70 years ago today the US Supreme Court issued its Landmark decision in Brown V Board of Education ruling that separating kids in public schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional yet research shows that premise in many ways remains unfulfilled in New Jersey the latest piece of evidence comes from a recent ruter University report looking at the experience of latex students here in the state showing the majority are attending what could be considered segregated schools while facing a number of other barriers Raven Santana reports a lot of it is known anecdotally it's not known systematically latinx students in New Jersey represent nearly a third of the state's overall Public School population and close to half of all preschool age students but a new report by the Joseph C Cornwall Center for Metropolitan studies at Ruckers University finds that they are not receiving adequate levels of resources to support their development and wellbeing and it's not in one place and that's what we see as one of the big impact of the report it's sort of uh giving a picture of the trajectory of the typical uh latinx student and giving an idea as to uh what their life looks like through school Dr vanine Campbell is lead author of the report the latinx experience in New Jersey schools a preliminary overview the report that has been two years in the making focuses on students in grades prek to 12th having the data sort of laid out in this way tells you exactly what you're dealing with one of the barriers that Dr Campbell found problematic was the student to guidance counselor ratio in 2019 to 2020 when the Statewide ratio of students to counselor was 351 to1 it was 517 to1 in heavily Latin X schools what information are students getting about postsecondary options are they being uh guided in a way that's not biased right not biasing them towards uh lower level opportunities the report also found that latinx students are attending increasingly hypersegregated schools and those schools are more likely to experience higher levels of poverty the Latino Action Network Foundation commissioned the report and is one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit arguing that the state must address its segregated schools its executive director says there's much more than just academics when it comes to disparities with Latin X students we currently have a school system structure where your ZIP code determines your academic achievement right it determines your health it determines your academic achievement because it determines your access to uh teachers Mental Health Resources uh just resourcing in general I think an important aspect of the report I that was shocking to me is that out of the groups that were shown we have the lowest rates of college enrollment um both two-year and four-year colleges not only are we lower than the state average but we're lower than other um than other racial groups right racial ethnic groups so I think that's something that I really think that we need to think a little bit more deeply about or or I think we need to address Dr Claudia M Castillo leverne is co-author of the report she points out that while there are alarming disparities there were some positive findings including in communities like do and Union City who are see Latin X students Excel how do we learn from these districts to then provide better resources for students and districts that might not be doing as well the overall perception of people that Spanish is a lesser language Kathleen Fernandez is executive director of New Jersey teachers of English to speakers of other languages New Jersey bilingual Educators she says there's economic value to investing in latinx students I personally look at the teaching crisis in New Jersey and I see these students as an untapped resource where they are going to come out of high school bilingual they are so well prepared to be our future Educators everyone I spoke with now hopes the report will push and support legislation to better provide resources and prevent barriers for latinx students across the state for NJ Spotlight news I'm Raven Santana [Music]