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Texas-style Education Works Against Hispanics
Fewer than half of the Hispanic teenagers who started public high school in Texas in 1997 graduated four years later.
These latest figures from the Intercultural Development Research Association in San Antonio probably did not improve in 2002, and probably will not improve in 2003. In fact, the way things are going in Texas, more than half of this year's hopeful, new Hispanic high-schoolers will be gone before graduation day 2006.
Hispanic dropout rates have been getting worse ever since IDRA started keeping count in the 1985-86 school year. That year "only" 45 percent of Hispanic high school students in Texas dropped out.
What's been happening under "educational accountability" Texas-style is that the state puts pressure on schools, and the schools put pressure on students.
The state penalizes schools whose students score low on mandatory "high-stakes" tests. But it does not penalize schools if students drop out for supposed personal reasons. So there is an incentive to push out students who are not so easy to teach -- those who don't speak English at home, whose much-needed jobs cut into school and study time, or whose parents can't speak up for them.
Research shows that the surest way to push students out of school is to hold them back a grade. Walt Haney of Boston College reports that nearly 30 percent of black and Hispanic Texas high school students are held back in ninth grade. Most drop out, blaming themselves. So these young people don't get the free public education they need, and the taxpayers' education dollar is not as effective as it should be. IDRA estimates that dropouts have cost the state of Texas $400 billion in unemployment, welfare and penal costs, as well as lost wages and taxes, since "accountability" and "testing" became the watchwords in 1986.
We say, let's not make Texas our national model. . . .
— Tony P. Martinez & Alison P. Martinez
Texas-style Education Works Against Hispanics
Houston Chronicle
September 20, 2002
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/editorial/outlook/158267
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