Today's Promise, Tomorrow's Future: The Social and Educational Factors Contributing to the Outcomes of Hispanics in Urban Schools

The 2010 Census counted some 50.5 million Hispanics in the United States, accounting for about 16.3 percent of the nation’s total population. In the last decade, the Hispanic population has grown 43 percent mostly from births rather than from immigration. At this point, Hispanic children represent 23 percent of all school-aged children in the United States. Numbers are even higher in our urban cores. Hispanic students now account for 37 percent of all students in the Great City Schools. This concentration of students places a substantial responsibility on the nation’s major urban school districts to ensure that these students succeed and their special needs are met, because their skills and knowledge will form the backbone of much of America’s future.

It is this duty, along with all the other challenges that urban education faces, that prompted the Council to prepare this report. The analysis distinguishes between Hispanics and English language learners since while the majority of ELLs are Hispanic, not all Hispanics are ELL. The data in this report clearly show that many Hispanic school-aged children live in circumstances that hinder their ability to do well in school, but the results also indicate enormous potential. The job of the Great City Schools—indeed, its job with all children—is to ensure that this potential is realized and that today’s promise becomes tomorrow’s future. 

Download publication: 97 pages
Publication date: October 2011