AP-Univision Poll: College dreams for Hispanics (Houston: student loans, home, schools)

[Wonderful Jellal]

Moderator cut: copyrighted articleDespite strong belief in the value of a college diploma, Hispanics more often than not fall short of that goal.
The findings have broad implications not only for educators and parents, but for the economy.

AP-Univision Poll: College dreams for Hispanics | AP Texas News | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle (http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/7129636.html - broken link)

[Merovee]

Education for Hispanics, especially Mexican-Americans, has been a traditional battle ground with many small battles along the way to attempt to make all schools equal.

Of course social conditions have a great part to play.

Hispanics though is such a clumsy term that does not adequately address the concerns of the communities it attempts to label under one umbrella.

An approach to better social conditions and to offer improved output in education cannot be the same for all Hispanics.

Communities who have lived through segregation and decades of inequality such as Mexican-Americans are not the same as those who recently arrived such as Mexican nationals immigrants who also require ESL in many instances though some states like Coahuila are already doing that for their citizens.

Communities such as Cubans who arrived mainly as political refugees and quickly became conservatives also differ from Puerto Rican communities who come from a US territory and when they migrate they are faced with different inequalities than all the other groups.

It would do well to get away from race and ethnic based solutions as well and define things by socio-economic conditions. Help the people who are poor and need better education regardless of if they are White or non-white, Hispanic or non-Hispanic.

We basically have three groups in America, lower, middle, and upper class. The elite who actually control most of the wealth are a fourth group whose numbers are so small they cannot really compare to the other three. Education is only an issue for lower classes and those suffering by the decline of the middle class.

Education is the most important issue beyond all other factors for creating a more egalitarian society. It is also the most pressing issue in regards to whether or not America will remain a viable competitor in the emerging global market.

Perhaps the next big reform in Obama's progressive efforts will be to make education up to the highest level available to all. Either way it is a shame the cost of it and how the bank make so much money through student loans and the interest they generate. Graduates should not have to be in debt when they finally graduate.

[loves2read]

as a retired teacher some of my greatest frustration came from trying to reach Hispanic students who saw absolutely no value in getting an education--
for many of them the only reason to be in school was so they did not have to get a full time job to support their families--school was a social phenomena for them

often the parents who were born out of the US were the ones pushing their children to achieve in school and get an education--even go to college--so they could have a better life
but the kids were more affected by their peers and the gang-related counter-culture--even if they were not really IN a gang--

and the types of Hispanics do make a big difference--
most of the people coming to the US from Mexico and south/central America are poor, uneducated people themselves...they had no education in their home country and while they may want a better life for their children they are often too busy trying to earn a living to support education as an alternative...

I also tend to think that the latest generations are more insular than the ones I saw when I was a teen living in TX--those parents wanted their children to speak English and merge with the "American" way of life
now it seems that Hispanics want to use America to enrich themselves but don't want to be transformed into Americans--they want to stay Mexican or Puerto Rican and whatever--
so if they are making that distinction--us vs them--
I don't see lot of hope for using the large instream/growth of Hispanics to become the saviors of American culture--
they don't see themselves as Americans