WASHINGTON – When it comes to preparing Latino students and English Language Learners (ELL) for college and the world of work, look for America’s burgeoning charter school movement to play a critical role in the coming years.

That was a key point made by charter school proponent Peter Groff during a panel discussion Wednesday at the Center or American Progress that highlighted the release of a center report titled “Next Generation Charter Schools: Meeting the Needs of Latinos and English Language Learners.”

“This is a relatively young sector,” said Groff, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, in reference to charter schools.

“But we know that after three years (in a charter school) the more likely (students) are to graduate, the more likely they are to go on to college,” Groff said. “So the longer these schools are able to keep them in their schools, we not only are raising achievement but closing the achievement gap in a lot of different areas.”

Groff, a former Colorado state senator who served briefly in the Obama administration as director of the U.S. Department of Education’s Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships Center, based his remarks on a recent “Education Next” report that found that students who attend a charter high school are 7 to 15 percentage points more likely to earn a standard diploma than students who attend a traditional public high school, and 8 to 10 percentage points more likely to attend college.

With Groff and other panelists urging support for charter schools, the focus of Wednesday’s talk centered on the new “Next Generation Charter Schools” report released by the D.C.-based Center for American Progress in conjunction with the National Council of La Raza, the 42-year-old Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization that in 2001 began to provide technical assistance and support to a growing network of charter schools that serve Latino students and English Language Learners.