While it is certainly cause for celebration that Latinas are making progress, it is nonetheless tremendously worrisome that Latino males have made so little and that the group as a whole continues to be so seriously underrepresented. Today, 15 percent of the population is Hispanic (though one in five K- 12 public students is) and yet both males and females are receiving fewer than 7 percent of the college degrees, with males receiving only about 60 percent as many as females. It is now Hispanic males who seem to be struggling to pass through the biblical eye of the needle. There is an urgent need to understand and address this new demographic challenge, for the sake of the men, the women, and the nation.
— Dr. Patricia Gándara is co-director of the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at the University of California, Los Angeles and a professor of education at UCLA.
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