The Machines In Our Brains (Feature) East or West: Re-Igniting the Debate Ten Years Later (in National News) APA Representation Maintained on the Board (in Bay Area News) Ultimate Diversions: 2002 Gamer’s Gift Guide (in Business) Wushu Tries to Infiltrate the Olympics (in Sports) San Francisco Singer-Songwriter Brings Her Talents to a Boil (in A&E) Emil Amok: The Global Joe Public Speaks (in Opinion)

National APA School Board Conference in SF

School board members from New York City listen to a presentation of the latest census figures.

By May Chow | AsianWeek Staff Writer

Hoping to encourage more Asian Pacific Americans to run for their local school boards and be more involved in their school districts, the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies (APAICS) sponsored the first ever APA School Board Conference in San Francisco last Friday.

Representatives from everywhere from New York City to Cerritos convened at the Marriott Hotel and Moscone Convention Center in downtown San Francisco for three days, discussing issues from the changing APA landscape to exit polls in this year’s elections. But the primary goal for the conference was to enhance and improve educational opportunities for all schoolchildren.

Organizers of the conference said because California is the state with the highest population of APAs, San Francisco was a good choice to hold the symposium.

Daphne Kwok, executive director for APAICS, said the presence of APAs on school boards is vital, and hoped this conference could bring together members from all over the nation to exchange ideas about what works and what doesn’t.

“Hopefully, this conference will be a springboard to bringing the school board members together and to starting a national network,” Kwok said.

Board members were presented information from the 2000 Census and the U.S. Department of Education, figures that would be taken into consideration when making policy decisions for their school districts.

According to the U.S. Census, APAs comprise approximately 4 percent of the nation’s population.

“The APA populations are growing markedly, and are estimated to reach 10 percent of the United States population by 2050,” said panelist Shilpa Patel, an analyst for the Asian and Pacific Islander American Health Forum.

The latest data from the National Center for Education Statistics shows APAs comprising 7 percent of students enrolled in the 100 largest school districts in the United States. Here in San Francisco, 50 percent of students in SFUSD are APA.

Although APA students were found to have high percentages of educational attainment, 7 percent of APAs between the ages of 5 to 17 speak English either not very well or not at all. Higher numbers were found in Minnesota, where 11 percent couldn’t speak English very well or at all, and in North Carolina, with nine percent.

The proliferation of APAs in the Midwest was also discussed. Factors such as the agricultural community and small towns were seen as indicators of adaptability for employment and living, in states like Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Many APAs students still face language barriers, according to Marina Tse, deputy director for English language acquisition, U.S. Department of Education. Tse addressed the rate of Limited English Proficient (LEP) growth in the United States, focusing on California. In the 2001-2002 school year, the Golden State saw an increased LEP enrollment, up 40.2 percent from 10 years ago. In the United States overall, there was a 95 percent growth of LEP students in the past decade.

“As you can see, California has the highest number of LEP students, and this is including all races and ethnicities,” said Tse. “Asian dialects also dominated the most commonly spoken languages.”

In 2000, 3.8 percent of high school dropouts were APAs, the U.S. Department of Education found. Tse said she hopes No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the recent federal legislation signed into law by President Bush in 2001, will help schools assess the welfare of students.

Bush said that the mission of the nation’s public schools is “to build the mind and character of every child, from every background, in every part of America.” The NCLB legislation will require the analysis of performance by a number of student subgroups, including student ethnic and racial identity, English language proficiency, and migrant status.

“Hopefully, by breaking down into these subgroups, we’ll be able to assess students better, studying APAs and their learning patterns better,” Tse said.

While a member of the California State Board of Education, Tse developed many bilingual programs to help LEP students after the passage of the Unz initiative and the abolishment of traditional bilingual curricula in schools.