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Abstract
Introduced in the 1990 Decennial Census, the educational attainment is still a powerful
predictor that helps determine that statistic of those who graduated high school, and also one that
predicts the students academic success. By having the answers that individuals report, it provides graphs, charts, demographics, etc., of all the different ethnicities and age group citizens.
That evidence then exemplifies the similarities and differences between income and race and
shows how the low income individuals have the least advantages; not only in academics but their
socio economic standing as well.
Results provided from: (1) The United States Census Bureau has shown that, income, the
environment, and parents play a substantial role in seeing why the educational attainment is so
disproportionate. And in cases like Los Angeles; where an astonishing high amount of Hispanics
reside in that area are low income and are also living in deep poverty, than in the educational attainment it shows the connection that Hispanics are poor and because of this they are not able to
have the best education or resources.
In that sense, finding a solution could be the most beneficial if people go back in time
when the problem once occurred. Various methods for fixing the educational attainment have
been introduced, but unfortunately with a great amount of factors in the way of students education, like income, then the problem is much more difficult to fix, but why?
REFERENCES:
"Poverty." About. U.S. Census Bureau, 16 Sep. 2015. Web. 14 Oct. 2015.
Keywords: educational attainment, poverty, income, racial groups, generation, wealthy, urban,
LAUSD, Los Angeles, socio-economic, standardized scores, achievement gap, race, poverty.

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Alondra Rivera
Jaya Dubey
Writing 39C
27 October 2015

Hispanics and the Educational Attainment in Los Angeles

The educational attainment is a powerful predictor that was first implemented in the 1990
Decennial Census. It helped determine that statistic of those who graduated high school in the
LAUSD, but it also determines the students well being; it helps predict unemployment, establish
the students academic success, and socio-economic well being, lack in academic resources,
measures the individuals future health, and finally helps detect the likelihood of future success.
With Los Angeles having 4.9 million Hispanics the difference between Los Angeles is the issue
of the educational attainment various among different racial groups. With 45% of students in the
Los Angeles Unified School District completing all four years of high school successfully, compared with the national graduation average of 70%, exemplifies that students in urban public
schools are less likely to graduate high school than those students who are enrolled in suburban
locations (LA Times).
From the 1980s until present times, the employed population in California of 18 to 34
year olds has decreased from around 71 percent in the 1980s, to 60% in 2013. The result of this
decline has to do with the employment of our youth, primarily because more hispanics are falling
into the educational attainment gap and do not exceed their education after high school. The ed-

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ucational attainment in Californiaparticularly high

school completion varies
significantly by race and
ethnicity. As figure one
shows, in 2012, 37.3% of
Latinos failed to complete
high school, compared to
African Americans who calculat-

Figure 1: Demonstrates the educational attainment of the main races/ethnicity of individuals in 2012. Clearly
Latinos have the highest amount of people not fulfilling a high school education and the result is that there is
less people having a high school diploma, a college degree, bachelors, or graduate degree.

ed at 9.7%, 9.1% for Asians, and

lastly and the least numbers of those who didnt complete their high school education were
whites with only 4.6%. This gap is troubling given that Latinos represent about 35% of Californias working-age population. (Public Policy Institute of California) The problem with the educational gap is that as whites, Asians, and blacks rise in substantial speeds; the hispanic community
tends to progress only at gradual pace.
The reason there is such slow speeds for the hispanic community is that whiter and
wealthier schools and urban minority schools tend to focus their attention in contrasting ways.
Such as the whites schools hire more highly qualified and experienced teachers. (Clotfelter et
al.)They normalize a school and community climate that encourages homework completion, academic achievement, regular attendance, and college enrollment (Kahlenberg); and finally they
offer students more advanced and challenging curricula (Rumberger, Palardy). For these studies
identifying how white/richer students have an advantage figure 2 illustrates how our education

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system is unjust because in this case rich students are predisposed to know how to of better in
school and have more resources such as teachers providing assistance (making them the monkey) since they can do the task
with more of an advantage. While on the other hand hispanics
schools primarily those in the LAUSD have factors interfering
with the students success which results in them being the other
animals in which they mostly resemble the fish. For example, a
fish specializes in swimmingly superbly, and its ability to climb a
tree is non-existent, but that doesnt meant they fail completely at
Figure 2: Our education is like this image; they
expects so highly of those who do not have the
resources or skills to achieve academically. I went
to a quote investigator website, and the first close
Matthew Kelly contained a chapter titled Everybody is a Genius which began with him stating
Albert Einstein invented the quote but there is no
full evidence to back it up, I just figured it was a
useful illustration to exemplify my argument on
how unjust the school system is.

everything since in this case it is unfair to judge an animal by focusing on a skill which the creature does not have, such as with
students in lower income communities who dont have the required

tools to strive academically. Thus, teachers do play a role when it comes to educational gaps because teachers provide a positive impact on students social and academic outcomes, which is important for the long-term trajectory of school and eventually employment (Baker et al.,; OConnor et al.; Silver et al.) The problems with the LAUSD is that even though teachers are supposed
to be students mentors for academic success when it comes to all the low income schools in that
area, they have the disadvantage where they definitely cannot afford the best teachers, nor have
the best classes. So as a result by teachers not being able to overcome the problem affects the
hispanic community greatly in the sense that these educators who minority children look up to
for guidance cannot successfully fulfill all the educational requirements required.

