Making the Common Core Work for Latino Students | EdCentral: It sometimes feels like we’re short on lots of things in the United States right now. Like sleep. And time. And political will. And drinking water. And topsoil. And heck, we’re even running short on children these days. The United States is getting older—we’re not replacing our graying Baby Boomers with new children.
Why does this matter? Well, as sociologist Dowell Myers pointed out at a New America event last fall, older Americans need today’s children to grow up and pay taxes to fund the United States’ retirement programs. As exhausting as they can be, today’s children are a critical economic resource.
And the demographics of the American student body are changing, too, as birth rates shift for various races and ethnicities. Latino students currently make up about one-quarter of American students. By 2036, projections suggest that that number will rise to about one-third of all students. As Myers put it, America’s older, whiter generations need this generation of young Latino students to succeed.
