From ThinkProgress:
Researchers studying the nation’s high school dropout rates fight about the gaps in graduation rates between African-American and Latino students and white students, but ignore the huge gaps in achievement among graduates.
Nationally, African-American and Latino 17 year-olds in school perform at the same level as 13 year-old white high school students on the 2004 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading and math tests. So a high school diploma means a lot less for many of these students than for white students because they are under-prepared for college:
Only 40.8 percent of African-American and 37.3 percent of Hispanic high school graduates enroll in college, whereas 47.4 percent of whites enroll.
Fewer than half of the African-American and Hispanic students enroll in college will actually graduate.
The crisis in today’s high schools are as much about poor preparation of high school graduates, especially of minority students, as dropout rates. Researchers and the media need to start looking at both issues more intensively.
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I plan to graduate with a Masters degree in Biology and I am half Hispanic, I will demolish those statistics, haha!
Good for you, it is really too bad this is happening.
Racism and prejeduice still exist on our society. We just don't like to recognize that today. Studies like this one poke and prod us into wondering if maybe there is a problem--but never changing anything. It's a tragedy really.
~CallieV
I'm part Hispanic and when I was 13 I was performing at the same level as freshman in college.
~Shanelle~