Despite Sotomayor Nomination, Latino Academic Gap Still Huge

President Obama's nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court is inviting glossy-eyed "only in America" commentary domestically and throughout the world. But as the likely confirmation storm gathers force, biography will surely be pitted against ideology. To her opponents Judge Sotomayor's judicial philosophy -- particularly her flirtation with identity politics -- raises red flags of judicial activism and the impulse to legislate from the bench. To her supporters, the President above all, biography trumps everything else.

The President's choice embodies a powerful life history of triumph over considerable adversity: a child of Puerto Rican working class immigrants, Judge Sotomayor went from the housing projects in the Bronx where she grew up, via Catholic School, and the most exclusive of Ivies (Princeton and Yale Law School) into the pinnacle of American legal power. While many are celebrating her journey - above all Latinos for whom her story captures the dreams and ambitions of America's largest yet still strangely invisible minority, the nomination should also be a cause for concern. Plotting Judge's Sotomayor journey against the realities of most Latinos and Latinas reveals just how much the Obama administration will need to do to bring the promise of the American Dream to the vast majority of the over 46 million Latinos (now 15 percent of the population and projected to reach thirty percent by 2050).

Although some Latinos, especially Latinas, are successfully navigating the American educational system, the majority are struggling academically and leaving schools without acquiring the skills necessary to function in the new unforgiving global economy. Nationwide Latinos represent nearly 25 percent of public school students in kindergarten through 12th grade. They have the highest high school dropout rates and the lowest college attendance rates of all racial/ethnic groups. Many will face lives at or below the poverty level laboring at the lowest echelons of our increasingly competitive economy.

The majority of Latinos face disadvantage and poverty. Child Trends reports [PDF] that at the dawn of the 21th century, Latino children were more likely than other group of children to live in very poor neighborhoods: "Sixty-one percent of poor Hispanic children lived in neighborhoods with a high concentration of poor residents (a neighborhood where at least 40 percent of the residents are poor), compared to 56 percent of white children and 53 percent of black children."

While there was some improvement in Latino poverty rates in the first half of this decade, the recent economic collapse is reversing most of those modest gains. The most recent data [PDF] show that almost 30 percent of all Latino children are growing up in poverty. And according to the National Center for Children in Poverty [PDF], 9.5 million children (or over 60 percent of all Latino children) live in low-income households.

Latinos and Latinas are struggling in schools. If we envision academic trajectories as a pipeline whose flow begins in preschool to prepare students to be carried through successive stages of education, resulting in high school and post-secondary studies, we would expect that a smooth, proportional current of students would arrive at each level, regardless of their demographic background. But this is not the case. At all educational levels, Latino students are lagging behind their white and other peers. National studies reveal an academic gap emerging as early as kindergarten and increasing systematically through graduate education. On average, Latinos achieve below their white and Asian peers upon entering school and this discrepancy widens over time.

By the 12th grade, Latino students average only an 8th grade reading level and are more likely to drop out of high school than all other groups. National Center for Education Statistics reports that 22.1 percent of 16- to 24- year old Latinos were high school dropouts, compared to 5.8 percent for whites and 10.7 percent for African Americans. School dropout rates and high school completion rates are correlated. In 2006, only 63.2 percent of Latinos between the ages of 25 through 29 had completed high school, compared to 93.4 percent of whites and 86.3 percent of. Further, 23.9 percent of Latinos had less than a ninth-grade education compared with only 3.5 percent of whites.

Although the Latino/white achievement gap (as well as the black/white gap) narrowed during the 1970's and 80's, it began to widen again during the 1990s. It persists today. Considering a variety of outcomes, Latinos perform poorly throughout their school years and are under-represented among students who earn college degrees. Based on 2000 U.S. Census data, of 100 Latino students who enter elementary school, 46 graduate from high school; 26 go onto college, of which 9 enroll in four-year college and 17 enroll in a community college; of the 17 only 1 transfers to a four-year college (notably of the 26 who enrolled in college, only 8 completed their four-year degree and 2 earned a graduate or professional degree. Any surprise, then, that according to the Times Judge Sotomayor found herself almost entirely without Latina peers at Princeton?

Multiple indicators across the developmental trajectory suggest that Latinos are at a significant educational disadvantage from the time they enter kindergarten all the way to college. Future projections foreshadow negative trends unless the Administration develops significant new interventions. These interventions will ideally be based on an empirical and conceptual understanding of the factors that impede progress. A constellation of variables aligns to undermine Latino academic progress -- including poverty, segregation, parental education, language, documentation status, school factors (including segregation by language, race and poverty), English language learning, teacher preparation and expectations, individual socio-emotional and student engagement factors, generational factors, and social supports among others.

Judge Sotomayor's biography is all the more inspiring considering the odds she faced. After celebrating her biography and debating her ideology let us turn this moment into a reflection of the work ahead so that the more than 16 million Latina and Latino children have a fair chance to follow her path.

