Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012 - 4

A ‘Demographic Imperative’: Raising Latinos’ Achievement
if the united States is going to thrive and be a world leader in education, it must boost the educational attainment of its fastest-growing population

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By Lesli a. Maxwell
y 2020, one in four children enrolled in America’s K-12 public schools will be Latino. Of those Latino students, more than half will be second-generation Americans, born in the United States to at least one parent who is an immigrant. Another third will be at least thirdgeneration Americans, the children of parents who were also born in this country, according to projections from the Pew Hispanic Center, a Washington-based research organization. The remainder will be immigrants themselves, though they will be part of a diminishing stream of young Latinos moving to the United States from Spanish-speaking countries. With such strong and growing numbers, the educational achievement of this diverse community of students—who increasingly live in states and communities where Latinos were virtually nonexistent even a decade ago—has implications for the national economy, local labor markets, and prospects for upward social mobility for millions of Hispanic Americans. To meet President Barack Obama’s goal of making the United States the world leader in the share of college graduates by 2020, more than half of the 9 million postsecondary degrees it will take to reach that target must be earned by Latinos, says José A. Rico, the executive director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics. “The president has made it very clear that the future of our country is at stake if we don’t provide a quality education to our Latino students,” Rico says. But right now—just eight years before President Obama’s deadline—educational outcomes for Latino students lag behind those of most major ethnic and racial groups by many of the most critical measures. That’s despite some modest gains in recent years and robust efforts to drive down dropout rates for all of the nation’s most vulnerable students. For example: • Among Hispanic 16- to 24-year-olds in the United States, 17.6 percent were high school dropouts in 2009, compared with 9.3 percent of African-Americans and 5.2 percent of whites in the same age group, although the rate for Hispanics has steadily improved, according to The Condition of Education 2011, published by the U.S. Department of Education. • Among Hispanic 25- to 64-year-olds, the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center found that 64 percent have finished high school, either by earning a standard diploma or a General Educational Development credential, compared with 90 percent of whites, 85 percent of African-Americans, and 89 percent of Asian-Americans. The epe Research Center’s graduation-rate analysis puts the on-time high school graduation rate for Hispanic students in the class of 2009 at 63 percent— slightly higher than the 59 percent rate for African-American students. • Roughly 37 percent of Hispanic 25- to 64-year-olds had completed some college coursework or an associate degree, trailing non-Hispanic whites at 63 percent, African-Americans at 53 percent, and Asian-Americans at 74 percent, according to the epe Research Center. • Latino students who make it to college are far less likely than their black, white, and Asian-American peers to finish.
education week | June 7, 2012

In 2010, among Hispanic 25- to 29-year-olds, 14 percent had earned a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared with 19 percent for African-Americans, 39 percent for whites, and 53 percent for Asian-Americans, according to The Condition of Education 2011. On some indicators, however, such as participation in Advanced Placement exams and scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or naep, Latinos have made more progress toward closing the gap with their white peers than African-American students have. Still, the portrait of educational achievement for Hispanics in their young adult years is dim, a situation that has its roots in the beginning stages of their schooling. In the earliest years of education, Latinos already fall short of their peers when it comes to participation. They are the least likely of any of the largest ethnic groups to attend preschool programs, and many start kindergarten speaking little or no English. New Jersey has done more than any other state to ensure that all its 3- and 4-year-olds from low-income families, including Latinos, have access to prekindergarten. But that state’s efforts were spurred by a court order to provide equitable resources to poor students and a major infusion of state cash—a carrot and stick that many other states don’t share. Later on, as 8th graders, Hispanic schoolchildren score more than 20 points lower than their white peers on the mathematics portion of naep. They are half as likely as their white peers to have access to a rigorous high school curriculum that prepares them for college. And, many experts say, they are far more likely than their white and Asian-American peers to attend schools where the expectations for their academic performance are dishearteningly low. Those numbers point to a crisis state of education for Latino students, some advocates and experts say, even as there is growing recognition that the success of those students will be central to the progress and prosperity of the entire nation. “It’s on the brink,” says Delia Pompa, a former bilingual education teacher who is a senior vice president of the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic civil rights and advocacy group based in Washington. “The demographic imperative and the numbers of students we are talking about have pushed people to understand that to improve achievement overall, we’ve got to improve achievement for Latino students.”

