Bridging the Gap

How To Bridge The Gap Between Education

Between Ethnicities
By:

Nelson Maldonado

Question #1:
What does this data suggest about you and your prospective for earning bachelors degree?
This data suggests that I, as a Salvadoran, have the lowest chance to get a bachelors
degree out of all the ethnicities in the data. Salvadorans have only 7.8% of their American
population going to college and receiving a bachelors degree, which is 5.2% lower than the
American - Indians and the Hispanics, being tied for the second lowest ethnicities with
bachelors degrees. The chances of a Salvadoran getting a bachelors degree in the United States
is very slim. Less than one tenth of the Salvadoran population living in America will get a

bachelors degree. This data also suggests that my ethnicity may be considered less intelligent
than other races. While the lack of education is not necessarily an indication of stupidity it is
often considered as such. Keeping this in mind one might conclude by looking at this data that a
person might be inclined to think of Salvadorans as less intelligent than the ethnic group that
they themselves belong to.
Even within their own community Salvadorans may be considered lower class than other
Hispanic ethnic groups. As seen on the table and the bar graph, Salvadorans have a lower
percentile of their population getting bachelors degrees than that of the Hispanic collective.
While the Hispanic collective have 13.0% of the population receiving bachelors degrees, the
Salvadorans only have 7.8% receiving bachelors degrees. This suggests that even within the
Hispanic community, Salvadorans are considered less intelligent or not as educated as other
ethnic groups. This being said, the data suggests that my prospective in getting a bachelors
degree will be that I will most likely fail to receive one.

Question #2:
Why do you think the data suggests this? What factors contributes to such statistics?
The socioeconomic status of the Hispanic population on average in America has been
historically and currently very low. This along with a culture that encourages their children to
work at a young age to support a family or earn money has driven their population to hold
education to a lower value. These values are also true for Salvadorans, being a part of the
Hispanic community. A study named the Perry Preschool Project put on by Highscope, a
learning approach, studied children born into poverty and split them into two groups, those who
received a high quality preschool education and those who received low quality or no preschool
education and tracked them for 40 years. At the end of the study they concluded that those who

received a good preschool education, on average did better in school, where more likely to
succeed financially, and committed fewer crimes as well as other positive effects. The positive
effects of preschool made these children more likely to do well in school and go to college to
earn a bachelors degree. This also may account for why Salvadorans, as well as other Hispanic
ethnic groups, have such a low number of their population receiving bachelors degrees. The
culture and tradition in a Salvadoran household has long been that the mother takes care of her
children until school is required, which is at around six years of age. This means that the child is
withheld from preschool which by many studies, like the Perry Preschool Project, are considered
to be a crucial point of development in the childs life that could either lead them to success in the
future or to frustration and crime. Even if a Salvadoran family wanted to put their child into a
preschool program, often times they simply cant afford it leading to even more of a deficit in the
early education of children in that ethnicity, leading to the deficit in bachelors degrees.
Question #3:
Do you recognize any injustice in this data? Equity? Equality?
I see many inequalities in this data, the first being that obviously the percentage of people
receiving a bachelors degree is different between each ethnic group. Immigrants such as the
ones in my family are immediately put at a disadvantage especially when you are a minority
within a minority, which is the case of the Salvadorans. There are not many Salvadoran
immigrants in the U.S. which means that our ethnic support web is very small. On average
Salvadoran socioeconomic status is not very high which causes a problem not only at the bud of
the problem, which is paying for college or trying to support a family, but also at the root of the
problem which is the lack of early education in the Hispanic community. Good preschool
programs are much more expensive than a day care center and so often times a person who is

trying to save some money would opt to put their child in a day care center. This leads the child,
who had not received a preschool education, to become disadvantaged at school, which
discourages going to college and receiving a bachelors degree. This spiral of events carries on to
the next generation, creating a disadvantage to the ethnicity as a whole.

Question #4:
What are some policies, organizations, or other practices that exist to bridge this inequality?
Aside from many scholarships that exist to help minorities in the country to pay for
college, there are a few organizations that exist to help pay to put a child into preschool, which is
the root problem of children not succeeding in obtaining a bachelors degree. Programs like
CCRC (Child Care Resource Center) help low income families put their child into a high quality
preschool, ensuring that their child will be better equipped and prepared for the future and
especially college. Crystal Stairs is just one other example of an organization that helps low
income families with basic necessities and child care, which again is important for the success of
the child of the future. These organizations not only help Salvadorans but all ethnicities, which is
a great leap to bridging the gap between the races in receiving bachelors degrees.

Question #5:
What do propose we should do in order to bridge this inequity?
The key to bridging the gap between earned bachelors degrees of different ethnicities
lies in early education. If preschool was made public and mandatory by the United States then
not only would the average bachelors degrees of Salvadorans increase, but all ethnicities would
benefit and increase their average bachelors degrees. There are so many benefits to having an
early education such as increased school performance, better coping skills, and increased
language abilities. If early education was made to be mandatory it would increase not only the
amount of bachelors degrees obtained it would increase the overall quality of life in the child.
The coping skills help immensely when dealing with challenges in college and in life in general
which would lead the child to overcome more hurdles and achieve more in school. I strongly
believe that if early was made mandatory it would fill the gap between late or long term
education for generations in the future.