Implications for Pending School Finance Cases

Hispanic children should have early access to high quality educational programs before kindergarten in order to increase their readiness for school and close the achievement gap, according to a report released on March 8, 2007, by the National Task Force on Early Childhood Education for Hispanics. The report, Para Nuestros Niños: Expanding and Improving Early Education for Hispanics, highlights these crucial issues:

• The growing importance of Hispanic families to the American economy and workplace;
• The socioeconomic and language factors that create a serious achievement gap between Hispanic and White children; and
• The high priority for creating and funding quality, accessible infant/toddler and pre-K programs for Hispanic children, particularly English language learners and children from disadvantaged families.

A study of K-5 students commissioned by the Task Force found that Hispanic children start Kindergarten substantially behind White students in reading and math, and by the end of fifth grade, a substantial gap still remains. Besides limited English skills, other risk factors contributing to the achievement gap include poverty, parents with no high school education, and single parent families.

Hispanic children are also underrepresented in U.S. pre-K programs: Only 43% of Hispanic children 3-5 years old attended some form of center-based childcare or preschool in 2005, compared to 59% of White children and 66% of Black children. The Task Force concluded that high quality pre-K showed great promise for helping to close this gap. To meet the particular needs of Hispanic preschoolers, the Task Force also encouraged government and the private sector to fund and develop programs to increase the number of bilingual teachers and ESL specialists, and to improve and evaluate language and literacy development strategies.

Population Growth & Immigration Trends Drive Particular Need in Key States

The percentage of children in the U.S. younger than 18 who are Hispanic is growing steadily, from 9% in 1980 to 19% in 2004, with a projection of 24% by 2020. Not surprisingly, the highest concentrations of Hispanic children are in the southwestern states and California. Florida, New York, and Illinois also have large Hispanic populations. But there are also significant growth trends in the population of Hispanic children in many other states.

The table below summarizes growth trends in some of the states where ongoing school funding litigation includes claims for increased state-funding for pre-K programs:

In the next few years, it looks like the number of Hispanic children eligible for pre-K will continue to grow dramatically: The percentage of Hispanic babies born (out of all births) between 1993 and 2003 grew in Arizona from 33% to 44%; Colorado from 19% to 31%; Connecticut from 12% to 18%; in Georgia, from 3% to 13%; in Indiana, from 3% to 8%; Kentucky from 1% to 3.5%; Nebraska, from 5% to 13%; and in South Dakota from 1% to 3%. Immigration trends certainly contribute to the increased need for pre-K programs that address the issues of disadvantaged 3- and 4-year-olds from Spanish-speaking families. (For example, the foreign-born population of Georgia grew by 39% between 2000 and 2005. In Nebraska, the growth was 34%.)

Early Education for Children From Spanish-Speaking Homes Is a Priority

The Task Force made the following recommendations for improving early childhood education for the growing population of Hispanic children in the U.S.:

• Increase Hispanic Access to Quality Early Childhood Education Programs
• States should expand high quality pre-K programs, as well as infant/ toddler programs. The priority should be access for disadvantaged children, including Hispanics. States need to expand outreach efforts to Hispanic communities as well. The Federal government should also substantially expand Early Head Start and Head Start.
• Increase the Number of Spanish-Speaking Teacher and Second Language Acquisition Specialists
• States need programs to obtain and train more bilingual pre-K and K-3 teachers, as well as more ESL specialists. The Federal government should help assess and identify effective approaches for these state efforts.
• Increase Efforts to Design, Test and Evaluate Language and Literacy Development Strategies
• States should effectively track demographic and socioeconomic information about various subpopulations of students. The Federal government should underwrite the testing of teaching programs, the creation of assessments for Hispanic preschoolers, and the establishment of extensive longitudinal studies of disadvantaged populations, including Hispanic children.

More information on the need for high quality pre-K among Hispanic and immigrant children in the United States can be found in the following publications:

• Reaching All Children? Understanding Early Care and Education Participation Among Immigrant Families, by Hannah Matthews and Danielle Ewen (Center for Law and Social Policy, January 2006)
• Pre-K and Latinos: The Foundation for America's Future, by Eugene E. Garcia and Danielle M. Gonzales (Pre-K Now, July 2006)
• Relationship of English-Only to Young Children’s Social and Language Skills, (Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute, March 2007) (Report on research documenting harmful effects of English-only rules on preschoolers’ language and social development)