“CAMP is a Home”: The Experiences of Migrant Students in a College Assistance Migrant Program

Every year in California, Migrant Program Offices within the County Offices of Education file their Regional Applications in order to apply for the federal funding allocated and administered by the Migrant Education Office at the California Department of Education. Migrant programs and services are to consider migrant students and their families as knowledgeable others capable of supporting, enhancing, and enriching teaching and learning processes. Family Biliteracy stresses the importance of increasing the number of vocabulary words migrant students know, use, and comprehend in their home before they enter kindergarten. Family Biliteracy and Language Explorers are two examples of programs designed for migrant students and their families. Family Biliteracy and Language Explorers reverse the existing pattern in which migrant students are served with programs designed for other student populations. Without specific programs for migrant students, politicians and stakeholders could question the need for maintaining migrant funding as an imperative and much needed support.

The purpose of this project was to examine successful migrant mathematics programs and identify specific pedagogical and instructional strategies that could then be implemented in other less successful schools. Our findings suggest that the organizational culture of a school affects overall student achievement and, thus, migrant student achievement as well. Though this was not a theme we expected to encounter, it was prevalent at each school we visited. Consequently, organizational culture, though less tangible than specific instructional techniques, emerged as the most relevant component of the successful migrant education programs investigated.

Children of migrant farmworkers, often called of the road, face many obstacles in their lives, including extreme poverty, geographic and cultural isolation, discrimination based on race, language minority status, and mobility. Congress established the Title I Migrant Education Program to enable them to meet the same standards set for other children. The states that oversee Title I migrant education programs have created innovative solutions to meet the challenges faced by these children. These models include an electronic interstate record transfer system, a distance-learning program specifically designed for migrant students, and a laptop computer project for secondary school migrant youth. Migrant farmworkers1 have been called the poorest of the working poor. They often travel very long distances to work in extremely low-paying jobs and endure substandard and dangerous working and living conditions. Traditionally, there have been three principal migrant streams workers have followed in the East, Midwest, and West. Years ago, workers and their families would leave their home base to travel north as the crops ripened and then return to their home base when the work was done. In the East, the home base was generally Florida (and Puerto Rico); in the Midwest, the home base was Texas; and in the West, the home base was California. These traditional migrant streams have fragmented, and today one can find migrant families from south Texas in Maine, Florida families in the upper Midwest and further west, and California families in both the Midwest and East. Further, many farmworkers have home bases or at least family members in Mexico or other countries. The image many people have of migrant farmworkers comes from the Edward R. Murrow documentary, Harvest of Shame, first broadcast Thanksgiving 1960. That documentary showed the strife that was part of the daily lives of migrants, as well as how these hard-working people were not protected by federal or state laws. While some protective laws have been passed since the broadcast of that landmark documentary, farmworkers still are not covered by certain statutes. Generally, they are not entitled to overtime pay and are not protected by the National Labor Relations Act. In addition, government enforcement of the statutes is often spotty and ineffective. It is often up to significantly underfunded migrant legal services programs to attempt to obtain some enforcement of important protections. The children of migrant farmworkers generally live in extreme poverty, increasingly in immigrant households where English is not spoken fluently. The children often work in the fields in order to ensure that the family has food on the table or clothes on their backs. Due to the low pay levels for migrants, the labor of every family member is needed. Most important, in many instances the education of migrant children is interrupted by their migrancy. In other situations, though their education may not be interrupted, their transience creates dislocation, disorientation, and significant educational disadvantages. The U.S. Department of Education reports that there are 783,867 migrant children identified for participation in the Title I, Part C, Migrant Education Program (MEP; Henderson & Daft, 2002). Program eligibility is based in part on movement across school district lines in search of agricultural (defined as including dairies, meatpacking, and poultry processing) or fishing work. The study cited above reports the following demographic information: In the 1998-99 school year, 783,867 children were identified as being eligible for Title 1, Part C services. Of these students, 571,690 participated in programs during the regular school year, 318,785 participated in summer programs. Of the total number, 86% are Hispanic American, 8% are White, and less than 3% each are Black, American Indian American Indian/Alaskan Native, and Asian/Pacific Islander. …

General approaches to multiculturalism run the risk of overlooking an increasingly diverse student population that deserves special consideration and attention: students from immigrant backgrounds whose families toil the fields in order to provide better educational opportunities for their children. This book’s purpose is to guide educators to think deeply about their roles and responsibilities in the education of children of farmworker families in our nation’s schools. Readers will view their classrooms, schools, districts, and the migrant programs they lead in a broad and inclusive manner through the lens of cultural proficiency. The initial steps when embracing cultural proficiency entails thinking reflectively about one’s own values and behaviors and the school’s policies and practices toward children of farmworker families. Cultivating a willingness, openness and commitment to meeting the challenges and opportunities of this often-invisible aspect of diversity is an important first step for the development of effective educational practices for migrant students and their families. The cultural proficiency framework can inform staff development models for working effectively with migrant students and their families.

