Hispanics Education

Mexican-born mother Marta Lopez feared that if she left her three U.S.-born children in public schools, they would end up like her--in a Boyle Heights housing project surrounded by gangs and drug dealers. A gang clique was laying after-school ambushes for Yolanda, 13. Lopez's sixth-grader, Sylvia, still spoke no English. Older boys were beating up Roberto, 6, her Spanish-speaking first-grader. In January, she persuaded the city's poorest Catholic school, Dolores Mission, to take all three.

In a drive to boost Latinos' performance in the classroom and reverse an extraordinarily high dropout rate, the Clinton administration will unveil a set of proposals today to strengthen schools that have large numbers of Latino students. The White House's Hispanic Education Action Plan will be sent to Capitol Hill as part of a $1.73-trillion budget, scheduled for release today, that would produce a fiscal surplus for the first time since 1969.

Latino leaders Friday brought to the nation's capital their concerns about decreased minority university admissions in California, warning that the poverty and dropout problems among Latino youths will only worsen unless the trend is reversed. Officials of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and other organizations who sponsored a Capitol Hill press briefing said they were determined to overcome anti-affirmative action policies in California.

From the early 1970s to the early 1990s, Latino students in secondary schools nationwide posted significant gains in mathematics proficiency even as Latino family income fell, an Orange County researcher has found.

In a new look at the harmful effects of student transiency, a team of University of California researchers has concluded that teenagers who change schools--particularly if they are Latino--are far more likely to drop out than those who remain at one school during their high school years. The study, covering two groups of students in California over six years, found that more than half of all who dropped out had changed schools.

In a new look at the harmful effects of student transiency, a team of University of California researchers has concluded that teenagers who change schools--particularly if they are Latino--are far more likely to drop out than those who remain at one school during their high school years. The study, covering two groups of students in California over six years, found that more than half of all who dropped out had changed schools.

In a town where lawsuits seem to fly like leaves in a Santa Ana windstorm, it might appear to some that there are way too many lawyers out there already. Not to the crowd talking writs and court briefs over rice and chicken breasts Friday in downtown Los Angeles, however. Members of the Latino Lawyers Assn. were treating Hispanic law students to lunch at the Regal Biltmore Hotel. And they were urging them to work hard at enticing other Latinos into careers in law.

Future demand for high-tech skills should compel Latinos to push for greater educational achievement, Hillary Rodham Clinton told the nation's largest Latino civil rights group Monday. "The 21st century will be ruthless," the first lady said to the National Council of La Raza at its annual conference.

Even as it promised to appeal a federal judge's refusal to block implementation of Proposition 227, a leading Latino rights organization announced plans for a statewide campaign to encourage thousands of parents to seek special permits to continue bilingual education. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund is seizing on a provision of the anti-bilingual initiative that allows parents to seek waivers for their children from English immersion classes.

With the halting steps of a newcomer, Saeng Im Keu started off timidly across the Cal State Long Beach campus. Then she froze. Looking around with panic in her eyes, she finally spotted something reassuringly familiar: the squiggly script of her native Cambodian language guiding her to "parent orientation." Keu spent the next five hours Saturday in the comforting refuge of a class conducted in the Khmer language, alongside two dozen other Cambodian parents of incoming freshmen.