decoding hispanic dropout rates

8/3/2019 Decoding Hispanic Dropout Rates

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Decoding Hispanic 1

Decoding Hispanic

Decoding Hispanic Dropout Rates

Don A. Gonzalez

The University of North Texas


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Decoding Hispanic Dropout Rates

The Hispanic population in the United States is growing at an exponential rate. Some

demographers have posited that the impact of this population storm will be greater than that of

the baby boomers. Arecent Pew report reveled that over 50% of the nations population growth

has come from Hispanics. Like the baby boomers, these effects will significantly impact

education because nearly 37% (Pew Hispanic Center/Kaiser Family Foundation, 2004) of the

Hispanic population is school-and-college-aged young people (ages 5 to 24). Hispanics already

have a higher dropout rate than their Anglo and African-American counterparts. Unfortunately,

most dropout rates do not currently distinguish between foreign-born Hispanics and those native

born. That is the focus of this review: Is there a difference in the dropout rates of foreign-born

Hispanics and those born in the United States.

One of the challenges in evaluating this is issue is the very internal diversity among Hispanics.

The group is not necessarily a homogenous entity. Theoretically the group shares a language

Spanish. Nevertheless, the group consists of people from different countries, all the races and

differing cultures. Often the term is used interchangeably with Latinos. Historically the term

was used to describe someone from Spain. In the United States the term began as a cultural

moniker and has grown to be used as an ethnic one which essentially includes anyone whose

family originated in a Spanish speaking country or they themselves did.

The most current available research on Hispanic dropout rates falls into two categories: 1)

grouping all of Hispanics together and then focusing on stop gap programs and 2) attempting to
http://pewhispanic.org/reports/report.php?ReportID=140http://pewhispanic.org/reports/report.php?ReportID=140http://pewhispanic.org/reports/report.php?ReportID=140


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evaluate the different subgroups within the larger one. This review will examine these two

methods in light of the aforementioned focus.

In September of 1995, then Secretary of Education, Richard W. Riley created the Hispanic

Dropout Project (HDP) which was funded as part of the Department of Education. The

purpose of the project was to bring together a group of experts to analyze the Hispanic dropout

problem as well as offer policy solutions. From 1997 through 1999, the group, led by Walter G.

Secada of the University of Wisconsin, issued a series of reports. One of the first reports issued

was authored by Robert Slavin of Johns Hopkins, the noted psychologist and expert on

cooperative learning. Slavin did not conduct any new research, but instead relied on National

Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) data obtained in 1996. Apparently all the HDP

articles relied on this NCES data. Slavin (1997) admitted to being frustrated by the complexity

of the Latino dropout rates, yet he did recognize that there was a difference in the dropout rates

of the Hispanic subgroups (p. 2). This could have been the catalyst to begin serious research into

comparing the dropout rates of native and foreign born Hispanics. Instead, Slavin devoted one

brief paragraph to this observation and then moved on to evaluating the individual factors that

generally lead to dropouts. The remainder of the article is devoted to reviewing dropout

prevention programs.

Secada led the final report in February 1998, entitled No More Excuses. Reviewing the NCES

data Secada (1998) concluded that the results were no different than prior research, that upwards

of 30% of Hispanics dropout of school (p. 5). The group then shifted its focus to interviewing

administrators of dropout prevention programs across the country. Essentially, the group took

the existing research conducted by NCES and concluded that Hispanic dropouts are too high.


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The original research conducted by the team consisted of interviewing teachers, students and

administrators to find common causalities and solutions. The bulk of the report describes these

interactions and includes a litany of names and organizations that assisted the project. The

rhetoric in the piece is particularly persuasive in effort to cajole the government into action with

a call of no more excuses. Ten years later the problem persists and the HDP website merely

exists as a homepage made up of broken resource links. The full report can no longer be

retrieved from the Department of Education website link that appears on the HDP website.

Secada (1999) followed up the final report with an article in The Clearing House whose title

suggested it would explain some of the lessons learned from the Hispanic Dropout Project.

