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For Public Comments to the Commission, please click here
00099
1 school has worked with, and many of you have
2 had experiences with. You have other
3 nonprofit groups. And then in sort of as a
4 nonprofit but also kind of a separate
5 category, you have faith-based organizations,
6 churches and faith groups which have had an
7 enormous role within education, and that will
8 be another group that we want to be paying
9 attention to.
10 That is sort of the thinking
11 behind organizing in this fashion as opposed
12 to what might be a more traditional, you
13 know -- actually, it has kind of been tried in
14 the past. We said, okay, we will go look at
15 primary education. We will look at secondary
16 education. We will look at higher education.
17 We will look at after school programs. We
18 will do it in that fashion.
19 MS. MAZZUCA: I think our thoughts
20 after a long conversation was that best
21 practices are going to be best practices for
22 readiness for school all the way through
00100
1 higher ed. You are talking about committed
2 teachers. You are talking about contracting.
3 You are talking about measuring support and
4 what it takes, whatever it takes to get there.
5 These are common themes that are running
6 through.
7 Talking about the family, it is
8 not going to look that much different. There
9 may be different supports that are going to be
10 needed for the parents to provide appropriate
11 child care and get the kids ready, but it is
12 still going to be a level of support that is
13 going to be needed through college, saying,
14 okay, yes, you can come to Temple University
15 and stay at the University of Puerto Rico.
16 That's why we thought about these kinds of
17 groups.
18 MR. GARCIA: I think we should
19 focus K 20, not a K different system. I would
20 recommend a couple of committees that aren't
21 here. I would have a best practices R&D
22 committee, just focussed on that. I would also recommend we go beyond this group to the
00101
1
2 best minds in the country to focus on this. I
3 would like to see for all of us -- this book
4 was written last year, called Effective
5 Programs for Latino Students by Robert Slavin
6 at Johns Hopkins. He was the inventor of
7 Success For All which is being used in Houston
8 and Philadelphia. He worked closely with this
9 group in the past.
10 I know there are other materials
11 based on scientific research over the last ten
12 years. I would love this committee would make
13 it available for all of us so we can do our
14 homework.
15 I think there also needs to be a
16 media slash communications committee or group
17 that is focused on getting the message out
18 because this is the bully pulpit and we can
19 use it to get it out. And in Florida, for
20 example, I am working with Christina, who has
21 the largest talk show in Spanish language.
22 She is going to do an education related hour
00102
1 thing on the poor state of Hispanic education.
2 We can partner up across the country in our
3 local communities, and nationwide, once we
4 have the information, to get the word out. So
5 I think that will be two committees.
6 MS. MAZZUCA: You are looking at
7 it a little differently as we were talking
8 about having public awareness, the common
9 themes for the role of the committees, the
10 concern of the media very much so, and the
11 best practices, also.
12 MR. GARCIA: If you had a
13 committee that was focussed on media, I would
14 invite the presidents, CEOs, of the top media
15 outlets, Hispanic, in the country to
16 participate in part of whatever was coming out
17 of that to the group as these are the
18 recommendations we make, because, obviously,
19 the CEO of Univision Telemundo, the Miami
20 Herald, who are Hispanic, would have something
21 to say --
22 MR. HERNANDEZ: I do have a
00103
1 problem with that because our function here,
2 as I understand, and being in other similar
3 types of groups like this one, is to assess,
4 arrive at some decisions, formulate a
5 proposal, solution, and that's it. You know,
6 we go there and say, this is what we propose.
7 Now, they either do it or don't do it.
8 If we start bringing the media in,
9 then we start creating expectations on
10 whatever we bring in must be done and will be
11 done and might create some kind of a pressure
12 to who we are serving in an advisory form
13 because we are already creating what we are
14 going to present and it is being distributed
15 throughout the media. I feel that that is
16 something that we -- maybe we use the staff to
17 help us in that or guide us on that but not be
18 our main -- our main focus is let's find out
19 what the problems are, and then go and analyze
20 what is there.
21 The other thing is that the No
22 Child Left Behind, this is not a Hispanic
00104
1 situation only. No child is no child. I hope
2 there are a lot of things going on that are
3 not necessarily related to Hispanic children
4 that we can get information from, other groups
5 that may be there. I don't know. I am
6 saying, the book and other things, information
7 we should be receiving to help us assess other
8 things that are going on, other approaches
9 that are happening as we go along.
10 So I do have a concern about --
11 MS. SANCHEZ: Let me talk about
12 the initiative. We work at the White House
13 press corps every day. We are your liaison
14 between the White House and the commission.
15 So there are a lot of opportunities of things
16 you can do. You could convene the heads of
17 the major networks. ABC, not just Spanish
18 language. Everybody has responsibility to
19 Hispanics. And have a dialogue about images,
20 children's programming that appeal to Hispanic
21 children. That could be part of the dialogue.
22 We will work with you and the White House
00105
1 press corps to facilitate that and the White
2 House initiative supports you. We are here
3 for correspondence that you write. We are
4 here to set up meetings. We are here to
5 facilitate panel discussions. We can find
6 people. We can help with formal letters of
7 invitation. We are going to help you lay out,
8 design how the report goes. We are your arms
9 and legs in the media operation. We are also
10 the people that will get Secretary Martinez,
11 Secretary Paige, senior White House staff, to
12 come to our events, to be heard from, to
13 facilitate a town hall meeting. Secretary
14 Martinez can facilitate a town hall meeting in
15 Orlando. Bring parents in and really talk to
16 them, in Spanish and English, in their
17 language, about their concerns and how we can
18 help them facilitate.
