"The High Academic Achievement and Resiliency of Puerto Rican Students in a Milwaukee Public High School"

Latinos are the fastest growing ethnic group in the United States. However, they have consistently lagged behind all other groups in terms of educational attainment. The dropout rate for Latinos in the United States is 30%. Only 55% of Latinos 25 and older have completed high school, compared with 84% of whites and 76% of African Americans (American Language Review, 1998). These statistics shed light on this negative phenomenon. However, there are many Latino students who are in fact able to achieve academically. Some scholars have written about the academic achievement and resiliency of Mexican-American students educated in the United States (Valenzuela, 1999; Stanton Salazar, 2001). Although these works are theoretically strong, they tend to focus more on the schooling practices of Mexican American students. Very little work has been done regarding the causes of high academic achievement among Puerto Rican high school students and the various factors that may contribute to the high resiliency of these students. There are enough specific distinctions pertaining to the experiences of Puerto Ricans in the United States, such as their own history of direct and internal United States colonization and migration that a body of theoretical literature has to be developed to explain their schooling experiences. As a result, it is not accurate to compare the findings from other ethnic groups to those of Puerto Ricans. The purpose of this study is to qualitatively explore various factors that are attributed to the high academic achievement and resiliency of Puerto Rican high school students enrolled in a public urban high school located in the Midwestern United States. This research will take into consideration the types of support, social capital, social networks, types of literacy, home-school connections, and schooling practices that are attributed to the academic success of these students. An array of voices were involved in this project. Participants included students, parents, faculty and staff.