The ¡Adelante! U.S. Education Leadership Fund hosted the first of a three-part series of the State of Latino Education at the university with Juan Sepúlveda as the main speaker. Sepúlveda spoke about the significance of education on a national scale and how it impacts San Antonio.

Sepúlveda is the director of the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans (which is housed under the U.S. Department of Education and the Domestic Policy Council) under President Barack Obama’s administration, and manages the White House’s involvement in Latino education in the U.S. During his speech on Feb. 19, Sepúlveda began the series by saying that education is one of the top priorities of the Obama administration. Sepúlveda introduced the administration’s goal of making the U.S. the leading country where the majority of the population has an undergraduate degree. The U.S. is currently No. 10 on that list, he said.

People with no college education account for 15 to 20 percent of the currently unemployed population and those with some college education account for less than 5 percent of the currently unemployed, Sepúlveda said. He restated Obama’s challenge regarding education: “Every child needs to get at least a high school education and at least one year of college education.” The future of the U.S. is tied to the Latino community because of its increasing population. There are 47 million (51 million if you count the residents of Puerto Rico) Hispanics in the U.S., and it is the largest minority group in the country.

About half of Latinos do not finish high school, and half of the students who do finish high school are not even ready for college. Thirteen percent of Latino high school graduates get an undergraduate degree and 4 percent get a degree beyond the undergraduate level, Sepúlveda said.

He then laid out the Obama administration’s agenda regarding Latino education. The Obama administration plans to challenge programs such as “Head Start” and other programs in all states to increase the quality of their education. Each of the 50 states could set their own standards of education under the No Child Left Behind Act, but the Obama administration wants to reform this program and make educational standards universal for all states.

Another crucial part of Obama’s agenda is to ensure that parents of Latino students fully understand academic standards for them to know whether or not their children are succeeding at school. Another change under the president’s agenda is to make a 67 percent decrease in the number of the questions that appear on the FAFSA application, according to Sepúlveda.

Regarding Sepúlveda’s office, he said, “When President Obama and I started to collaborate we told each other, ‘Either we do this right or we do not do it at all.’ We are here to help and we need to know what your needs are and we need you to help us. We are connecting different communities to each other and allowing them to learn from one another. Our main goal is to promote innovation and creativity, sharing and learning from each other. We do not want Washington to tell Texans how to educate their children.”

Sepúlveda said that office officials have visited 19 states and have had 90 conversations to communicate their plans. President Charles Cotrell, Ph. D., attended the lecture and was pleased to hear “very welcomed remarks regarding higher education.” Sepúlveda said that he also wants students to know that, “President Obama wants to congratulate you for being here and that it is critical that you finish college for the future of the United States of America.”