Harry Reid: “some of my distinguished colleagues have asked whether we can afford to give this helping hand to a select group of…”

“some of my distinguished colleagues have asked whether we can afford to give this helping hand to a select group of students, namely Hispanic students. I say we cannot afford to ignore them. Take, for example, Clark County, which is in Las Vegas, in Nevada. In the Clark County School District, which is the fifth or sixth largest school district in America with more than a quarter of a million students, about 30 percent of the students are Latinos. This amendment would apply to those students. We need to give a helping hand to the Clark County School District through additional moneys. It is unfair that the President of the United States has recommended eliminating the dropout prevention program for Hispanic students-- eliminated it. He has cut other programs to which this amendment applies. It is simply not right. People in Nevada will suffer as a result of that. Latino children have the highest dropout rate of any ethnic group in America. It is nothing they are proud of; it is something they are trying to work on. Hispanic leaders talk about education. For the Latin Chamber of Commerce in Las Vegas, and it is a huge organization, that is their No. 1 priority: What are we going to do to keep our children in school? They have a scholarship program to send kids to a community college, to our colleges in Nevada. It is working well. But we need to do something to help the public school system keep these children in school.”