|
For Public Comments to the Commission, please click here
92
1 the districts that what we are charging them, since we
2 charge the districts half of our cost to do this
3 service, we will be able to demonstrate every time we
4 charge them, the parents did attend our classes, did
5 graduate, and we only charged them for those that
6 graduated.
7 Our ability to mobilize parents. We are
8 bringing parents out in hundreds, two hundreds, three
9 hundreds where they never had more than ten parents
10 coming out. So we are energizing the whole movement in
11 California for the parents.
12 We have special relationships with parents.
13 We certainly believe and we spend a great deal of time
14 with everybody that comes into the PIQE family that
15 there must be absolute respect and dignity of parents
16 and we must not see ourselves as coming to save parents.
17 We are coming to simply enhance their understanding of
18 how the school system works and we learn as much from
19 them as we do in terms of giving to them.
20 We have a well-developed model, and each
21 parent will receive this binder at the beginning of the
22 class and get a different insert that they will keep
23 them.
24 We have a shared vision and this is something
25 we spent a lot of time having discussions on with both
93
1 our staff and with parents. Probably half of our
2 permanent staff came up through the ranks, having gone
3 through our course, gotten involved with us as
4 recruiters and teachers and coordinators and then
5 permanently on staff.
6 We are very effective. Probably 80 percent
7 of our graduates are from the immigrant communities.
8 We're working hard to begin accessing and sustaining our
9 participation with the African-American community. We
10 have offices now in Oakland. We have offices in South
11 Central L.A. and we're doing a lot of work to try to
12 figure out how can we bring in both the Mexican American
13 second, third, fourth generation, and the
14 African-Americans who we find have a great deal of
15 distrust and cynicism when it comes to trying to get
16 them involved in the education system.
17 Language, we believe that the language of any
18 child is the most important language that they must
19 have. So we honor that language. We certainly let
20 every family know that their children must dominate
21 English in our society.
22 We have personnel in the 14 language groups
23 that we taught the course. We never sent a Latino into
24 a Vietnamese family or Kenyan family. We recruit from
25 their communities, prepare them, and we allow them to
94
1 make the curriculum as culturally relevant, sensitive so
2 it's not one size fits all.
3 We have had extensive research done. I've
4 given you a packet of at least three of the recent
5 research that have been done by Stanford Research
6 Institute, as well as Dr. Janet Crisfield at Santa
7 Barbara. Our ultimate goal for PIQE is to bring
8 business, community, family schools together to promote
9 education for all children.
10 I could tell you that last year we graduated
11 30,000 parents through our traditional program in
12 California and 10,000 went through our follow-up coaches
13 program where we hired a parent to contact the other 25
14 parents that went through the course with them and stay
15 with it four months as a coach, informing them of
16 activities in the school, as well as going over some of
17 the important things that the parents must be doing at
18 home.
19 I could tell you that we served a hundred
20 school districts in California and we're in 356 schools
21 in those districts, that we served 71 schools as part of
22 the GEAR-UP partnership in California and 71 middle
23 schools.
24 I could tell you as an affiliate of the
25 National Council de La Raza we're viewed as the parent
95
1 model they want to take nationwide.
2 We recently had five states come to San Diego
3 and five very comprehensive 12-hour days learning how to
4 replicate and take those practices back to their states.
5 And I can tell you as partner of the real vision the
6 founder was a Baptist pastor in his previous life who
7 initially tried to run the program and couldn't do it
8 and gave it back to us and said we'll help you raise
9 money, and they have raised over the last ten years
10 probably 15 million dollars for us.
11 I could tell you -- and I mentioned to you
12 the Mosaica report found that PIQE is a unique and
13 effective organization with extraordinary committed
14 family, staff consultants and graduates, but nothing I
15 could tell you about PIQE would tell you -- could tell
16 you more than the Millan factor.
17 Sometimes I have a difficult time trying to
18 get through this story. My father passed away. He had
19 five children. Our mother guided five children into the
20 universities.
21 The Millan factor we now use to give
22 information to parents. This mother called our office
23 in April of last year asking when do the graduations
24 occur, and she was obviously told you have to go through
25 the classes in order to go to the graduation, where she
96
1 proceeded to say: I went through it 12 years ago and I
2 want to share the impact it had on my family of life.
3 It's in your booklet in probably too much of
4 a detail. If you want, you can read it.
5 What she told us she applied these principals
6 she had learned through the classes and from other
7 parents in the classes. She told her children the
8 family history, gave them pride in their culture and
9 language. She gave her children chores at home to teach
10 them discipline and team work.
11 She visited the teacher of the child once a
12 month. Even though she didn't speak English, she knew
13 there was translators.
14 She made time for her children and kept them
15 close to her. She lived in a four story apartment in
16 one of the most difficult areas of San Diego, but she
17 said PIQE said I had to stay close.
18 Then came the powerful statement where she
19 said: I learned to negotiate, listen with them, but
20 when I said no, I meant it. Every day I asked my
21 children about their homework. I encourage my children
22 to read at least 20 to 30 minutes a day and write what
23 they read.
24 And out of this is this outcome. Her oldest
25 son graduated from San Diego State University as a
97
1 physicist and now doing his doctorial work starting this
2 past September. The second daughter is at California
3 State School of Engineering. The third son has been
4 recruited by La Jolla Country Day. His testing is off
5 the charts. He's going to be recruited by Ivy League
6 schools.
7 Her last child was diagnosed with a learning
8 disability and she said I found at PIQE that
9 disabilities didn't mean they couldn't learn, they
10 learned differently. That child graduated from high
11 school and is already enrolled in a community college.
