Lots of People Listening to Latinas!

by Lara S. Kaufmann, Senior Counsel, 
National Women’s Law Center 

We are really excited about all of the attention surrounding the report we just released, Listening to Latinas: Barriers to High School Graduation. The report has gotten some good media coverage, and we’ve already been contacted by a number of people who heard about it and want to know what they can do to help address the dropout crisis for Latinas (41 percent of whom do not graduate from high school in four years -– if they graduate at all, which has extremely serious ramifications for their economic security and health). Well, there is a lot that schools and policy makers can do (more on that below), and we need all the help we can get! 

To explore the obstacles they face, we surveyed and interviewed Latinas across the country and the teachers and program staff who work with them every day. The girls we spoke with have very high aspirations. Many of them want to become doctors, nurses, lawyers and scientists. In fact, 98 percent of those we surveyed said that they want to at least graduate from high school, and 80 percent said that they hope to go to college. But far too many of them doubt they can make it: one-third of the girls we surveyed said they do not think they will be able to reach their educational goals.

As my colleague Christie asked in her blog post last week, “Why are so many Latinas forced to abandon their dreams?” They face so many challenges, many of which Christie very eloquently explained:

Many come from low income families, lack educational role models in their lives, and have parents who don’t speak English and have little understanding of the U.S. educational system. And many others end up tracked into lower level classes at underperforming schools — a product of stereotypes or deflated expectations by teachers and counselors. Still others fail to believe in themselves. … They know the financial barriers to affording college, and because they don’t see many professional Latinas around them, they cannot envision themselves succeeding academically or professionally.

The obstacles are many, but so are the possible solutions. The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights should step up enforcement of Title IX and Title VI to ensure that schools do not perpetuate discrimination and stereotypes and that students are not “tracked” based on their race or gender, or their status as a pregnant and parenting student or an English language learner. Schools should do more to engage students in goal-setting and give them better guidance about how to reach their goals, and to connect Latinas with academic and professional role models, so they can envision themselves succeeding. Schools should give better support to pregnant and parenting students, and our schools and communities should do more to reduce the incidence of teen pregnancy, particularly among minority and immigrant communities where teen pregnancy rates are highest. Families need better access to quality, affordable child care, so that teen parents can more easily continue going to school and so that Latino parents working long hours or multiple jobs will not have to rely on their daughters to watch younger siblings. And those are just a few examples.

Latinas are the fastest growing group of female school-aged youth, and we must do better, both for their sake and for our nation’s short- and long-term health, prosperity, and global competitiveness.  We are failing them, and the American values of fairness and equality of opportunity demand that we as a country take steps to remove the enormous barriers so many Latinas face and give them –- and all students -– the tools they need to succeed.

For more on the issue, download our report, Listening to Latinas: Barriers to High School Graduation. And don’t forget to sign the pledge to support Latina students.