Essay Educating Hispanic Students

In October 2000, the overall picture of high school dropouts had changed little since the late 1980s (Kaufman et al. 2001): For every 100 young adults enrolled in high school in October 1999, 5 had left school without completing a program; of 34.6 million U.S. young adults aged 16-24, 3.8 million—almost 11 percent—had not completed high school and were not enrolled. Some studies have shown that students in schools with a concentration of multiple risk factors (e.g., large schools, large classes, high poverty, inner city location) have less than one chance in two of graduating from high school; furthermore, the economic costs of dropping out have increased as time goes on (Castellano et al. 2001). Adjusting for 50

Often times a child with a Hispanic background is not given the opportunity to rise to his

Dr. Rebecca Vonderlack-Navarro is a Research and Policy Analyst with the Latino Policy Forum, based in Chicago, Illinois. A graduate of the University of Chicago’s School of Social Services Administration’s Ph.D. program, Vonderlack-Navarro “focused on the community organization and the bi-national political incorporation of Mexican immigrants in Chicago” ( Latino Policy Forum, 2015a). The Latino Public Forum’s goals are to improve education outcomes by becoming involved at all levels of public decision-making. They facilitate change by conduction policy forums to inform, influences, and lead (Latino Policy Forum, 2015a).

The Latino minority was now the majority. Of these new citizens, many are immigrants in search of affordable housing. For a typical immigrant, jobs are scarce and lead most of the residents in my city to settle for minimum wage jobs resulting in a low median income. The low socioeconomic status of the citizens played a pivotal role on the education of the children who grew up in this oppressed neighborhood. There was a staggering drop of 28.8% of students who graduated high school and/or pursued higher education from 1990 to 2010. This drop was result of the low expectations the education system primed on the students from a very young age. Since many come from immigrant parents their first language might not necessarily be English. Tracking then took place, separating the few who were fortunate enough to have prior knowledge of the “native language” and those who need extra help and were held back for their inability to speak English. Ramon and Hunt touch on the topic of schools lack of support, specifically schools under LAUSD; my home district. The education received at schools like mine were not up to par in comparison to schools white and Asian Americans attended; it did not provide the same highly certified teachers or varied class selection (Ramon, Hunt 387). Lack of support puts many at a disadvantage including myself who had to persist regardless of all the barriers tunneling my

Latinos, and particularly those of Mexican descent, represent the largest growing ethnic or racial minority group in the United States with over 56.6 million in 2015 (U.S Census, 2016). Hispanics constitute 17.6 percent of the nation’s total population. According to the US Census Bureau, the Hispanic population is projected to be 119 million by 2060, and would constitute 28.6 percent of the nation’s population (US Census Bureau, 2016). Not only are Latino’s the largest ethnic minority, Latino’s are disproportionately poor, with one- third living in poverty and two-thirds living in low-income households (Turner, Guzman, Wildsmith & Scott, 2015). The interaction of multiple disparities in the Latino community puts Latino students at a disproportionate

Immigrants and language minority students like English learners are among the fastest growing populations in U.S. public schools. The Urban Institute finds that the share of children enrolled

"11 Facts About High School Dropout Rates." DoSomething.org | Volunteer for Social Change. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Dec. 2016.

Schools have regularly been places of political, racial and linguistic conflict between most the population and mainly the Latino/ Mexican groups. Latinos today are understated of schools such as high school and college graduation rates and even college entrance examinations. For Hispanics in the United States, the instructive experience is one of collected drawback. Numerous Hispanic understudies start formalized tutoring without the financial and social assets that numerous different understudies get, and schools are frequently poorly prepared to make up for these underlying aberrations (Rivera 2002).

In recent times, there has been a significant rise in high school dropout rates in United States of America. This issue has significant attention of academics and researchers and is known as "silent epidemic" as more and more American teenagers are dropping out from schools before graduation (Bridgeland, DeIulio& Morison, 200). Reports suggest that the high school dropout rates before graduation in minorities has reached 50 percent since last decade (Bridgeland, DeIulio& Morison, 202, Ferris & West, 69).

education in 1994 was 13 percent; for those with some high school but no diploma,

mensuration of the state dropout degree is the counting of 16-24 year olds who are not enrolled

Half of students entering high school in the Los Angeles Unified School District do not graduate. Only about ten percent of those students seek or are offered Continuation/adult School to finalize their studies and receive a GED. (Afolayan, 1991) The population of students that will be addressed are those students who were held back to remediate the year and catch up with the rest of their peers. Based on my findings many factors must be considered in order to retain a student from advancing to the next grade. It’s a delicate matter that is only now starting to see local policies in effect that determines who gets retained and under what circumstances. While much of the research only addresses those variables that can be

In 2009, a study conducted by regarding student dropout rates assessed, “A quarter-century of research identifies student

Many students in the United States tend to drop out of high school. Each year over 1.2 million of students dropping out in the country alone. A lot of this students stop attending school because of lack of motivation, drug addictions, and some become young parents. This is one of the biggest issues that needs to be taking care of in the United States.

This study employs data sets from ELS: 2002, which documented the educational status of a nationally representative sample of 10th grade students, as they progress through high school and into postsecondary education or the workforce. It follows a two-stage sampling process: Schools with 10th graders were initially stratified into 8 regions, 3 types of urbanity, and 3 school controls. Schools that participated in the sampling were randomly selected with a probability in proportion to their size. In the first stage, each school provided sophomore