Hispanics/Latinos & Education

As Congress considers the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind law an analysis of recent data from standardized testing around the country shows that the fast growing number of students designated as English language learners are among those farthest behind.

This statistical profile of the foreign born population is based on Pew Hispanic Center tabulations of the Census Bureau's 2005 American Community Survey public use microdata file, which was released August 29, 2006.

Since the mid-1990s, two trends have transformed the landscape of American public education: Enrollment has increased because of the growth of the Hispanic population, and the number of schools has also increased.

This statistical profile of the Latino population is based on Pew Hispanic Center tabulations of the Census Bureau's 2005 American Community Survey public use microdata file, which was released August 29, 2006.

Hispanics and whites perform different types of work in the labor market. Moreover, the occupational divide between the two largest segments of the labor force appears to be widening.

In addition to longstanding concerns over high school completion, policymakers are increasingly focused on disparities in outcomes between Hispanic and white college students.

A report on high school enrollment points to the importance of schooling abroad in understanding the dropout problem for immigrant teens, finding that those teens have often fallen behind in their education before reaching the United States.

A report on the characteristics of high schools attended by different racial and ethnic groups finds that Hispanic teens are more likely than blacks and whites to attend the nation's largest public high schools.

This study was conducted by the Educational Policy Institute through a grant from the Pew Hispanic Center to provide the most up-to-date analysis of Latino achievement through postsecondary education. The study analyses the latest installment of the National Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS), begun in 1988 with eighth grade students and followed up several times, with the last follow-up survey in 2000: eight years after scheduled high school graduation.

This new study from the Pew Hispanic Center that finds that the white/Latino gap in finishing college is larger than the high school completion gap. The study reveals that Latino undergraduates are at a disadvantage in competing for college degrees because of two important factors: many Hispanic undergraduates disproportionately enroll on campuses that have low bachelor's degree completion rates, and they have different experiences than white students even when they enroll on the same campuses.