have enough experience to run schools. “One of the biggest problems that nonprofits face is they have no discernible expertise at doing this,” Mr. Molnar says. “They are going to spend a lot of time and money essentially trying to recreate things that have already been done in the public-school system.”
While Mr. Molnar says it is possible for a group such as La Raza to do a reasonably good job of running charter schools, he questions whether it has a formal plan for persuading other public schools to adopt its model for teaching Hispanic children.
In response to Mr. Molnar, Mr. Colon says that about 60 percent of La Raza’s affiliates have experience providing some form of education, including 43 that operate youth programs, 30 that run child-care programs, and 25 that operate charter schools or other alternative institutions, some for as long as two decades.
He acknowledges that while the group doesn’t expect to end the achievement gap overnight, it hopes to see significant improvements in how Hispanic children perform in the schools it runs. “I don’t think we are going to change the horrific course of not educating Latino children in this country in the next five years,” Mr. Colon says. “But we are certainly going to have an impact on it, and to begin to close the gap.”
He adds that the group is already working with education organizations and public schools “to ensure that we are learning from them, and hopefully they are learning from us.”
Federal and Private Aid
Beyond the $10-million it has raised so far for charter schools, the National Council of La Raza has landed two large grants for related projects.
It received $6.4-million from the U.S. Department of Education to help its affiliates and other organizations finance construction or renovation of buildings to house new charter schools. It also received a second, $7.2-million grant from the Gates Foundation to develop high schools that allow students to obtain a diploma while also taking college-level classes. Some of those schools will be charter institutions.
Tom Vander Ark, executive director for education at the Gates Foundation, says that among the things that impressed him about the National Council of La Raza’s first application to Gates for charter-school money was the charity’s four-stage plan for selecting which of its affiliates were prepared enough to receive start-up funds. In addition, he praised La Raza for providing its affiliates not just with money, but also with teacher training, guidance on using technology, and other aid.
“They have done their homework,” says Mr. Vander Ark. “It is a very thorough process that ensures a high degree of quality.”