19 I think what the idea was, within
20 these committees, whatever these committees
21 are, you want accountability. There is some
22 measure of accountability. There some measure
00106
1 of high standards that work. Some measure of
2 high expectations are going to be within the
3 government program that we find that work.
4 Within the educators, examples, Chris Barbic
5 that we found that work. That model, no one
6 has ever really put their finger on what are
7 all those things. And design a plan that
8 would be scalable for different levels of
9 acculturated, assimilated Hispanics. It is
10 not one Hispanic. It is so many different
11 types of Hispanics. So what are those models?
12 MR. HANNA: I apologize, I don't
13 mean to assert the dictates of the chair, but
14 I want to make sure we kind of go in order
15 here. So I will go Father, Enedelia,
16 Francisco and Charles.
17 REV. HOYOS: I agree with Miguel
18 in this 100 percent but I support Mr. Garcia.
19 I truly believe the media is coming up very
20 important in part for our students in the
21 future and here, right now. I believe we need
22 to really be very aggressive with them in the
00107
1 sense to present to the community that our
2 education is very important and that the
3 President is with us. I will support you in
4 this because I believe it is very good.
5 MS. SCHOFIELD: I want to get to
6 the doing stage. At least it is a start, to
7 start with the family, with the education, the
8 government, the community partnerships, that
9 once we start there, we find an interest. As
10 a subcommittee we can look at how are we
11 collecting the data. I think we all know the
12 issues. We have reports on what the issues
13 are. We know what they are. Let's problem
14 solve. We have all talked about that we are
15 here to create solutions. So I kind of want
16 us to get to that point.
17 As subcommittees we will still
18 have questions and we can come back to the
19 commission and say, this is where we think our
20 action plan is going, this is where we think
21 we want to have our vision, but does that
22 align with everybody else. The media is going
00108
1 to take its place, it is going to take part in
2 every committee at one time or another. As a
3 commission that may be the time that we as
4 commissioners need to decide when and how does
5 that take place.
6 When we are collecting data we are
7 going to maybe look at media to say where are
8 the forms, how do we get information. I would
9 challenge us to be creative of how do we get
10 data and how do we get information because so
11 many times the traditional ways we have done
12 it still limit us to how we get the
13 information.
14 So, again, I don't want to
15 downplay media or downplay other, you know,
16 resources we have out there but I think we
17 need to -- my philosophy is think big, start
18 small and start chipping away at what is our
19 action plan and what is it we are going to
20 recommend at the end, because that is our
21 final plan. And we don't have that much time.
22 MR. HANNA: You are right, each
00109
1 committee can think creatively about the media
2 that accompanies their efforts.
3 MR. PARET: In terms of the
4 general structure of the committees that you
5 are recommending, it makes sense, as I thought
6 about it, myself, from a business perspective
7 coming into this process -- I looked at it,
8 you know, as what are the inputs, who is the
9 customer, what are the outputs. This
10 facilitates looking at it from that point of
11 view. So this setup is one I endorse.
12 Where I think Charles might be
13 going, and I agree with him, is there is a
14 great deal of potential, certainly on the best
15 practices point, whatever public awareness
16 campaigns we ultimately engage in, there is
17 potential for a great deal of
18 cross-fertilization that could be lost among
19 these four subcommittees if we don't find a
20 way of working together through the interim
21 stages while we are away from the setting. To
22 the extent -- I don't know whether it is
00110
1 additional subcommittees or people within each
2 subcommittee who have an additional focus to
3 engage in best practices, best practices
4 discussions with other subcommittee members,
5 and public awareness campaign discussions with
6 members from other subcommittees. What the
7 vehicle is I am not sure. But I think it is
8 important that we don't lose sight of those
9 issues and how we can cross-fertilize as we
10 work with this.
11 MR. HANNA: I will call on Charles
12 but, after that, Leslie. You can kind of
13 address that. I think part of the role of
14 your office is to make sure we are being
15 coordinated.
16 MR. GARCIA: I have to leave at
17 11:25 so I wanted to get some things on the
18 table.
19 Because of the appointment that I
20 had in July, I had to get up to speed very
21 quickly. As the only Hispanic on the board at
22 the policy making level in Florida, I talked
00111
1 to Leslie. She made me aware of all the
2 research. Every piece of paper that has been
3 written in the last ten years from this group
4 I have had the benefit of reading.
5 MS. SANCHEZ: They are all over
6 there.
7 MR. GARCIA: I think a lot of it
8 is good. In one of my former lives I was an
9 expert on counterterrorism. I have been on
10 Crossfire. A couple of days ago I was on Fox
11 News in the morning. My sound bite for the
12 day was patience is a new form of patriotism
13 on the war of terror. My sound bite today,
14 for our purposes, outrage is a new form of
15 patriotism in the war on Hispanic children
16 being left behind.
17 If you look at the numbers, some
18 people say it is about a million and-a-half.
19 I think the more accurate number is probably
20 somewhere between a half million and a million
21 kids, not only in high school but those who
22 enter into community colleges or universities
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