access to knowledge
Latinos Nearly one in three Latino schoolchildren in the United States today is being educated in California.14 Thus, the United States counts on California to take leadership in meeting the educational needs of this significant group. Success thus far has proven elusive. Nine out of ten Latino students attend school in sixteen of California’s fifty-eight counties, evidence that achieving better educational outcomes for Latino students is a statewide challenge.15 Latino families face large hurdles to obtaining the best conditions to gain access to knowledge for their children and young adults, though within the California Latino community, there is considerable variation in educational outcomes by sub-group. TA B L E 5 presents these outcomes for the five largest Latino sub-groups including native and foreignborn members of these groups. These barriers are related to the conditions of their lives both in and outside school: • Parental education. In Florida, 20 percent of Latino adults have at least a bachelor’s degree; in California, the corresponding rate is 9.9 percent. This is largely due to the differing educational resources in the countries and communities from which they trace their origins. College completion among Latino adults is also higher in states like Virginia, New York, and Texas. Parents’ levels of educational attainment are among the strongest predictors of their children’s educational outcomes; better-educated parents are more able to help their children with schoolwork, and to successfully navigate complex school regulations and admissions requirements to procure the best conditions for their children’s learning.
The potential benefits to California of a well-educated bilingual population are tremendous.
• Second-language learning. California has the largest and fastestgrowing population of students who neither speak English at home nor are proficient in English. Eighty-five percent of this population speaks Spanish.16 Although the effort to learn English while also mastering new subjects can be challenging, the potential benefits to California of a welleducated bilingual population are tremendous.
TABLE 5
Latino Degree Attainment for the Five Largest Sub-Groups share of total Latino population (%)
Mexican Salvadoran
83.7 4.4
Less than High School (%)
At Least Bachelor's Degree (%)
Graduate or Professional Degree (%)
46.1 48.2
8.2 9.1
2.3 2.1
Guatemalan
2.5
53.5
8.7
2.0
Puerto Rican
1.2
18.5
22.4
6.9
Nicaraguan
0.7
25.0
18.8
4.3
Source: ACS 2007−2009. Note: This table excludes those who trace their roots from Spain.
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