The Crisis in Texas High Schools

LIBERTY, April 5, 2008 - There is a crisis in Texas that can no longer be overlooked. It is the graduation rate of our Texas High Schools.

The results of this crisis is sure to become apparent to all of us in the future as it will determine what kind of world we will all live in.

Currently there a few jobs that do not require skills and education beyond high school in order to satisfy their minimum requirements. In the future this trend is surely to continue.

The level of education a person attains is the most reliable predictor of a person’s future well being and income.

Currently only about 66% of ninth graders actually complete high school and graduate with a diploma in Texas.

Texas is a majority minority state. 61% of students in Texas high schools are members of a minority group. Whites are a minority of the Texas student population.

Graduation rates for the 2002-03 school year show that only about two-thirds of all public school students in Texas complete high school with a standard diploma. Texas falls below the national graduation rate of 69.6 percent and ranks 35th among the states. Analyses reveal large disparities in high school completion across different student groups. Fewer than 60 percent of black and Hispanic students graduate with a diploma, compared to over three quarters of whites and Asians. Statistics were calculated by the EPE Research Center using a method known as the Cumulative Promotion Index (CPI).

Here’s how the graduation rates break down by ethic group.

• Asian - 83.1%
• Whites – 75.0%
• Black – 59.9%
• Hispanic – 57.8%

The Texas Education Agency (TEA) reports that 84.2 percent of all students in the high school class of 2003 graduated. That rate is 17 percentage points higher than our estimate using the CPI, suggesting that rates are more inflated in Texas than in most states. The average state overestimated its graduation rate by about 12 percent relative to the CPI. As reported in Diplomas Count, a major reason for these discrepancies is the wide variety of methods the states use to calculate their own graduation rates in order to yield favorable results.

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