Barbara Boxer: “the Reid-Bingaman amendment would provide an additional $210 million for Hispanic education. I am pleased to support it.…”

“the Reid-Bingaman amendment would provide an additional $210 million for Hispanic education. I am pleased to support it. Since 1990, the number of school age Hispanic children has grown by 61 percent. This means that one out of every six children who attends public school is Hispanic. Yet, only about 60 percent of them graduate from high school. Hispanics over the age of 16 are more than twice as likely to drop out of school than African-American students and four times more likely to drop out of school than white students. In the Nation's l17 largest Hispanic-serving school districts, Hispanics lag behind white students in reading achievement by an average of 30 points and math achievement by an average of 27 points. And according to the 2000 census, only 8.5 percent of Hispanics between the ages of 25 and 34 had earned a bachelor's degree. These statistics are troubling, and we need to address them. After all, education gives individuals the tools that they need to succeed. But education programs are underfunded, and the bill before us cuts $21 million from bilingual education, $11 million from dropout prevention programs, $10 million from high school migrant education, and $15 million from college migrant education. The Reid-Bingaman amendment would reverse these proposed cuts and would increase funding for English instruction for non-native speakers, dropout prevention, and migrant education.”