Source: Center for American Progress

Center for American Progress, based in Washington, D.C., published two studies: one that provides a state-by-state analysis of teachers of color, noting that while 40 percent of K-12 students are non-white, only 17 percent of teachers share those characteristics. The second study proposed solutions for expanding recruitment and retention of qualified minority instructors.

“While our schools are very diverse, our students aren’t seeing that diversity reflected in their teachers,” said Saba Bireda, one of the two reports’ writers, during a conference highlighting the reports’ findings. “Teachers of color are role models to students of color. They are real-life examples of a career path towards teaching.”

Using 2008 data compiled by the federal National Center for Education Statistics called Schools and Staffing Survey, the CAP researchers found 20 states have gaps of 25 percent or more between minority teachers and students.

California leads all states: 72 percent of students are of color while only 29 percent of teachers identified as non-white. Two-thirds of Texas students are non-white yet only one third of teachers share similar backgrounds.

Ulrich Boser, who compiled the national data, spoke starkly about the results. “Diversity is the litmus test for modern society,” he said.

Others studies also point to the educational benefits of having more teachers of color.

A 2004 paper  analyzing teacher racial composition and pupil test-results in Tennessee found a small boost in student performance on standardized tests when taught by teachers of the same race. After four years of receiving instruction from a same-race teacher, students improved test scores by a range of 8 to 12 percentage points. Inconveniently, those findings applied to white students as well.

More recently, a 2011 working study by economists focusing on a large community college in California pointed to strong gains by minority students taught by instructors from any minority background.

“Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and Native Americans are 2.9 percentage points more likely to pass courses with instructors of similar background and 2.8 percentage points more likely to pass courses with underrepresented instructors.”

The authors add: “These effects represent roughly  half of the total gaps in classroom outcomes between white and underrepresented minority students at the college. The effects are particularly large for Blacks.  The class dropout rate relative to Whites is 6 percentage points lower for Black students when taught by a Black  instructor.”

But a combination of employer bias, undesirable working conditions and a lag in numbers of minorities with college degrees explains why white teachers are over-represented in U.S. classrooms.

In 2004, researchers at Harvard conducted a famous study  partly titled, “Are Emily and Greg more employable than Lakisha and Jamal?” It determined job applicants with more caucasian-sounding names receive 50 percent more call-backs from potential employers than those with black-sounding names.

High-school graduation rates favor whites to blacks and Hispanics by roughly 20 percentage points, with some 77 percent of whites having graduated in the class of 2007. College completion rates show much of the same, with whites wrapping up their college studies more frequently (by 12 to 20 percentage points).

CAP’s study also found minority teachers are generally less satisfied with their work conditions, with whites showing more approval (78 percent) than blacks (70 percent.) And while the pay gap along racial lines is modest, with whites earning $49,570 to $48,890 and $49,260 for blacks and Hispanics, respectively, satisfaction with pay differed wildly: 53 percent of caucasians were happy with their pay versus 37 percent for blacks and 46 percent for Hispanics. Much of that disparity, the researchers reason, is the result of teacher placement: whites tend to stand in front of more affluent pupils, while minority instructors are more likely to be placed in schools with many low-income and high-risk students.

However, the shortfall of minority teachers should not be blamed on demographics, alone, says Boser during a brief interview with TAI.

“I would argue that the the question is not the relative percentages of graduation rates, but the absolute numbers of available potential teachers, and I do think that a sufficient pool of well-qualified potential teachers of color exists in most areas.”

Source: The New Teacher Project via Center for American Progress

Non-traditional accreditation programs are one way recruiters can bolster the number of minority educators in classrooms across the country, the researchers argue. So far, 25 percent of Hispanic, and 27 of black, school teachers have come through alternative pipelines, compared to 11 percent of whites.

