Full Report

Several years ago, the Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Language Affairs (OBEMLA) of the United States Department of Education (USDOE), in collaboration with several other agencies, sponsored two National Forums on Asian and Pacific American Education in Pomona, California, and New York City. Both meetings brought about educators and other service providers to examine the needs of and services to Asian and Pacific American students. Both meetings identified the critical areas of service delivery. At that time, services to the Asian and Pacific American students were limited in scope and most of the service providers were school districts and some community based organizations.

In 1998, as we approach to the upcoming Census 2000, it has become necessary to re-examine the current educational services to the Asian and Pacific American (APA) communities across the nation. The APA communities are the fastest growing among all ethnic groups. The issues concerning these students at hand are identified as follows:

1. resource and funding for APA students in the areas of bilingual education, English language literacy, technology literacy, math and science education, and school-to-career experiences;
2. professional development for all school faculty and staff members, peace officers and the juvenile justice system, and mental health and social service workers working with APA students from pre-K-12 to post-secondary education;
3. curriculum development and assessment to provide culturally sensitive and adequate materials to promote self-esteem, sensitivity, knowledge and skills to live in a diverse society;
4. home-school-community collaboration to provide the parents and the school communities the knowledge and skills to improve the educational system;
5. leadership development and political advocacy to be active and effective participants in the political process to call attention to APA student needs; and
6. research agenda to ensure inclusion of APA student data in all national research projects, especially a request of over-sampling.

Three invited guests addressed the attendees of this National Forum. Mr. Sidney Morrison, President of the 15,000-member Association of California School Administrators (ACSA) spoke of the organization's vision and mission to bring true diversity in the work place. Dr. Edward Fujimoto, Deputy Director of Public Affairs/Office of the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education brought greetings from the Secretary and the White House. He spoke on the efforts from the current administration in appointments and programs that benefit schools and students. Ms. Delia Pompa, Director of the Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Language Affairs of the U.S. Department of Education updated the attendees on the current budget negotiations and the need for input for the upcoming reauthorization of the Improving American Schools Act (IASA), and the status of bilingual education.

The presenters, facilitators of each of the six strands identified above, were asked to examine the issues in three dimensions: gains/current status, remaining challenges, and recommendations. The notion of this format was to recognize and validate the progress and accomplishments made in the areas of services to APA students; to identify critical issues and obstacles; and to make recommendations to our own communities and other federal, state, and local governments and organizations.

• Identify existing state and federal resources and funding sources allocated to APA communities in the areas of social services, mental health and health services, bilingual education, etc.

• Locate community based organizations for services and collaboration with schools or districts -- funding sources

• Identify grants opportunities for APA communities allocated within broader target group

• Facilitate discussion on issues relating to grantsmanship; grant writing

• Kevin Rocap, Director of Program Development, Center for Language Minority and Education Research, CSU, Long Beach, California
• Tam Khac Nguyen, President, Iowa Institute for the Well-Being of Refugee Families, Des Moines, Iowa
• Ka Ying Yang, Executive Director, Southeast Asian Resource Action Center (SEARAC), Washington, D.C. and NAFEA vice-president of fundraising
• Moses Myung, Founder and President, New World Resource Center, Northbrook, Illinois

• Rose Tran, NAFEA treasurer, Second Language Specialist, San Diego City Schools, California
• Bouy Te, NAFEA executive Vice-President, Executive Director of National Family and School Projects, Boston, Massachusetts

• There are resources and funders listed on the Internet, accessible to the public and organizations including those that provide training for proposal writing and grantsmanship.

• Although funding sources are limited, grants that meet funding agency guidelines have good chance of being funded.

• Collaboration of various organizations at the national level has been able to secure necessary funding to serve the different populations based on their identified needs.

• The APA communities have been educating funding agencies on the different needs of the different APA communities.

• Certain communities, such as the Korean American community, have not waited for outside funding and have gathered their own forces and resources and spearheaded the development of the SAT II Korean test.