Immigration Myths
Out of a school-age population of 54 million 5- to 17-year-olds currently living in the United States, roughly 12.1 million are Hispanic. The overall number of school-age children is projected to reach 58.5 million by 2020, with more than half that growth coming from Hispanic students, who will continue to be the fastest-growing population group in American public schools, says Richard Fry, a senior research associate with the Pew Hispanic Center. Assumptions that most Latinos in public schools are immigrants who speak English poorly and are unfairly draining resources from native-born students represent a widespread

misunderstanding of the population and have helped drive, to some extent, the passage of tough immigration laws such as Alabama’s, which, before it was put on hold by a federal appeals court, required public schools to check the legal status of students before enrolling them. Laws like Alabama’s, many educators and advocates say, can have a broad, negative impact on Hispanic children regardless of their legal status and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that children who are in the country illegally are still entitled to a free K-12 public education. In the small, rural community of Foley, Ala., for example, educators at the local elementary school are expecting retention rates for Hispanic kindergartners and 1st graders to quadruple recent levels, a direct result, they argue, of the state’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants. Before 2000, the growth in the nation’s Hispanic population was driven largely by immigration. In the past decade, Hispanic births have overtaken immigration as the main source of growth, and more than 90 percent of Latinos under the age of 18 are American-born. Data released in May by the Pew Hispanic Center show that immigration from Mexico—which for four decades brought the largest wave of immigrants from a single country in U.S. history—has come to a standstill and may have reversed. Despite the once-longstanding inflow of families from Mexico, the Latino community in the United States is incredibly diverse, with different racial backgrounds, traditions, socioeconomic levels, and countries of origin and descent represented. Latinos of Mexican origin or descent, far and away the largest group, make up nearly two-thirds of the nation’s Hispanic community. Latinos of Puerto Rican origin or descent are the second-largest group, at 9 percent, while those of Cuban and Salvadoran heritage make up the third- and fourth-largest shares, respectively. The generational status of Latino youths—whether they are immigrants themselves, children of immigrants, or children of native-born Hispanics—also accounts for important differences in the population. And some sectors of the Latino population—for example, the Cuban-immigrant and Cuban-American community in South Florida—have more social capital, such as older generations of adults with higher educational attainment and political clout, to draw on. That explains, in part, the success that the MiamiDade County school system has had in raising graduation rates for its Hispanic students, who are largely of Cuban origin or heritage. But Miami educators also say their success is due to their embrace of their students’ heritages and the wide range of English-learning options they provide for students of all proficiency levels. While the Spanish language is often a unifying characteristic, there are large variations in language skills among Hispanics nationwide, especially among those who are in the school-age population, Fry says. Roughly 30 percent of school-age Latinos report speaking only English, according to household-survey results collected by the U.S. Census Bureau. An additional 52 percent say that they speak Spanish at home, but that they speak English very well.

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Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012

Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012
Table of Contents
Latinos’ School Success: A Work in Progress
A ‘Demographic Imperative’: Raising Latinos’ Achievement
Mexico
Immigration Law Casts Shadow Over Schooling in Alabama
Puerto Rico
N.J. District Bucks the Trend, Draws Latinos to Preschools
El Salvador
College Remains Elusive Goal For Many Latino Students
Dominican Republic
Special Barriers Can Constrain Latinas’ Educational Progress
Cuba
Miami-Dade Educators’ Advice to Districts: Embrace Diversity
Guatemala
Graduation Rate Keeps Climbing; Strong Gains for Latino Students
Graduation in the United States
As New Federal Rules Kick In On Graduation Rates, States Change Their Calculations
A Focus on Latinos
Graduation Policies For the Class of 2012
Sources and Notes
Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012 - Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012
Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012 - Cover2
Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012 - Table of Contents
Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012 - Latinos’ School Success: A Work in Progress
Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012 - 3
Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012 - A ‘Demographic Imperative’: Raising Latinos’ Achievement
Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012 - Mexico
Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012 - 6
Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012 - 7
Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012 - Immigration Law Casts Shadow Over Schooling in Alabama
Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012 - 9
Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012 - Puerto Rico
Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012 - 11
Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012 - N.J. District Bucks the Trend, Draws Latinos to Preschools
Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012 - El Salvador
Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012 - 14
Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012 - 15
Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012 - College Remains Elusive Goal For Many Latino Students
Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012 - 17
Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012 - 18
Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012 - Dominican Republic
Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012 - Special Barriers Can Constrain Latinas’ Educational Progress
Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012 - Cuba
Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012 - Miami-Dade Educators’ Advice to Districts: Embrace Diversity
Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012 - 23
Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012 - Guatemala
Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012 - Graduation Rate Keeps Climbing; Strong Gains for Latino Students
Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012 - Graduation in the United States
Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012 - As New Federal Rules Kick In On Graduation Rates, States Change Their Calculations
Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012 - A Focus on Latinos
Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012 - 29
Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012 - Graduation Policies For the Class of 2012
Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012 - 31
Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012 - Sources and Notes
Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012 - Cover3
Diplomas Count - Issue 34, 2012 - Cover4
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