Study: Only 1 in 5 Texas 8th-graders earns any degree within 6 years after high school

By Ralph K.M. Haurwitz | AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Saturday, March 17, 2012

Dropout rates, graduation rates, retention rates, passing rates for standardized tests — the education arena is flush with statistics.

Now, a private foundation in Houston is seeking to cut through the noise and focus attention in Texas on what it considers the single most valuable measure of educational effectiveness: the percentage of eighth-graders at public schools who go on to earn a postsecondary degree or certificate within six years of their expected high school graduation date.

A study commissioned by the foundation, the Houston Endowment, found that only about 1 in 5 eighth-graders earns such a credential.

"My reaction was, ‘This can't be right.' But it is right," said Larry Faulkner, a former president of the University of Texas who retired last month after six years as president and CEO of the endowment.

The study didn't take a position on what the credential-earning rate should be, other than to say it should be "much larger." But it warned that low rates for some minority groups are especially troubling.

"White students' rates of earning a college credential are two to two and a half times higher than those of Hispanics and blacks," the report said. "Given the state's growing Hispanic population, this means that it will be impossible for Texas to contribute its share in reaching national attainment goals without improving Hispanic college-going and graduation rates."

The study was conducted for the Houston Endowment by the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems, a private nonprofit based in Boulder, Colo. Using data from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and other sources, researchers tracked the educational trajectory of all 883,260 public school students in Texas who started eighth grade in 1996, 1997 and 1998.

After 11 years, 19.9 percent had earned a bachelor's degree, associate degree or certificate. There is leakage throughout the education pipeline, as students drop out of high school or college.

Thus far, the study said, only one other state has generated comparable data: Florida, where 17.2 percent of eighth-graders earned a credential. A national study conducted 10 years ago came up with an estimate of 29.3 percent.

Credential-earning rates in Texas varied considerably among racial and ethnic groups, with Asian Americans at 41.3 percent, whites at 27.6 percent, Native Americans at 14.1 percent, Hispanics at 11.6 percent and blacks at 11.4 percent. Higher education specialists say such disparities arise from various factors.

"Three overarching predictors are level of a parent's education, the rigor of the high school years and family income," said George Grainger, director of planning and research for the Houston Endowment.

The study also found disparities by gender, with female students earning a credential at the rate of 23.9 percent and male students at the rate of 16.1 percent. The breakdown ranged from 7.7 percent for black males to 46.5 percent for Asian American females.

The data do not account for so-called interstate mobility: Some students moved and earned a credential in another state. Researchers estimated that this adds 2 percentage points, for an overall credential-earning rate of 21.9 percent.

Texas has taken a number of steps in recent years in an effort to improve its public schools and higher education institutions, including adoption of various accountability measures for the former and a "Closing the Gaps by 2015" plan for the latter.

But progress has been slow on a number of fronts, such as getting the best leaders and teachers into the schools with the most students at risk of academic failure, Grainger said. And many higher education institutions don't take developmental, or remedial, education very seriously, Faulkner said.

Moreover, there is an overarching question of resources for addressing the issue: The state Legislature last year cut funding sharply for public schools, higher education and student financial aid even as enrollment is surging.

Sixteen educational, charitable and business organizations have endorsed the Houston Endowment-commissioned study as both accurate and significant in highlighting a key measure of educational effectiveness.

The findings are "disturbing," said Bill Hammond, president and CEO of the Texas Association of Business. "The report confirms what we know: The public education system across the board is not producing results necessary for Texas to remain competitive, whether it's (kindergarten to 12th grade) or community colleges and beyond."

John Fitzpatrick, executive director of Educate Texas, an initiative of the Dallas-based Communities Foundation of Texas, said he found the credential-earning rates surprisingly low. He noted that public school and higher education officials often point fingers of blame at each other but that this study, by covering the continuum of education, shows the overarching challenge facing the state.

The coordinating board has done a similar analysis for a number of years that tracks seventh-grade students, said Dominic Chavez, a spokesman for the agency.

Houston Endowment officials said many states don't start collecting the relevant data until the eighth grade. They said the organization is committed to issuing an annual report "for the foreseeable future," perhaps broadening it to include other states as their information becomes available.

Keller high school's mistake forces students to change courses mid-semester

By Sandra Engelland | Star Telegram
Monday, Oct. 24, 2011

FORT WORTH -- Because of an error by the counseling department, close to 100 of the almost 600 seniors at Keller Central High School found out last week that they have to transfer into a physics class mid-semester to fulfill graduation requirements for the state's recommended high school program.

To help the students catch up, teachers will review the material they covered in the first eight weeks as they continue with the curriculum, district officials said.

"I've told our staff to understand kids being upset and to please be supportive and help keep them on track," Principal David Hinson said.

The class of 2012 is the first to have no exceptions to the state's "four-by-four" plan, the measure that added math and science credits to the courses needed to graduate.

"All of these students are still on track to graduate," Hinson said.

The mistake came in a counselor's misinterpretation of the transition to the four-by-four requirements, Hinson said. This is the first year that students must take physics to receive the recommended diploma required by Texas four-year universities. The state has also been phasing out allowing students to take integrated physics and chemistry for the recommended and distinguished diplomas.

Hinson said the error should have been caught in July when the counseling department reviewed schedules, but school officials discovered the problem just last week. Counselors met with all affected students individually and called parents during the meetings. All the seniors were in other science classes, most of them in environmental science.

Some who are not planning to go to a four-year university next fall opted to graduate on the state's minimum plan, he said.

For students who wanted to remain on the recommended plan, school officials changed an environmental science class into a physics course because the teacher had taught physics last year, he said. Students in that class who did not need physics transferred to other environmental science classes.

Students transferring into physics would not need to make up missed assignments and would start with whatever grade they had in their previous science class, Hinson said.

Affected students and parents could not be reached for comment.

This was not the first reported counseling mistake that has affected students in the Keller district this year.

Tais Navarro said her son, a senior, had to take an additional science class this year after learning that integrated physics and chemistry, which he took as a freshman, would not count on his graduation plan. He was already taking physics, but now is in biology as well.