12 So this mother to us -- I thought I was going
13 to get through it -- represents -- she represents to us
14 -- and we hear these stories all over the state. In
15 fact, I told our directors we should collect these
16 stories. It is really an example to us of the fact that
17 a parent who commits themselves -- and we believe all
18 parents commit themselves to their children, and that if
19 they understand what role they must play, they can
20 overcome any obstacle and children can succeed.
21 That's PIQE in California, soon to go outside
22 California. We met with Texas, Arizona, Kansas,
23 Nebraska and Philadelphia, and we're in the process of
24 giving them our best practices, and a couple of them
25 already indicated they would like to duplicate over the
98
1 next two or three years.
2 Thank you.
3 MS. MAZZUCA: Thank you so much. That was a
4 wonderful presentation, both of you again. We
5 appreciate your time.
6 And now we will open the floor up for
7 questions and comments.
8 I just want to make a comment because
9 something we talk about, all parents love their children
10 no matter under what circumstances. There's something I
11 say to my teachers every day when they're complaining or
12 concerned, I say: Folks, the parents don't take the
13 good ones home. They send all the children to us and it
14 is our job. So I really appreciate your comments.
15 I'm going to sit down and we'll begin to take
16 questions until about quarter to 12 and we'll wrap up
17 and take our lunch break.
18 Charlie.
19 MR. GARCIA: Question for David. Is there
20 exit exam procedures and is the PSAT required to be
21 taken by the tenth graders?
22 MR. VALLADOLID: In terms of -- the first
23 question was?
24 MR. GARCIA: Whether there's an exit exam.
25 MR. VALLADOLID: Yes, there is an exit exam
99
1 that's being implemented right now. Some districts have
2 asked the state to hold off and let them implement them
3 in phases.
4 We're going to start seeing the results of
5 the exit exam soon. I think it's going to have some
6 detrimental effect. It won't just keep them in the
7 system. So there's a lot of real serious implications
8 to the exit exams.
9 On the PSAT it's offered in the ninth grade.
10 It's not something that's pushed very much and there are
11 waiver processes that parents who can afford the fee
12 that they charge for it can request a waiver based on
13 low income status.
14 MR. GARCIA: What we're doing, two years ago
15 they made a PSAT requirement. What we're debating now
16 is whether instead of having an exit exam the state
17 creates and the bureaucracy is just require the SAT.
18 It's like $25. So it would be two and a half million.
19 If children knew they had to take it and
20 parents a PSAT followed up by the SAT, which is required
21 by college entrance. At least that's where we're moving
22 and I wanted your comments on that.
23 MR. VALLADOLID: I mean that makes a lot of
24 sense to me because when we found out through a study
25 done in UC San Diego, the San Diego dialogue, that 76
100
1 percent of our kids never take an SAT, it blew everybody
2 away.
3 So if we made it a requirement in the middle
4 schools to take the PSAT and that simply prepared them
5 so when they got into high school to take the SAT, it
6 certainly would improve the chances of the students that
7 wake up when they're seniors and say, yeah, I could go
8 to college, but guess what? I didn't take the test, so
9 I'm going to go to a community college.
10 I have nothing against community colleges,
11 but the reality is that less than ten percent of
12 community college students move on to a four-year
13 institution.
14 MS. MAZZUCA: Francisco.
15 MR. PARET: Good morning. I thank you for
16 your presentation.
17 I have a quick question for Dave. I may have
18 missed this, but where do you get your funding?
19 MR. VALLADOLID: The cost to graduate one
20 parent is $120 in the south. So our cost is less in the
21 south. The north is about 160.
22 We ask the schools to pay half so they do it
23 through title one monies, micro need, adult education.
24 They'll pay for those funds for half the cost and then
25 we go out and fund and raise the other half.
101
1 MR. PARET: So as a follow-up, that other
2 half is comprised -- can you break it down, how much
3 private foundations, businesses, individuals?
4 MR. VALLADOLID: Sure. I would say the
5 private funds come probably 60 percent from corporations
6 and 40 percent foundations.
7 MR. PARET: Thank you.
8 MR. VALLADOLID: We have developed a real
9 extensive network with a lot of the corporations in
10 California and outside. We haven't yet -- on the
11 foundation side we haven't yet been able to access some
12 of the major foundations, like Ford, Rockefeller or the
13 Gates.
14 We're trying to do those, but it's very hard
15 sometimes to get into those foundation circles.
16 MS. MAZZUCA: Alex.
17 MR. GONZALEZ: This is a question I guess for
18 both of you. It's kind of piqued by the PSAT issue.
19 The University of California recently has moved to do
20 away with this, which has an educational testing
21 service. It's their largest customer. So the PSAT is
22 one issue in California. The California State
23 University doesn't require those.
24 I guess the question is not everyone is going
25 to come to the university or college. What are both of
102
1 you doing to work with those parents and students who
2 don't see themselves as going on to college, but doing
3 something else, or is it even a focus what you do?
4 MS. EGGERS PIEROLA: Well, early childhood,
5 it's quite interesting because you have parents who have
6 children involved which is not only the first but
7 perhaps the most frequent contact that parents will have
8 with an educational system, and what happens there, it's
9 most effective there, is to make them feel like they're
10 capable in whatever ways and to help them define what
11 their needs are and their interests and to facilitate
12 links, because you're right. Maybe not everybody wants
13 to go to college, but what do they want and what do they
14 want that's realistic.
15 What you can do and what we have been trying
16 to advocate for in these programs is they really start
17 where the parent is and help them build on experiences.
18 Like all education does, you're supposed to build,
19 construct from your own experience and knowledge.
20 You've been digging the earth, planting, you can make
21 connection to the more scientific knowledge.
22 So you don't just go straight into a trade,
23 but you start to understand what it is to construct
24 knowledge and to feel capable and to go beyond your own
25 limits.
Back | Transcripts Home | Continue
|