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Next, teachers and poor classroom settings arent the only problem for the causes of
achievement gap in Los Angeles School Districts. One of the main contributor to the educational
attainment is income. While 48.4% of Hispanics are living in Los Angeles County, 27% of them
are living in poverty. Yet another ten percent of Latinos live in deep poverty (with incomes below 50% of the federal poverty threshold), compared to seven percent of all people in the United
States. (Feeding America) Whereas whites make up for only 10% living in impoverishment. And
yet, the incomes of the rich continues to grow in an accelerating speeds in these last thirty years
than the incomes of the middle class and the poor, which are most likely constant or declining as
the years pass. The reason the rich end up doing better socioeconomically is because money
helps families dispense cognitively stimulating experiences for their young children in the sense
that it establishes a more secure home environment, more time for parents to communicate and
peruse with their children, and more access to higher-quality preschool and child care. (United
Way Silicon Valley) It is evident that the rich do better academically because from such a young
age children get accustomed to school working ethics, being responsible, and learn to advance
academically in their studies and homework. Whereas in low income urban locations like Los
Angeles, usually preschools could only accept a minimal amount of kids and for those who are
on the wait list it is not really beneficiary because the list is so extensive that most children wont
even get the chance to be enrolled. As Kim Pattillo Brownson, of the Advancement Project and a
member of the districts Early Education Ad-Hoc committee stated, Theres already 87,000 kids
who dont have seats just within the geographic boundaries who are preschool eligible, many of
whom are low-income. These numbers are just for the LAUSD, but thats 87 thousand kids

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who already lost a year or two of education that will quickly have him or her fall behind later on
in life.
The educational gap is so wide is partly because Latino students lack the proper academic
resources such as the disproportionate class material. Latino students are than taught easier material than white or Asian rich student since low income schools do not have enough money to buy
newer more up to date textbooks. For example in
low income childrens pre-school about 80 percent
of them do not have any childrens books, either,
largely because they lack the money to buy them
(United We Serve). This is worrisome since having no
books generates problems in literacy and other educational learning problems later on. Figure 3 illustrates
the difference in a high income learning environment
Figure 3: The top picture illustrates a rich classroom where it is
visible that the student ratio is lower which provides a more one on
one learning experience. Whereas, the second picture shows an LA
school that has a larger student ratio.

whereas the second picture shows a common LA classroom which is highly impacted and more students are

being jammed in a classroom that is already full. Another factor is that an innumerable amount of
Hispanic students are the offspring of Mexican immigrants who did not finish high school thus,
them not being able to provide academic resources and tutoring, and finally with 27% of hispanics living in poverty, the main concern is not attending school with getting the best grades. Their
main worry is how they will pay rent, or for those without healthcare worry about how they are
going to take care of their family when someone gets ill. It is apparent that for young adults liv-

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ing in such a family oriented environment to want to work now in order to make ends meet at
that time, instead of having to go to school, attend college, and then finally being able to make
some sort of income thats not one hundred percent guaranteed.
Hispanics with lower educational attainment rates tend to have poor health. Such as with
hispanics not having any nor qualified health care tend to show that children have greater absenteeism (Aysola, Orav, Ayanian, Starfield), and they cant benefit from good schools if they are
not present. An alarming effect of LAUSD is that coming from a low-educational background
represents majors obstacles to achieving a high level of education. The Mental Health Youth and
Education state that these,Risk factors, especially in poor childrens families and communities
escalates the possibility of mental health problems in childhood, adolescence and throughout life.
It also impacts on loss of productivity, task being done ineffectively, and societal consequences.
The problem is by exposing children to low education it eventually could correlate to poor mental health, substance abuse, violence, and lower
educational achievements. See figure 4 for a
brief example. Hence, by closing the educational attainment gap in the hispanic community can contribute to better health psychical
and mental health. Educational environments
indubitably play a crucial role in securing

Figure 4: Students in the LAUSD are protesting for their education system to
change in order for hispanics to have higher educational resources and better
academic success. The students are well aware of all the negative factors they
face such as mental health issues, substance abuse, violence,etc. and want to end
all these risk factors that are highly present int he LA area. Image was provided
by the k-12 News Network The Wire. http://thewire.k12newsnetwork.com/wpcontent/uploads/sites/15/2014/08/slasd.jpg

childrens rights and supplying the indispensable support system to allow the early recognition of
emotional, social, and mental difficulties and effective resolution for these setbacks. Equally better health leads to better education. (MHYE)

