National effort required to meet educational needs of Hispanic students

The educational problems facing Hispanic students are so severe that a major national effort – involving foundations, elected officials and educators – is needed to combat them.

That was the consensus of an unusual meeting of foundation and government officials in Washington Feb. 19-20. (Learn more.) Attendees at “Higher Expectations: Improving Achievement and Opportunity for Hispanic Students,” cited the following sobering statistics:

By fourth grade, Latino children lag behind their white counterparts in math, geography and history, according to test results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

In a study based on U.S. Census data from 2000, 21 percent of Hispanic 16- to-19-year-olds were high-school dropouts, compared with 7 percent of white, non-Hispanics, 12 percent of blacks, 16 percent of American Indians, and 4 percent of Asians. Learn more… )

In higher education, Latino enrollments are growing rapidly and now make up 10 percent of total college enrollments. But here too, the statistics indicate serious problems. Only about 20 percent of college-age Latino students are enrolled in postsecondary education, compared with 41 percent of whites, 31 percent of blacks and 60 percent of Asian Americans. Latino enrollments tend to be the highest in community colleges, and many Latino students fail to graduate or to transfer to four-year programs where they can earn bachelor's degrees.

At the same time, the population of Hispanics in the United States is expanding, multiplying their potential impact on American society as a whole. According to Census data, between 2000 and 2025, the white working population will decline by 5 million, and the Latino working-age population will increase by 18 million. Already, one out of every five new entrants into the American workforce is Hispanic, and their share will continue to expand.

A series of panels at the meeting explored on concrete strategies that could be used at every level of education to improve Hispanic achievement. Among the strategies discussed: free pre-kindergarten education with trained early-childhood experts, better bilingual education for students who are still learning English, the election of more Latino school-board members who will act as advocates for Latino children and watchdogs over the performance of school administrators, improved financial aid systems so that high school students learn that money is available to help them go on to college, and the expansion of four-year college programs at community colleges with good track records of serving Hispanic students.

Juliet V. Garcia, the president of the University of Texas at Brownsville since 1992, told a story that underscored to her the importance of the issues. She was in the middle of a fund-raising campaign when a very poor woman came to her office, pushing a baby in a stroller. The woman was clutching her donation – a $5 bill. Garcia hesitated to accept the money from someone who so clearly needed every dollar: the woman told her: “This is for my child’s future.”

"We have answers" to the problems facing Latino youth, insisted Miguel A. Satut, program director for youth and education programs at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Satut stressed that the goal of the meeting was to help communities share good ideas and carry them out – not just to recite the problems. "There's plenty enough for us to do with successful programs."

The sponsors of the conference were the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, Grantmakers for Education, and Hispanics in Philanthropy. At the concluding session, officials from the three groups (as well as many participants) said that they hoped to see similar meetings in the future – ideally to share success stories as people try out the ideas they learned at the meeting.

Participants cited a number of reasons why foundation and government officials previously had not generally worked together closely on Hispanic education issues. Both the foundation and political worlds have unique roles in American society, and numerous rules restrict the role that foundations can play in politics or legislative activity. (Indeed, participants received a handout prepared by a lawyer on do's and don'ts.) But speaker after speaker cited the way the two sectors have cooperated. In many cases, government support -- either in the form of state appropriations or new federal grant programs -- builds on experiments that have received seed money from foundations. In some cases, the government is reluctant to support ideas that have not been tested with private funds. In other cases, both government and foundation officials are attracted by the idea of leveraging their funds by working together.