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)
