The obstacles they face

Law professor to teachers: Passion and patience can help low-income Hispanic students overcome obstacles

University of New Mexico law professor Margaret Montoya, one of UNM's most distinguished faculty members, addressed the teachers at Atrisco Heritage Academy recently. It was a pep talk from a woman who wants teachers to know just how important they are in the lives of all students, but especially to students of color and those who come from low-income households.

Montoya knows how to overcome challenges, and she shared her experiences with us. She was the first Hispanic woman accepted at Harvard Law School. After graduation, she received the Harvard University Frederick Sheldon Traveling Fellowship. She has contributed to a number of anthologies and casebooks on legal topics involving race and gender and brings a continuing interest in these areas to her teaching. Her particular areas of expertise are affirmative action and the emerging area of critical race pedagogy.

What she left us with after her talk was a feeling that if I or any of my colleagues at Atrisco want to make a difference, we're going to have to overcome obstacles that have been in place for years.

"One of the biggest obstacles for (theminority student) population is standardized tests," Montoya said. "Studies I've read suggest that kids who get test prep from private companies -- the Kaplan schools, for instance -- do better on standardized tests. Why? Basically, schools don't adequately prepare students to take these tests."

Specifically, Montoya says that low scores on college entrance exam tests, the ACT and the SAT, keep some students from attending college.

"Rich kids get Kaplan education," she said. "Prep schools are institutionalized Kaplan schools, and kids who come from wealthy families and go to public schools get the additional help when their parents pay for it. But where does that leave the community served by Atrisco Heritage Academy?"

That leaves teachers and support staff with a big job to do. We got that message, loud and clear. Montoya's speech included her take on "the biases in standardized tests that hurt minorities and women."

"There's an interminable gap between men and women and between white and minority students taking these tests," Montoya said. "We know there is a test bias because when you look at a big picture of college students, you see that females outperform males academically in college, but not on standardized tests."

The best advice Montoya offered didn't include anything you might find in a teaching textbook.

"If you love what you are doing and you love the students you are teaching, you are going to make a difference, despite the obstacles," she said. "But you are going to work harder than some of your colleagues in other schools where perhaps the income levels are higher and the number of immigrant students is lower. But don't let that deter you. Do this job with everything you have."

At Atrisco, nearly 90 percent of the students are on free or reduced lunch, the indicator Albuquerque Public Schools uses to determine family income levels. Many of our students speak Spanish as a first language.

Luckily, thanks to Montoya and others at the University of New Mexico Law School, we do not have to take on the challenges without support. The Law School, as well as the National Hispanic Bar Association have partnered with our school. Lawyers will mentor some of our students who are interested in law careers. The members of the bar association and the law school also will help shape the curriculum in our Law and Public Policy Academy.

It's a partnership Atrisco Principal Karen Sanchez-Griego does not take lightly.

"It's an unprecedented collaboration," she said. "If we are going to start showing students from our community that they can strive to have law careers, we're going to have to show them what those careers look like. Who better than lawyers to help us do that."

A member of the UNM law school faculty since 1992, Montoya examines issues of race, ethnicity, gender and language, along with cross-cultural discourse in her professorial position. She often teaches seminars on these subjects.

Montoya is the 2003-2004 interim director of the Southwest Hispanic Research Institute. The institute was established in 1980 to serve as the interdisciplinary center for the study of the Hispanic experience in the Southwest. The broad purpose of the institute is to promote teaching and research and to disseminate information that affects Hispanic peoples and communities in the southwestern states of Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, and California and in Latin America, especially Mexico.

Montoya has also written about her feelings of alienation as a Latina law student. There were "painful, poignant and funny ways we didn't belong at Harvard," says Montoya. "I have written before about the portraits on the walls there ... They reflect the ancient history that Harvard is steeped in, old judges in regal robes. Few of us [minorities] could imagine our ancestors hanging on the walls. We were not a part of this ancestral and cultural wealth."

A New Mexico native, Montoya came back to her home state to not only teach law, but to become active in efforts to create higher education opportunities for Hispanic and Native students.

"I am trying to keep the doors open for students who will follow me as lawyers, faculty members, scholars and policymakers," she says. And Montoya made a point of telling the teachers at Atrisco that in order for our students to even get to the door that is open to them, we will have to guide them there.

Montoya works to link the University of New Mexico law and medical schools to public schools through these programs so that middle and high school students can envision themselves in college and graduate and professional schools.

"In the past, law schools and medical schools were islands; they didn't have much contact with the rest of the community," she says. "We, lawyers and doctors, have so much clout that we should be the voice for educational reform."

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