From within the shadows: Breaking through America's educational system

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 104-116)In the 1960s and 1970s, the federal government and the University of California created untracking programs in an attempt to narrow the educational gap that existed between White and minority students. With every year that passes since those decades of social transition, Chicano students fill the halls of middle schools and high schools of California and the nation. However, their transition to the classrooms and laboratories of higher education is minimal. This thesis focuses on the reasons why Chicano students are making this transition at a lower rate. I also examine the Educational Talent Search Program (federal) and the Early Academic Outreach Program (UC) in Oxnard, California, where the Chicano population in the middle schools and high schools is nearly seventy percent, in attempt to find out if these programs are beneficial for the Chicano students. My findings demonstrate that the educational plight of Chicanos did not begin the 1960s and 1970s. It began as a result of the social and judicial battles between the nation's first and second class citizenry a century prior