Hispanic Leadership Linked to Education - ETS Official Yvette Donado Addresses Latino Leaders

Hispanic purchasing power is $800 billion a year and growing by one billion dollars a week, ETS Senior Vice President Yvette Donado told attendees at the 26th annual United States Hispanic Leadership Conference today. Yet she cautioned that many challenges remain in higher education and an increasingly high-tech workplace.

Donado is Senior Vice President of People, Process and Communication at Princeton, N.J.-based Educational Testing Service, the world’s leading educational measurement and research organization. She delivered the luncheon keynote remarks to more than a thousand participants at the United States Hispanic Leadership Institute (USHLI) 25th anniversary conference in Chicago.

According to Donado, the growing Latino population in the United States will reach 100 million by 2040, representing one in four of all Americans. And it is a young, dynamic part of society. Close to 10 million Latinos will vote in the next presidential election, a 23 percent increase over 2004, and they have already been decisive in presidential primaries.

And their impact on the health of our economy is evident as the number of Latino-owned businesses has doubled in past 15 years, with Latinas leading in new-business creation. In fact, the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, the largest minority business group in U.S., has 235 chambers across the country, Donado said.

“There is a disconnect between the demands of the global economy and the skills we bring to that economy; between our aspirations and our prospects for achieving them,” Donado told attendees. “Despite impressive growth, we lag in higher education participation. In 2004, only 25% of college-age Hispanics were enrolled in college, a lower rate than among Whites, African Americans and Asian Americans. And Latinos still earn too few advanced degrees — just 5% of all master’s degrees and 3% of all Ph.D.s awarded in U.S.”

“In the global economy, technology, information, skills and knowledge are foundational,” Donado continues. “This is especially true in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math. Yet in 2006, Hispanic Americans earned just 786 of the 29,854 science and engineering doctorates, or only 2.6% of all Ph.D.s awarded. It is time for the Latino community to correct this woeful under representation in these high-growth areas.”

“As Latino Americans, we should be leading the way in a global economy, in which multilingualism and multiculturalism are forms of currency. You are the Latino leaders of today and will be the Latino leaders of tomorrow. We are ready to succeed. But we must give ourselves the tools. And, education is the most effective tool for success,” Donado concludes.

About ETS

ETS, a nonprofit organization, celebrates a 60-year history of advancing quality and equity in education by providing fair and valid assessments, research and related services for all people worldwide. In serving individuals, educational institutions and government agencies around the world, ETS customizes solutions to meet the need for teacher professional development products and services, classroom and end-of-course assessments, and research-based teaching and learning tools. ETS today develops, administers and scores more than 50 million assessments in over 180 countries, at more than 9,000 locations worldwide. Additional information is available at www.ets.org.”*

*From: http://www.marketwire.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

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