• Need to have more financial access from private corporations.

• Many foundations and funding sources are still not aware of the diversity exists within the APA communities and their critical and diverse educational needs.

• APA communities do not have an established network to disseminate and access information on funding opportunities.

• Create opportunities to inform potential funding sources of APA communities and their needs.

• Use different forums to do outreach to share resources and alert of funding opportunities.

• Facilitate better collaboration among community-based projects and schools for sharing of resources and programs

• Create a national APA Educational Advisory Committee comprised of teacher practitioners, teacher educators and researchers, educational administrative and community members to provide input and consultation for any policy impact decision making body e.g. the re-authorization of IASA for next year to ensure equitable funding for APA communities.

• Assist in Census 2000 to ensure everyone is counted.

• Discuss issues relating to pre-service and in-service training to teachers and administrators, K-12, community colleges, and 4-year universities.

• Identify sources of funding and resources for the above training.

• Share effective professional development program models that were successful in recruiting, retaining and promoting leadership in APA teaching profession

• Mai Dao, Professor, San Jose State University, San Jose, California
• Winnie Tang, Assistant to the Superintendent, San Francisco USD, San Francisco, California
• Denise Onikawa, Program Specialist, Pacific Resource for Education & Learning, Honolulu, Hawaii
• Luis Martinez, Assistant Professor, University of Massachusetts, Boston, Massachusetts

• Sandra Chong, Assistant Professor, California State University, Northridge, California
• Jerry Brown, Director, MSCD Educational Equity Center, Denver, Colorado

• There are alternative pathways to teacher certification as the San Francisco USD District Intern Program which offers more flexibility, creativity and incentive to attract APA to enter the teaching profession.

• There is some preliminary research finding on Asian and Pacific Islander teachers and administrators in retention, attrition and burnout.

• Some effort on developing language learning framework for teachers in the Asian languages e.g. Khmer, Hmong, Cantonese have began

• A Consortium model has been established by six campuses of the California State University to provide bilingual teacher training in major Asian languages

• There is not a concerted and systematic effort to identify and disseminate effective and innovative teacher education programs and promising practices across the country to increase APA teachers.

• There is still a critical shortage of APA teachers across the nation, especially in cities where there are large concentrations of APA students e.g. Cambodian Americans in Long Beach (CA) and Lowell (MA), Hmong Americans in Fresno (CA) and Minneapolis, (MN), Vietnamese Americans in San Jose, Orange and San Diego Counties (CA), Cantonese American students in Oakland, San Francisco (CA) and New York, etc.

• Current K-12 instructional practices did not provide the preparation needed in the verbal skills (English language writing and reading) for APA students to enter the teaching profession. Most were tracked into verbal dependent fields such as math and science. As a result many had difficulty passing the entry exams.

• Many potential APA teacher candidates did not receive correct information on program preparation, the need of bilingual teacher, and the value of their biliteracy.

• There has been little support from APA families and communities for teaching profession because of misinformation and myths.

• Provide funding to develop a national APA advisory board to help identify, evaluate, and recommend innovative and effective teacher education programs to remedy the critical shortage of APA teachers.

• Provide professional development for K-12 teachers of APA students to raise their awareness and improve their instructional practices in helping APA students develop needed skills in the verbal areas.

• Establish better collaboration with APA families and communities to disseminate correct information about teaching profession and to promote higher percentage of APA students entering the profession.

• Identify key issues related to instructional and curriculum materials development and enhancement.

• Suggest effective means to locate and advocate for funding sources for materials development.

• Share strategies to advocate the inclusion of APA in printed materials with publishers in textbooks and testing materials.