The New Teacher Project, which has placed 37,000 teachers in high-needs urban schools, tries to respond to the demographic needs of school districts by recruiting mid-career and older college graduates. TNTP estimates some 37 percent of their fellows, teachers who receive multi-year on-going education towards a teaching certificate, are of color. Its various fellowship projects are also known to attract minority candidates with professional backgrounds in math and the sciences — despite usually taking pay cuts to enter the teaching profession.

Source: Teach for America via Center for American Progress (percentages are rounded)

And unlike fellows of Teach For America, a teacher accreditation program that boasts of recruiting young graduates from top national universities, TNTP fellows teach longer, especially minority candidates. 60.5 percent of TFA teachers continue working as public school instructors after their two year commitment. 35.5 percent taught after four years. Comparatively, 72 percent of TNTP fellows come back for a fourth year of teaching. Among blacks and Latinos, 78 percent remain.

Leaders of non-traditional teacher programs sharing their experiences at the CAP event placed additional emphasis on retention. “I want to sure [new teachers] are growing in their profession,” said Rachelle Rogers-Ard, a teacher who manages a recruitment and retention program in Oakland  that seeks out teachers of color. “We’re recruiting folks because we want them to remain in education.”

But targeting minority populations to staff classrooms does not mean the instructors will be highly qualified or effective. “We wouldn’t support lowering certification standards, they are really low to start with,” says Sandi Jacobs of the National Council on Teacher Quality, an advocacy group that is critical of teacher assessment standards nationwide.” Still, she sees value in alternative accreditation routes to help add more diversity in the teaching profession. “There are things that alt routes do that help remove … barriers for anyone, specifically to promote that diversity.”

Rogers-Ard, however, thinks nurturing new talent is an aspect of education many critics of the teaching profession overlook: “That first year doctor might not be as effective as a fifth year physician.”

On reading comprehension, the 1.65 million students who filled out answer sheets earned a mean score of 497 out of a possible 800 — a three-point drop off from 2010. Comparatively, the results in 2005 showed a mean score of 507.

Here is a break down of the scores compared to previous years, provided by College Board, with CR standing for critical reading, and M and W standing for math and writing:

Accounting for the declining scores is the growth in the diversity of students participating in the exam. The College Board wrote in a press release:

And just as school performance is linked to socio-economic conditions, so goes the trend among test takers who qualified for a fee-waiver of the exam, an indicator of lower economic means:

Brian Stecher, Senior Social Scientist at the RAND Corporation, told The American Independent a researcher’s analytical strategy for looking at how factors might have been related is to consider the change in the pool of students taking the SATs.

“As the population that takes the test expands beyond, say, the most successful and most college-ready, and includes a larger number of students, then we can expect the scores to decline,” Stecher said.

He added, however, that the relationship between the volume of students and the variation in mean scores is not a fixed one. He said researchers should evaluate whether the rate of increased diversity among test takers is in sync with the rate in decline of the scores. Stecher also pointed out the ACT took over the SAT this year in student participation, skewing historical trends.

Students enrolled in advanced courses performed better on average than the rest of the pool. The College Board provided the following numbers:

Some organizations took the published results as an opportunity to criticize the education landscape at large. Bob Schaeffer of FairTest.org said, “[P]roponents of [No Child Left Behind] and similar state-level testing programs promised that overall achievement would improve while score gaps would narrow. Precisely the opposite has taken place.”

He added: “Policymakers need to embrace very different policies if they are committed to real education reform.”

A press release by the group expounded on Schaeffer’s criticism:

A FairTest analysis shows that overall SAT averages dropped significantly under the NCLB federal testing mandate. At the same time, gaps between Whites, Asians, and historically disadvantaged African-Americans and Hispanics have been growing larger. ACT scores, made public last month, demonstrated similar patterns.

But Matthew Di Carlo of the Albert Shanker Institute warns against drawing too many conclusions from the SATs.

