Lao parents plays a significant role in students’ academic success, even if they feel they don’t have a lot to contribute because they didn’t attend U.S. schools, speak fluent English, or fully understand American higher education systems.
Here’s a slap-in-your-face fact: less than 59% of Lao students are proficient in reading and math in Minnesota. This should startle you about our youth and the future of the Lao Minnesotan community. It’s not news that Minnesota has one of the biggest achievement gaps in the nation. By 2018, it’s estimated that 70% of jobs in Minnesota will require at least some college level education. Will the Lao Minnesotan’s growing young population be ready? That’s what the Council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans (CAPM) in partnership with Wilder Research hopes to figure out in its latest survey on early childhood education. According to the last 2010 Census, our home state has a growing Asian population of over 202,135; a 51% increase since 2000. Although the majority are Southeast Asians, “from income to employment, educational attainment, homeownership, English language proficiency, and health, the Hmong, Laotian, Cambodian, Vietnamese, and Karen ethnic groups fall far behind the Chinese, Asian Indian, Filipino, and Korean groups in Minnesota” (CAPM). There have been numerous national surveys that have excluded the Lao and without enough research …
Little Laos on the Prairie 