Conference Focuses on Improving Educational Opportunities For the Next Generation of Hispanics
White House Initiative conference stresses college preparation, parental involvement.
By Molly Nance

SANTA ANA, Calif.
When U.S. Treasurer Anna Escobedo Cabral visits Hispanic elementary school students across the nation, she deliberately chooses to speak with the kindergarten class first.

“I ask how many of them want to go to college. There is not one student who doesn’t raise their hand,” Cabral says. When she asks the high school students that same question, “I’m lucky if I get half of the hands to go up.”

Educators, community stakeholders and parents need to work together to ensure that the Hispanic community succeeds in higher education, Cabral said during her keynote address at the second regional conference of the Partnership for Hispanic Family Learning, a national public-private partnership focused on improving education for Hispanic Americans.

Co-sponsored by the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans, the conference, held last month in Santa Ana, focused on engaging families in the effort to increase the educational attainment of Hispanic students.

Just as her own parents never expected her to go to college, Cabral says she identifies with first-generation Hispanic-American families whose only dream is that their children graduate from high school. But Cabral says the Hispanic community must guide the next generations towards higher education.

“We are the largest and fastest-growing minority. If we are not prepared, we can’t afford to lose half of our talent. We need to commit ourselves to improving the education of our children,” says Cabral, noting that aid from the federal government is limited to closing the achievement gap between Hispanics and non-Hispanics. “The federal government does not have the answers to these problems, there are stronger resources outside the federal government.”