“These tests are voluntary, and the sample of students who choose to take one or both can be very different from one year to the next in terms of their demographic, academic and other characteristics,” Di Carlo told TAI. “Overall score changes between years, especially small changes, might just as easily be due to this self-selection as to any ‘real’ change in aptitude of U.S. students.”

Beyond the increased diversity of the test pool, the College Board pointed to additional good news: 43 percent of test takers scored above a 1550 cumulatively, the score the firm says separates students who are likely to perform well in college to those who will struggle. Breaking that threshold, the press release explains, means students have a 65 percent change of averaging a B- or better in their first year of college.

Recently proposed federal and state family-planning spending cuts would disproportionately hinder low-income Latinas’ access to reproductive care, said several women’s reproductive care providers and advocates during a teleconference organized this week by Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

Clinic directors from local Planned Parenthood affiliates near predominately Hispanic communities illustrated how federal and state legislation might impact low-income Hispanic women, many of whom are uninsured and rely on grant-funded services offered by Planned Parenthood or other community health clinics to obtain low-cost contraception, gynecological exams, testing for sexually transmitted diseases and family-planning education.

“Threats to Planned Parenthood at the federal level mean threats to our ability to provide vital primary and prenatal care to Latinas and their families via Medicaid,” said Guadalupe Rodriguez, director of public affairs at Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, whose health centers serve 29 counties in California.

Despite threats from the Republican-led U.S. House, the approved 2011 budget maintained Planned Parenthood funding for family planning services; however, in the final spending plan, programs that provide low-cost reproductive health care access and pregnancy prevention received significant cuts. The appropriation to Title X of the Public Health Service Act was reduced from $317 million to $300 million, and the budget cut approximately $500 million from the Women, Infants, and Children program, which provides federal grants to states for supplemental food, health care referrals and nutrition education for low-income pregnant, breastfeeding and non-breast feeding postpartum women, as well as infants and children up to age 5 who are found to be “at a nutritional risk.”

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Hispanic population grew by 43 percent during the past decade, to 50.5 million people, making up 16 percent of the total U.S. population. In 2009, 23 percent of Planned Parenthood patients nationwide, approximately 620,000 people, were Hispanic, said Destiny Lopez, director of Latino engagement at Planned Parenthood Federation of America. She noted that the number of male Hispanic patients increased by 191 percent in the last decade.

Lopez said that in the nine states where the Hispanic population more than doubled between 2000 and 2010, in all but one have several measures — such as family planning cuts, abortion restrictions and abstinence-only education programs — been introduced that could potentially restrict access to reproductive health care.

“With the attacks on women’s health care in Congress and in the states, even more Latinas could be cut off from basic reproductive health care like birth control, cancer screenings, and other essential services,” said Elizabeth Barajas-Román, director of policy at the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health.

Barajas-Román said that women with* legal status have to wait five years to qualify for public health care, including access to reproductive services such as birth control. These cuts will make it even harder for these women to get care, she said.

In Texas — where Latinos make up 37 percent of the state’s population, according to 2009 census figures — the state House voted this month to cut $60 million from family planning programs in their version of the state budget.

Last year, the federal government designated $155 million in new funding for the Personal Responsibility Education Program, a state grant program that funds sex education that includes information on abstinence, contraception and pregnancy- and STD-prevention. But state lawmakers only have until the end of the month to decide whether to apply for approximately $9 million of this grant money — meaning they might not put in a request.

“The [Texas] House budget looks terrible,” said Patricio Gonzalez, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Association of Hidalgo County, the seventh-largest county in Texas, located on the Texas-Mexican border.

Gonzalez said the funding cut proposal translates into nearly 70 percent in cuts to family planning services, which he predicted would lead to the shutdown of eight to 10 of his clinics, affecting approximately 18,000 women.

Lillian Tamayo, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of South Florida and the Treasure Coast, which covers Key West to Indian River, said that Hispanic women make up 20 percent of the population in her area and have disproportionately higher pregnancy, birth and cancer rates.

