Where are the Latino Edupreneurs?

By Debbie Veney, Director of Policy and Communication

National Hispanic Heritage Month began on Sunday. And although we should acknowledge it every day, from Sept. 15 through Oct. 15 we pause and take time to specifically note and celebrate the significant contributions Latinos have made to our country. So, it is in conjunction with National Hispanic Heritage Month that NewSchools will be releasing a new report about Latino education entrepreneurs.

For more than a year, I’ve been working closely with my friend and colleague, Frances Messano, on crafting this report. The idea was born of both curiosity and a bit of frustration. Frances and I work together like this: I’m responsible for creating compelling communications strategies that build awareness and help attract innovators to apply to NewSchools for funding for their education ideas. She is responsible for leading a team that reviews the submissions, conducts diligence and makes funding decisions. In the course of doing our work, it became clear that despite a sincere and sustained effort on both our parts, we simply weren’t seeing a lot of Latino entrepreneurs showing up in our pipeline. So, we were puzzled.

We leaned into a practice routinely used when trying to determine impact. We disaggregated the data. This is what we do when examining student achievement outcomes, because whole group performance can mask the achievement of underserved students. That’s why we look at each group — Black, Latino, low income, students with disabilities and English language learners — independently. We have a responsibility to make sure they are all achieving what we know they are capable of doing.

And interestingly enough, that same principle of disaggregating data is what led us to find a gap in the racial composition of our venture leaders. With a stated desire to cultivate more diverse leaders, we were doing pretty well at attracting and funding an inclusive group of innovators. By last year, nearly 40 % of our ventures were led by a Black or Latino leader. We were feeling pretty awesome about ourselves until we disaggregated the data. That’s when we could see that the numbers were terrific for Black leaders, but we had a lot of work to do with Latino leaders.

Looking beyond NewSchools, already we knew that Latinos were generally underrepresented in the sector. That’s why we’d been working to hard recruit more into our own pipeline. What could we and others do to better attract and recruit Latino education entrepreneurs?

To find out, we engaged a partner with deep knowledge and connection to the Latino education entrepreneur community to conduct research and help us learn more. He is, himself, a Latino entrepreneur and has great interest in the subject. His rich qualitative research, informed by in-depth interviews and focus groups, was illuminating in many ways, but it also left us with even more questions. So, we engaged another multi-cultural firm to conduct a quantitative survey of Latino education entrepreneurs.

Our findings are both sobering and encouraging. I encourage you to read the full report, but here are some key insights from the research:

• Latino education entrepreneurs are more likely to be juggling multiple responsibilities than other entrepreneurs. Three in four report they are employed full- or part-time at a company, while starting and running their venture.
• Latino education entrepreneurs exhibit strong enterprising qualities that are often part of a family history of entrepreneurship. Many say they were exposed to entrepreneurship by their parents, who often launched their own businesses from necessity.
• Latino education entrepreneurs have a strong calling to improve their local communities and work with students. They view their work as “helping kids succeed.” It’s a vocation, not just a job. The most common reasons cited for starting and continuing their organizations are to “improve my community” and “improve educational outcomes.”
• Low familiarity with philanthropy and limited information can discourage Latino education entrepreneurs from pursuing grant opportunities. Fewer than one in four report that funds from philanthropic organizations or investors would be available to them if they needed additional support today.
• Support from professional and community organizations can help Latino leaders make the leap into education entrepreneurship. The organizations they affiliate with most and which provide the greatest perceived benefits are Hispanic/Latino professional groups and Hispanic chambers of commerce. However, they are less familiar with non-profits focused on supporting education entrepreneurs like 4.0 Schools and Camelback among the group.

So, as you’re celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month, remember that there are many more Latinos with the passion and talent who want to make contributions. Let’s all do our part to lift them up and support them in realizing their full impact. We will all benefit from it.