• Nguyet Dinh, Language Minority Administrator, Eastside Union High School District, San Jose, CA
• Bounlieng Phoummasouvanh, LEP Education Project Director, Minnesota Department of Children, Minneapolis, MN
• Mory Ouk, Khmer Curriculum Development Specialist, Long Beach USD, Long Beach, CA
• Hongthong Niravanh, Bilingual Advisor, Fresno Unified School District, Fresno, CA
• Joan May Cordova, Assistant Professor, Wheelock College, Boston, MA

• Samlong Inthaly, NAFEA Vice-President of Programming, Lao Bilingual Resource teacher, Minnesota Public Schools, Minneapolis, MN
• Wayne E. Wright, Khmer Bilingual teacher, Long Beach USD, Long Beach, CA

• Curriculum and content standards are now required at the state, national, and district-wide levels.

• There has been a small and steady increase in curriculum and instructional materials in the Asian languages developed by school districts in high percentage of APA students e.g San Francisco, New York, Long Beach, San Jose, and Oak Grove

• Refugee Service Center in DC has a collection of materials on Refugee Education.

• Some school districts developed primary language tests compatible to English language assessment instruments to assess students’ home language proficiency i.e. East Side Union HSD

• There are more research studies validating the role of primary language proficiency in supporting English language acquisition

• There are effective dual immersion bilingual programs in Korean, Japanese, and Cantonese/Mandarin.

• There are identified research based effective transitional programs for APA students with continuous support and development in the first language.

• There is a growing support for bi-literacy development from APA families and communities

• There is a higher awareness and effort at the IHE level to infuse the diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds and academic needs of APA students population into the current teacher education programs e.g. Wheelock College in Massachusetts

• In many school communities, the caring Asian American teachers took on the task of developing primary language materials on their own without the financial and institutional support e.g. in Long Beach, a single teacher developed materials for the first Cambodian bilingual program for the school by obtaining the publisher’s permission to translate a number of reading from English to Khmer. As the program received more support from the community, other Khmer teachers helped to finish translating 800 titles.

• The information on existing primary language or bilingual curricular and assessment materials is not known outside of the districts that developed them. As a result many projects cannot benefit from this great resource in building up their programs.

• There is still a lack of validation for the roles of Asian Americans and recognition of American Experience in American history textbooks

• Most schools still implement "heroes and holidays" approach as a mean to be inclusive to Asian American populations.

• Many teachers do not have an in-depth understanding of Asian American students’ academic needs especially in the areas of English language development and content instruction.

• Many APA students are transitioned out of English language development programs without having mastered the cognitive and academic language proficiency in English needed for higher education.

• The percentage of adult APA population who completed a 4-year college program is lower than the common belief, especially for Southeast Asian American groups (Hmong, Cambodian, Lao)

• APA voices are often left out of decision-making processes regarding state level curriculum development and assessment guidelines.

• There are many misinformed notions in APA communities regarding the role of bilingual education in their children’s academic needs.

• Provide funding to develop a national APA advisory board to act as a clearinghouse in identifying, evaluating, and disseminating information on promising practices and effective curricular and assessment materials in APA languages.

• Provide funding for research studies exploring the connection between academic achievement, social adjustment, parent involvement and primary language maintenance among the APA student population.

• Require allocation of resources for material development and assessment in the APA languages, especially for less common languages in all projects funded at state and federal levels

• Provide on-going staff development for teachers of APA students to help them integrate the cultural and linguistic needs of APA populations into their curriculum

• Facilitate community forum in APA communities to clarify information on bilingual education for APA students

• Share information on effective models of parents involvement programs

• Identify material resources relating to home-school-community collaboration

• Identify sources of funding for home-school-community partnership building

• Share progress made in the areas of racial and ethnic conflict resolution

• Houng Baccan, Thaidam Community Leader, Des Moines, Iowa
• Sandra Yamate, President, Polychrome Publishing, Chicago, Illinois
• Bun Hap Prak, Executive Director, Asian Family and Community Empowerment Center, Inc. St. Petersburg, Florida

• Ermile Hargrove, Independent Education Consultant, Honolulu, Hawaii
• Mitzi Tanouchi, NAAPAE Secretary, Eastchester Public Schools, Eastchester, New York

• There is a required parent involvement component in most state and federal projects funded.

