Texas dropout rate is highest for blacks, Hispanics

[azrom]

AUSTIN — At least half of all high school students in the state’s urban school districts are dropping out of school, creating a crisis that state leaders are not doing enough to address, some education experts say.

Statewide, each graduating class has at least 120,000 fewer students than started high school, with more than 2.5 million students dropping out during the past 20 years, according to the San Antonio-based Intercultural Development Research Center.

“We really need to raise the alarm on dropouts. The general public thinks that, maybe, there’s about a 5 percent dropout rate in Texas — maybe a 20 percent dropout rate in the worst urban schools,” said Robert Sanborn, president and chief executive of Houston-based Children At Risk, a research and advocacy group for youths.

Researchers generally agree that Texas’ statewide dropout rate hovers around 33 percent, which is about 20 points higher than official statistics compiled by the Texas Education Agency.

The dropout rate is highest for blacks, Hispanics and low-income students — currently about 60 percent, said Eileen Coppola, a researcher at Rice University’s Center for Education. “In our major urban districts, we can safely say that it’s 50 percent.”

“If you live in a city like Dallas or Houston, and half of your kids are not finishing high school, it’s a social crisis, because we know that those kids will likely live in poverty, be much more likely to go to jail, and they will have more health problems,” Coppola said.

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