Latino children are the largest minority group in U.S. schools, now outnumbering African-American children by 35,000. They are also the most academically troubled racial or ethnic group, with persistently high dropout rates and low test scores. While the nation's overall school completion rate rose steadily during the past two decades, the Latino dropout rate remained at 30 to 35 percent, more than double the rate for African Americans and 3.5 times that for whites. "According to every educational indicator, Hispanic Americans are making progress at alarmingly low rates," concluded President Clinton's Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans in a 1996 report.

Researchers looking at why this achievement gap exists have come up with a long list of possible influences, including poverty, discrimination, segregation, the stresses of immigration, frequent language limitations, and poorly educated parents. Yet even when economic backgrounds, immigrant status, and language differences are taken into account, Latino students still have higher dropout rates than other ethnic groups.