Abstract
Hispanics are the largest ethnic minority in California, making up 37% of the state's population, but they trail other ethnicities in academic achievement. Using data from the Department of Education and local law enforcement agencies, I build regression models to explain the academic achievement of Hispanics in grades 2 through 12 in the Sacramento region, focusing on the influence of local crime. Although the bivariate correlation between crime rate and Hispanic API scores is negative and significant, as hypothesized, multivariate regression analysis suggests that crime rate has no discernable effect on academic achievement, when controlling for other factors. The most important predictors of Hispanic academic success are the type of school (elementary, middle and or high school), parental education levels, ethnicity of the student population and teacher credentials. While crime rate was found to have no discernable effect on academic achievement, this report may allow us to bridge the gap between Hispanics and other ethnicities by addressing the needs of Hispanics in different ways including parental education level and peer support.