Education BLog

A report released here Thursday revealed the serious drop-out crisis in the Latino community in the U.S. with 41 percent of Latino girl students failing to graduate on time with a standard high school diploma.

The report said while 98 percent of high school seniors in the U. S. want to graduate from high school, and 80 percent aspire to higher education, Latino students continue to face numerous challenges in reaching these goals.

The report was released by the National Women's Law Center (NWLC) and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) entitled "Listening to Latinas: Barriers to High School Graduation", a new report that takes a close look at the drop-out crisis in the Latino community.

According to the report, Latinos have high aspirations, but too many doubt their ability to reach their goals. Many of the Latina girls surveyed and interviewed for this project had very high aspirations for the future. Substantial numbers of them want to have professional careers as doctors, lawyers, nurses, and scientists and understand that they cannot reach those goals without education.

The Latino community faces many challenges that help to explain the discrepancy between Latino's dreams and actual expectations. Latino students' academic achievement and dropout rates can be profoundly affected by the challenges that many of their communities face, the report said.

According to the report, poverty impacts students' preparation for school. Too few Latinos attend early childhood education programs, for a variety of reasons; many of the schools Latinos attend receive limited resources which can restrict learning opportunities; those whose families move to find work are forced to change schools frequently; and having inadequate community supports, such as parks and after-school programs, can affect Latino students' ability to succeed in school.

Immigration status creates instability for many Latino students. Students who are undocumented or who have family members who are undocumented experience anxiety and uncertainty about their futures, and face added financial barriers to higher education opportunities, the report said.

Limited English proficiency can make students more likely to fall behind and increase the risk of dropout.

According to the report, parental involvement, which has been correlated with better engagement in school and can increase the chances of graduation, is limited for many Latino parents due to a number of factors, including their own low levels of formal education, lack of familiarity with the American school system, and feeling unwelcome at their children's schools.

In addition, Latinos face some similar challenges at school, such as concerns about school safety, attendance problems, disciplinary issues, and poor academic performance, all of which tend to limit student engagement in school and increase the risk of dropout, the report said.

Latinos face particular challenges related to the intersection of their ethnicity and gender.

According to the report, many Latinos are influenced by family and societal expectations, often based on stereotypes of Latinos as submissive underachievers and caretakers. When these stereotypes are internalized, they may cause Latinos to doubt their chances for academic and career success and hurt their self-esteem, which can hinder their motivation and engagement in school.

Also, many Latinos lack educational and career role models among their family members and peers to help them set goals and envision themselves reaching those goals.

The report also cited discrimination as one factor. Some Latinos still find that their teachers and classmates treat them differently in both subtle and blatant ways or have different expectations for them because they are Latina . This treatment makes them feel unwelcome at school and can affect their academic performance and graduation rates.

Some feel unwelcome at school as non-native English speakers, some experience sexual harassment, and some do not get equal access to or encouragement in career and technical education programs for fields that are traditionally male but that tend to offer higher wages and better benefits than do traditionally female fields, according to the report.

Pregnancy and parenting responsibilities are dropout risk factors for almost half of the girls who drop out of high school, according to the report.

Latinos have the highest teen pregnancy rates and teen birth rates of any racial or ethnic group, almost twice the national average in the U.S. Many do not discuss pregnancy prevention or contraception with their parents, and many attend schools in states that limit sex education to abstinence-only curricula, the report said.

Once they have children, all girls face enormous challenges to staying in school, graduating, and pursuing post-secondary options. Some of those challenges are financial and logistical, such as finding affordable, quality child care and safe transportation to school. Others are less tangible, such as discrimination and stigmatization by teachers and school administrators or policies, according to the report.