With the increase in the nation’s Hispanic population, policymakers must address the “opportunity gap” as an education challenge, says Dr. Pedro A. Noguera, a professor at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development at New York University.
“The opportunity gap [is] the gap in the opportunity to attend well-funded schools that can offer a good education,” he said in a recent radio interview on National Public Radio. “Latino students in this country are more segregated now than any other group and are more likely to go to schools that have very few resources, and not surprisingly have some of the highest dropout rates in the country.”
Recent data from the U.S. Census reported that the Hispanic population increased by 3.3 percent from July 1, 2006, to July, 1, 2007, and it also reported that nearly a quarter of the children younger than five in the U.S. are Latino. Statistics based on national standardized tests have shown that Latino students, like African Americans, lag behind their peers in reading and math scores, a problem educators have dubbed “the achievement gap.” Latino students also have higher dropout rates and are less likely to attend college, according to recent statistics gathered from the U.S. Department of Education."
