"Study Finds Young Hispanics Face Obstacles to Integration," reported the New York Times' Sam Roberts this week regarding a recently published La Raza report on the extra burdens Latino children face in their path toward success. Some highlights of the report:

• Latino children are representing a dramatically increased portion of the American student population;
• Although 95% of Latino children are American citizens, most come from immigrant families;
• Most Latino children have parents that did not graduate from high school;
• Many Latino children live in poverty;
• Consequently, Latino children routinely underperform national achievement averages;

This data is consistent with recently published books and research (see this April 2010 memo from Center of Immigration Studies).

But what do we do about it? Currently, less than 3% of Hispanics choose to send their children to Catholic school. Yet, study after study has shown that those that do attend perform very well. Shouldn't this be a top priority and a huge portion of the solution for alleviating the "obstacles" Hispanics face in successful integration into our society. The vast majority of Hispanics are Catholic, so one would think that Catholic schools would be a good fit. Not to mention, the above studies point to the importance of community, outreach, and one-on-one educational intervention as important aspects to any plan for solving this crisis. These are things Catholic schools do well.

Notre Dame has set an ambition goal of increasing that 3% Catholic school attendance rate to 6% for Hispanics nationally, which would add 1,000,000 students to the classrooms of Catholic schools. They're calling it the Catholic School Advantage campaign. I'm on board. Are you?