Conference addresses Texas

Disappearing act
Conference addresses Texas’ dropout crisis

BY DAWN DORSEY
Special to the Rice News

Gone are the days when a high-school dropout might ride a blue-collar job to the American dream. But as education becomes increasingly essential for survival, schools — particularly in Texas — face an unparalleled crisis in their dropout rates and how they’ve been reported.

A recent daylong conference at Rice, “The Texas Dropout Crisis and Our Children: A Conference on Graduation Rates, Causes and Policy Solutions,” brought together educators, policy analysts, researchers, legislators, students and Rice faculty who addressed the audience of more than 400 about the dire situation.

JEFF FITLOW

The Texas Dropout Crisis conference included a panel discussion with three Houston-area superintendents: (from right) Abelardo Saavedra from Houston Independent School District, Duncan Klussmann from Spring Branch ISD, and Sandra Mossman from Clear Creek ISD. Gary Orfield, left, professor of education and social policy at Harvard University Graduate School of Education, served as moderator.

Interspersed among numbers and statistics, emotions often ran high.

“If you don’t leave here today angry, something is wrong with you,” said State Representative Doro Olivo. “We are killing human lives.”

One issue of contention is the way Texas reports dropout rates. While the state education agency claims a statewide graduation rate of 84 percent, researchers put it closer to 73 percent, dipping to the low 50s for Hispanic and African-American males in urban schools and 30 percent for students who do not speak English.

Some 70,000 kids are categorized as “disappeared” or not reported, according to Daniel Losen of the Civil Rights Project at Harvard. Texas does not report as dropouts students who fail Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, or TAKS, tests; are expelled or incarcerated; get GEDs; go to alternative programs; or withdraw with “intent to enroll.”

Several speakers blamed the discrepancy between actual and reported graduation rates on high-stakes testing and accountability. Some said educators juggle the numbers — and students — to raise schools’ test scores.

“It’s the Enron-ization of education,” said Julian Vasquez Heilig of the University of Texas­–Austin.

As schools began to concentrate on standardized testing in the 1990s, students who could not pass the tests became problematic for administrators.

“In 1994, high-stakes testing started, and we began to see the curriculum go away,” said Linda McNeil, professor of education and co-director of Rice’s Center for Education, who was one of the first to write about the discrepancy in dropout numbers. “Testing requirements were not accompanied by resources, and they were layered on an unequal school system, creating tremendous pressure on low-performing schools with no resources.”

A number of speakers argued the crisis is much more than just how schools and the state count.

“The count is important, but it’s not the point,” said Abelardo Saavedra, superintendent of Houston Independent School District. “We need to zero in on the reason kids drop out.”

Suggestions to remedy the situation included a reform of standardized testing procedures, a binational partnership with Mexico, schools for students over age 18 and transportation for students who live less than 2 miles from schools.

“We need to explore the way children feel about school,” said Judy Radigan, research scientist at the Center for Education and lecturer in education at Rice, who brought three students from the dropout-intervention program at Furr High School to share stories at the conference. “We need to form partnerships with their families and invite them into the schools.”

The Oct. 6 conference was cosponsored by Rice’s Center for Education, Children at Risk, the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University and the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center. It was organized by Eileen Coppola, research scientist at the Center for Education. Dropout studies from the conference are available on the center’s Web site, <http://centerforeducation.rice.edu>.