I. GENERAL EDUCATION OF THE MIGRANT WORKER:
Description: Photo courtesy of Claudia Chavez. A posed picture showcasing six migrant workers in the fields working.
The life of a Migrant worker revolves around intensive labor & time in the fields. They are often invisible members of the communities in which they work. Migrant farm workers experience isolation, discrimination, limited education, and poverty. Many of these migrant workers become embedded in a cycle of labor and migration to and from the fields. Schooling takes a secondary role in the lives of migrant children and adults, many of whom are immigrants. Over 70% of migrants have not completed high school and 75% are functionally illiterate, which impacts their position in the labor market. Annual income falls well below the national poverty line, and the vicious economic cycle becomes harder to break.
II. EFFECTS OF THE MIGRANT LIFE ON MIGRANT CHILDREN:
Description: Four migrant children posing for a photo in the fields.
According to scholars, "the migrant lifestyle's high mobility serves as the greatest impediment to educational success.” As children of migrant farm workers are affected by various demands of the seasonal work, migrant children fall behind in their studies because of frequent school changes and interruptions as their families follow seasonal work. Migrant children have been called the most educationally disadvantaged group of youngsters in the United States. Migrant students often lag their peers by two or three grade levels and have difficulties in the classroom due to language barriers, discrimination, and isolation. Statistics indicate that approximately 25 percent of migrant student enroll in school more than 30 days after school begins, which also affects the amount of instructional time they get during the year.
According to Martinez & Cranston-Gingras, statistics highlight that migrant students drop out of school at twice the rate of other high-risk groups, with an overall drop out rate of 45%. Studies have concluded that migrant students who dropped out had poor academic performance and moved around more frequently than migrant students who manage to graduate. While frequent moves play a considerable role in dropout rates, other reasons include the need to work, lack of interest in school, absences, age gaps relative to other students at their grade level, marriage and pregnancy, family problems, lack of English proficiency, and not getting along with teachers.
Migrant students are also perceived as “children of the road,” so more often than not, school systems struggle to meet their needs when it comes to education and support. Since the migrant life becomes very demanding and interrupts education, programs such as the Migrant Education Program (MEP) and the High School Equivalency Program (HEP) have been developed to aid migrant children specifically. However, due to the inconsistency between schools and states, these efforts are interrupted and are not always able to help migrant students effectively.
III. HIGHER EDUCATION:
Description: Photo courtesy of Maria Montalvo. Montalvo poses alongside of her CAMP peers for a picture at the Western Hemispheric Trade Center at TAMIU.
According to one research team, “although the holding power of high school graduates has increased, retention of minorities, especially Mexican-Americans, remains well below the national average.” Studies also note that the dropout rate is notably higher for migrants in Texas. The CAMP becomes a critical and vital program that can streamline graduating migrant high school students into an institution of higher education. This program aids migrant students as it provides the necessary tools for these at-risk students to be able to succeed in attaining and finishing their higher education. Specifically aimed at high school students entering their first year of college, the CAMP can retain higher numbers of migrant students in the education system by providing much-needed support and aid.