Learn more about why Latino students are dropping out of school and what can be done about it by checking out these sites: Effective Programs for Latino Students National Dropout Prevention Center Network ASPIRA The Hispanic Dropout Project Do you know about an effective program or classroom project to help keep Latinos in school? Tell us about it -- and we will share it on the Learning Exchange

Latino Dropouts Pose Big Challenge THIS FALL, MORE THAN 850,000 LATINO STUDENTS will go back to school in Los Angeles County. By the end of the school year, if trends hold, nearly 14,000 of them will be gone -- dropouts from the public education system. And nationally, acccording to a recent report by the US Census Bureau, the Latino dropout rate is at its highest level this decade with more than 145,000 or 11.6% of Hispanic students quitting school early in 1995 -- a rate more than double the national average. "It will be a disaster if a large percentage of the US labor force does not have a high school education," says Walter Secada, an education professsor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and project director for the Hispanic Dropout Project. "The high Hispanic dropout rate is increasingly a problem as the Hispanic population grows dramatically. An undereducated and underskilled Hispanic workforce is harmful not only to Hispanics that drop out, but to the American economy and larger non-Hispanic population as well," Secada adds. To learn more about this important issue you might want to read "Our Nation on the Fault Line: Hispanic American Education Dropouts" published in the newsletter for the Intercultural Development Research Association. For ideas to help keep Latino kids in school read about effective programs for Latino Students. Check out the website for ASPIRA, a community organization that works to improve the economic status of Latinos by reducing the high school dropout rate or visit the National Dropout Prevention Center Network, which provides research, resources, and professional development opportunities for educators working to keep kids in school. Locally, LAEP's Focus on Youth program and its FASTNet system links educators and service agencies to help keep kids in school by addressing the needs of students and their families.