[Lmresearch] New report--Para Nuestros Niños: Expanding and Improving Early Education for Hispanics

[Russell W. Rumberger]

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           Para Nuestros Niños: Expanding and Improving Early Education for Hispanics

            Raising Hispanic achievement is one of the most important educational priorities for the nation. To maintain a strong economy and be competitive internationally, we need all our nation's children to be prepared to participate fully in today's technology-based society. Yet, despite some progress, academic outcomes for Hispanic children remain low. We can-and must-do more to accelerate the rate of their educational progress in the years and decades ahead. Thus, the National Task Force on Early Childhood Education for Hispanics was established in 2004 to study the challenges to academic achievement for Hispanic children and to develop recommendations to expand and improve their educational opportunities during the period from birth through age eight.

            Low academic achievement patterns of Hispanic students are well established by the end of the primary grades. As part of its work, the Task Force commissioned a study to analyze data from a large national sample of children from kindergarten through fifth grade. The study found that, despite extensive efforts since the mid-1980s to raise their academic achievement, Hispanic students continue to achieve at much lower levels than Whites across the K-5 years. Principal findings of the study include the following:

              a.. Hispanic children started kindergarten well behind White youngsters on measures of reading and math skills;
              b.. Although they gained some ground over the K-5 years, Hispanic children were still well behind in reading and math at the end of the fifth grade; and
              c.. Achievement differences between Hispanics and Whites across the K-5 years were closely associated with differences in social class.
            The most promising opportunities for raising Hispanic achievement are in the early childhood years. Research indicates that programs at the infant/toddler, prekindergarten, and early elementary levels can help reduce the academic achievement gap between Hispanic and White children. But much more must be done to ensure that the most disadvantaged Hispanic children have access to these programs, and that the programs are designed and staffed in ways best-suited to meeting their needs.

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