Hispanic Education Gap Is Narrowing

The release of a new study which details the narrowing of
educational achievement gaps amongst Hispanic students coincides with
the recently held Presidential summit on Hispanic Education
Achievement. The study, released a day after President Obama signed an
executive order to improve the education of Hispanic Americans, shows
that the Hispanic education gap is, slowly but surely, beginning to
even out.The White House initiative, first implemented by President
George H.W. Bush in 1990 and continued by each president after, "is
intended to address the so-called achievement gap, the fact that some
ethnic groups lag behind others in graduating from high school and
college." And, with only 13% of Latinos holding a bachelor's degree
compared with 21% of African Americans and 39% of whites, there has
been an obvious reason for concern.However, the most recent study
shows that at least one school is proactively doing its part. Western
Oregon University recently reached a "49% graduation rate for its
Hispanic students," and is just one example of a school that's working
towards closing the educational achievement gap.In the study published
by the Education Trust, a non-profit education group that works to
promote student achievement, the difference between schools that
successfully graduated large groups of Latinos and those that didn't
was found, largely, to be based on school leadership. The study also
found that schools who don't invest solely on minority enrollment but
focus more on minority students' successful completion of degree
programs, are having the highest success rates.Western Oregon
University, the school cited in the study, heeded the president's call
to graduate more students, especially Latino students. Because of
administrative steps taken by the school, Western Oregon University
was able to jump from a 36% Latino graduation rate in 2002 to its
current 49%.There were three major initiatives the university employed
to reach out to its Latino students and to eventually reach these
statistics. The university pinpointed the Hispanic students
"weaknesses and needs" in order to strengthen their advising system.
Then, administrators looked at affordability issues. Because many of
the minority students like the Hispanic American students were
low-income, the administration decided to guarantee that their tuition
would not increase in the four years it would take to earn a degree.
Lastly, they changed their school policies to be less about access and
more about success and graduation.By implementing these three
initiatives, Western Oregon University improved its Hispanic American
graduation rate by 13% in just 6 years. Western Oregon University is
one of many ground schools trying to help improve Hispanic American
graduation rates. Online schools are also popular among minority
students who want to earn a degree and minority students have
traditionally been well represented in online colleges and
universities. Jennifer Engle, one of the authors of the study, noted
that by placing an emphasis more on graduation than retention and
ensuring that all students get increased access to services like
advising, Hispanic students (at online or ground schools) are able to
graduate at a much higher rate.