Challenge for pre-K recruitment: lagging Latino enrollment

Posted April 4, 2014 By Emmanuel Felton

On Tuesday — a day before Mayor Bill de Blasio launched his push to get 4-year-olds enrolled in the city’s expanding pre-kindergarten program — the Annie E. Casey Foundation released a report finding that Latino children enroll in preschool and kindergarten at lower rates than their peers in all but four states.

“There are a number of reasons for the lower enrollment,” said Peggy McLeod, deputy vice-president for education and workforce development at the National Council of La Raza. “But the one thing we do know is that this is a group that values preschool education.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver promoted a new pre-K enrollment campaign this week at a school in Manhattan’s Chinatown. AP/New York Daily News pool photo by Susan Watts

McLeod listed several barriers, including transportation and safety concerns, and emphasized that districts must have a targeted outreach campaign to reach Latino parents.

“The language issue is key. Parents often don’t know if they are eligible or where they need to go,” said McLeod. School districts, she says, “have to go to specific mediums to reach this community. Latinos listen to a lot of radio.”

In the weeks leading up to the April 23 application deadline for public-school pre-K slots, the de Blasio administration intends to use subway, bus and bus shelter ads, public service announcements on Taxi TV monitors, and web and printed materials in nine languages to get its “Opportunity Starts Now” message out to parents.

Deputy Mayor Richard Buery said earlier this week that “we are exploring TV ads.”

Nine states and the District of Columbia are at some stage of establishing universal pre-K programs. Among those, Latino enrollments in pre-elementary programs lag in seven and in D.C., with an average gap of 7 points between Latino registration rates and the rates for all students.

Conor Williams, senior researcher at the New America Foundation’s Education Policy Program, said that building a single, standard application process can help alleviate class and racial disparities in pre-K enrollment.

“A unified system would reduce the potential for more affluent parents with the wherewithal to apply to every program from gaming the system,” said Williams.

On that front New York presents a mixed picture. Parents can now apply for most of the full-day pre-K programs in public schools through a common application. The majority of new pre-K seats, however, will come from private community-based organizations, which will maintain their own application processes consistent with Department of Education rules.

The New York World is published under Creative Commons' BY-ND 3.0 license. Unless otherwise noted, you are welcome to reprint The New York World's reporting. Except by prior arrangement, the following guidelines apply:

Credit The New York World, preferably by appending “The New York World” to the bylines already on the stories. Bylines must remain in the stories.
Do not edit stories, except to reflect relative changes in time or location (eg. “Yesterday, following months of uncertainty, Governor Cuomo...” may be changed to begin “In January,” or “Early this year”)
You may edit stories to accommodate style variations or to expand acronyms (eg. “TWU Local 100” may be written “Transport Workers Union Local 100”)

Stories reprinted online must:

include a link to the original story on http://www.thenewyorkworld.com
retain all links included in our original reporting
Retain in republished HTML a simple tracking code, provided in the body of each story as published on The New York World website.
include a syndication source tag directing search engines to the original story in The New York World
Do not republish The New York World wholesale or automatically
Contact our editor with any questions about this policy or to make arrangements to reprint The New York World stories under other terms.
This reprint policy is subject to change.

<h1>Challenge for pre-K recruitment: lagging Latino enrollment</h1>On Tuesday — a day before Mayor Bill de Blasio launched his push to get 4-year-olds enrolled in the city’s expanding pre-kindergarten program — the Annie E. Casey Foundation released a <a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/www.aecf.org/KnowledgeCenter/Publications.aspx?pubguid=%7b5B863B11-62C7-41EC-9F7F-6D12125C4DC2%7d');" href="http://www.aecf.org/KnowledgeCenter/Publications.aspx?pubguid=%7b5B863B11-62C7-41EC-9F7F-6D12125C4DC2%7d">report</a> finding that Latino children enroll in preschool and kindergarten at lower rates than their peers in all but four states.
“There are a number of reasons for the lower enrollment,” said Peggy McLeod, deputy vice-president for education and workforce development at the National Council of La Raza. “But the one thing we do know is that this is a group that values preschool education.”
<div id="attachment_13571" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignright"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-13571" class="size-medium wp-image-13571" alt="Mayor Bill de Blasio and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver promoted a new pre-K enrollment campaign this week at a school in Manhattan's Chinatown. AP/New York Daily News pool photo by Susan Watts" src="http://www.thenewyorkworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/prek-300x169.jpg" width="300" height="169" srcset="thenewyorkworld.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/prek-300x169.jpg 300w, thenewyorkworld.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/prek-352x198.jpg 352w, thenewyorkworld.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/prek-500x281.jpg 500w, thenewyorkworld.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/prek.jpg 568w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Mayor Bill de Blasio and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver promoted a new pre-K enrollment campaign this week at a school in Manhattan’s Chinatown. AP/New York Daily News pool photo by Susan Watts</div>
McLeod listed several barriers, including transportation and safety concerns, and emphasized that districts must have a targeted outreach campaign to reach Latino parents.
“The language issue is key. Parents often don’t know if they are eligible or where they need to go,” said McLeod. School districts, she says, “have to go to specific mediums to reach this community. Latinos listen to a lot of radio.”
In the weeks leading up to the April 23 application deadline for public-school pre-K slots, the de Blasio administration intends to use subway, bus and bus shelter ads, public service announcements on Taxi TV monitors, and web and printed materials in nine languages to get its <a onclick="javascript:pageTracker._trackPageview('/outgoing/schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/4F76A063-2A2E-47F6-A3D5-E8AD6594D0D6/0/CityWideWeekendFlyer_English.pdf');" href="http://schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/4F76A063-2A2E-47F6-A3D5-E8AD6594D0D6/0/CityWideWeekendFlyer_English.pdf">“Opportunity Starts Now”</a> message out to parents.
Deputy Mayor Richard Buery said earlier this week that “we are exploring TV ads.”
Nine states and the District of Columbia are at some stage of establishing universal pre-K programs. Among those, Latino enrollments in pre-elementary programs lag in seven and in D.C., with an average gap of 7 points between Latino registration rates and the rates for all students.
Conor Williams, senior researcher at the New America Foundation’s Education Policy Program, said that building a single, standard application process can help alleviate class and racial disparities in pre-K enrollment.
“A unified system would reduce the potential for more affluent parents with the wherewithal to apply to every program from gaming the system,” said Williams.
On that front New York presents a mixed picture. Parents can now apply for most of the full-day pre-K programs in public schools through a common application. The majority of new pre-K seats, however, will come from private community-based organizations, which will maintain their own application processes consistent with Department of Education rules.

Increasing number of New York school children skipping vaccinations

More than 22,000 medical and religious exemptions were granted to students for the 2013-14 school year, up 27 percent from 2010-11, according to the state Health Department. Public and private enrollment over the same period remained largely flat.

New data provides first detailed look at military gear held by New York law enforcement agencies

Over the past several years, more than 120 law enforcement agencies across the state, from the NYPD to Tuckahoe, have obtained military-grade equipment through the Pentagon’s 1033 program, which transfers excess military equipment to state and local police across the country.