Prepárate™ Conference Addresses Educational Issues Affecting Latino Students
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 Patricia Gandara of the University of the California, Los Angeles, and Frances Contreras of the University of Washington
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In its third year, the College Board’s Prepárate™ conference brought together more than 400 educators representing 26 states to address educational issues affecting Latino students. Latino students represent 20 percent of all U.S. K-12 students, and in some states, such as California and Texas, make up 50 percent of the student population.
Patricia Gándara and Frances Contreras opened the conference with pragmatic findings from their latest book “The Latino Education Crisis: The Consequences of Failed Social Policies. ”Gándara emphasized the urgency of setting policy around these issues since by “2025 one in every four students in the nation will be Latino.” Approximately 58 percent of Latino students in the class of 2005 graduated with regular high school diplomas, Gándara and Contreras said. Fifteen percent of Latinos students in the K-12 system have parents with a B.A. (compared to 44 percent of white students). They stressed that college-going rates have increased for Latino students, mostly in the community colleges, but that college completion rates have not kept pace with population growth. One challenge the speakers cited was that about half of Latino students begin school as Spanish speakers. Contreras also shared best practices for increasing achievement for Latino students on the SAT® mathematics section and increasing their overall grade point averages. She pointed out that Latino students who are high achievers are often involved in extracurricular activities.
Gándara and Contreras ended the plenary session by calling for new policy considerations. Examples
included early education and quality preschool; the cultivation of more bilingual and bicultural teachers; more socioeconomic and ethnically diverse schools; utilizing a student’s first language as an asset rather than a deficit; and passing the DREAM Act.
As a result of the College Board’s support of the DREAM Act, many of the conference attendees and
speakers expressed appreciation for having their voices heard by the organization. The two sessions
focusing on undocumented students were very well attended, and the topic made its way to other equity
and access sessions.
Friday’s plenary panel focused on education policy for the new administration. Ida Kelly, director of Hispanic outreach and communications for the U.S. Department of Education, served as moderator with panelists Roberto Martinez, a trustee of Miami Dade College and partner at the law firm Colson, Hicks, and Edison; Rafael Hernandez, director of the Early Academic Outreach Program at the University of California, San Diego; and Elizabeth Palacios, dean for student development and adjunct professor at Baylor University. The group’s recommendations included raising standards and rigor in the classroom with a special emphasis on science and math; increasing resources to support some of the successful retention and transition programs highlighted by Gándara at the beginning of the conference; mobilizing parents to become part of the solution; and finding more ways to increase funding to put high-quality counselors in every school.
The Prepárate conference, which took place in Orlando, Fla., ended with a great philanthropy-in-action session. Next year’s conference will follow the Western Regional Forum in La Jolla, Calif., on March 1-2.
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