Despite the fact that Hispanics are the fastest-growing demographic group in the United States, mainstream society, and public school educators in particular, know remarkably little about this group and remain largely unresponsive to their needs. Our paper focuses on Mexican Americans who account for the largest percentage of Hispanics in this country.

The preparation of American educational leaders is guided almost exclusively by Anglo-American perspectives that emphasize the assimilation of divergent groups into the society with little regard for the potential of alternative leadership models within these groups. Even in predominately Hispanic communities, in schools with high percentages of Hispanic administrators and teachers and large percentages of Mexican American students, the policies and practices modeled in these schools are as unresponsive to the needs of these students as are those of educators with significantly less exposure to this population. In essence, the victims have become the victimizers-the oppressed have learned the White model well and in turn, they impose it on the children they serve.

Our paper focuses on the absence of Hispanic voices in educational leadership theory and in the preparation of school leaders in the United States. We examine the percentage of Hispanic professors in university-level preparation programs, and the percentage of Hispanic teachers, principals, and superintendents, and we identify factors that contribute to these statistics. Finally, we propose an alternative model of leadership (theory and preparation) for preparing school leaders to successfully educate children in an increasingly diverse and global society.