A helping hand at Pasadena City College
Jennifer Escandon, 21, prepares for finals with her baby son, Jason, by her side. Escandon is among the students at Pasadena City College who are part of a learning community called Career Pathways. The program provides extra tutoring and counseling to students who are juggling work, school and family commitments. Escandon plans to transfer next year to Cal State L.A. to earn a degree in social work. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)
English professor Otilio Perales, flanked by Lauren Clark, left, and Ramiro Ixtlahuac, teaches a group of students enrolled in a special learning community at Pasadena City College. Perales shakes students hands when they get an A on an essay and pulls them aside in disappointment when they bomb. I see myself in them, he said. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)
Ramiro Ixtlahuac listens in his special learning group at Pasadena City College. Twenty-eight students began the program last fall after placement tests showed they needed remedial English or math. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)
Students listen to a lesson from English professor Otilio Perales. Some of the students in the Career Pathways learning group excelled from the start, while others slowly improved. A few, however, plummeted like sky divers whose parachutes never opened. A quarter of the group had dropped out by February; a handful more remain in danger of failing grades as the spring semester ends. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)
