From this data, one understands that Mexican-Americans trail other Latino groups in terms of educational attainment, as they settle into low-paying, blue-collar jobs that provide little opportunity for mobility. With perceptions based on statistics, many Anglo-Americans assume that Mexican-Americans have little interest in bettering their status or employment opportunities as a result of a lack of educational values.
Yet, many Americans speculate that the high drop-out rates and lack of Mexican-Americans in the professional class may be a result of poor English skills rather than a deficiency in care or effort. A series of articles in the Boston Globe followed the struggles with learning English of two Mexican-American grade schoolers in an English-speaking public school. In Monica Rohr's article, Alonso and Jovanny Martinez transferred from a bi-lingual school in Massachusetts, attending an English-only school for the first time. On their first day of fourth grade at their new school, the children were unable to respond in English to a question nor was the teacher able to help them find the correct words. The hopelessness that these two children experienced was highlighted later that evening. They attempted to complete their homework, using an English-Spanish dictionary, meticulously looking up every word. While the English-only classroom provided major difficulties for the boys, it also provided major problems for their mother, who spoke no English. Mrs. Martinez, who had always helped her sons with homework in their former bi-lingual school, displayed great concern that "`their grades will fall, because I"m no longer going to be able to help them as much [due to the language barrier]."" Mrs. Martinez was unable to read the words in the textbooks and in their homework, and thus could not oversee her sons" work. Her fears highlight the problems Mexican-American families face, indicating that parents and children do care about their education and are concerned with the language barrier during their time in school.