HispanicBusiness

Fifth-grader Cesar Rodriguez stands in a sea of colorful backpacks outside Anthony Elementary School.

He used to earn D's, where nearly all of the students are low-income and Spanish-speaking.

But that was the past. Now, he earns A's and B's and likes school, he says, wearing his navy Anthony Elementary T-shirt.

Does he want to go to college?

"Yes," he says emphatically, smiling. "NMSU Aggies."

Cesar wants to be a radiologist. And with the help of Anthony Elementary, he just may be the first in his family to go to college.

Recipe for success

Officials across the state are holding up Anthony as a model for helping low-income, Spanish-speaking students achieve, a change that has come under the three-year tenure of Principal Linda Perez.

The number of students testing proficient in math and reading has increased 20 percent over the past three years, and the school is the only one in the district to earn an "A" grade.

More than 99 percent of the 420 students receive free or reduced lunches. All are Hispanic. Sixty percent are English language learners, and the other 40 percent speak Spanish at home, Perez said, statistics that often condemn such students at many schools.

But not Anthony.

All it took, administrators said, was an emphasis on college readiness, assessment and the belief that failure isn't an option.

"You can come up with 45,000 excuses for why students don't do well in school," said Gadsden Independent

School District Superintendent Efren Yturralde. "But when you have a school with no excuses, you see a child who can learn and a child who can be successful, and that's what Anthony is."

College readiness

Straddling the Texas-New Mexico border, Anthony sits along the I-10 between the dairy farms of Dona Ana County and the El Paso sprawl.

The town is home to some 9,360 people with a median household income of $22,216.

Most parents didn't graduate high school and many are recent immigrants, Perez said.

The elementary school is tucked between three cemeteries and a slew of apartment complexes with playgrounds of primary colors. It's a new building with white halls and shiny white floors.

Pendants from Stanford University, Virginia Tech, New Mexico State University, University of North Carolina line the halls, which have names like "NMSU Aggies" or "UTEP Miners."

Plaques hang outside every classroom door, listing where each teacher went to college.

Some kids grow up knowing they'll go to college, Perez said.

"Our kids don't grow up with that; they don't see it in their parents," she said. "I have parents that when they come sign up for school and you give them their registration packet, they don't know how to read or write ... So how do these kids, they have no idea that there's something out there for them. And it's our job to do that."

There was little emphasis on college readiness before Perez joined Anthony, said sixth-grade math teacher Leticia Gonzales.

"Now the students know it's not an option; they're going to college," said Gonzales, who has been at Anthony for 20 years.

In one sixth-grade class, two boys create college brochures with pencil and lined paper, looking up descriptions and student quotes from schools they want to go to: NMSU and Notre Dame University.