“The Florida Legislature, rather than being concerned on the creation of jobs, what they’ve done is dismantle women’s rights and attack women’s health,” Tamayo said, noting the 18 bills the state has introduced related to reproductive rights restrictions. ”It’s a wholesale attack on women.”

*Correction: Previously TAI reported that Barajas-Román said that women without legal status have to wait five years to qualify for health care, when in fact she was referring to women with legal status. We regret the error.

Yet, when former Gov. Jeb Bush, former Sen. Norm Coleman and former Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez open the first Hispanic Leadership Network conference next month in Miami, the only potential presidential candidate confirmed to attend — so far — is Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney declined the invite. So did South Dakota Sen. John Thune, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels and Texas Gov Rick Perry.

Newt Gingrich is “amenable” to attending but hasn’t committed yet, his spokesman said.

And others in the group, including former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, didn’t respond to inquiries from POLITICO.

The conference is hosted by the American Action Network, a 501(c)(4) “action tank” led by former Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman that was one of the top outside-money groups this past election cycle. It will take place in Coral Gables on Jan. 13 and 14, 2011.

Gov.-elect Rick Scott is attending; however, the conference schedule shows that his speech is “closed press.” Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, who retired in 2010, is also attending.

Sen.-elect Marco Rubio, who is poised to become a top Republican and frequently invoked his parents’ story of fleeing from Castro’s Cuba to settle in the U.S., also isn’t on the agenda. I’ve emailed his spokesman regarding his plans.

Luke Johnson reports on Florida for The American Independent.

It makes sense for advocates to reiterate that Latino support for Democrats should not be taken for granted: It’s how they can motivate politicians to act on issues important to them. For the most part, it seems unlikely that pro-immigration reform Latino voters would vote for Republicans who oppose paths to citizenship, even if Democrats don’t move on passing reform. But the Politico story mentions one interesting option for the GOP to garner more Latino support: Nominate Marco Rubio for president.

Rubio, a Republican who won Florida’s senate race last week, is Cuban-American and received a large portion of the Latino vote in the state. A poll of Latino registered voters the night before the election found 62 percent planned to vote for Rubio — far higher levels than for Republican candidates in other states.

Politico reports that Republican leaders are considering pushing for Rubio to run for president partially to challenge Obama’s support among Latinos:

His campaign could be their template. The son of Cuban immigrants, Rubio advertised heavily on Spanish-language television, broadcasting his personal story as the centerpiece of an inspirational message to Hispanics.

Similar to former President George W. Bush, Rubio spoke about his opposition to legalization “in a respectful and empathetic tone, focusing on law-and-order aspects and not using people who cross the border illegally as political punching bags,” said Ana Navarro, a Miami-based Republican strategist and adviser to Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign.

Of course, there are a few potential problems with the strategy. Rubio will be only two years into his first Senate term in 2012, meaning he would have served even less time in the chamber than Obama did before he was elected.

Beyond that, it may not make sense to extrapolate much out of the high Latino support for Rubio last week. Florida’s Latino population often displays different trends from Latino voters nationwide because it is largely made up of Cuban-Americans, who can easily gain citizenship if they come to the United States, and Puerto Ricans, who are born citizens. These groups typically place immigration concerns lower and vote for Republicans more often than Latinos in the country overall. Rubio actually lost to Democrat Kendrick Meek among non-Cuban Latino voters in Florida, according to a pre-election poll.

Rubio also saw few challenges during the campaign over his immigration positions, a Democratic pollster told Politico. He may have lost some support among Latinos if his conservative views on immigration had been more widely known. He advocated border security, steered clear of controversy over Arizona’s SB 1070 immigration crackdown and focused most of his Spanish-language messaging on his background as the son of immigrants. In a drawn-out political race, though, the strategy may be more difficult.