Instead it is simply a condensed rehashing of the final report with some focus on the effects of

alternative schools on the dropout rates. This presentation appears to be the last organized

connection to the Hispanic Dropout Project.

While the Hispanic Dropout Project may not have lived up to its national hype, interest in the

topic Hispanic dropout rates continues to attract research. The past five years has seen its fair

share of articles written about this topic. Late in 2000, Robert Hauser conducted a study utilizing

data obtained from the October Current Population Surveys, 1972-1998. The survey included

over 167,000 youth aged 14-24 years. They defined a dropout as someone who transitioned

from school enrollment to not non-enrollment. This definition is consistent with the definition

used by the NCES. While Hauser et al admit that this definition is not the most ideal, they

contend that it probably more accurately evaluates Hispanic dropout rates. Up to this point this

is one of the most comprehensive studies Hispanic dropout rates. According to the study,


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Hispanic rates hit 30% in the 1970s, dropped to 20% in the 1980s and spiked again in the

1990s (p. 8).

One trend revealed in the process of writing this review is the use of interviews and focus groups

to gather data. One such study was conducted in Hillsborough County, Florida by a group who

presented to the National Migrant Education conference (Nesman, 2001). The group conducted

interviews at middle and high schools in a four school cluster that had a high concentration of

Hispanics including two that consisted of migrant farmers. Using the district and county data

bases, they found that in this particular community half of the students spoke English as their

first language and over two-thirds of the group were native born Hispanics. The group also used

focus groups that included one hundred students that were screened for the process. The

roughly found that 7.5% of the students were dropping out. They concluded from the

interviews and focus groups that the indicators for these Hispanics dropping out included lack of

self motivation, absenteeism and poverty determined by students being on the free lunch

program. This study would seem to support the hypothesis that native born and English

proficient Hispanics have a lower drop out rate, however the authors did not attempt to pursue

this further. Instead, like previous studies they focused on the general causes of dropout rates

and making recommendations to combat these factors. In particular, they recommended the use

of bilingual teachers and tutors to help with homework. It would seem that the data better

supported the notion of helping the non-English proficient students become proficient in the use

of English.

In 2002, a group of researcher at the Hispanic Border Leadership Institute presented a study in

which they found that Hispanic dropout rates in five western states Arizona, California,


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Colorado, New Mexico and Texas - was 44% (Acevedo, 2002, p. 5). The group relied on

census data and NAEP reports. The study is forthcoming in asserting that its purpose is to put

influence policymakers, in other words state legislators. This may explain why the group made

no effort to distinguish between native born and foreign born Hispanics. Interestingly, one of the

groups recommendations is for Texas Education Agency to develop a measurable method of

determining attrition rather than allowing the local districts to define the terms.

In 2003, Maria O. Egemba and James Crawford presented a paper at the annual meeting of the

American Educational Research Association analyzing Hispanic drop out rates. The two sited

the Hispanic Dropout Project and its findings as motivation for writing the piece. The data used

came from the High School and Beyond (H & B) study of 1980 senior and sophomore student

cohorts. The H & B survey included 3,251 Hispanic students who were surveyed every two

years through 1992. The authors concluded from this information that 28% of the Hispanic

students dropped out. The study did use citizenship and English proficiency as an independent

variable in analyzing the data. It concluded that citizenship and English proficiency was a factor

in 19% of the drop out cases. While this was the highest percentage factor in predicting drop

outs, no expanded effort was made to distinguish between native born and foreign born

Hispanics.

The data obtained from studies of the early 2000s began to demonstrate that there might be a

correlation between national origin and drop out rates. While the data was beginning to surface,

the researchers were not pursuing further investigation. This has recently changed. The Pew

Hispanic Center has sponsored a significant amount of research in understanding U.S. Hispanic


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populations. To date the foundations research is the most comprehensive look at Hispanics and

education available.

