2023 Latino Action Agenda

2023 (118TH CONGRESS)

LATINO ACTION AGENDA

INTRODUCTION

NATIONAL PRINCIPLES EDUCATOR DIVERSITY

EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

K-12 EDUCATION

HIGHER EDUCATION

CONCLUSION

APPENDIX

INTRODUCTION

Latinos represent one of the fastest growing demographics in the nation. Between 2009 and 2020, the percentage of public school students who were Latino increased from 22% to 28%. Contrary to a common misperception, immigration is not the primary driver of Latino population growth. In fact, 95 percent of Latinos under the age of 18 are U.S. born. Based on 2020 Census data, Latinos were the largest or second largest racial/ethnic group in 24 states. It is estimated that by 2060, 32% of children in the U.S. will be Latino. Yet, Latino students face unique barriers in terms of access to high-quality early childhood education, college access and college completion, and a lack of racial, ethnic, and linguistic representation within the educator workforce. Unfortunately, the public health and economic crises resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic have exacerbated these challenges. 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. It is imperative that barriers that perpetuate the opportunity gaps between Latino children and their non-Latino peers are addressed and removed in practice and policy.

Latinos for Education (L4E) is a national, nonprofit organization 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. Since its inception in 2016, L4E has focused on a critical piece of the education puzzle – achieving educational equity for all students through diversifying the education sector with more Latino teachers, faculty, and leaders. Strengthening the Latino leadership pipeline is a critical component of a greater vision that includes increasing the number of Latino advocates and driving policy to improve the educational outcomes of Latino students.

Throughout the educational system, L4E advocates strongly for a diverse teacher, faculty, staff, and administrator pipeline that more accurately reflects a rich and diverse student body.  This teacher, faculty, staff, and administrator diversity includes being culturally and linguistically sensitive and responsive to the student populations that these campuses serve.  L4E has expanded its work to more fully achieve educational equity beginning with access to high-quality early childhood education, a K-12 experience that prepares students for college and career and that culminates with postsecondary completion.

This Latino Action Agenda aims to correct the inequities faced by Latino students, families, and educators by identifying viable policy solutions to barriers encountered in the educator workforce, early childhood, K-12, and higher education systems.

28% OF PUBLIC SCHOOL STUDENTS IN 2022 ARE LATINO

NATIONAL PRINCIPLES

In partnership with Latino practitioners, families, and leaders, we identified the following four priorities to drive L4E’s policy and advocacy efforts. These include:

1. Educator and Administrator Diversity

Ensuring that each level of education, from the classroom to the boardroom, has teachers, faculty, staff, and administrators who are culturally and linguistically diverse.

2. Early Childhood Education (ECE)

Ensuring that all students have access to free, high-quality early childhood education that is culturally and linguistically appropriate. This includes providing the ECE workforce a livable wage and growth opportunities to advance in the sector.

3. K-12 Education

Ensuring that every student has access to a high-quality education that prepares them for college and career.

4. Higher Education

Ensuring that every student can access an affordable higher education which leads to timely completion and a career that provides for economic mobility.

Our work in these four policy priority areas are driven by our commitment to educator diversity at all levels of education - knowing that students do better when they see themselves reflected in their teachers, faculty, and staff, as well as the curriculum and instructional pedagogy.

It is further driven by a strong commitment to student access and success at all levels of education and for all students including Latinos as a primary population, and Multilingual Learners (federally known as English learners), as an intersectional group within the Latino population. We know that Latinos make up an increasing student population within ECE, K-12, and higher education, yet frequently are not provided with the wrap-around services and coursework needed to ensure academic success and future social and economic mobility.

Finally, we are committed to ensuring that the institutions that serve Latinos have the capacity and resources to appropriately do so, are responsive to the needs of our community, and are accountable for how monies and other resources are allocated to help our students succeed.

The only way America can be prosperous in the future is if we ensure that our institutions properly invest and serve our American students; more than one in four of them being Latino students.

We encourage readers to also visit our website to learn more about the programmatic activities L4E undertakes with our Latino families, educators, and community leaders to reach these goals.

EDUCATOR DIVERSITY

Congress and the Biden-Harris Administration should take action to support teacher residencies and Grow-Your-Own (GYO) programs to improve outcomes and prepare more people of color to become teachers. 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. Unfortunately, only nine percent of teachers and nine percent of principals in public schools are Latino, while Latino students represent 28 percent of K-12 public school students. The same is true of the need for Latino administrators, faculty, and staff in higher education. For example, while additional research is still taking place, we know that only four percent of college presidents identify as Latino.

