catalyst-chicago.org

Governor Patrick Quinn has named Sylvia Puente, the executive director of the Latino Policy Forum, as chair of the Education Funding Advisory Board, the body responsible for making recommendations to the General Assembly ...

CPS appears to be catching up to the rest of the nation in sending Latino and African American graduates on to college. The district announced Tuesday that 43 percent of last year’s Latino graduates enrolled in a college this past fall, a 9 percent increase since 2004.

Meanwhile, 53.7 percent of black graduates went to college in 2008, almost the same percentage as the national average. CPS says the increase in college-going among black and Latino students helped drive up the district-wide rate, which is now 52.5 percent, up from 50 percent last year.

Press conferences heralding the increase in college-going have become a spring ritual ever since Greg Darnieder, the former director of Department of College and Career Preparation, meshed data on CPS graduates with that from the National Student Clearinghouse, which tracks college students. (Darneider is now a special assistant to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.)

CPS plans in the coming weeks to release data on college-going rates among its graduates, an annual announcement that highlights the district’s success in getting more students into higher education.

But if findings for the Class of 2008 are similar to those for previous years, one troubling trend will hold true: Latino students will lag far behind their classmates. In 2007, just 40 percent of Latino graduates had enrolled in college by fall, compared to 50 percent of black students, 66 percent of white students and 76 percent of Asians.