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Sunday, March 25, 2001
Confronting our dropout problem
'It has an effect on the entire region'
By Jeremy Schwartz
Caller-Times

David Pellerin/Caller-Times

Jesse Corpus (left), who dropped out of West Oso High School, says he isn’t sure he should try to finish school. His father, Manuel Corpus (with Jesse’s stepmother Beatriz), says he tells his son he will have a difficult life in the modern world if he doesn’t continue his education. West Oso’s 3.1 percent annual dropout rate is among the highest in the Coastal Bend.

   Since leaving West Oso High School without finishing his senior year, Jesse Corpus, 18, has had a hard time figuring out what to do with his future.
   "Career-wise, I have no idea," he said. "I don't even think about it. Maybe I should, but I'm not."
   Jesse is at a crossroads. If he ends his mornings of sleeping in late and returns to school, or enrolls in GED classes, researchers say he can assure himself of a decent living and the chance to go on to college and a middle class life. If not, they say, he runs the risk of a life of $7-an-hour, entry-level jobs, with little hope of advancement.
   Jesse though, isn't convinced that completing high school is a necessity.
   "It will make a difference, but not like a big difference," he said.

   Jesse is among hundreds of Corpus Christi students who quit school every year. They drop out at a rate higher than the state average, though lower than the state's largest cities and border areas. Houston, Austin, Brownsville and San Antonio have dropout rates that dwarf the local problem, but such cities as El Paso, Edinburg and Lubbock are losing students at a smaller rate than Corpus Christi.
   Extent of the problem
   A Caller-Times study of the area's dropout problem revealed:

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Official numbers may hide the extent of the problem. The official dropout figure of the Texas Education Agency shows that 1.7 percent of Corpus Christi Independent School District students dropped out in the 1998-1999 school year. But a look at how the class of 1999 fared since ninth grade shows 11 percent dropped out. And when students who left school and pass their General Educational Development test are factored in, the number jumps to 16 percent.

A higher percentage of students in Corpus Christi are getting GEDs instead of diplomas than the statewide average. While 4.3 percent of students statewide got GEDs instead of diplomas in 1998, 6.2 percent of Corpus Christi students got GEDs. In 1999, 5.2 percent of local seniors got their GEDs compared with 4 percent of Texas seniors. Researchers say that unless GED students use their equivalency to pursue higher education, their earnings are closer to those of dropouts than graduates.
   Some have accused schools of funneling low-performing kids into GED programs even though economists say their earnings don't match graduates.

Most researchers estimate 20 percent of Hispanic students nationwide drop out of high school, compared with 7 percent of Anglo teens and 13 percent of black teens. Some believe the Hispanic dropout rate is even higher. The four-year dropout rate for Hispanics in the Class of 1999 in CCISD was 13.2 percent, more than double the 5.8 percent among Anglos.

High school dropouts can expect to earn about $8,000 less than their peers who earn diplomas. A generation ago, dropouts averaged about $23,000 a year in today's dollars. But in today's high-tech economy, dropouts are limited to an annual salary of about $15,000, according to a Brown University study.

About 30 percent of the Nueces County workforce doesn't have a diploma, according to the latest available numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau. That statistic is scaring some prospective companies from relocating here.

A growing body of evidence, which is hotly disputed by most local and state education officials, suggests that Texas' higher standards and the introduction of the TAAS test to graduate is creating more dropouts. Since introduction of the TAAS exit level exam in 1991, the number of students not graduating from Texas schools has grown by about 25,000 a year, according to research.
   Coastal Bend dropouts

Annual dropout rates

The annual rate shows the percentage of all students in grades 7-12 who dropped out of school during one school year. Click image for larger version.

   The Coastal Bend as a whole has wide variations in dropout rates, oscillating between relatively small problems in Calallen, Kingsville, Tuloso-Midway and Gregory-Portland and the region's highest rates in Robstown, which had a 14 percent dropout rate in the class of 1999, and West Oso, which had a 16.8 percent dropout rate.
   West Oso and Robstown have among the highest numbers of economically disadvantaged students in the region. Research shows a direct link between poverty levels and dropout rates.
   Currently, none of the schools in the area has an annual dropout rate over 6 percent for any ethnic group, which would trigger state intervention, though Miller High School had an annual dropout rate of 7 percent as recently as 1998.
   According to researchers at the Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas, Corpus Christi's five high schools have a lower percentage of ninth-graders who make it to their senior year than other schools with similar economic and ethnic makeups.
   Linda Villarreal, deputy director for instructional services at the Region 2 Education Service Center, said not enough is being done to focus awareness on the dropout problem in the Coastal Bend.
   "I don't think we're doing everything that needs to be done because we still have dropouts," she said. "But the 'we' has to be the entire community, not just teachers and educators. That's one of the missing ingredients - we don't have the entire community addressing it."
   Some of the causes
   Before the region can attack and solve its dropout dilemma, say educators, it must first understand why students are leaving schools. A common saying among dropout prevention workers is that there are as many reasons for dropping out as there are dropouts.

Longitudinal study results

The longitudinal rate is a four-year look at the Class of 1999. The total is the number of students who entered ninth grade in 1995. The chart shows the percentage of students who graduated in four years, the percentage who received a GED, the percentage of students who continued high school and the percentage who dropped out. Click image for larger version.

