By 2050, the United States Census Bureau projects that minorities will represent 50 percent of the population. In 1993-94, five million Hispanics were enrolled in public schools. Now in 2007-2008, that number has almost doubled. However, a growing achievement gap between Hispanics and Whites continue to persist in our public school systems.
In 2003, 78 percent of all White students graduated on time from high school, compared to 53 percent of Latinos. The largest gap was seen in males; only 49 percent of Hispanic males graduated, compared to 74 percent of Whites. After graduation, only 7 percent of Hispanics enter college, compared to 76 percent of their White peers.
According to Editorial Projects in Education, in 2007, approximately 1.23 million students will fail to graduate from high school, and the majority of those students will be members of minority groups.
Based on data from the U.S. Department of Education, high-poverty rural areas in the South and Southwest, as well as large metropolitan cities, have the most prevalent “dropout factories.” The majority of these areas have high concentrations of minority students, and high concentrations of poor areas.
“If you're born in a neighborhood or town where the only high school is one where graduation is not the norm, how is this living in the land of equal opportunity?” Bob Balfanz said.
According to the Civil Rights Project, in 2005, African Americans and Hispanics represented 80 percent of the student population in extreme-poverty schools, where 90 to 100 percent of the students were considered poor.
In addition, three-fourths of all Latino students attended schools where 50 percent of more of the student population were minority students, while only 9 percent Whites attended in these segregated school districts.
In 2006, The Digest of Education Statistics reported that, “a 16- to 24-year-old coming from the highest quartile of family income is about seven times as likely to have completed high school as a 16- to 24-year-old coming from the lowest quartile.”