“We built this infrastructure to mobilize voters to support our friends,” Field Director Rudy Lopez of Campaign for Community Change said on a conference call this afternoon. “For those who choose not to be our friends, go ask Ken Buck and Sharron Angle how they feel about the election results.”

This year’s efforts in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada and Washington included canvassing for votes and massive voter registration drives. The numbers differ on how many Latinos turned out to vote: Exit polls report Latinos made up eight percent of the electorate this year, the same as in 2006, while a poll of Latino voters the night before the election estimated turnout would be up from the previous midterm elections. (For more on discrepancies between the polls, read this Nate Silver post on polling and the Latino vote.)

Latinos may be to thank for some Democrat victories, but at least this year, the pattern of anti-immigrant candidates losing doesn’t hold true in all states — particularly non-Western ones. Hazleton, Pa., Mayor Lou Barletta (R), who presided over a now-overturned law to drive out illegal immigrants, won his race for the House. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) won re-election after signing SB 1070, and Florida’s Rick Scott (R) won the governor’s race while pledging to create copycat legislation in his state.

Still, immigrant rights groups have a point: Demographic evidence does point to Latinos making up an increasing share of the electorate. Given that a majority of Latino voters support comprehensive immigration reform that includes options for some of the illegal immigrants already in the country to stay, enforcement-only candidates are unlikely to receive major Latino support.

It’s a message at least some Republicans have heard. At a panel on immigration policy and conservatism in August, several advocates of lower illegal immigration numbers said the GOP should be careful to avoid alienating voters through rhetoric against immigration. Failed California governor hopeful Meg Whitman (R) attempted to soften her immigration positions to appeal to Latino voters late in her campaign — which arguably could have worked if she hadn’t made hard-line immigration stances a focus of her GOP primary.

Although immigrant rights groups said Latinos would not be won over by anti-illegal immigration rhetoric, few went so far as to say they were mobilizing voters specifically for the Democratic Party. The idea, instead, is to get the Republican Party to recognize its need for Latino supporters. Although the party presented a few major Latino candidates this year, such as New Mexico governor-elect Susana Martinez and Florida senator-elect Marco Rubio, overall support from Latinos for Republican candidates remained low.

“The dilemma we have is also a dilemma Republicans have,” Angelica Salas of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles Action Fund said on a conference call. “If want a chance at the presidency, they can’t ignore us.”

The exit poll data point to a continued trend of Latino support for Democrats, which is interesting given concerns that pro-immigration reform Latinos — the majority of Latino voters — might stay home to push back against Democrats who failed to address the issue. In Arizona, about 71 percent of Latino voters preferred the Democratic candidate, versus 56 percent who preferred Obama in 2008. This can perhaps be attributed to the unpopularity among Latinos of Arizona’s SB 1070 immigration law, which Republican Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law this spring.

Other states saw slight dips in support for Democratic candidates from the high levels of support for Obama, but still mostly voted for Democrats. In California, the state with the largest Latino population in absolute terms, 64 percent of Latino voters picked Democrat Jerry Brown for governor over Republican Meg Whitman. Preferences for Senate were similar: 65 percent of Latinos preferred Democrat Barbara Boxer to Republican Carly Fiorina. In 2008, 74 percent of Latinos in California voted for Obama.

The only major exception in the Pew poll results was Florida, where Republican Marco Rubio captured 55 percent of the Latino vote, according to exit polls. As I mentioned yesterday, though, Rubio had high levels of support from fellow Cuban-Americans, who tend to vote Republican. The Latino Decisions poll found non-Cuban Latinos in Florida voted for the Democratic candidate, Kendrick Meek.

*One note on polling: According to Latino Decisions’ Gary Segura, a Stanford political science professor, exit poll data often under-represent minorities because exit polls tend to skip precincts that always go red or blue. Segura said minorities who live in white-dominated areas, who could be more conservative than average, tend to be over-represented in exit poll data. The Pew Hispanic Center data is based on exit polls, while Latino Decisions polled Latino registered voters directly the night before the election.

