Report: Only half of Hispanics, blacks finishing school

[rodbarnett]

The Washington Post
Thursday, February 26, 2004



WASHINGTON -- Barely half of all black, Hispanic and Native American students who entered U.S. high schools in 2000 will receive diplomas this year, according to a new report that challenges conventional methods of calculating graduation rates.

Of all students who entered ninth grade four years ago, 68 percent are expected to graduate this year. The rates for minorities are considerably lower -- 50 percent for blacks, 51 percent for Native Americans and 53 percent for Hispanics -- according to a measure devised by the nonprofit Urban Institute in Washington.

Methods of calculating graduation rates are a perpetual subject of debate, and there are many differences in the ways states and school systems report data. By any measure, though, blacks and Hispanics graduate at lower rates than whites.

"We will never dissolve the hegemony of Jim Crow segregation... unless we get serious about this problem," said Christopher Edley, co-director of the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, which with the Urban Institute wrote Losing our Future: How Minority Youth are Being Left Behind by the Graduation Rate Crisis.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/auto/epaper/editions/today/news_04d318f9c6ea9128003e.html

[colonel odis]

1. don't worry. the administration is coming up with ways to

lower the number even further.

[saigon68]

10. More Manufacturing jobs opening at Mickey D's

You don't want these burger flippers too educated. They will get bored with the work

[loudnclear]

24. I guess they feel they won't get jobs any way...why go to schoo?

Hopelessness is a bitch!

[Frodo]

2. How many are dropping out and how many are taking five years to finish?

It seems unclear. The "overall" 68% number seems incredibly low as well.

Regardless, solving THIS problem solves almost all others (crime, drugs, welfare, etc)

[cryofan]

3. Yes, I taught at a majority Hispanic school.

...and huge percentages drop out before graduation, but over half of those who do stay on to graduate are 19 when they finally do graduate.

I can definitely see their reasons for dropping out. I think college is overrated. These days, you do a lot better finding a trades job or starting your own business.

[Frodo]

6. One disagreement

"college" isn't overrated so much. It's the difference between the high-end universities and the state schools that is so overblown. Spend a couple years in comunity college and transfer to a decent state school and you get you money's worth (assuming you aren't studying UBW).

You don't get five times the education going to the more expensive school and your extra earning power probably doesn't offset the extra debt you take on to finance it.

[salin]

7. I have looked at similar numbers for a particular

district... there tends to be a glut in the ninth grade (that is numbers increase)... suggesting that there are two groups of students... first year ninth graders, and second year ninth graders.

In most districts, high school is the first time that students don't get passed from a grade - but they earn credits and get reclassified to the next grade level (and in some places it is divided into two grade levels, i.e., 9a and 9b) until the required number of credits have been earned.

What I found - and having glanced at other urban districts saw a similar pattern - was the 9th grade glut, and a corresponding big drop in the next year's 10th grade enrollment (again indicating that some are not matriculating from 9 to 10.) However - the decline tends to be larger than the glut the previous year. Each subsequent year there is an additional decline in enrollment for the cohort.

If it was just that the students were graduating in five years... somewhere along the way the "bubble" from the larger enrollments in the 9th grade - would work its way through into some 12th grade year. But instead the numbers, persistantly are stable in their decline.

When I looked at the numbers - I also compared for the same years the decline in enrollment for cohorts progressing between grades in lower grades (eg 2nd grade enrollment year 1 compared to 3rd grade enrollment year 2, etc.) - to get a measure of overall mobility. There was a slight decline in the elementary years ( say - 3%) a slightly larger decline in middle years (about 5 %) and a huge decline in the high school years. Thus the claim often made about out-mobility didn't seem to make sense.

The patterns that I "saw" are not unlike the findings in this study, and are not inconsistent with patterns I was familiar with in several other urban districts.

[salin]

4. two articles - related - one of particular interest

The two following articles are of interest. The first one was carried in the local paper (it is a washington post article), the second I found on a google news search has more information from the study - and gives a much better picture of the issues at hand. I will link both below with a little commentary after the first article.

Report Disputes U.S. High School Graduation Rates

By Linda Perlstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 26, 2004; Page A03


Barely half of all black, Hispanic and Native American students who entered U.S. high schools in 2000 will receive diplomas this year, according to a new report that challenges conventional methods of calculating graduation rates.

Of all students who entered ninth grade four years ago, only 68 percent are expected to graduate with regular diplomas this year. The rates for minorities are considerably lower -- 50 percent for blacks, 51 percent for Native Americans and 53 percent for Hispanics -- according to a measure devised by the Urban Institute, a Washington-based nonprofit organization.

