One of an ERIC Clearinghouse on Urban Education series consisting of facts about specific student groups, the digest is based on Latinos in Education, a report by the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans. The report, fully cited at the end of the digest, contains additional statistics as well as sources for the information. Urban and suburban rates for Latinos are nearly the same. The enrollment of Latino children in preschool increases with increases in parent educational attainment. Fewer Hispanics age 25 or older complete high school than do African Americans and whites, however.
Enrollment also increases along with increases in family income.
While 36 percent of Latino children live in poverty, only 26 percent attend Head Start programs, which are designed to remedy the effects of poverty on educational achievement. Although children three to five years old may start school better prepared to learn if they are read to, only 65 percent of Latino children are read to, compared to 75 percent of African Americans and 90 percent of whites. Seventy percent of preschool teachers assert that they are not fully prepared to meet the needs of students with limited English proficiency or from diverse cultural backgrounds. Such lack of preparation can seriously impede the quality of Latino children's preschool education. The enrollment of Latinos in elementary schools increased 157 percent between 1978 and 1998.