L4E makes the following recommendations to Congress and the Administration to fix the broken pipeline for Latino educators and enhance efforts to diversify the workforce.

Recommended Congressional Action

Congress should take swift action to:

• Dedicate funding to establish a National Teaching Commission to identify the most pressing issues facing the PreK–12 teaching profession and provide meaningful recommendations to address them.

• Dedicate funding for robust Early College pathway programs for future educators, with incentives for financial support through college and teacher preparation programs to diversify the teaching workforce.

• Provide dedicated resources to support public school educators that could result in higher salaries, access to loan forgiveness programs, and signing bonuses, including:

- Doubling the TEACH Grant award to incentivize more students of color to pursue teaching careers and provide for the collection of data to determine the effectiveness of this program, including demographic data of grant recipients.

• Provide competitive grants for programs that recruit individuals who live in and come from the communities the schools serve and reflect the racial, ethnic, and linguistic diversity of the system’s student population.

• Provide competitive grants for local educational agencies (LEAs) to recruit and retain diverse teachers in hard to staff areas including Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), bilingual education, and special education.

• Require school districts, institutions of higher education, and teacher preparation programs to provide data by race/ethnicity and other demographic information. The data will help these institutions better monitor representation gaps and create strategies to address the diversification of the educator workforce as well as recruitment and retention efforts. The data is also helpful in determining the success of interventions in addressing diversity issues.

EDUCATOR DIVERSITY

- Require school districts receiving funds under Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, as amended by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), to provide data to the U.S. Department of Education on the demographics of administrators, teachers, paraprofessionals, and other specialized instructional support personnel.

- Require every institution of higher education that receives funding under Title IV of the Higher Education Act (HEA) to provide demographic data to the U.S. Department of Education, for administrators, faculty (broken down by tenure track and adjunct faculty), and other staff.

- Require every College of Teacher Education at an institution of higher education that receives funding under Title IV of the HEA to provide demographic data to the U.S. Department of Education on the diversity of their teacher preparation cohorts.

• Provide a pathway to citizenship for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients, and those with other immigration statuses, who enter the teaching profession.

• Significantly increase funding for the Augustus Hawkins Centers of Excellence Program, authorized under Title II, Part B of the HEA.

- Reporting requirements around the success of the program; including number of students served broken down by demographics, completion rates by demographics, and information surrounding the demographics of faculty teaching the program, should be required and publicly displayed in a searchable database for information awareness, monitoring impact, and program replicability.

• Increase funding for Title V, Part B under the HEA, to support programs at HSIs to create a larger pipeline of Latino students entering advanced degree programs and the professoriate.

STUDENTS PERFORM BETTER ACADEMICALLY WHEN THEY SEE THEMSELVES REPRESENTED IN THEIR TEACHERS

Congress should provide incentives to:

• States to develop high-quality, alternative pathways to educator licensure. States receiving incentive funds should be required to evaluate the effectiveness of these pathways in increasing the number of teachers of color who are prepared to enter the classroom.

• Establish and/or increase the number of GYO programs in higher education systems to create a stronger pipeline for Latino professors to become administrators and leaders.

Recommended Administration Action

The Department of Education (ED) should take swift action to:

• Provide guidance and technical assistance, and highlight high-quality GYO programs that recruit high school students via early college models and career pathways, as well as paraprofessionals and school staff, to be trained and certified as teachers.

• Issue guidance for districts to evaluate their effectiveness in recruiting and retaining Latino teachers.

• Provide guidance to incentivize innovative placement and retention policies to address the challenges identified by educators and faculty of color, including districts and campuses taking responsibility for cultivating a culturally affirming and responsive learning environment.

• Issue guidance and provide technical assistance to help local educational agencies use evidence-based approaches to provide ongoing professional development for principals and establish leadership pipelines for racially and ethnically diverse aspiring principals.

• Provide guidance to states to consider alternative certification or teacher reciprocity agreements for immigrants and international educators who cannot go through the traditional teaching credential route.

• Partner with Spanish media to run a multilingual national campaign to promote the teaching profession and recruit teachers from underrepresented groups, including Latino and bilingual educators.

The Department of Education should incentivize, with competitive priorities in applicable grant programs:

• Evidence-based, teacher induction programs that include formal and structured mentoring for incoming teachers.

• The expansion of teacher residency programs to include priority funding for programs that offer economic incentives to help teachers stay in high needs communities (e.g., housing stipends).

• Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) participating in the Augustus F. Hawkins Center for Excellence program in order to increase the percentage of Latino teachers who complete a teacher certification program.

EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

Congress and the Administration should take the opportunity to ensure that all children, regardless of race or socioeconomic status, have access to a high-quality early childhood education (ECE). The research is clear: high-quality ECE leads to better academic and social outcomes. Importantly, the research suggests that the positive impacts of attending preschool may be even 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. In addition, the Latino community faces numerous barriers to accessing quality ECE programs due to lack of information, underinvestment, and limited schooling options for young learners in predominantly Latino neighborhoods.

Recommended Congressional Action

Congress should take swift action to:

• Significantly increase funding for the Child Care Development Block Grants (CCDBG), Preschool Development Grants (PDG), Head Start, and IDEA Part C and 619(b) to help ensure universal access to high-quality ECE. Provide additional funding to high needs communities determined by an index that includes metrics such as density of age-eligible students, poverty levels, and other similar metrics. The number and percentage of dual language learners (DLLs) should be included as a factor in making the high need determinations.

• Provide dedicated funding for any existing or new federally-funded ECE programs to ensure that all providers/staff receive a livable wage and ongoing professional development to help supporting staff pursue appropriate credentials and degrees.

Congress should provide incentives:

• For states to increase access and outreach for high-quality ECE for families in underserved communities, including families with young DLLs, in a linguistically and culturally appropriate manner.

• For ECE providers and staff who need support with attaining language proficiency so that they can further their education and receive all appropriate certifications through financial incentives and access to language courses.

Recommended Administration Action

The Department of Education should take swift action to:

• Conduct a multilingual national awareness campaign about the importance of high-quality ECE to future academic success and other long-term cognitive, language, and social benefits.

• Establish partnerships with community-based organizations to assist with outreach and provide meaningful language access in all outreach and enrollment efforts, as required by Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

• Provide guidance to ensure funds for educator development, like GYO Programs and teacher residencies, are leveraged to support a pipeline of diverse ECE teachers.

• Provide guidance, in collaboration with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), that any federal monies allocated for ECE programs should include best practices for addressing implicit bias among staff and effective models for educating diverse students.

• Provide guidance on evidence-based practices to educate young DLLs so they can develop proficiency in multiple languages.

• Provide guidance, in collaboration with HHS, to make clear that all children who are three and four years old can enroll in any federally-funded ECE program, regardless of immigration status.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) should take swift action to:

• Provide guidance to states on best practices of innovative dual-language preschool programs as well as programs that operate successfully outside of traditional business hours.

HIGH-QUALITY EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION LEADS TO BETTER ACADEMIC AND SOCIAL OUTCOMES

K-12 EDUCATION

According to data from NCES, “between fall 2009 and fall 2020, the percentage of public school students who were Hispanic increased from 22 to 28 percent.” This data illustrates the significant demographic shift in who public schools are supposed to educate and serve. Unfortunately, the numeric growth of the Latino student population has not translated to significantly improving the opportunity and achievement gap between students.

According to The Education Trust, “Black and Latino students across the country have unequal access to advanced coursework, which means they often miss out on vital learning opportunities that can set them up for success in college and careers.” Further, these students are less likely to participate in dual enrollment programs. These factors contribute to under representation in college enrollment and success for Latino students.

The recommendations below seek to support Latino students through K-12 and ensure they graduate from high school prepared to succeed in college and career.

Recommended Congressional Action

Congress should take swift action to:

• Create a grant program to support partnerships between Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) and school districts with high enrollment of Latino students to create pathways into postsecondary education for these students.

• Address equity gaps in enrollment and performance in advanced courses, early college, dual enrollment, and STEM courses by ensuring that funding for these programs is contingent upon equitable access to Latino and other historically marginalized students. Data should be reported to the Department of Education regarding the demographic participation of students in these programs compared to the overall student population.

• Provide additional funding for advanced courses, early college programs, dual enrollment, and STEM courses to provide services to Latino students, and other historically underserved populations, to address issues of unequal access to these programs.

• Provide additional funding for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration Broadband Initiative so that every American has access to quality, affordable high speed internet (as well as the technology needed to access the internet and do their homework).

While the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965, as amended, is not imminent, we provide the following recommendations for when reauthorization discussions begin:

• Redefine the term English learner as defined under ESSA. The current term focuses on a student’s lack of English proficiency rather than a student’s language and cultural assets. This definition does not reflect an asset-based approach toward this student population. Instead, we urge legislation to replace the term English learner with Multilingual Learner to reflect a positive approach that more accurately captures bilingualism/multilingualism while shifting the focus away from the language limits or deficiencies embodied by the current statutory term.