Methods of calculating graduation rates are a perpetual subject of debate, and there are many differences in the ways states and school systems report data. By any measure, though, blacks and Hispanics graduate at lower rates than whites, a situation that has long concerned educators.

--snip--

The authors criticized the federal No Child Left Behind law for requiring that test score data but not graduation rates be broken down by race. They suggested that the law's requirement that schools meet escalating proficiency goals, as well as the proliferation of state high school exit exams, might encourage school officials to nudge out lower-performing students. Kati Haycock, director of the Education Trust, a Washington-based nonprofit organization, agreed that graduation rates are worse than is generally reported, but she opposed the notion that federal testing requirements cause students to leave.

"How can you possibly suggest that just making educators accountable for student learning makes them cheat and push students out of school?" she said.

more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6946-2004Feb25.html

Now Ms. Haycock's statements are quite... interesting/asinine. A few months ago the story broke about the falacy of the "Texas Miracle" - where the nclb legislation was fashioned and Rod Paige's Houston district (where he had been supt) that had been hailed as having demonstrated phenomenal success - was shown to have ... pushed lower performing kids out - not count them - as a means of improving their overall "performance". Following that story there was a rash of stories on other major urban districts suggesting that similar patterns had also occured.

This is an area I have long been concerned about and followed for years. There are all sorts of ways to push kids out and not count them as dropouts. The following is a scenario that I am familiar with: The state changed how it calculated dropouts/graduates a few years earlier in response to some districts calling foul, because looking across attendance/enrollment rates from 9-12 - they claimed that declining enrollment districts (high family mobility out of the district) were disproportionately affected (always looked worse) when compared to districts with growing enrollments. Thus the calculation was changed... just count students enrolled during the school year. Look at fall enrollment numbers grades 9-12, look at those same enrollments in the spring, average the decline in enrollment by 4 (four grades)... presto... "Graduation rates". (seriously.)

Now... if a student stayes enrolled - even if they are no longer attending... they are not a dropout. Since changes in enrollment over the summer are no longer counted as dropouts... there is an incentive to count nonattending students as still in school - until the summer - then just quietly drop them. This is how a district that sees a 66 percent decline in enrollment betweeen 9th and 12th grades... can suddenly have a 92+% "Graduation rate".

Add - the higher stakes testing - which retroactively placed punitive measures upon schools... Let's go to a hypothetical school where there is a 25% chronic absentee rate... do we invest in getting those kids back into school - if we perceive the students as disinterested or frustrated (e.g., doing poorly - and thus not wanting to attend) - then do we expect those students to "help" or "hurt" our overall test scores... so should we rationalize that those students do not want to be there anyhow... so why fight to get them back in school and have their test scores "punish" us and other students (by losing resources based on NCLB punitive measures.)... with the funky way the state counts dropouts... the school just carries the students on the books... no dropout counted...

Big problem - if we perceive education institutions as an avenue for social mobility and equity.

On to the next story - anyone with any concern about dropout rates and related issue - should read the following article. Much more information than in most of the stories that have gone into papers related to the release of the Urban Institute's study.


Minority high school graduation rate just 50%

Thursday, February 26, 2004
By Karen MacPherson, Post-Gazette National Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Only about half the minority students in the United States graduate from high school, according to a report released yesterday by the Urban Institute and the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University.

In Pennsylvania, the researchers said, 41 percent of Hispanic students and 46 percent of African-American students graduated from high school in 2001. That contrasted with a graduation rate of 81 percent among white students.

"We have a tragic situation today under which high school graduation in American now is literally a '50-50 proposition' for minority students," said Christopher Edley, co-director of the Civil Rights Project.

much more - excellent article: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04057/277625.stm

[salin]

20. plugging the articles linked in the post above

this is serious - also points out more of the flaws of the nclb.

[bushisanidiot]

5. AWOL's Compassionatte Conservative "no child left behind" strategery sure

is working!

AWOL needs a big electoral boot in his ass!

[Romel]

8. Is everyone really surprised by this?

Everything around these kids says "why finish", "why try", "why learn"? After all, your going to be the next NBA superstar. Their role models are people like P-Diddy and Sean Kemp. This is mostly a cultural problem. When a kid is carrying his book bag home and his peers are putting him down, saying things like "are you trying to be white?", the pressure to stay uneducated and uninformed is sometimes to much for them to bare. Sadly, their home environment is not much different from the atmosphere of their friends.

