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This Month's Focus: School Holding Power
“We cannot settle for incremental improvement in high school graduation rates. The cost is too high. Clearly, to achieve different results, we must envision a dramatically different process and undertake a new strategy.”
– Dr. María “Cuca” Robledo Montecel, IDRA President and CEO
Published 10 times a year, each edition explores issues facing U.S. education today and strategies to better serve every student. This newsletter is published in print and on the IDRA website, in addition to this eLetter format.
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Texas Public School Attrition Study, 2013-14: School Holding Power is Improving in Texas – At a Glacial Pace
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by Roy L. Johnson, M.S.
High school attrition rates in Texas have declined from 33 percent in 1985-86 to 24 percent in 2013-14. Recent trends in attrition rates for Texas public high schools continue to reflect a positive outlook for the total high school population and for each race-ethnicity and gender group.
IDRA’s latest annual attrition study shows that the overall attrition rate declined by 1 percentage point for the fifth consecutive time in the 29-year trend analyses of dropout and attrition rates in Texas public schools. The attrition rate declined from 29 percent in 2009-10 to 27 percent in 2010-11 to 26 percent in 2011-12 to 25 percent in 2012-13 to 24 percent in 2013-14. Fewer than 30 percent of students were lost from public enrollment prior to graduation with a diploma after 24 years of rates ranging from 31 percent to 43 percent.
IDRA’s annual attrition study released this month builds on a series of studies that track the number and percent of students in Texas who are lost from public school enrollment prior to graduation. Since conducting the first comprehensive study of school dropouts in Texas in 1985-86, IDRA has conducted attrition analyses each year to assess schools’ abilities to hold on to their students until they graduate. – Keep reading
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Families and School Holding Power – Parent-Led Surveys Present Insights
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by Aurelio M. Montemayor, M.Ed.
As IDRA publishes its 29th Texas Public School Attrition Study, we remind ourselves how important it is for parents to have that data and, more importantly, understand what it means. Attrition data point to patterns but give no clear reason for the trends. Communities must make sense of the figures through further investigation.
Whether or not a family’s children are in school, all families need to know how schools are doing in keeping school-age children in school and succeeding in their studies. Families can use the data to further investigate the why’s and wherefores’ of the issue. Schools need to know what families think and more importantly how families and schools can partner to meet the challenge.
In 2007-08, we worked with a group of families in El Paso who were very concerned about the mathematics scores of the students in a large high school that was predominantly Latino and poor. They created a questionnaire and surveyed their peers. The information they collected was surprising and useful for the school in modifying intensive professional development for teachers. – Keep reading
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Barriers Hispanic Students Face Graduating from High School
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by Josie Danini Cortez, M.A.
The reporter’s call came late one afternoon: “What does the research say are barriers that Hispanic students face graduating from high school and going on to college?” It was a familiar question.
There is, in fact, a substantial body of research that details the barriers Hispanic students have to overcome, almost all pointing to disadvantages – economic, English learners, poorly prepared, perceived dissonant cultural values – the list goes on and on. It’s easy to see why other research is important when you see the statistics. IDRA’s attrition rate (see story above) shows that the high school attrition rate in Texas remains highest for Hispanic students at 31 percent.
Lower College-Going Rates
The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) reports a similarly troubling statistic for college-going Hispanic students. In its 2014 progress report on Closing the Gaps by 2015, Texas’ plan to close the college participation gaps, half of Hispanic students who graduated from Texas public high schools in 2013 went directly to Texas colleges and universities the following fall (46.4 percent of Hispanic males; 55.9 percent of Hispanic females). (2014)
Stating it another way, about one out of two Hispanic students who graduated from high school enrolled in higher education the following fall. Keep in mind the “colleges and universities” include public, independent, and career institutions: two-year community colleges, four-year universities, technical schools, and private for-profit colleges. That means that bachelor degrees from the University of Texas at Austin are combined with certificates in skilled trades – an important distinction as it relates to earning power, opportunity and advancement. – Keep reading
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Coca-Cola Valued Youth Program Winning Essay
by Middle School First Place Winner, Christian Ortiz, 7th grade, Domingo Treviño Middle School, La Joya, Texas
I am very thankful to the
Coca-Cola Valued Youth Program. It changed my behavior, attitude and the way I viewed things immensely. Before I was in this program, I was very ignorant toward my teacher’s lessons. Even though they had talks with me about my ignorance in class and my behavior when I interact with my colleagues, the talks really never seemed to get through my head. I also had troubles at home because I was very slothful and irresponsible. I would always argue with my parents because I did not want to do my homework and chores. Deep down, I have always wanted to change, but I had a very weak will and could never better myself – until I found my way into the Coca-Cola Valued Youth Program. This program helped me in so many unimaginable ways.
– Keep reading
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IDRA Research for Teaching Quality
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In 1977, IDRA published Theory of Incompatibilities, by IDRA founder, José A. Cárdenas, Ed.D., and Blandina Cárdenas, Ph.D., presenting five areas of incompatibility (poverty, culture, language, mobility, and societal perceptions of Mexican American children) that affect the child’s learning. Particularly poignant for today’s context is the section on educational philosophies: “Problems in the education of minority children would be eliminated almost overnight if educational institutions would develop and implement positive educational philosophies concerning minority education… Basic philosophies that must be adopted regardless of origin include the following:
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Minority children can learn, regardless of any characteristic they may exhibit due to economic, cultural, language, social, ethnic or racial background. There is nothing inherent in minority children that is an impediment to learning. Past failures of minority children are the result of inadequate school programs and not the fault of the child and his or her background.
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Cultural pluralism is a desirable condition in our society...The co-existence of differing lifestyles will allow alternatives that provide the natural variation needed for subsequent selection.
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Facility to utilize more than one language is a desirable educational goal.
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The individualization of instruction is an essential element of all instructional programs for all children.
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Children, all children, are a natural resource of our country.
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The end result of an educational program for minority children, and for all children, is freedom. Freedom is manifested through freedom of choice…It is incumbent upon the schools to develop in children the necessary skills which make feasible alternatives available to them. Vocational choices, lifestyles, economic levels, etc…should be dependent upon an individual’s free choice, and not by accident of birth, parent’s economic conditions, geographic location, race, ethnicity, or any of the monolithic cultural constraints now found in social institutions and which lock out people through the absence of alternatives.”
Thirty seven years later, IDRA released, College Bound and Determined, showing how one school district in south Texas embraced these philosophies and transformed itself from low achievement and low expectations to planning for all students to graduate from high school and college. This transformation went beyond changing sobering graduation rates or even getting graduates into college.
Examples that highlight IDRA’s persistent work in school holding power are online.
Quality Schools Action Framework™
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Classnotes Podcasts on School Holding Power
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