   Dropout causes include:

Economics: "From what I've seen, economics are the biggest reason," says Clenton LaGrone, an attendance officer at Alice High School, where 63 percent of students have been identified as economically disadvantaged by the state. "You have 16- and 17-year-olds who feel the need to work to help out their families. They're too tired to go to school and they're not in a position to look beyond the here and now."
   Statewide, 12 percent of dropouts said they were leaving school to get a job in 1997.

Retention: Researchers and educators say students who are kept back in ninth grade are at greater risk of leaving school permanently. In 1998, 23 percent of CCISD ninth-graders were retained, compared with 17 percent statewide.
   Embarrassment over their advanced aged causes some students to leave school. According to the National Dropout Prevention Center at Clemson University in South Carolina, students retained once are 45 percent more likely to drop out and students retained twice are 85 percent more likely to leave school. Those percentages are echoed by CCISD officials.

Social pressures: For a segment of area students, completing high school is an option that can't compete with the lure of easy money on the street or the coolness of hanging out with friends. Robert Pulido, 18, who dropped out of school last year after being kicked out of Ray High School for getting in trouble, said many of his friends never planned to graduate.
   "The kids I was hanging out with weren't worried about graduation," he said. After watching his friends scrape by on menial jobs and spending three months in the county jail, Robert enrolled in the Corpus Christi Alternative High School this school year.

Low self-esteem/inability to fit in: Sandra Lanier-Lerma, interim superintendent of the Corpus Christi Independent School District, said she thinks the biggest factor producing dropouts is a sense students have that no one cares about them.
   "They think it doesn't really make a difference," she said. "They've got to feel that someone cares."
   'Change the system'
   Schools have struggled for years to become less rigid and more accommodating to students on the edge, kids who don't fit the usual mold.
   "Our system has been, if you don't fit in here, you don't belong here," said Ricardo Almendarez, principal of Corpus Christi's Alternative High School. "We need to change the system to fit the needs of the kids."
   Such flexibility, often seen at alternative high schools, can take the form of more electives, especially for vocational trades, shorter school days and more freedom for students to decide how they will complete the curriculum, say officials.
   Officials also say large class sizes can contribute to students feeling lost in the shuffle.

Pregnancy: Statewide, 8.4 percent of female dropouts say they're leaving because they are pregnant. Another 7.9 percent say they're dropping out to get married, according to the Texas Education Agency.

Poor academics/failing TAAS: For many dropouts, difficulties in the classroom lead to a frustration that can lead to leaving school. Some critics have accused schools of encouraging low performing students to leave school so they don't pull down TAAS scores. Others have advocated more vocational education to grab students who aren't inclined toward traditional academics. Statewide, 6.8 percent of dropouts say they are leaving because of poor grades.

Childhood: According to educators, the skills students need to be successful and stave off dropping out are learned early in life. A shaky home life where parents don't give children the support and tools they need can set kids up for failure. "I can look into their eyes in kindergarten and first grade, (eyes) that have a glazed-over look, and you can almost identify them as dropouts," Villarreal said.
   "If you don't have that child experience success when they go to school and feel good about themselves and catch them when they're really young, then you've really lost it."
   Economic impact
   Educators and observers say the common thread linking all the varied reasons students have for dropping out is that most kids simply don't see the importance of a high school diploma.
   "We need to talk to these kids as they get older about the reality of their situation," said Allan Meriwether, president and CEO of the Coastal Bend Workforce Development Board. "No one has sat down and talked to them."
   The dropout rate, say education, economic and political officials, is a problem that affects not only the individual dropouts, but also the community and future generations.
   "It has an effect on the entire region in recruiting industries with higher standards," said Dick Messbarger, executive director of the Greater Kingsville Economic Development Council.
   Schools have a state-mandated interest in keeping dropout rates low. Any school, except for alternative schools, with more than a 6 percent annual dropout rate for any ethnic group earns an unacceptable rating from the TEA, meaning the school or district faces state intervention. That maximum rate will be lowered to 5.5 percent this year and 5 percent in 2002.
   Low wages
   And the dropouts themselves have a definite interest in getting their diplomas. While 30 years ago high school dropouts could find well paying factory or oil field jobs, today they average poverty level wages.
   According to a Brown University study, in 1996 male dropouts averaged a $15,000 annual salary, and female dropouts half of that. In the Internet era, educators and officials say, a high school diploma is the barest of essentials for the job market.
   "What we're doing by allowing and even encouraging dropouts is sentencing our youth to a lifetime of lower wages and lowered expectations," said Ron Kitchens, chief executive officer of the Corpus Christi Regional Economic Development Corp.
   "Someone without a diploma can leave school and make $7 or $8 an hour, but they don't know that that's the most they'll ever make."
   That's the message Manuel Corpus is trying to give his son, Jesse. For Manuel, who was pulled out of a Mexican elementary school when he was 8 to work alongside his parents in the fields, his son's ambivalence to school is hard to accept.
   "I tell him life will be more difficult if he doesn't study," he said in Spanish. "It was hard for me and it will be much harder for him. Things are much more advanced, there's more technology now.
   "If he's not prepared for this time, he'll do what I did: hard work in the sun."


Staff writer Jeremy Schwartz can be reached at 886-3779 or by e-mail at schwartzj@caller.com

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