Latino High School Dropout Rate Called Critical

Latino students are dropping out of high school at such high rates that it has become a statewide crisis, speakers told an Anaheim meeting of about 800 Southern California parents, teachers and school administrators on Thursday.

Juan Hurtado, an equal rights official of San Diego State University, which sponsored the conference, said, “Throughout the state, the dropout rate of Chicano students is about 45% to 50% before high school graduation. In some schools, the dropout rate by these students is as high as 70%. We cannot wait any longer to address the problem. It has become a crisis.”

But during a series of workshops and discussions at the Grand Hotel Thursday, the speakers and participants generally acknowledged that no quick, single remedy would solve the dropout problem.

Opinion Divided

“There is no consensus on what needs to be done first,” said Lola Acosta, of the state Assembly’s Office of Research. “There is a division of opinion on what needs to be done,” she said.

Nineteen bills dealing with grade school and high school dropouts are pending in either the Assembly or the state Senate. The bills include a “comprehensive dropout prevention program” proposed by Assemblywoman Gloria Molina (D-Los Angeles). Her bill would, among other things, require a state team of experts to go to high schools that have 50% or higher dropout rates.

Acosta made no predictions on the fate of the dropout-reduction bills, but she noted that two such measures passed by the Legislature last year were vetoed by Gov. George Deukmejian.

Some districts, Acosta said, “have wonderful (anti-dropout) programs and model schools and so on across the state, but again, this is not uniform.”

In describing the Legislature’s feeling about the dropout problem, Acosta said: “They feel that it’s undermining to a free society that is built upon the ability of the citizenry to be literate. And this problem, they feel, has future crisis potential for our state as a democratic society.”

Early Childhood Roots Cited

Some conference participants, including Hurtado, said that the causes of the high Latino dropout rates begin early in a Latino child’s education.

“We have found that by the time they reach the third grade, 80% of Chicano students are underachieving,” Hurtado said. Language is “part of the problem, but only a part of it,” he said.

Some studies found that Chicano students were improperly placed in certain “learning tracks,” or learning sequences, early in their school years, Acosta said.

Hurtado said he hoped the conference would stimulate solutions.

“From (the conference) comes an attitude of action for developing a plan of prevention,” he said. “The dropout situation is a problem for Anglos, blacks, Asians, many groups. But for Chicanos, it is a crisis.”