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) is expected to push for heavy immigration enforcement as chairman of the House immigration subcommittee next session. (Tina Fultz/ZUMApress.com)

During his campaign for the presidency in 2008, Barack Obama made the now-broken promise to Latino supporters that he would pass comprehensive immigration reform in his first year as president. But in remarks to the press on Wednesday, after Republicans took control of the House and won back several seats in the Senate, talk of immigration reform was noticeably absent.

[Immigration1] Democrats will still hold a majority in both chambers during the lame-duck session, when leaders hope to pass the DREAM Act to give some undocumented young people and military service members legal status. But after January, immigration reform efforts that include paths to legal status for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants currently in the United States seem next to impossible, meaning the next few years will see little progress for immigration reform advocates.

“The new leaders of the House have made it clear that they’re going to continue to push an enforcement-only strategy,” said Mary Giovagnoli, director of pro-reform Immigration Policy Center. “It’s going to be a hard couple of years.”

The Republicans ushered into power in the midterms favor tight border security, strict enforcement and policies that would allow states, along with the federal government, to police immigration. Many campaigned on hard-line immigration positions that cost them support among Latinos, but won backing from the broad segments of the population that approve of illegal immigration crackdowns like Arizona’s SB 1070 immigration law.

In short, Republicans who won on Tuesday hold radically different views on tackling illegal immigration from the president and Senate Democrats. Prospects are bleak for anyone who hopes to see meaningful change on immigration policy: A Democratic Senate will have trouble getting immigrant-friendly measures past the House, while the House will have trouble getting enforcement-only measures past the Senate — or the president’s desk. The result will likely be more of the same on immigration policy.

There are a few areas where Republicans have brought forth proposals to reform the immigration system. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who is expected to take over as chairman of the House’s immigration subcommittee, plans use his leadership position to call in Obama administration officials and question them on immigration enforcement, claiming “they’re not enforcing the laws.”

It’s a common argument from Republicans, who have repeatedly accused the Obama administration of taking a lax approach. After reports that immigration courts were throwing out deportation cases for illegal immigrants who were deemed non-dangerous or had pending citizenship applications, the seven current Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano demanding to know how much it would cost to find and deport every illegal immigrant in the country.

“[Immigration and Customs Enforcement] has cited a lack of resources as one of the reasons for its prioritization of cases and for its selective enforcement,” the Oct. 21 letter reads. “But to date, we have not seen any efforts by ICE, your Department, or the Administration to request an increase in ICE funding. … As a result, it appears that your Department is doing the very thing that we have raised concerns about in several letters – allowing illegal aliens to evade the law.”

If Republicans attempt to force increased immigration enforcement, it would require a huge increase in funding for ICE. The agency currently receives $2.6 billion from Congress each year to detain and remove illegal immigrants. ICE Chief John Morton says this budget allows the agency to deport about 400,000 people per year — a number it approaching this year. Deporting the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the country, then, could cost as much as $70 billion.

Of course, most Republicans don’t advocate a deportation-only method to decreasing illegal immigration numbers in the country. GOP members also say they hope to pass legislation to eliminate possible incentives for foreigners to stay in the country by cracking down on employers who hire illegal immigrants, eliminating the few social services illegal immigrants can receive and in some cases even eliminating citizenship for children born in the country to undocumented parents.

A GOP-led initiative to end birthright citizenship for U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants under the 14th Amendment received support from 95 House members in 2009, although the bill never made it out of committee. Instead of attempting to amend the Constitution, the bill would create a statute limiting citizenship to children with at least one parent in the country legally.

King plans to push for the bill again in the next session of Congress, where support for the measure will be even stronger. King insists the bill is both legal and necessary to stop the “anchor baby” phenomenon — the idea that illegal immigrants come to America and have children in order to gain legal status — which most immigration experts agree does not exist because citizens cannot petition for legal status for their families until they are adults.

