Fact check: What percentage of K-12 students speak Spanish?
The U.S. Census Bureau's 2021 American Community Survey shows that about 15% of K-12 students nationwide speak Spanish at home, said Jeffrey Passel, a senior demographer and expert on race and ethnicity at the Pew Research Center.
Posted — UpdatedYour browser doesn't support HTML5 video.
President Joe Biden hosted a screening of the movie "Flamin’ Hot" in the White House, which tells the story of the son of a Mexican immigrant who went from janitor to top executive of Frito-Lay, the snack food company.
Biden said that "Flamin’ Hot" was the first-ever public screening of a film focused on the Hispanic community at the White House. He then cited a statistic about Spanish-speaking children.
"Do you realize that 26 out of every 100 students in grades kindergarten through 12 speak Spanish?" Biden said June 15.
Is that figure baseless?
"We don’t know how many kids can speak (or understand) Spanish, but it is surely larger than the 15% figure who speak it at home," Passel said.
Passel said that about 26% of K-12 students are Hispanic, and that this was probably the figure Biden was referring to when claiming that "26 out of every 100" K-12 students speak Spanish. But not all Hispanic children speak Spanish, he said.
PolitiFact reached out to the White House and Biden’s campaign for comment and did not hear back.
In some states with high Hispanic populations — such as California and Texas — more than 26% of K-12 students speak Spanish at home, according to census data. But Biden’s statement did not make this distinction.
PolitiFact ruling
Biden said "26 out of every 100 students" in K-12 speak Spanish.
Nationwide, 15% of K-12 students speak Spanish at home, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey data. The percentage is higher in a few states with high Hispanic populations, 31% in California and 29% in Texas. We don’t know exactly what percentage of additional students also speak Spanish, but not at home.
Census data also shows that 26% of K-12 students are Hispanic, but that doesn't mean they all speak Spanish.
Biden’s statement is partially accurate but omits important details.
We rate it Half True.
Copyright 2024 Politifact. All rights reserved.