A new report from Excelencia in Education, which advocates higher educational achievement for Latinos, dispels the perception that most Latino students are English-language learners.
Among students ages 5 to 17, the report found that 84 percent who speak a language other than English at home speak English with no difficulty.
Latinos represent the fastest-growing segment of all students in U.S. public schools, representing 24 percent of public school enrollment in 2011, the report found.
From 2003 to 2013, the high school dropout rate for Latino students, as a group, fell by nearly half, and they showed marked improvement on the National Assessment of Educational Progress in reading and mathematics for elementary and high school students.