Experts Disagree on Hispanic Dropout Rates

Education & Affordable Housing
Experts Disagree on Hispanic Dropout Rates
By Maria Alanis
Jan 22, 2004, 17:15

Although University of Houston’s Hispanic enrollment more than tripled in the last 18 years, experts say the group’s dropout problem affects everyone and will harm the national economy unless “drastically improved.”

“The aging Anglo population or ‘baby boomers’ that make up the majority of the professional labor market will retire within the next 10 to 20 years,” said Dr. Tatcho Mindiola, associate professor of sociology and director of the UH Center for Mexican American Studies. “The African American population has stabilized and begun to decrease while the Hispanic population is skyrocketing.”

These trends will cause a great shortage in the number of people qualified to fill professional roles, said Mindiola. “The economy will suffer unless Hispanic high school and college graduation rates drastically improve.”
Nationally, educational attainment is not impressive, said Mindiola. “Only 26 percent of the total population has a college degree.”

Houston Independent School District officials say reports are misleading.

“The way the state requires us to report dropouts (averaging middle and high school numbers) does not reveal a true picture,” said HISD Assistant Superintendent for the Office of Student Engagement and Charter School Initiatives Jaime De la Isla. “You don’t have as many students leaving at middle school as you do in high school.”

Averaging these numbers unrealistically brings the figure down, said De la Isla. According to the Texas Education Agency, in 2002, HISD had a graduation rate of 75.3 percent, a GED attainment rate of 3.2 percent, a continuation rate of 12.3 and a dropout rate of 9.2 percent.

On the other hand, census reports amplify the number.

“Census reports track 16-24 year-olds who have not completed high school, including immigrants who’ve come to the United States with little or no schooling and who never enroll in high school,” said De la Isla. “This system results in significantly higher ratings for Hispanics.”
According to Census 2000 educational attainment reports, only 26.5 percent of Hispanics over the age of 15 held a high school diploma.

HISD’s Peer Examination, Evaluation, and Redesign committee’s 2002-2003 report indicates a graduation rate of 74 percent, a GED rate of 3.2 percent, a continuation rate of 10.5 percent and a dropout rate of 12 percent, said De la Isla.

As recommended by the PEER committee, composed of community leaders and school administrators, HISD is pushing to adopt the National Center for Education Statistics’ definition for dropout and completion rates. “It will make for a more accurate tracking system,” said De la Isla.

Of HISD’s total student population (212,000), 57 percent or approximately 120,840 are Hispanic, said De la Isla.

“Approximately 60,000 or 29 percent of the total population are immigrant students who are limited in their English proficiency,” he added.

Hispanics account for 55 percent of the dropout number in HISD, with females in the lead by a small fraction, said De la Isla.

According to De la Isla, HISD has more than 100 programs to help students stay in school. The most promising is the district’s systematic reform initiative, which is restructuring schools physically and philosophically to provide more individualized attention. HISD’s goal is to raise the graduation rate to 85 percent by 2007.

At UH, the number of Hispanic graduates has steadily increased since the Mexican Americans Studies Center introduced College Career Day, said Mindiola.

“In the fall of 1984, Hispanic student enrollment was 1,906 or 6 percent of the total population. In the fall of 2002, that number had increased to 6,115 or 18 percent.”