Dr. Patricia Gándara is on a mission.

Gándara, a nationally-recognized Latino education policy expert, spoke at Austin Community College’s Riverside Campus on July 29 to share her concerns about the educational gap faced by Latino children – and lay out strategies to close that gap.

Gándara is an education professor at the University of California, Los Angeles and co-director of the university’s Civil Rights Project. The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board invited Gándara to Austin to help address the Latino education crisis. A highlight of her visit was the stop at Riverside, where ACC students, staff, and members of the community gathered to hear her speak.

Dr. Gándara discussed findings in her new book, “The Latino Education Crisis: The Consequences of Failed Social Policies” (Harvard University Press, January 2009).

Gándara says the stagnation of progress for Latinos in higher education motivated her to write the book, and she points out that the problem is worse in Texas than elsewhere in the nation. Thirteen percent of the Latino workforce has a college degree; for whites, that figure is 40 percent. Those disparities are projected to increase by 2020.

Striving to solve the problem is more important than ever. Gándara notes that Latino students are entering into an unforgiving economy, with education the only avenue to mobility.

It is a formidable problem. Latino youth in Texas have a very high dropout rate, with approximately 50-60 percent graduating with their class. Forty percent of Latino mothers have not completed high school, and 36 percent of young Latino children live in poverty, by U.S. standards.

In order to turn those numbers around, Gándara says Texas needs to increase its investment in K-12 education and employ factors proven to increase college access. Gándara told ACC that children need a single person carefully monitoring their education, access to rigorous curriculum, supportive peer and study groups, attention to cultural differences, explanations of why college is so important, and scholarship money.

In the short term, Gándara says Texas can institute parent programs to help them guide their children through high school and college. She also recommends increasing training for counseling staff at the high school level, a media campaign about the benefits of higher education, and instituting bridge programs to facilitate the transition to high school.

Gándara says long-term solutions involve investment in comprehensive social and health services at schools, strong preschool programs, an extended media campaign to recruit Latino students to teach, and fully funding college tuition for underprivileged students.