The Federation’s work flows out of the basic belief that education is fundamental to the progress of any community. To address the existing disparities in Latino school readiness and achievement, the Federation carries out a dual approach of advocacy and programming that directly impact educational outcomes and influence the educational system at different levels.

Pathways to Academic Excellence

Our Pathways to Academic Excellence initiative – which is focused on early childhood education, college preparation and parental involvement – is one example of how we’re working to make a difference. Pathways to Academic Excellence, is a culturally-competent educational seminar series that enables parents to actively support their children’s education.

Pathways - Early Childhood

The Early Childhood component of Pathways instructs parents/caregivers on learning activities and techniques that they can use at home to enhance their children’s literacy skills. Below are some of the ways that Pathways helps create a path to academic success for our families:

• Assists parents/caregivers in enhancing their children’s literacy skills through language-building activities and exercises.
• Increases knowledge throughout the community on the importance of early childhood literacy.
• Formulates innovative ways for parents to work with their children and the school system to overcome social and academic challenges.
• Provides resources that facilitate and promote reading and learning.
• Markets and disseminates information so that parents are both aware of early childhood literacy methods and are motivated to use it.
• Examines behavioral change in the family household through outcome evaluations.

Pathways - College Prep

The College Prep portion of Pathways is designed to motivate parents to be involved in their children’s college prep process. Pathways helps create a path to academic success by specifically educating our parents on:

• The advantages of a college education.
• The significance of developing relationships with school counselors.
• Helping youth prepare for college entrance exams.
• The importance of advance placement and extracurricular activities and the critical nature of the junior year.
• Completing the actual application process.
• Different websites and opportunities to receive financial aid and scholarships.

CREAR Futuros

The Hispanic Federation and the City University of New York (CUNY) were recently selected by the prestigious Lumina Foundation to build, implement and sustain successful "place-based efforts" focused on significantly improving Latino college success in New York City.

To that end, the Federation and CUNY are partnering with Latino community based agencies, the Department of Education, public policy stakeholders,corporations and other business leaders to launch the CREAR Futuros project.Concentrated on Latino College Readiness, Achievement and Retention, CREAR Futuros has two main components: 1) A student retention and achievement model program at 3-4 targeted CUNY colleges and 2) A New York State Partnership for Latino College Success (Latino Partnership) which will advocate for New York State-wide policies that promote completion and efficiency in K-16 education systems.

The program component entails a "community of care" model that will provide multi-layered support for a minimum of 1,000 Latino college students over a four year period. The main pillars of CREAR’s “Community of Care” are as follows: dedicated Latino upper class mentors, social services, college advisors,specialized tutoring assistance, career support and leadership development training. The goal is to ensure that these students stay connected throughout their college lives to individuals and institutions vested in their success. The Latino Partnership will initiate strategic planning and advocacy activities whose goal will be to drive large-scale collective impact on Latino students’access, persistence and college success during the next four years and beyond. The CREAR partners will launch the Latino Partnership as the body in charge of understanding and advocating for policies and programs that promote Latino student achievement in higher education.

The Latino Partnership will consist of Latino and other community leaders,college leaders at New York State-wide HSIs, K-12 representatives, NYC Department of Education (DOE) and NYS Education Department (SED) leaders,foundation leaders, educational advocates, corporate heads, elected officials,academics and others as needed. The Latino Partnership’s advocacy will focus on promoting significant improvements in Latino college readiness in New York City public schools and championing support systems that facilitate Latino college retention and graduation.

To receive more information, please contact Jessica Guzman.