Thread: Unmanageable and Unsustainable: The Latino Education Crisis

Unmanageable and Unsustainable: A Review Essay on "The Latino Education Crisis: The Consequences of Failed Social Policies"

By John Wahala
April 2010

Memorandums
Download a pdf of this Memorandum
http://www.cis.org/articles/2010/latino ... crisis.pdf

In their book The Latino Education Crisis: The Consequences of Failed Social Policies . Professors of Education Patricia Gandara and Frances Contreras provide a rare and candid look at how Hispanic students — both immigrant and native-born — are faring in the United States. Their assessment is a warning to those concerned with the most vulnerable among us or to those simply concerned about the future prospects of our country.
( http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ ... forimmigra )

Among the points made by the authors:

By every achievement measure, Hispanic students are performing at or near the bottom.


Some researchers find that around 50 percent of Hispanic students do not receive a diploma four years after entering high school.


Hispanic students are linguistically and socially isolated, receive less support at home, and have high rates of poverty.


In 2006, Hispanics constituted approximately 19 percent of the national school-age population. The Census Bureau estimates that one in four students will be Latino by 2025.


Given current trends, it is projected the United States will experience a significant decline in skills and income.
The central role immigration has played in our current situation is unmistakable. As Professors Gandara and Contreras acknowledge, in 1972, 95 percent of all students were non-Hispanic white or African American. By 2005, Hispanics had grown from roughly 5 percent to 20 percent of the overall student population.1 The federal immigration program is responsible for virtually all of the national increase in the school-age population over the last two decades.2

Like any transformation, this demographic change has resulted in various dislocations that society has attempted to address. But given the specific circumstances Hispanic students now face, the impact has become unmanageable. The authors explain:

The current data do not give cause for optimism, for they show that the demands of contemporary American society are outpacing the ability of post-immigrant generations of Latinos to overcome the educational and socioeconomic barriers they confront …. With no evidence of an imminent turnaround in the rate at which Latino students are either graduating from high school or obtaining college degrees, it appears that both a regional and national catastrophe are at hand …. As a group, Latino students today perform academically at levels that will consign them to live as members of a permanent underclass in American society. Moreover, their situation is projected to worsen over time …. If their situation is not reversed, the very democracy is at peril.3

Who Is Hispanic?

Before examining Gandara and Contreras’ assessment, it is important to clarify who is considered Latino. The term, synonymous with the less fashionable official government designation of Hispanic, is the generic classification for several Latin American nationalities, and can include people of any race.4 Of the 45 million Hispanics in the United States, Mexicans and Mexican Americans account for 64 percent. No other nationality represented makes up even 5 percent of the total Hispanic population. Not surprisingly, newcomers from Mexico also dominate our immigration flow, accounting for 31 percent of the foreign-born population, or 11.6 million people.5

For this reason, the authors focus their case studies on students of Mexican-origin in California, where they represent 83 percent of Hispanics and 36 percent of the state’s total population. In doing so they assert that the Mexican experience in America is similar to that of most Hispanics, an assumption the data tend to support.

A Failing Grade

Examining the available data on student achievement, Gandara and Contreras find that Hispanic students consistently perform at the poorest levels. This begins at the earliest stages of development and persists throughout their educational experience.

A survey of kindergartners, conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics, found that roughly 40 percent of Hispanics scored in the lowest quartile in reading and mathematics.6 By fourth grade, less than 20 percent of Hispanics were deemed proficient in these subjects. And by eighth grade those numbers had declined to 15 percent proficient in reading and 13 percent proficient in mathematics.7 A similar study, the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills, reported comparable results.

More disheartening than poor early test results is the pattern of increasing disengagement exhibited by Hispanic students as they get older, which results in a high dropout rate.

There is some uncertainty on the high-school dropout rate since estimates have varied. A more optimistic projection comes from the Department of Education (DOE), which finds that in 2005, 70 percent of Hispanics graduated from high school four years after enrolling. Gandara and Contreras point out that this number does not take into account those students who leave school before entering the ninth grade. They refer to a recent study of Boston public schools that finds as many as 14.4 percent of Hispanic students never enrolled in high school.8 Furthermore, the authors question the methods used by the DOE and contrast its findings with a joint analysis by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University and the Urban Institute that estimates a Hispanic graduation rate around 53 percent.9

An examination of the Census Bureau’s 2008 American Community Survey conducted by the Center for Immigration Studies shows more encouraging numbers. It finds that 82 percent of 19-year-old, native-born Hispanics have graduated high school, though that number drops to 52 percent for 19-year-old Hispanic immigrants.

Regardless of which estimate is most accurate, all indicate that Hispanic students are significantly behind most of their peers. This is the pattern with other achievement measures: grade point average, scholastic aptitude test scores, and college enrollment and graduation rates. By every reckoning, Gandara and Contreras note, Hispanic students show “a consistent pattern of underachievement.â€

Now you know why Mexico is a third world country. Sounds like a great reason for us to deport illegal aliens, revoke the anchor baby policy, and end unrestricted extended family immigration.