Latino Education Attainment Gap Analysis

In this increasingly competitive country compulsory education is still perhaps the most important function of the survival of America’s economically and culturally progressive society. The pressure to conform all schoolchildren into mainstream morals and values, language and knowledge perspectives so they can achieve – the American Dream – has sent public education in the United States on a conundrum of continuous reform to close the career attainment gap among America’s largest and fastest growing minority group – Latinos. Over the years, the increasing presence of Latinos has grown an interest in their economic well-being. Thirteen percent of the labor force is comprised of Latinos, which is higher than the share of blacks. The growth in the Latino population has not been accompanied by
great success as measured by the traditional metrics of earning and employment (Kochhar, 2000, p.). In fact, there has been a decline of Latinos represented in management and professional occupations since 1990, and now Latinos are concentrated in non-professional, service occupations, such as, building and ground cleaning and maintenance and food preparation and serving (Kochhar, 2000, p.). The issue is that these occupations rank low in earnings, education requirements and create little to no shift in the status and mobility of Latinos. Today, Latino students comprise of nearly twenty-five percent of the K-12 population.
(PEW Hispanic Center, 2012) While the Latino population continues to grow, on average the educational attainment of the Latino community continues to lag behind that of the rest of the nation. The differences in achievement gap between Hispanics and non-Hispanics begin as early as kindergarten and continue through high school (Schhneider B, Martinez S, Ownes A., 2006, p.). The recent attention on Latino educational attainment and career identity brings to forefront not only questions about equal opportunity and education attainment gaps, but also the impact that these gaps have on our national economy (Castaneda-Flores, 2013, p.), and the implications of K-12 public schools to provide comprehensive career development for a diverse student population. The failure of educational policies to effectively address the unique challenges of Latino students, as it relates to attainment of career decision-making self-efficacy skills, within the educational system makes it unlikely for Latinos to achieve postsecondary educational success and therefore to improve, overall in socioeconomic status
(SES).