One of the benefits of working in a year-long cohort program is that the students develop a confidence not just within themselves, but with each other, and with me. By the time we start spring Semester, my Puente students know that I believe in them and that they believe in each other.  It is because we have this foundation that I can start by presenting them with some very unsettling data about student success in California.

One of the first things we look at is this chart which is the result of amazing research by UCLA’s Institute for Democracy, Education, and ACCESS (IDEA):
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