• Create student subgroups within the Multilingual Learner student group. Adding typologies to federal law can then serve to require data collection and reporting of Long-Term English Learners (or Long-Term Multilingual Learner if the EL term is changed in statute), Reclassified, and Multilingual Learner. Gathering data based on these three categories will help provide a more accurate understanding of student needs to provide the appropriate language and academic support to boost performance.

Recommended Administration Action

The Department of Education should:

• Provide technical assistance to LEAs to ensure students and families of different backgrounds, cultures, and life experiences can understand and relate to assessment items and results. Innovative assessments should be paired with test results that are made readily available in easy-to-understand formats, and multiple languages, within a reasonable time so that the various stakeholders have access to this information and results can inform instruction and resource allocation.

• Provide guidance to help early college programs scale and replicate at the high school level. ESSA includes a number of provisions that allow school districts to use federal funds to support early college programs. We urge ED to issue guidance that provides a greater focus on early college programs that are designed to close the equity gap in the academic preparation of underserved student populations, including Latino students and Multilingual Learners.

• Establish parental engagement councils to provide the voice of minoritized populations at the federal level.  Such councils must ensure monolingual, non-English speaking parents have the resources and training to advocate on behalf of their own students. These councils will serve to provide recommendations to the Department of Education on a variety of issues impacting communities disparately so that the ED can provide guidance to LEAs to remedy the disparate impact.

HIGHER EDUCATION

According to the Pew Research Center, “Hispanic enrollment at postsecondary institutions in the United States has seen an exponential increase over the last few decades, rising from 1.5 million in 2000 to a new high of 3.8 million in 2019 – partly reflecting the group’s rapid growth as a share of the overall U.S. population.

Prior to the pandemic, Latino enrollment in college was steadily increasing. However, the COVID-19 pandemic brought a decline in postsecondary enrollment among Hispanics and most other racial and ethnic groups. In fall 2020, there were 640,000 fewer students – including nearly 100,000 fewer Hispanics – enrolled at U.S. colleges and universities than in the previous year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).” The decline was driven by sharp enrollment drops at community colleges (230,000 or 15%) where most Latino students start their higher education careers.

However, even prior to the pandemic, additional research shows:

• Latino students experience major gaps in rates of completion at the bachelor’s degree level.

• Financial considerations are a key reason why Hispanics do not complete a four-year degree, according to an October 2021 Pew Research Center survey.

• Latino students are overrepresented in public 2-year associate’s degree programs and have low graduation and transfer rates (less than 26 percent of Latino students transfer within 6 years).

• Latino students are significantly more likely to be placed in non-credit bearing remedial courses in both 2-year and 4-year institutions as compared to white students, leading to lower completion rates. It is estimated that 31% of Latino student borrowers leave college with debt and no degree.

The 118th Congress and the Biden Administration must take action to address these gaps and strengthen the academic success of Latino students, dramatically improve college affordability, invest in the postsecondary success of Latino students, and hold Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) accountable for increasing completion rates.

Recommended Congressional Action Congress should take swift action to:

• Incentivize the enrollment and re-enrollment of Latino students by making college an accessible and affordable option to pursue.

• Double the Pell Grant to allow low-income students a greater opportunity to enroll in the college of their choice.

• Provide additional forms of aid, including emergency financial aid, which enables students to reach college completion.

• Provide two years of tuition-free access to community college programs and significant tuition and fee grant aid for two years for four-year HSIs, HBCUs, TCUs, or other MSIs.

• Increase funding for GEAR UP and TRIO to increase the number of low-income, firstgeneration, minoritized students who are prepared to enter and succeed in postsecondary education.

• Provide significant financial resources, above existing resources, to HSIs, HBCUs, TCUs, and other MSIs to build capacity and support low-income students.

• Reform remediation to improve college success by providing grants to institutions to implement evidence-based remedial education reform strategies that better serve students and reduce dropout rates, including placing students directly in college-level courses with appropriate support.

• Provide additional funding for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration Broadband Initiative so that every American has access to quality, affordable high speed internet (as well as the technology needed to access the internet and do their homework).

• Support DACA and undocumented students:

- Congress must pass legislation that expands eligibility for Title IV financial aid programs, including Pell Grants, to individuals with a grant of deferred departure under the DACA policy, as well as those with temporary protected status (TPS) or deferred enforced departure (DED).

- Congress must pass the Dream Act, which has been introduced since 2001 to allow specified undocumented students protections and should include access to federal financial aid.