Marcelo M. Suárez-Orozco and Carola Suárez-Orozco, co-founders of the Harvard Immigration Projects, are co-Directors of Immigration Studies at NYU. Their most recent book, Learning a New Land: Immigrant Students in American Society won the Virginia and Warren Stone Prize, awarded annually by Harvard University Press for an Outstanding Book on Education and Society.

Comments

[LMPE]

For that matter, even though Obama got elected president, few blacks would be able to.

[mspost]

I agree with LMPE! However, in both cases we should feel proud. We both have a long ways to go, but this is a step in the right direction.

[springsetter]

Biography includes more than "life story". Biography includes all of the past, and that's where Latino children are being short-changed in the USA. Sotomayor herself does it in the famous "identity" speech: she gives more attention to plates of rice and beans and patitas de cerdo than where Latino culture actually comes from. In fact, she denigrates history by calling it "antiseptic" when it is in history itself that Latino kids - like any American kids - can find a reason to be proud of their language, heritage, culture and family.

To explore history goes against the politically correct attitudes of the '70's and '80's. Ironically, this narrow view of Latino culture is one of the factors that "impede progress" by limiting concepts of self worth.

[rwext]

Wait ,,, so you thought that her nomination would close the gap?.....

[blood1]

Opportunity does not equal a free-pass. As Ms. Sotomayor can be observed as an "outlier" amongst Hispanics, it needs to be pointed out that she was willing and able to use resources that were available. There are lots of resources available, but too few individuals are willing to take the time and effort required to gain access to them. This is not particular to a sub-set of the American population, as this magical Internet gadget becomes used for more than social networking and 3 work rants. Every school in America should have Internet access and educators that are invested in helping each student find the resources to education and training they desire.

Ms. Sotomayor should acknowledge that she did have help in getting into the universities that she did attend, but that it required hard work to complete her academic training and achieve the level of success she has attained. What is being left unsaid is that she took advantage of the opportunities presented to her....and many don't.

That failure to take advantage of opportunites is not a reflection of any one ethnic group of individuals, It may be more a reflection on those who fail to adequately prepare the next generation to seek and take advantage of similar opportunities and students who are unwilling to do the necessary work to gain advantage through those opportunities.

[Bexstarr]

I completely agree with you. Parents need to do research to find out what is available for their children to succeed in school. There is a program in CT that finds gifted minorities and places them in independent schools. There was a little boy in the program whose parents came from a French speaking African country. They father barely knew English and the mother not a word but they came across this program and decided to have their child tested into the program he passed and was admitted. This program basically grooms the children for independent school by having them go to school on Saturdays for 2 school years. The parents lived in NY but brought their son to CT every Saturday. The son is now done with the program and goes to one of the top private schools in CT free of charge. The school saw the dedication the parents had with their eldest son's education and offered a scholarship to their youngest son. I believe parents play a role in finding opportunities for their children and giving them the drive to learn. You don't have to be the smartest or richest person in the world to teach your children the value of an education.

[MosheDayanHero]

Some Latinos despite disadvantages choose the upward path used by many generations of immigrants--education for their children.
But acceptance of education as a vehicle to prosperity seems weak in the Latin immigrant community. Is there a predominantly cultural reason for this?

[Paulo1]

"Despite" ??

I was not aware that her nomination was intended to eliminate poverty or to change academic levels so quickly. Not that I would object mind you but I think the tag lines here are a bit wanting in verbal accuracy.

I will now go back to being happy about the nomination of such a qualified person.

[toxicbrainpoison]

One good thing us sotomayor definitely seems to udnerstand that not every kid can get out of a housing project the way she did. she kept saying she had extraordinary opportunities and she understands that. Now we just have to make sure that all children have those opportunities.

[MosheDayanHero]

Extraordinary opportunities come only to those with serious study habits and discipline.

[gaudete]

You could have had Estrada a couple of years ago, but you don't really want Hispanics, you want liberals who happen to be Hispanic.

[sabestu]

Claudia Melndez, I concur with your comment 100%...thanks for pointing it out.

[Rog49Thomas]

I guess it shows just how efficacious all those tax cuts for the rich are.

When the Magic Free Market Fairy trickles down on you, most times even Lysol or bleach won't get the smell out.

[We-Are-The-Ones]

The same can be said about Obama and Blacks in general, but no one person's success will life a whole community, especially not instantly. It will take the hard work of individual people and families to accomplish this.

For now, celebrate the amazing achievement in America that a minority can achieve and get honored for that achievement rather than being ignored or being discriminated against.

[Claudia melndez]

Sotomayor's parents ARE NOT IMMIGRANTS. Puerto Ricans are U.S. Citizens by birth. How sad to see such renowned scholars attached to this piece of misinformation.

[Rog49Thomas]

We're not a nation of Gail Trimble's that's for sure.

[dilz0882]

I....don't even have a response to those statistics. That's staggering.

[YewNeekId]

The underlying article contains a table that shows that twice as many whites as Hispanics are living in poverty and the number of blacks living in poverty is nearly equal to the number of Hispanics.

It is tragic for anybody to be living in poverty in the USA, but hispanics are not alone in their suffering