Latino Elected Officials Host Summit to Explore New Strategies to Stem Dropout Flow

In the face of statistics that

continue to show dropout

rates as high as 50% in many communities with dominant Hispanic populations, Hispanic school board members, municipal officials and state legislators have proposed a set of policies to close a seemingly intractable educational gap.

They shared about a dozen recommendations directed mainly to themselves Oct. 13 during the first-ever such summit on the "State of Latino Education." The sessions, held in Washington, D.C., were sponsored by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund. Some 50 Hispanic officeholders participated.

Lourdes Ferrer, NALEO's deputy director of constituency services, called it a one-of-a-kind institute to explore different strategies."

Key among their priorities were:

* Educate parents, policy makers and educators on the concept of "P-20," which is based on the idea that children should make a seamless transition from preschool through middle school, high school and later college. The concept calls on Hispanic children, at an early age, to commit not only to finishing high school, but also to complete graduate or professional school.

• Make better use of community resources, non-profit organizations and faith-based entities to push forward the agenda of Latino excellence in education.

• Create a clear strategic education plan for each school district and monitor its progress. Share those models with other conference participants.

• Break down data on high school retention, dropout rate and graduation rate for students based on age, ethnic group, socioeconomic status and English language proficiency to show state and federal policymakers the rate in which each group is graduating or dropping out.

Oscar de la Torre, a board member with the Santa Monica Malibu Schools in California, told participants that by breaking down data by such groups, school board members and education advocates can establish better preventive programs.

He also urged that school districts organize symposiums where students, including those who have dropped out, discuss what worked or didn't work for them while attending public schools.

Deborah Santiago, vice president for policy and research with Excelencia in Education, a Washington, D.C.-based research group that analyzes data on Latino education, addressed one of the major barriers for Hispanics: access to college.

"We have to ...