The Political Norm? Presidential Support From Both Sides of Politics

Historically, both Republican and Democrat US Presidents have supported Educational Excellence for Hispanics.  

It has enjoyed bipartisan support.

President Barak Obama's former executive director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics was interviewed on January 3, 2017 -- days before leaving her post.  Below are some of her key points:


Adapted from: http://www.ewa.org/blog-latino-ed-beat/whats-next-white-house-initiative-educational-excellence-hispanics

Q&A With Outgoing Executive Director Alejandra Ceja

JANUARY 3, 2017 NATALIE GROSS

Alejandra Ceja has been the executive director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics since 2013 — a position she’ll give up at noon on Jan. 19, the day before the presidential inauguration. I recently sat down with her at the U.S. Department of Education to talk about the state of Latino education and the Initiative’s first 25 years,

What is the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics and why is it significant? ​

Our White House initiative was created in 1990 at a time when we had one of the highest dropout rates in the country for Hispanic students. It was at the urging of civil rights organizations that President George Bush signed the first executive order establishing our office. Our overall mission is to increase the educational outcomes and opportunities for Hispanic students. Since 1990, we’ve had a very strong bipartisan support, and our executive order has been renewed by every administration following.

Under President Obama, we have a cradle-to-career approach because we have a body of work that you can point to from 1990 forward that basically says it does us no good to just focus on one issue. If we really want to have an impact on the Hispanic community, we really have to focus from cradle to career on the educational needs of Hispanic students.

What is the state of Latino education right now? 

I think one of our greatest challenges is on early learning. We need to continue to invest in early learning when it comes to the Hispanic community. That is our baseline today, tomorrow, and for the future. It is making sure that Hispanic kids have access to quality early learning programs. President Obama invested over $4 billion in early learning, so we’ve been able to see the trends of participation in the Hispanic community go up. 

I think (where) we are still challenged is making sure that you see more Hispanics getting to and through college. But we’re seeing an increase in Hispanic enrollment in college, especially in our two-year colleges. We’d like to make sure…that there’s more partnerships between two-years and four-year institutions so that our Hispanic students can navigate that process. Ideally, we’d like to see degree completion be the focus when we talk about education excellence — that we are completing, that we are graduating.

For me I think it’s more the opportunity gap and making sure that our Hispanic students have access to a quality education. That also starts with having more Hispanic teachers in the teaching profession. We’re only at 8 percent of teachers in this country that are Hispanic. In summer 2016, we convened deans of education from Hispanic-serving institutions, where we could talk about what we could do meaningfully to impact that pathway into the teaching profession for Hispanic students. We created a fact sheet to kind of talk about — dispel the myths — of the teaching profession because a lot of the feedback we get from students is, “Well, I don’t want to be a teacher. It doesn’t pay.” 

What is one issue or action that could have the largest impact on the education of Latino students?

You know, I really think we have to focus on cradle to career. I really do think that you focus on that framework, then we will start seeing increases in our completion rates. I don’t know that there’s just one. I want the whole enchilada.

I would say (college) access, affordability and quality, but you’ve got to start with your early learning. I really do think you have to see the whole framework.