Richard Fry conducted a report for the foundation in 2003 that clearly rejects the notion that

Hispanic dropout rates can be properly analyzed while grouping all the subgroups together. In

fact, Fry asserts that by targeting the statistics in a more detailed fashion policy makers can be

better armed to decipher problems and find solutions (p. iv). This enabled Fry to discover that a

large portion of Hispanic youth in the United States are foreign born, many of whom have had

little or no contact with the school system in this country (p. 1). According to his research, a

foreign born student whose education is foreign based has 90% chance of dropping out (p. 5).

Fry observes that there are primarily three subgroups to evaluate: 1) native born Hispanics, 2)

foreign born Hispanics educated in the United States and 3) foreign born Hispanics educated

abroad. The last group generally emigrate to work in this country, not go to school. English

proficiency seems to be a primary factor as Fry points out that of the half million Latino

dropouts, only 9,000 are native-born youth who do not speak English at least well (p. 9).

Armed with this data, Fry recommends targeting resources at the Hispanic youth who have had

long exposure to U.S. schools. This he contends will have the greatest impact.

The recent immigration debates in Washington and last years student walk outs have drawn the

attention of the American public and media. The Pew Hispanic Center conducted the largest

household survey in the United States, sampling over three million addresses (Hazimzadeh,

2006, p. 1). The statistical profile obtained from this survey resulted in 32 tables. The primary

advantage of this study is that it breaks down data within the internal diversity of the Latino

population. According to the data the native born Hispanic population is actually growing


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slightly faster than foreign born (22.4% to 20.2%). The greater impact of the data, according to

Hazimzadeh, is the rapid growth of Hispanic youth. According to the survey 80% of Hispanics

under the age of 18 speak English well. One may be able to extrapolate from this that increased

English proficiency may result in higher graduation rates

Richard Fry (2005) did a follow up article analyzing foreign born youth drop out rates. His

research found that foreign-born (not just Hispanics) are significant contributors to the dropout

rate in this country. While they only make up 8% of our nations teens, they make up nearly

25% of those dropping out. The analysis utilized a large sampling of foreign-born students from

over forty different countries and regions.

It has taken nearly fifteen years since the failed Hispanic Dropout Project, to begin to see some

significant and relevant research being conducted in this field. The work of the Hispanic Pew

Center is a great foundation for this continued effort. This work could be supplemented by case

studies of urban school districts with large Hispanic populations. When the research breaks

through the internal diversities of the Hispanic population, the results show that native-born

Hispanics are dropping out at a lower rate than thought.


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References

Pew Hispanic Center/Kaiser Family Foundation.National Survey of Latinos: Education, January

2004 (conducted August October 2003).

Slavin, R. Hispanic Dropout Project (HDP), 1997. Effective dropout prevention and college

attendance program for Latino students. Washington, DC: Office of the Under Secretary

of Education.

Secada, W. Hispanic Dropout Project (HDP), 1998. No more excuses: The final report of the

Hispanic dropout project. Washington, DC: Office of the Under Secretary of Education.

Secada, W. (1999). Lessons learned by the Hispanic dropout project. The Clearing House,

73(2), 93-95.

Hauser, R., Simmons, S, & Pager, D. (2000). High school dropout, race-ethnicity, and social

background from the 1970s to the 1990s: Russell Sage Foundation. New York, NY:

Spencer.

Nesman, T., Barobs-Gahr, B., & Medrano, L. (2001). They are our kids: Significant findings

from a 1998 Latino Dropout Study: The National Migrant Education Conference.

Orlando, FL.

Acevedo, B., Ortiz, L., Baca, L., et al. (2002). A compromised commitment: Societys obligation

and failure to serve the nations largest growing population: Hispanic Border Leadership

Institute. Tempe, AZ.

Egemba, M. & Crawford, J. (2003). An analysis of Hispanic students drop out rates:American

Educational Research Association. Chicago, IL.

Fry, R. (2003). Hispanic youth dropping out of U.S. schools: Measuring the challenge: The Pew

Hispanic Center. Washington, DC.


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decoding hispanic dropout rates

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