This qualitative study investigated the experiences of first- and second-year migrant undergraduate students and staff in the College Assistance Migrant Program (CAMP) at Arizona State University (ASU). ASU CAMP, which started in 2016, is the first program of its kind at an Arizona public university. Using an ethnographic monitoring approach, a research team that included a faculty member and graduate and undergraduate students conducted observations in a variety of CAMP settings, along with interviews and document analysis, in order to examine how Mexican-origin CAMP scholars developed academic identities rooted in family and community strengths while resisting assimilation to the “foreign land” of the university. We theorize students’ academic identity development and staff’s efforts to support and advocate for them as a form of transformational resistance through which participants acknowledged the inequities and challenges facing migrant students in postsecondary education and began to “reinvent” the university as they confronted this reality. The findings are relevant to scholars, teachers, and others who work with migrant students in K-12 and postsecondary settings, as well as those who seek to support Latinx and first-generation college students’ academic identity development in culturally sustaining ways.

The 7-year longitudinal study examined the College Assistance Migrant Program (CAMP) impact on migrant student achievement in the California State University system. Participants included migrant students, Latinos, and general student populations from 2002-2009. The analysis of variance and chi-square test of independence were used to explore statistical differences in persistence, 1st-year and cumulative grade point averages, and baccalaureate degree attainment. When compared with other groups, CAMP students were found to have higher academic achievement.

The goal of the current project was to examine how effective migrant school readiness programs are in supporting a student’s cognitive growth. School readiness programs within the Santa Barbara County were analyzed for three consecutive years (2014, 2015, and 2016) to measure academic performance across these years. A child’s cognitive growth (i.e., school readiness) was measured using pre and post test scores taken at the beginning and end of each program. Results revealed that migrant students continue to perform below average across the years. However, multiple assessment scores show a statistical significant increase in performance, suggesting that academic improvement is possible. Results point to future implementation of migrant programs that can better accommodate for the needs of children.

The Migrant Education Program is a major provider of instructional services to students whose schooling has been interrupted and who need to learn English as a second language. As part of a statewide evaluation of the program, a study focusing on the organization of instruction and interactions among participants was conducted in 11 school districts in California. A range of qualitative and quantitative data-collection and analysis methods was used. It was found that migrant supplementary instruction, focusing mainly on basic skills, was provided almost entirely by teacher aides. Migrant aides worked in the regular classroom in 68% of the instructional sessions observed and in a pullout setting in 32% of the sessions. Examination of the instructional context of migrant instruction revealed that when students were pulled out of the regular classroom for instruction, the regular teacher showed a very low level of awareness of the migrant students' activities or progress in the migrant program. Collaborative planning and strong administrative support for such planning were found to be critical features of high-quality supplemental programs.

The education of migrant children has become an issue of national significance. One aspect of a complex service delivery system that might be used to provide an appropriate education for these students is the employment of paraprofessionals. The purpose of this paper is to describe the role of paraprofessionals in providing educational programs for migrant children. Such traditional roles as child find, assessment, instruction, instructional support, behavior management, record keeping, and extra-curricular activities are delineated. In addition, nontraditional roles such as paracounseling, social work, parent interaction, career education, and transportation are also included. The paper concludes by (a) summarizing some cautions that should be observed when using paraprofessionals; (b) discussing implications for personnel preparation; and (c) relating an innovative idea for improving the utility of paraprofessionals who serve in migrant programs.

This study considers 4 years of national College Assistance Migrant Program (CAMP) data from programs located across the United States. Findings reveal that 81% of the migrant college students served by CAMP continue to study a 2nd year. Researchers found that the success of high-achieving programs can overshadow less effective ones and, thus, recommend that future program reviews be concerned with the whole as well as the parts. The development of program evaluation criteria is recommended.