White kids are not usually asked by their peers when they are doing well in school if they are trying to be "black". As for the Hispanic drop out problem, I'm not sure what the problem is there. However it's probably not a fascination with the idea that little Manuel will one day be 6'-8" and be able to dunk. Just a guess.

I just wish the school system would get back to teaching reading, writing, math, and history the way they did when I was in school.

[prolesunited]

9. Well, you certainly have the African-American stereotype nailed

I'm sure if you try hard enough, you can come up with one for the Hispanics.

And just what are the schools teaching these days?

[Romel]

13. Do I need to say that this is not the case for everyone? DUH

but to deny that what I said holds true in many neighborhoods would be ignoring the truth.

[salin]

15. if one is looking at the world

as a 1 dimensional-caricature... sure....

As if there are no more - far more complex issues - involved.

Here is just one common scenario:
Working parents with little education working night shifts and double shifts to be able to afford a very cheap and crammed apt.... this alone brings in several other factors - lack of parent involvement in the education (because of working double shifts); lack of resources if one is struggling academically (can't afford a tutor; can't buy lots of books or materials when younger which would strengthen literacy skills which are directly correlated with high school achievement; etc.)... other poverty in the home issues (periodic service disruptions if the utilities can not always be paid on time... or mobility for similar reasons tied to rent)... heck I had a student who would miss school because she only had three outfits - and some weeks, the mother (who worked as an LN) didn't have the money to pay for the laundry and the girl was too embarrassed not only to be wearing the same three outfits - but having those outfits become increasingly more grimy... I could go on... But - nah you are right - the PDiddy explanation makes much more sense. :eyes:

[prolesunited]

18. Well, that's a very insulting response

I normally welcome new people to DU, but I think I'm reserving judgment in your case if you believe that is an appropriate level of discourse here.

When you say the what you described "holds true in many neighborhoods," on what are you basing this assessment? How did you arrive at this truth? What experience do you have interacting with minority group members, those in lower socioeconomic categories?

[salin]

11. well - the dropout rates

in some rural white areas can be just as high... not sure that all of your explanations hold true in those instances...

[Romel]

14. I dont deny that either. but the question was about minorities.

[salin]

17. no, the article is about dropout/graduation rates

that overall are bad - and disproportionately so for minorities. But the reports suggest a not so great graduation rate (esp if we consider the rates in other developed countries) for whites as well.

Just a question - why would the superficial racial explanation be the one to ruminate on ... rather than the areas of concentrated poverty (where often families of color live in concentrated numbers) and related issues tied to poverty?

Interesting.

[saigon68]

12. These kids can get jobs in new the Willie Horton Commercials for real

The prison industrial system needs lots of young black men for jobs, to compete against the 10 year old children sewing shirts in Bangladesh.

[DrWeird]

19. P-Diddy and Sean Kemp?

Jesus Christ. How out of touch is that?

[dArKeR]

16. Just wait for the manifestations in 5 to 30 years! Disgraceful America!

[The_Casual_Observer]

21. Leave no child behind A thousand points of light

I'm ready to lead.
He has these weapons and will use them.
Compassionate conservative.


Monkey faced stupid ass that approximately 50% of the population
would vote for.

[musiclawyer]

22. Well I can't speak for African Americans

But I do come from a latino culture, and neighborhood, and I'll tell you that there is tremendous cultural and family pressure to stay home and help the "household" Going accross town, much less out of town or out of state to go to school is perceived as selfish and a betrayal of family obligation to stay home, get a local job and earn money (because indeed there is economic struggle involved for the vast majority). Of course there is a minority that understands the long terms reward provided by the short term sacrifice of higher education. But I maintain that it is a minority, at least within most of the very-diverse latino community in the USA, especailly the Mexican American sector. In fact, it is cultural acceptable for teenagers or people in their early 20's to get married and start families( although most of you will agree it's not good idea for kids to beget kids). So the cycle then continues. And it's a real problem. Flam away but "white" corporate/governmental America can solve this problem only peripherally, by investing in education, quality public schools, easier access to college, universal health care, living wage, etc. The main problem at its core can only be tackled by the culture itself, by some real cultural soul searching, and frankly, by the latino communities literally letting go of its young people.... and encouraging them to go into the wider world. Flame away if you wish , but you have no cred in my mind unless you've lived and breathed in the barrios as I have.

[yellowcanine]

23. No problem. Just classify them as "transfers"

Rod Paige fuzzy math to confuse the NEA terra-ists.