Tribpedia: High School Dropouts

Tribpedia

The dropout problem represents among the leading challenges for policy makers, schools and business leaders across Texas. A consensus of demographers predicts the problem could grow far worse as the state’s public school population swells with immigrants and the poor.

The U.S. Department of Education puts the Texas graduation rate at 71.9 percent — ranking the state 36th ...

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Proposed Charter School Would Focus on Adult Students

Rachel Bristow, a caseworker for Goodwill's GED program, assists 22-year-old Anita Rodriguez, who received her GED in August 2011, with her financial aid application at the Goodwill Resource Center in Austin, Texas.
Enlarge photo by: Tamir Kalifa
Rachel Bristow, a caseworker for Goodwill's GED program, assists 22-year-old Anita Rodriguez, who received her GED in August 2011, with her financial aid application at the Goodwill Resource Center in Austin, Texas.

Goodwill Industries hopes to open a charter school in Central Texas to help adults who lack a high school education. The campus would be the first of its kind in Texas. But there is an obstacle: The state only provides funding for students under age 26.

Enlarge graphic by: Todd Wiseman

TribWeek: Top Texas News for the Week of 10/24/11

Galbraith and Collier on the drought's economic impact, Grissom on the latest in the Morton and Skinner cases, Hamilton on university regents' potential conflicts of interest, Murphy on spending by Ron Paul's presidential campaign, Philpott on Rick Perry's plans for Social Security, Ramsey on the dirty little secret about dropouts, Ramshaw on how Perry and his staff downplayed allegations of abuse at state centers for the disabled, Root on Perry's flirtation with birtherism, M. Smith on GOP candidates making public ed their focus and Tan and Hamilton on why students in Texas illegally get access to state financial aid: The best of our best content from October 24 to 28, 2011.

Enlarge photo illustration by: Todd Wiseman

TribWeek: Top Texas News for the Week of 11/1/10

Our wall-to-wall Election Day coverage — complete results up and down the ballot and county by county, the all-hands-on-deck Trib team on the Republican tsunami, my conversation with George W. Bush's media adviser and Rick Perry's pollster about what happened on Tuesday, Stiles and Ramsey on what 194 candidates spent per vote this election cycle, Hu on how the GOP rout will affect the substance of the next legislative session, Hamilton on the Texas Democratic Trust's unhappy end, Ramshaw and Stiles profile the new arrivals at the Capitol in January, M. Smith on what's next for Chet Edwards and Ramsey and me on six matters of politics and policy we're thinking about going forward — plus Thevenot and Butrymowicz on a possible solution to the high school dropout problem: The best of our best from Nov. 1 to 5, 2010.

Enlarge photo by: Caleb Bryant Miller

Can Credit Recovery Courses Cut Dropout Rates?

  • by and Sarah Butrymowicz, The Hechinger Report

Across Texas, credit-recovery courses — self-paced online makeups offered to any student who fails — are expanding rapidly. In the spring and summer, 6,127 students in the Houston Independent School District earned nearly 10,000 credits in such courses, and another 2,500 are taking them this fall. Austin ISD and Dallas ISD enrolled about 4,000 students last year. For districts, they're a cost-effective way to bolster graduation rates, but questions remain over whether the digital curriculum offers the same quality of education as traditional courses. Little research exists on how much, or how little,  learning is actually going on.

The original data used for this visualization can be found here: http://www.idra.org/images/stories/IDRA_Attrition_Study_2010.pdf
Enlarge photo by: Becca Aaronson
The original data used for this visualization can be found here: http://www.idra.org/images/stories/IDRA_Attrition_Study_2010.pdf

New Study: Dropout Rate Falling, but Still High

  • by Tristan Hallman, visualization by Becca Aaronson

A new study by the nonprofit education advocacy group Intercultural Development Research Association says 29 percent of Texas students who enter high school as freshmen do not graduate. The attrition rate is the lowest in the 25 years since the IDRA began performing the annual study. But the group notes that while the trend is declining, millions more Texans will drop out by 2040.

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Everybody Going to College Isn't Realistic

  • by Mose Buchele
Ask anybody — from the president of the United States to your high school guidance counselor — and you'll probably hear the same, seemingly obvious thing: Higher education is the key to financial advancement. But is everybody going to college a realistic goal? And would the world really be better if we achieved it? Mose Buchele of KUT News reports.
Brookings Institute Mapped Educational attainment nationwide. Texas ranks last — 51st — in the percentage of adults with high school diploma, largely due to rapid immigration growth. The state ranks significantly higher on college attainment.
Enlarge photo by: Brookings Institute
Brookings Institute Mapped Educational attainment nationwide. Texas ranks last — 51st — in the percentage of adults with high school diploma, largely due to rapid immigration growth. The state ranks significantly higher on college attainment.

Why Does Texas Rank Last in High School Diplomas?

How can Texas rank last in the nation — 51st — in the percentage of adults with high school diplomas, and simultaneously rank 22nd in the percentage attending at least some college?

Students Arturo Garcia and Chris Conway listen to a U.S. Department of Education representative describe a grant program targeting low-performing schools like theirs, Reagan High School in East Austin. The money is tied to major overhauls and replacement of staff.
Enlarge credit: Brian Thevenot
Students Arturo Garcia and Chris Conway listen to a U.S. Department of Education representative describe a grant program targeting low-performing schools like theirs, Reagan High School in East Austin. The money is tied to major overhauls and replacement of staff.

Students Complain About Failing School Takeovers

"Teachers should be chasing us around," the Texas high school senior told the official from the U.S. Department of Education. "We shouldn't be chasing them. But that doesn't always happen here."

Dr. Joe Gonzales, principal Austin Can
Enlarge credit: Jacob Villanueva
Dr. Joe Gonzales, principal Austin Can

Drop-out Recovery Charters Recruit Troubled Teens

After much hand-wringing by public officials and business leaders over the dropout crisis, a patchwork of last-resort schools and programs has emerged statewide. Gauging their performance is tricky, but there's no question that the students they serve might otherwise be on the street or in jail.

The 2007-08 graduating class started with more than 370,000 students — and ended with about 237,000, or 64 percent. Not all students dropped out. Some left Texas public school and graduated elsewhere. Researchers argue over how to measure the dropout rate, but they agree on this point: It's way too high, and disproportionately high for Hispanic and black students.
Enlarge credit: Jacob Villanueva
The 2007-08 graduating class started with more than 370,000 students — and ended with about 237,000, or 64 percent. Not all students dropped out. Some left Texas public school and graduated elsewhere. Researchers argue over how to measure the dropout rate, but they agree on this point: It's way too high, and disproportionately high for Hispanic and black students.

The Texas High School Dropout Problem

“I represent a district that has 80 percent renters, 70 percent of people speaking a first language other than English, where there’s a high school with 42 languages and 40 percent turnover of the student body every year — now tell me how you plan to calculate the dropout rate,” Rep. Scott Hochberg said. “I will stipulate that it’s too big — let’s just start there. I wish we fought over solutions as much as we fight over the number.”