FOCUS □ PRECARIOUS, INFORMAL AND MIGRANT WORKERS Here to Stay? The the tion current political and the recession landscape labour has market concerning radically in the changed migraUK . the politicallandscape concerning migration and the labour marketin the UK. Inward migration had playeda majorpartinthe overallgrowthin employment over the past decade,butthecontext hasbeentransformed by widespreadredundancies, and an increaseof unemployment above twomillion in early2009. In this new situation,long-running public debatesovermigration have takena new twist. Can labour migration be switchedoff,in the nameofprotecting British workers? New Labourand labour migration The policyof LabourGovernments on labour migration went througha numberof distinct phasesafter 1997.In particular, thesecondBlair Government (from June2001)sawa relaxation of theruleson admission toBritain for employment. Olderlabourmigration routes, suchas workpermits forskilled workers andtheseasonalagricultural workers scheme, were expanded. Meanwhile,new schemeswere put in place, including thehighly-skilled migrant programme (2002) and the sectorsbased scheme (2003), whichallowedtemporary workpermits inhospitality andfoodprocessing. The sameperiodalso saw thedecisiontogivelabourmarket accessto workersfromthe eight centraland Eastern European states (the 'A8') which joined the EuropeanUnionon 1 May2004. Thisperiodofrelaxation was associatedwitha marked riseinlabourmigration. Inparticular, the numberof non-EUwork permits issued each yearincreased from 67,100in 2000to a peak of 96,600 in 2006, while more than 200,000A8 workers registered eachyearfrom 2004onwards. Fromearly2005,facedwitha political reaction, particularly because of perceivedpressureson publicservices, theGovernment beganto revisit itsapproach. In February 2005- intherun-up to theMay2005election- itannouncedtheintroductionof a new framework foreconomicand student migration, knownas the 'points-based system' (PBS). In 2006,itdecidedthatBulgarian and Romanian nationals (the'A2')wouldnotbe givenaccess to the labourmarket when those statesjoinedtheEU on 1January 2007.Instead, theywould be channelledinto lower-skilled schemes in agriculture and food processing, whichwouldbe reserved forthem. The points-based system Since it was announcedin 2005,the PBS has beenrolledoutinstages.Itscorepurposeis the strengthening of state controlover economic migration fromoutside the European Union. Employers mustbe licensedbeforetheymay sponsorsomeone under the new Tier 2 for skilledworkers, whichis similar to theprevious work permitscheme. With licensingcomes checksovercompliance withimmigration lawby the employer,togetherwith reporting duties whentheemployment relationship comesto an end. For migrants, meanwhile, thePBS has led to stricter obligations toprovetheyhavethemeans to maintain themselves after arrival. The highly skilled (thenewTier1) andskilled workers (Tier 2) havebecomesubjecttonewEnglish language requirements, even for positions(such as in sport)wherelinguistic ability is notnecessary to thejob.Meanwhile, legalrights ofappealbyeconomic and studentmigrants have been withdrawn . As initially conceived,thePBS did notnecessarily imply a restriction on access to thelabour market. Butthefactthatitsintroduction coincided withthe onset of recessionled to a more restrictive approachbeingadopted.Amongthe mainchangesto datehavebeen thefollowing: ■ In 2007,manychefsand careworkers were re-classified as notsufficiently skilledworkers ,preventing themfrom beinggranted workpermits, or(later)beingadmitted under Tier2; ■ In late2008,theGovernment followed the adviceofthenewMigration Advisory Committee (MAC),and narrowed thelistof 'shortage occupations' forwhichadvertisementis nota pre-condition toadmission underTier2. Forexample,insecondary schools,onlymaths and scienceteachers are classified as in 'shortage'; ■ Since1 April 2009,thehighly skilledTier1 has been reserved tothosewithmasters' degreesorhigher, wherepreviously, a bachelors 'degreeorequivalent was sufficient. Prior earnings below£20,000 perannumarealso be disregarded, wherepreviously£15000was theminimum whichwouldcount. Further changesare likelyto the highly skilled andskilled tiers ofthePBS.On 29April 2009,the MACrecommended a further narrowing of the shortage occupation list, including by the removalof quantity surveyors and construction managers, and a reduction intherangeofsocial workers, careassistants andchefs whoqualify. In addition, theGovernment has askedtheMACto reportlaterin 2009 on whetherthe approach under Tier1shouldbe revisited inthelight ofthe recession, andwhether Tier2 shouldbe reserved to shortageoccupationsonly. These developmentsare likelyto lead to further restrictions upon economic migrationto the United Kingdom. The current recession has radicallychanged the political landscape concerning migration and the labourmarket BERNARD RYAN isReader in law atthe University of Kent Page 11 Volume 16Issue 3 2009 INTERNATIONAL union rights FOCUS a PRECARIOUS,INFORMAL ANDMIGRANT WORKERS Inmanysectors, unionshave organised migrant workers, recognisingthe practical importanceof doingso Widerreforms The emergenceof the PBS has providedthe opportunity for the Government to introduce somewiderreforms concerning economicmigration .One ofthesewas the'civilpenalty' for those who employworkers in breachof immigration law.Undertheold system, employers facedonly a criminal penalty in suchcircumstances, and as a result fewwereeverprosecuted or convicted. Since28 February 2008,employers have instead faced an administrative fine,whichtheymust either payorchallenge. In orderto avoidliabilityforthesefines , there is a newobligation upon employersto recheckthe statusof workers whose permission to workis not unlimited in time.Whilethisnew framework is logically distinct from thePBS,an employer's failure tocomplywiththeir obligations can lead toa reduction orloss ofentitlement to sponsorskilledworkers underTier2. A second group of developments which...