Need for jobs fuels high Hispanic dropout rate

More than one in five Hispanic students drop out of Metro schools before graduating, a rate that is echoed across the state and nationwide, leaving a wake of young adults with little education and limited skills. The dropout rate for Hispanics in Metro is 21.6%, nearly 4 percentage points higher than the dropout rate for all Metro students and higher than the dropout rate for blacks or whites. Statewide, the dropout rate for Hispanics last year was 17.1%, considerably higher than the overall dropout rate of 10.7% despite Hispanics constitute only 3.2% of all school- children. ''That's a tremendous concern,'' said Dante Roa, who runs Bienvenidos, a nonprofit organization that helps connect Hispanics to social services. But while the rate is alarming, it's understandable to many Hispanic leaders. They know the hardships that teenagers and their families face as they try to make it in a land that often is not their own. Some drop out to get a job and help the family, while others simply see no future in getting a diploma. Claudia Guevara-Warnatzsch, who emigrated from Mexico 15 years ago, has two children, ages 11 and 13, in elementary and middle school in Metro. She says Hispanic parents in general ''are not as concerned for them to get an education.'' ''It might seem amazing, but an education is not important to them,'' she said. ''They come with one thing in mind: to make money.'' Many of Nashville's Hispanics fled South American countries in search of financial survival. Once here, however, they often find the only jobs they qualify for are low-paying, blue-collar jobs or jobs that require hard physical labor. [more]