• A Community Center with its own budget and staff works best in fostering collaboration among school, immigrant families, and community. The center employs a diverse staff representing the major ethnic in the community. The center empowers minority parents to become leaders and teachers in their children’s school and community. (St. Pettersburg, Florida, Des Moines, Iowa)

• There are documented effective Home-School-Community Collaboration models in other ethnic groups e.g. Latino that APA population can draw from.

• Effective models of Parent-School-Community Partnership means drawing from immigrant parents prior knowledge and skills and to involve them at the planning and designing phases

• APA parents participate actively when meetings and discussion are held in their primary languages and co-facilitated by their community leaders.

• Parents are asked to become involved without having opportunities to develop a shared knowledge based and needed skills to make a difference. Too often APA parents are asked to confirm what has already been decided by school personnel.

• Immigrant parents’ knowledge and wisdom are not recognized and values in most home-school-community collaboration projects. English language fluency is being equated with knowledge and intelligence. APA immigrant parents are perceived as having little knowledge and therefore cannot contribute much.

• Issues of racism and discrimination in Asian American communities have not been addressed adequately due to lack of leadership and funding. Many recurrent racial conflicts between Asian Americans and African-Americans or Latino youth as well as among different Asian American groups. The general public still perceives racism as a black/white issue.

• Schools have not recognized the critical connection maintaining the heritage language and the critical social-psychological well-being of Asian American adolescent students. Loosing the primary language and culture created their sense of rootlessness that makes them more vulnerable to joining gangs and being influenced by negative forces.

• Most APA community members have little understanding and involvement in the local and political governance therefore their needs and input are not heard.

• Provide funding to promote the concept of community center at every school with large population of immigrant students and families.

• Encourage different projects and programs to collaborate and pull their resources together to establish an effective model of home-school-community partnership

• Provide funding and incentive for teams of parents, community members and school personnel to develop curriculum for home-school-partnership that validates the immigrant parents’ prior knowledge and wisdom.

• Provide opportunities for immigrant parents to acquire knowledge and skills to become active participants in the school and local governing processes.

• Provide teacher training to help educators perceive immigrant parents as valuable instructional resources and equal partners.

• Require teacher education programs to include courses on building partnership with immigrant and linguistic minority families and communities

• Share information on existing programs to develop political advocacy and leadership skills

• Effective strategies to involve more APA in the political process

• Review the upcoming issues of census 2000 and its impact

• Identify ways to promote leadership and advocacy among APA teachers

• Deepa Iyer, Attorney, National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium, Washington, D.C.
• Lam Nguyen, President, Win-Visions, San Jose, California
• Dinh VanLo, Project Director, Project TEACH, Des Moines Public Schools; President, Society of Thaidam-American Friendship, Iowa
• Bouy Te, Deputy Director, National Coalition of Advocates for Students, Boston, Massachusetts

• Rosalind Young, Bilingual Cantonese Teacher, Oakland Unified School District, Oakland, CA
• Thuy Pham-Remmele, Bilingual Specialist, Madison Metropolitan School District, Madison,WI

• There is an increase of young Asian Americans involved in the legislative process at the state and national level

• There is a beginning effort to appoint APA candidates in positions affecting APA communities

• There is an effort to identify and ask for input from APA community leaders on critical issues

• There is an effort to organize at the community level for solidarity on social issues affecting legislation.

• There is funding to educate APA communities on the importance of participating in the Census 2000

• Some APA communities are still more concerned and involved with their home country’s politics than the United States e.g. the Vietnamese Americans, Cambodian Americans

• Many immigrant communities are still divided on key issues and do not have a clearly defined leadership body to represent their ethnic group at the national level.

• Many immigrant communities are still not familiar with the American political process or are busy surviving economically to get involved and advocate.