Expanding E-Verify, a controversial program that allows employers to check the immigration status of potential employees, is another likely priority for the Republican-led House. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), who is expected to head the Judiciary Committee, co-sponsored a bill to make use of E-Verify mandatory for all employers. (Federal agencies and contractors are already required to use the program.)

Of course, House Republicans cannot enact any laws without the support of Obama or the Democratic-controlled Senate, where Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is unlikely to risk angering Latino voters by passing enforcement-only immigration measures. But even if it means gridlock, House leaders seem committed to blocking comprehensive immigration reform.

“The best solution to the problem of illegal immigration is to enforce current laws,” Smith told the Chicago Tribune last week. “Attrition through enforcement can reduce the number of illegal immigrants already in the U.S.”

“The Latino firewall in the west actually saved the election for Democrats,” Frank Sharry, executive director of the immigration reform group America’s Voice, said on a conference call. “Latino voters played a significant role in Senate races.”

Although it is still unclear how many Latinos turned out to vote, the poll taken the night before the election indicates strong support for Democrats. On a generic ballot, 76 percent of the Latino voters polled picked the Democratic candidate over the Republican. Preferences were particularly strong in California, which has the country’s largest Latino population. About 86 percent of Latino voters in the state preferred Democrat Jerry Brown for governor over Republican Meg Whitman, and the same number preferred Democrat Barbara Boxer for Senate over Republican Carly Fiorina.

A majority ranked the economy, jobs and immigration as their top issues for choosing candidates, and most said they wanted to see immigration reform that included paths to citizenship for illegal immigrants already in the country.

In Nevada, where Reid faced a tough race against Republican Sharron Angle for his Senate seat, Latinos seem to have made the difference between winning and losing for the majority leader. Latinos preferred Reid by large margins to Angle, who has run an aggressively anti-illegal immigration campaign that many perceived as anti-Latino.

Latino groups said harsh rhetoric against illegal immigration by Republican candidates mobilized Latino voters, many of whom said anti-Latino or anti-immigrant sentiment influenced their vote. Because Latinos are the fastest-growing minority group in the country, rights groups said this year’s results could spell bad news for Republicans in 2012 and beyond as Latino voters become more influential.

“Political parties that demonize or take Latinos for granted are doing it at their great risk,” Clarissa Martinez de Castro of National Council of La Raza said on the call.

One exception was in Florida, where the Latino Decisions poll found majority Latino support for Republicans Rick Scott for governor and Marco Rubio for Senate. Florida, though, is generally an exception to most trends in Latino voting due to the large number of Cubans, who are often Republican, and Puerto Ricans, who are born U.S. citizens and therefore less involved in immigration issues. Although Rubio received 62 percent of the vote among Latinos polled Monday, Democrat Kendrick Meek had the advantage among non-Cuban Latino voters.

Salazar lost to Republican Scott Tipton, a Tea Party-backed candidate who will likely support heavier immigration enforcement without paths to legal status for the illegal immigrants already in the country. In Texas, Republican Francisco “Quico” Canseco defeated Rodriguez, a six-term congressman, and Republican Blake Farenthold took out 14-term congressman Ortiz.

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus is made up of Democrats and supports immigration reform that would allow some of the illegal immigrants in the United States to remain if they paid fines and taxes, learned English, passed background and civics tests and registered with the government. Losing three members from the caucus may seem minor given the size of Congress, but it means at least three pro-immigration reform members will be replaced in the House with members who support restricting immigration and tightly enforcing immigration laws to drive out current undocumented immigrants.

Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), who chairs the immigration task force of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, easily won re-election yesterday. But he acknowledged that enacting immigration reform will be more difficult with a GOP-led House. “If Republican opposition prevents us from seriously addressing immigration legislatively, then the President must address the toll deportations are taking on American families and neighborhoods through administrative action,” he said in a press release.