• Codify Postsecondary Student Success Grants into the HEA: Congress must provide grants to improve postsecondary student outcomes, including enrollment, retention, completion, and transfer rates, and labor market outcomes, with a priority for IHEs that serve low-income, first generation, and other underserved student populations.

Recommended Administration Action

The Department of Education should:

• Provide guidance and take administrative action to hold HSIs accountable for improving Latino student outcomes such as retention, completion, and transfer rates given the importance of the student success of Latino students to economic growth.

• Establish a searchable database of Title V, Part A and Part B grants, with outcomes measures so that other HSIs can ascertain which intervention and programs funded by ED were successful and replicate them.

• Establish priorities in grant competitions to incentivize states to set college completion goals according to students’ race and ethnicity.

CONCLUSION

Latinos for Education looks forward to continuing to advocate on behalf of Latino students, teachers, and faculty before Congress and the Administration for the resources and policies that lead to increased access and success. We stand ready to work with you to advance and implement these recommendations so we can collectively ensure that the Latino community has equitable access to quality educational opportunities.

For more information, please contact Erica Romero, Vice President of Education Policy and Advocacy, at Erica@latinosforeducation.org.

APPENDIX

National Data

Fall 2020 NCES Data (Public Schools)

Number of Latino Pre-K Students 370,763

Number of All Pre-K Students 1,233,821

Percentage of Pre-K Students who are Latino 30%

Fall 2020 NCES Data (Public Schools)

Number of Latino K-12 Students 13,461,000

Number of All K-12 Students 48,141,000

Percentage of K-12 Students who are Latino 27.96%

Fall 2019 NCES English Learners in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools

Number of EL Students:  5,025,995

Percentage of EL Students as a percent of total enrollment 10.4%

2020-21 NCES Data (Public Community College)

Number of Latino Community College Students  1,212,239

Number of All Community College Students 4,752,808

Percentage of Community College Students who are Latino 25.5%

2020-21 NCES Data (Private, Nonprofit 2-year)

Number of Latino Private, Nonprofit 2-year Students  4,148

Number of All Private, Nonprofit 2-year e Students 38,195

Percentage of Private, Nonprofit 2-year Students who are Latino 10.86%

2020-21 NCES Data (Private, For-Profit 2-year)

Number of Latino Private, For-Profit 2-year Students  55,192

Number of All Private, For-Profit 2-year Students  216,932

Percentage of Private, For-Profit Students who are Latino 25.44%

2020-21 NCES Data (4-year Public)

Number of Latino 4-Year Public College Students 1,540,136

Number of All 4-Year Public College Students 7,618,489

Percentage of 4-Year Public College Students who are Latino 20.2%

2020-21 NCES Data (4-year Private, Nonprofit)

Number of Latino 4-Year Private, Nonprofit College Students 333,718

Number of All 4-Year Private, Nonprofit College Students 2,710,759

Percentage of 4-Year Private Nonprofit College Students who are Latino 12.31%

2020-21 NCES Data (4-year Private, For-Profit)

Number of Latino 4-Year Private, For-Profit College Students 95,802

Number of All 4-Year Private, For-Profit College Students 608,937

Percentage of 4-Year Private For-Profit College Students who are Latino 15.73%

Number of K-12 Teachers (2017-2018):

3.5 million full- and part-time public school teachers: 1.8 million elementary school teachers

1.8 million secondary school teachers

Percentage of K-12 Teachers who are Latino: 9%

Percentage of K-12 Principals who are Latino: 8%

Demographic Data on Diversity of Higher Education Faculty/Instructors (from NCES)

A total of six percent of faculty and staff were Latino/a, with a greater number of those being Instructors or Lecturers, versus faculty.

Academic rank

For each academic rank, percentage distribution of full-time faculty in degree-granting postsecondary institutions, by race/ethnicity and sex: Fall 2020 # Rounds to zero.

NOTE: Data represent the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Only instructional faculty were classified by academic rank. Sex breakouts are excluded for faculty who were American Indian/Alaska Native and of Two or more races because the percentages were 1 percent or less. Degree-granting institutions grant associate’s or higher degrees and participate in Title IV federal financial aid programs. Race categories exclude persons of Hispanic ethnicity. Percentages are based on full-time faculty whose race/ethnicity was known. Detail may not sum to 100 percent due to rounding. Although rounded numbers are displayed, the figures are based on unrounded data.

Demographic Data on Latino College Presidents (ACE, 2016): 4% identify as Latino/a