KANSAS CITY, Mo.
Jafet Carrasco doesn’t know anyone who has been to college besides his teachers. He hears people talk about credit hours, but he’s not sure what they are. And he knows college costs money, but not how much.
But the 15-year-old knows he’s going to college, and he’s being encouraged by staff at the Alta Vista Charter School in Kansas City, part of a network of schools forming partnerships with colleges to ensure their Hispanic students obtain not just diplomas, but degrees.
“Since no one went in my family, I want to be the first one,” says Carrasco. “I want to have a good job when I grow up and a nice house and to provide for my family.”
Carrasco’s school and other affiliates of the National Council of La Raza, an advocacy organization for Hispanics, are trying to help their students avoid the pitfalls that leave about 40 percent of Hispanics without even a high school diploma.
Research shows Hispanics drop out of high school at higher rates and pursue college education at lower rates than most other racial groups. Only 12 percent of Hispanics have finished college, compared to 28 percent of Whites and 18 percent of Blacks, according to U.S. Census Bureau statistics from 2005, the most recent available.
Alta Vista, which as a charter school receives public funding but is freed from many of the rules and regulations that bind traditional public schools, has provided informal assistance for years to its graduates who needed help with their college coursework.
But it’s doing something new this year, trying to ensure its 175 students — many of them entering high school reading at a fifth-grade level — graduate with at least some college credits.
The school is working with staff at Kansas City’s Penn Valley Community College to make sure students are academically prepared for college-level work. Alta Vista also plans to form partnerships that would ensure that its students transfer from the junior college to the University of Missouri’s campus in Kansas City or to Central Missouri State University, 50 miles away in Warrensburg.
