Hispanic Education: California Migrant Head Start Program Can be Model
Long before President Obama triggered a new national interest in universal preschool earlier this year, a Central Valley-based Head Start program for children of migrant workers has been breaking down barriers that have kept Latino families out of early learning programs.Data suggests that Latino children, who now make up more than half of children under 5 years old in California, have historically enrolled in early education programs at lower rates than their peers in other ethnic groups.
“We know from 20 years of research that a lot of Latino parents prefer to use home-based care, and that preschools appear to be excessively formal and sometimes not inviting institutions” to those parents, said University of California, Berkeley education professor Bruce Fuller, who has spent years studying early education issues in the Latino community.
“Formal” and “not inviting” are not terms that could be used to describe the child development center in Hughson, a small agricultural community nine miles southwest of Modesto. Four portable classrooms sit facing a play area with a jungle gym and a swing set. On a recent morning, the center was filled with 52 children ranging in age