Listening to the Voices of Latino Parent Volunteers From: redorbit.com

Within low socioeconomic Latino communities, effective parental involvement practices are key to transforming school performance. Educators have struggled for years to find effective ways to improve student achievement, particularly in low-performing schools. These schools are increasingly comprised of students of color and lower socioeconomic status. Today, nationwide, children of color (including Latino children) represent nearly 40 percent of the total school enrollment, with this number anticipated to increase (National Center for Education Statistics 2005).

Marotta and Garcia (2003) pointed out that “Latinos constitute the fastest growing ethnic minority group in the United States, with varying estimates by demographers as to the year in which Latinos will become the largest minority group in terms of number of individuals in the U.S. census.” Unfortunately, many children of color are significantly below their peers on all measures of academic achievement, including standardized test scores, grades, graduation rates, and percentages entering college (National Center for Education Statistics 2005). Worst of all, this gap continues to increase (Haycock 1998).”*

Leave a Reply