• Many APA communities are not united to create a strong voice for advocacy. The established APA communities do not identify closely with social and educational issues concerning newer immigrants. On the other hand the more recent immigrants do not have the resources to do so.

• The current instructional programs alienated APA students from their cultural heritage, hence there is no motivation for successful APA graduates to advocate for their own communities.

• Provide funding to develop a national APA advisory board to help identify effective existing leadership and advocacy training programs

• Seek funding to help bring those programs to diverse ethnic communities.

• Develop training design that brings together multi-ethnic groups and model that bridges the multi-generational gap of same language and culture population.

• Establish regular community forum to foster shared understanding of educational and social issues affecting all ethnic groups

• Promote stronger and more equal partnership between immigrant communities and schools.

• Create a network of APA organizations working for the education and advancement of cross-ethnic groups

• Seek collaboration and support from established organizations such as LEAP, MALDEF, etc.

• Discuss issues relating to research studies concerning APA education

• Provide advocacy for inclusion of APA data in the national studies.

• Identify effective means to alert APA communities of research findings and implications on APA education

• Identify areas of needs in research agenda

• David Van Broekhuizen, Program Specialist, Pacific Resources for Education and Learning, Honolulu, Hawaii
• Chhany Sak-Humphrey, Khmer Program Coordinator, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii
• Kal Phan, Dean of Students, Richmond High School, Richmond, California
• Yangsoe Pae, Korean Bilingual Professor, Houston, Texas
• Mae Lombos Wlazlinski, Assistant Professor, State University of West Georgia, Atlanta, Georgia

• Russ Endo, NAAPAE Vice President, University of Colorado, Denver, Colorado
• Leslie Turpin, NAFEA Vice President, Putney, Vermont

• Over the past 20 years, there is an increase in the amount of educational research on APA education .

• Many of the research on the education of other ethnic groups have similar implication with APA populations

• There are some recent new and innovative research models that involve participatory/community-based research (example PREL).

• Asian populations are relatively small, diverse and underrepresented in research.

• Research is often misinterpreted because researchers lack cultural and linguistic sensitivity to the groups they study.

• Research conceptualizations, and/or instruments are inappropriate for APA populations.

• Inadequate research funding for statistical analyses often provides a broad picture but does not portray the complexity of problems and issues.

• Current research is not well-disseminated.

• Lack of trained researchers to work within Asian communities.

• Researchers need a better means of networking.

• Research is often too narrowly focused (e.g. few explanatory variables).

• Provide funding to establish a national APA advisory committee to review and recommend research funding for needed studies on APA populations

• More research studies needed in the areas of:
• Second generation Asian and Pacific Americans;
• Correlation between home language maintenance and academic/social well-being
• Factors to promote APA in leadership roles
• Linguistic and academic needs less-represented Asian groups (minorities within minorities);
• Effective programs and strategies to increase APA in education and administration
• Language instruction and material development in APA languages

• Advocate for over-sampling of Asian groups in data collected by Department of Education.

• Promote large data bases need to identify individual Asian groups and to desegregate immigrant from native-born student populations.

• Provide funding to conduct studies that target under-represented Asian American groups, and Asian American groups outside of California.

• Recruit, train and mentor more researchers from Asian groups who will be able to do culturally and linguistically sensitive research.

• Develop more culturally appropriate research instruments

• Train researchers in grantsmanship, and get APA educators more involved in the grant-awarding process.

• Train teachers in the field to do action-based/participatory research and include research training in teacher education and preparation programs.

• Develop better dissemination vehicles in several languages (i.e. research clearinghouse, world wide web, journals, reports etc. and audio visual materials (best practices videos).

• Develop better means for APA researchers to network on research in progress (online WEB site, forums and conferences)

• Support multiple group studies, longitudinal studies, comparative historical studies that capture changes and studies that examine the interaction between personal /family, school/community variables

• Encourage full participation from APA communities in the Census 2000.