VivirLatino

Interesting findings from a study by the Pew Hispanic Center, released today:

The report finds more than half of Latinos (56-percent) attend the nation’s largest public high schools — those schools whose enrollment size ranks them in the 90th percentile or higher. That’s compared with 32-percent of blacks and 26-percent of whites.

The report also finds about 37-percent of Latinos attend the 10-percent of schools with the highest student-teacher ratios. Just 14-percent of black students and 13-percent of whites attend those schools, which have a student-teacher ratio greater than 22-to-1 compared with the national average of 16-to-1.

Pretty compelling numbers. I think this is even more interesting in light of some recent chatter about “underachieving” Latino students on blogs and in other media.

The article goes on:

“The characteristics of high schools matter for student performance. Hispanic teens are more likely than any other racial or ethnic group to attend public high schools that have the dual characteristics of extreme size and poverty.”

“Extreme size and poverty” — if those aren’t two huge distractions from learning (“my teacher has no time for me, nor do my parents because they are working their asses off to make ends meet”) then I don’t know what is.

Via / All Headline News

Pew Hispanic Center