Reclaiming the Promise of Educational Equity

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RECLAIMING THE PROMISE OF EDUCATIONAL EQUITY

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About

About Latinos for Education Latinos for Education (L4E) is a Latino-led, national nonprofit driven by the mission to develop, place, and connect essential Latino leadership in the education sector, while mobilizing Latino voices to promote practices and policies that remove barriers to equitable educational opportunity.

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Our work falls within three primary focus areas to achieve its mission:

About Our Work

1. Accelerating leadership pipelines L4E accelerates leadership pipelines by promoting equitable representation of Latino education leaders and preparing them to be effective advocates on behalf of Latino children and families. Our leadership development programs—The Aspiring Latino Leaders Fellowship, The Latino Board Fellowship, The Latinx Teachers Fellowship, and Familia Latinas Por La Educación—focus on attracting and retaining more Latinos to the education sector and creating leadership pathways for teachers, administrators, parents, and families.

We target key positions with direct student impact and decision-making authority at the classroom, school, district, and community level. We also provide access to networks, convenings, and professional development opportunities for non-direct influence roles.

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2. Mobilizing Leaders and Communities L4E gathers, lifts, and activates the collective Latino community voice on issues impacting Latino students and families. We aim to influence decisionmaking in our target regions of New England and Greater Houston and increasingly, nationally via federal policy and advocacy addressing the unique educational challenges impacting Latino students, Emergent Bilinguals, and families.

About Our Work

L 4E mobilizes leaders and communities through its member network, fellows and alumni, and coalition organizations to enact change. We provide members with a cohesive narrative and advocacy platform to increase awareness among key target groups and ensure influence in the education decision-making process.

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3. Activating a National Network Access to technology is essential to how educators advance networks, build communities of practice, and engage in professional development in a dynamic on-demand environment. L4E is harnessing the power of technology to create a virtual community of Latino education leaders across the country to accelerate and reinforce our impact.

About Our Work

EdCentro, our members-only platform, provides a supportive network for Latinos in the education sector to share best practices, resources, and professional opportunities. EdCentro serves as a mechanism for both local and national reach, and a central vehicle to support both expanding leadership pipelines and mobilizing leaders and organizations.

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Latino Action Agenda Latinos1 represent the fastest-growing share of the United States labor force. Approximately 26% of children in the U.S. are Latino. That number is expected to grow to 32% by 2060.

Agenda About

Representing more than one in four public school students in the U.S., Latino youth hold the key to future prosperity for all Americans, bringing invaluable and largely untapped social, cultural, linguistic, aspirational, and family capital to business and civic life. Latinos, however, tend to be concentrated in occupations where wage growth is slowest. If our nation is going to meet the demands of the 21st century global economy, we must ensure that all Latino children have the opportunity to succeed. We must remove the barriers that perpetuate the opportunity gaps between Latino children and their non-Latino peers throughout all stages of a student’s educational journey.

26% of children in the U.S. are

Latino

This Latino Action Agenda provides a broad overview of L4Es education priorities and proposed policy solutions. The purpose of this federal agenda is to highlight the needs of Latino educators, students, and families. L4E understands that Latinos are not a monolithic community and; therefore, advocacy efforts and policy solutions address the intersectional identities and diverse needs of this growing and promising community.

The terms “Hispanic” and “Latino” are used in the various sources cited in this document. While we recognize that the terms have different meanings, for ease of reference, we use the term “Latino.”

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Early Childhood Education (ECE)

About

Education

High-quality ECE is essential to improving a young child’s cognitive, behavioral, and social emotional development. The research suggests that the positive impacts of attending preschool may be stronger for Latino children. Unfortunately, Latino children have lower rates of participation in ECE programs than White or Black children and face educational disadvantages when starting kindergarten. For instance, low-income Latinos tend to live in communities characterized as “childcare deserts.”

In communities that did offer early childhood education options, these options were threatened by the Covid-19 pandemic. In fact, public school enrollment has dropped nationwide, with steep declines in the early grades: prekindergarten and kindergarten. Prekindergarten drops were most pronounced for students who are economically disadvantaged, Black and Latinos. In fact, enrollment among children considered economically disadvantaged dropped by 32%—more than four times as large as the rate observed for non-economically disadvantaged children. Lack of access to childcare and ECE options contribute to an opportunity and achievement gap well before Latino students enter the K-12 school system.

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About

Diversity

Educator Diversity While Latino students represent more than 27% of public school students in the U.S., only nine percent of teachers and nine percent of principals in public schools are Latino. Research shows that students perform better academically and have a more positive experience in school when they see themselves represented in their teachers and role models. To diversify the educator workforce, and ensure all students encounter teachers and mentors who understand and validate their lived experiences and cultural assets, we must break down the systemic barriers that prevent the recruitment and retention of educators of color. The absence of Latino representation perpetuates the conditions which impede opportunities and academic success of Latino students.

For instance, lack of racial and ethnic diversity in the education ecosystem can lead to the homogeneity that causes Latino students to be missed, underserved, and community voices to go unheard.

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About

Education

Higher Education Between 1976 and 2017, the Latino proportion of all students enrolled in college rose from 4% to 19%. While Latino college enrollment was gradually growing, unfortunately, the pandemic has set us back, with Latino students experiencing the largest swing in declining enrollment. Even prior to the pandemic, Latino students faced major gaps in rates of completion at the bachelor’s degree level with only 54% of Latino students who began seeking a bachelor’s degree in 2010 graduated within six years, compared to 64% of white students.

In addition, Latino students are overrepresented in public 2-year associate’s degree programs, and face low graduation and transfer rates. For instance, only 30% of Latino students who began seeking a certificate or associate degree graduated within three years and approximately 39.5% of Latino students transferred from a 2-year institution to a 4-year institution compared to 50% of white students.

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About Recovery

Covid Recovery The COVID-19 pandemic unveiled, exacerbated, and widen inequities and gaps that have characterized the experience of Latino students for decades. But, the pandemic has created a new set of challenges for low income, Latino students and their families that must be appropriately addressed. To truly achieve educational equity, we need to double down on investments geared at public education and tailor supports to meet the needs of the large and growing, Latino student population.

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For More Information

About Info

For more information regarding L4Es policy and advocacy work, please contact Dr. Feliza Ortiz-Licon, Chief Policy and Advocacy officer at Feliza@latinosforeducation.org

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