Learning from Latino Teachers offers insightful stories and powerful visions in the movement for equitable schools. This compelling book is based on Gilda Ochoa’s in-depth interviews with Latina/o teachers who have a range of teaching experience, in schools with significant Latina/o immigrant populations. The book offers a unique insider's perspective on the educational challenges facing Latina/os. The teachers’ stories offer valuable insights gained from their experiences coming up through the K-12 system as students, and then becoming part of the same system as teachers.

This landmark volume represents the work of the National Latino/a Education Research Agenda Project (NLERAP)-an initiative focused on school reform and educational research with and for Latino communities. NLERAP's goal is to bring together various constituencies within the broad Latino community who are concerned with public education to articulate a Latino perspective on research-based school reform, and to use research as a guide to improving the public school systems that serve Latino students and to maximizing their opportunities to participate fully and equally in all social, economic, and political contexts of society. Latino Education: An Agenda for Community Action Research conceptualizes and illustrates the theoretical framework for the NLERAP agenda and its projects. This framework is grounded in three overlapping areas of scholarship and activism, which are reflected within the chapters in this volume: critical studies, illuminating and analyzing the status of people of color in the United States; Latino/a educational research, capturing the sociohistorical, cultural, and political schooling experiences of U.S. Latino/a communities; and participatory action research, exemplifying a liberation-oriented methodology for truly transformative education. The volume includes both descriptive educational research and critical analyses of previous research and educational agendas related to Latino/a communities in the United States. According to current U.S. Census data, Latinos now comprise the largest minority group in the total U.S. population. Historically, reflecting larger sociohistorical and economic inequalities in U.S. society, the Latino community has not been well served by U.S. public school systems. More attention to the Latino students' educational issues is needed to redress this problem, especially given the tremendous population increase and projected growth of Latino communities in the U.S. Latino Education: An Agenda for Community Action Research is a major contribution toward this goal.

This critical case study exposes the educational realities of Latinos in K-12 public schools in the Western United States from the students’ own perspectives. Issues that are often over simplified and commonly misunderstood are brought to life. Their accounts are then compared with the viewpoints of a range of K-12 teachers on matters of community, learning, race, culture, and school politics.

With the American dream progressively elusive for and exclusive of Latinos, there is an urgent need for empirically and conceptually based macro-level policy solutions for Latino education. Going beyond just exposing educational inequalities, this volume provides intelligent and pragmatic research-based policy directions and tools for change for U.S. Latino Education and other multicultural contexts. U.S. Latinos and Education Policy is organized round three themes: education as both product and process of social and historical events and practices; the experiences of young immigrants in schools in both U.S. and international settings and policy approaches to address their needs; and situated perspectives on learning among immigrant students across school, home, and community. With contributions from leading scholars, including Luis Moll, Eugene E. Garcia, Richard P. Durán, Sonia Nieto , Angela Valenzuela, Alejandro Portes and Barbara Flores, this volume enhances existing discussions by showcasing how researchers working both within and in collaboration with Latino communities have employed multiple analytic frameworks; illustrating how current scholarship and culturally oriented theory can serve equity-oriented practice; and, focusing attention on ethnicity in context and in relation to the interaction of developmental and cultural factors. The theoretical and methodological perspectives integrate praxis research from multiple disciplines and apply this research directly to policy.

Spanish in Health Care fills an important gap by offering a panoramic overview of the research on Spanish in health settings that is emerging from a variety of disciplines. Synthesizing research from diverse disciplines such as sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, health services research, behavioral health research, health policy and administration, and social epidemiology, the volume offers a uniquely unified approach to the subject of Spanish in healthcare. This volume will be of interest to researchers in Spanish linguistics, sociolinguistics, health communication, and languages for specific purposes.

Asset Pedagogies in Latino Youth Identity and Achievement explores the theory, research, and application of asset-based pedagogies to counter approaches that fail to challenge deficit views of youth. Presenting details on the role of teachers’ knowledge about students’ language and culture as strengths as opposed to deficiencies, Francesca A. López connects classroom practices to positive outcomes, preparing teachers to use asset pedagogies to promote academic achievement and implement asset-based teaching practices. Making thorough use of examples from research both in and out of the classroom and concluding with concrete applications from experienced educators, this book provides future teachers with a critical understanding of how to support Latino youth.

High stakes testing in the state of Texas creates greater achievement gaps between Latina/os and White students. With the state adopting strict guidelines for graduation, Latina/os find it difficult to stay in school and proceed to higher educational institutions. Latina/os choose to drop out of schools with curriculums which do not embrace their potential and academic ability. This paper will construct an argument for schools to provide a critical mathematics education for Latino students. High stakes testing creates curriculums which are irrelevant leaving minority students to fail. With the No Child Left Behind Act, schools are pressured to perform academically causing Latino students to become de-sensitized to schooling, learning, and their future. Schools rather should embrace a curriculum of caring, creativity, culture, language, empowerment, critical consciousness, transformative, and agency. Schools must also change the place of teachers from technicians to engineers who analyze, create, apply, assess, and reform their curriculums to better cater to minority students. Teachers are better able to provide a mathematics education which acknowledges Latino students' culture and create real life connections to their learning. This paper will discuss factors involving high stakes accountability, a literature review, need for a study, purpose, methodology, a discussion, and recommendations.