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With a projection that Hispanics will account for the 30% of the US population by 2030,
now is the time that minorities need to become our majority when it comes to education. If trends
continue to illustrate hispanics having the highest drop out rates (over 1 million) then how will
our nation start succeeding? Various effects come into play when it comes to the educational
achievement hispanics encounter on a daily basis. Such as children in impoverished neighborhoods are surrounded by more crime and violence and suffer from greater stress that interferes
with learning (Buka, Stichick, Birdthistle, Earls, Burdick-Will et al., Farah et al.) Also children
with less exposure to mainstream society are less familiar with the standard English thats necessary for their future success (Sampson, Sharkey, Raudenbush.) It makes sense since English is
not most hispanics first language and even when it comes to state testing and ACTs that whites
score double the percentages when it comes to English and writing. When it comes to standardized test scores; in California 44% of students achieved targets for their grade in English yet in
LA Unified, the amount was only 25% (LA TIMES). Now with that being stated, here is a fact
that may not astonish you, The children of the rich perform better in school, on average, than
children from middle-class or poor families. Students growing up in richer families have better
grades and higher standardized test scores, on average, than poorer studentshigher graduation
rates and higher rates of college enrollment and completion(The New York Times). Therefore,
when it comes to the rates of higher educational attainment gaps between the lowest race: hispanics; compared to the highest race: whites
then now is the time we as American citizens
have to establish change in the way public
schools are instructed or else the education sys-

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tem will continue to fail and more children will

continue to be affected. Subsequently, an effect
of having low education results in less hispanics
Figure 5: The blue bars represent the whole United States, while the red
bars represent just Californias population. This information was acquired
from the United States Census Bureau.

continuing on to college or getting high paying jobs. The United States Census Bureau as represented in the graphs clearly demonstrates the connection between how many of our nations youth
has less employed and the numbers represent face a substantial decrease, yet coincidently as the
employed numbers go down the amount of people living in poverty ages 18 to 34 goes up as represented in Figure 5. Continuing, as the educational gap gets worse, it doesnt just have to do
with academics but all the factors previously discussed that contributes to the harm of low educational attainment rates among Hispanics.
The Hispanic educational attainment in Los Angeles is an ongoing issue that affects low
income Hispanics. This issue helps predict unemployment, establish the students academic success, and socio-economic well being, lack in academic resources, measures the individuals future health, and finally helps detect the likelihood of future success. One possible solution is to
prepare Hispanics students at a young age to be college ready in order to decrease the educational attainment rates.

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Works Cited
Blume, Howard. "New California Tests Present Sobering Picture of Student Achievement."
Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 9 Sept. 2015. Web. 17 Oct. 2015.
Brown, Anna, and Mark Lopez. "A Book in Every Home, and Then Some." Opinionator A Book
in Every Home and Then Some Comments. Pew Research Center, 16 May 2011.
Web. 24 Oct. 2015.
Brown, Anna, and Mark Lopez. "Mapping the Latino Population, By State, County and City."
Pew Research Centers Hispanic Trends Project RSS. Pew Research Center, 29 Aug.
2013. Web. 25 Oct. 2015.
This article from PewResearch Center examines the geographic distribution and demo
graphic of the U.S. Hispanic population. The data that was provided for this article came
from the 2010 census and the U.S. census Bureau County datasets. The purpose of this
article is to demonstrate that soon the largest minority group; Hispanics, will soon be the
majority group when it comes to population. With evidence such as 17% of the U.S. population being Latino, they managed to account for more than half of the nations population growth in 2010. This is substantial information that was useful to research in my
HCP because if minorities keep providing the lowest academic test scores, and highest
drop out rates,etc., than how will the nation prosper with so many uneducated individuals.
Darling-Hammond, Linda. "Unequal Opportunity: Race and Education." The Brookings
Institution. 1 Mar. 1998. Web. 19 Oct. 2015.

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DuBose, Ben. "Urban vs. Suburban: The High School Graduation Gap." Los Angeles Times. Los
Angeles Times, 2 Apr. 2008. Web. 12 Oct. 2015.
Fernandes, Deepa. "Los Angeles Unified Considers Killing Preschool Program." Southern California Public Radio. 3 Apr. 2015. Web. 22 Oct. 2015.
Gallagher, Emily. "Department of Applied Psychology." The Effects of Teacher-Student Relationships: Social and Academic Outcomes of Low-Income Middle and High School Students. New York University, 2015. Web. 25 Oct. 2015.
Emily Gallagher, an academic researcher in the department of psychology at New York
University argues that teachers play an important role in the trajectory of students
throughout the formal schooling experience. Gallagher asserts that students in highpoverty urban schools benefit from positive teacher-student relationships even more than
students in high-income schools, because of the risks associated with poverty. Risk out
comes associated with poverty include high rates of high school dropout, lower rates of
college applications, etc. The purpose of Gallaghers academic article is that the research
conducted on the relationship between high school students and teachers may be essential
in improving the outcomes of low-income students, and can potentially inform future solutions to help older students perform better both socially and academically.
Haycock, Kati, and Craig Jerald. "Closing the Achievement Gap." Educational Leadership 58.6
(March 2001): 6-11. ProQuest. Web. 17 Oct. 2015
Jan-Llopis, E. & Braddick, F. (Eds). (2008) Mental Health in Youth and Education. Consensus
paper. Luxembourg: European Communities.

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The Mental Health for Youth Association consensus paper is a report that has been pre
pared under a contract with the European Commission, lead by the Department of Health
Government of Catalonia. This report discovers the value of mental health and well-being
in the population as a key resource for health, learning, productivity and social inclusion.
For each of these terms, the paper highlights figures and trends, discusses key aspects,
and identifies examples of evidence-based actions related to mental health in children.
The significance of this source is that even though it is a European report, the same educational values apply to children here in the U.S. and a key factor with this is that even in
Europe childrens learning is harmed with poverty. This was useful to my HCP because it
provided me with sufficient studies done on childrens mental health associated with
poverty with and without it, and illustrated how the results determined a childs future
academic and social success.
"Latino Hunger Fact Sheet." Feeding America. Feeding America, 2015. Web. 19 Oct. 2015.
The article from Feeding America, a non-profit organization whose goal is to fight to end
hunger, provides a statistical analysis on the percentage of Hispanic/Latino population in
the U.S. living in poverty. With evidence such as, more than one in five, (22%)of Latino
households being food insecure demonstrates that the reason behind this shortage is partially because of their low income. Without the right nutrient being digested, it affects the
persons mental and physical health. For examples Hispanics are at greater risk of obesity
and diabetes. The reason I used this article is because something so neutral as the food we
eat is a contributing factor in the educational attainment.

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Manuel, Jens. "Hispanics Only Group to See Its Poverty Rate Decline and Incomes Rise." Pew
Research Center RSS. 19 Sept. 2014. Web. 11 Oct. 2015.
Mendoza, Martha. "Latino Academic Achievement Gap Persists." The Huffington Post. TheHuff
ingtonPost.com, 25 Jan. 2014. Web. 17 Oct. 2015.
This article from the Huffington Post discusses that even though California accounts to
52 percent Hispanic children and 26 percent white, Hispanic students in general are get
ting worse educations than their white peers. With evidence from National Test Scores,
33 percent of Hispanic students scored proficient in reading in third grade, compared with
64 percent of white students. This article understands these percentages and goes beyond
the statistics by going to one of the lowest performing school districts and talking to a
student who manages to excel in his academics despite the educational deficits being
faced. Alvaro Zamora, the student who was interviewed, discusses the low standards his
school provides and how nothing is done because the majority of his classmate were al
most entirely Mexican immigrants or children of immigrants. By reading this article, I
read statements from teachers, students, Governors, etc., and their viewpoint on the subject that ended up being useful in researching similar related topics that were added in my
HCP.
"Poverty." About. U.S. Census Bureau, 16 Sept. 2015. Web. 14 Oct. 2015.
"Quote Investigator." Quote Investigator. WordPress. Web. 23 Oct. 2015.
Reardorn, Sean. "No Rich Child Left Behind." Opinionator No Rich Child Left Behind Comments. 27 Apr. 2013. Web. 11 Oct. 2015.

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"Report to the Community." United Way Silicon Valley. Sobrato Center for Nonprofits - San Jose,
2013. Web. 28 Oct. 2015.
Wilson, Erika. Leveling Localism and Racial Inequality in Education Through The No Child Left
behind Act Public Choice Provision. 44.3 (2011): 625-65. Web. 20 Oct. 2015.
Erika K. Wilson, a Law Professor from the University of Baltimore Law School discusses
how school district boundary lines play a pivotal role in shaping students educational
opportunities. She states that the role school district boundary lines play in dictating educational opportunities are ineffective in improving disparities between school districts
because living on one side of a school district boundary rather than another can mean the
difference between being able to attend a high-achieving resource-enriched school or
having to attend a low achieving resource deprived school. This journal argues that Congress should amend the public choice provision during NCLBs next re-authorization by
adopting a statutory framework similar to the framework found in portions of the Fair
Housing Act, which embraces regionalism and citizen mobility as a means of facilitating
integration and equality.