Diversity

The 3.9 million public school students in Texas are served in markedly differing school settings. For example, in 1997-98 only 19 students attended school in the Ramirez Common School District located in South Texas, while over 210,000 students received instruction at 299 school sites in the Houston Independent School District, the largest district in the state. The nine largest districts, those with at least 50,000 students each, serve 21 percent of all Texas public school students, while the smallest districts (i.e., districts with fewer than 500 students each), represent 34 percent of all districts but enroll only 2.4 percent of the state's students. The inverse relationship between the number of districts and the number of enrolled students is a defining characteristic of the Texas public school system. See Exhibit 4 and Exhibit 5 below.

The ethnic distribution of students varies greatly across the state and appears to depend in part on geography, size of the district, and type of community served. Statewide, 55.0 percent of all students are from minority ethnic groups. A minority student is defined as a member of either the African American, Hispanic, Native American, or Asian/Pacific Islander ethnic groups. Districts in major urban areas serve an 80.8 percent minority student population while districts in rural areas serve a population that is only 33.0 percent minority.

By far the largest minority student group within the state is the Hispanic student population, which represents 37.9 percent of all students. The highest percentages of Hispanic students are found in the Edinburg ESC region at the southernmost tip of the state (94.9 percent), and in the El Paso region in far west Texas (83.7 percent). The largest percentage of African American students, 30.7 percent, is in the Beaumont region, east of Houston. The eastern, northern, and north central parts of the state have the highest percentages of White students, varying between 61.5 and 75.4 percent in these areas.

The proportion of students from homes experiencing economic hardship also varies across the state. Although the state of Texas does not levy personal income taxes and has little information about family earnings, student eligibility to participate in the national free or reduced-price lunch program is one indicator of student economic status. Districts report that 48.5 percent of Texas public schoolchildren were eligible to participate in this program for the 1997-98 school year. Higher concentrations of economically disadvantaged students are found in major urban districts and in districts with high percentages of minority students. The lowest percentages of economically disadvantaged students can be found in districts considered to be non-metro "fast growing" and in districts that are suburban to major urban areas. Generally speaking, districts with lower property wealth have higher percentages of economically disadvantaged students.

Student participation in special instructional programs differs by community type, district size, and geographic location. For example, a greater percentage of students in rural districts enroll in career and technology courses--25.5 percent compared with 14.9 percent in major urban districts. The 19 charters, however, have the highest percentage of students participating in career and technology courses, 37.3 percent. The highest percentages of students served in bilingual or English as a second language (ESL) programs are enrolled in the Edinburg and El Paso service center regions, with 37.2 percent and 25.2 percent, respectively. These figures are well above the state average of 11.9 percent for those programs. The largest districts also report above average percentages in bilingual or English as a second language (ESL) programs.

The number of students who participate in special education programs grew by 0.4 percent in 1997-98. In this year, districts identified 466,527 students, or 12.0 percent of all students, as receiving some type of special education service. There is little variation in the percent of special education students served across the various district grouping categories. The larger and more urban districts tend to show slightly lower percentages of special education students among their total student population than the smaller, rural districts do.

Student Population Growth

In 1997-98, public schools in Texas served 3,891,877 students in pre-kindergarten through grade 12. This total student count represents a 1.6 percent increase from the prior year, which is a smaller rate of increase than the 2.4 percent growth the state experienced between 1995-96 and 1996-97. Membership in the 19 charters was 3,856, an increase of nearly 60 percent compared with the 1996-97 charter enrollment of 2,412 students. The number of charters in operation only increased by three (16 to 19) between 1996-97 and 1997-98, but the average school size increased from 151 to 203 students per charter.

Of all students enrolled for the 1997-98 school year, nearly 86 percent were served the previous year and the remaining 14 percent were newly enrolled students. This 14 percent includes students entering school for the first time (e.g., pre-kindergarten and kindergarten enrollees) as well as students entering the Texas public education system from other sources, such as private schools or residents new to the state. This new student percentage is a decline of three percentage points from the 17 percent reported five years ago in 1992-93 as newly enrolled.

While the majority of districts continue to show enrollment increases, compared to last year, the percentage of districts experiencing growth is smaller. For 1997-98, 60.3 percent of districts reported enrollment growth while 68.6 percent reported increases in 1996-97. Districts located in areas that are suburban to major urban districts continue to demonstrate higher than average growth. Compared to the state average of 1.6 percent, the 62 "major suburban" districts experienced a 3.1 percent enrollment increase from the prior year. In contrast, rural districts as a group only increased 0.2 percent in size from the prior year.

As shown in Exhibit 6 below, growth in the minority student population continues to exceed non-minority growth. Minority students now comprise 55.0 percent of the public school population, compared with 54.4 percent in 1996-97. Overall, growth in the minority student population was 2.8 percent, with the greatest increase, 4.7 percent, occurring in the Asian/Pacific Islander and Native American populations. However, these two populations, categorized in this document as a single group labeled "other," account for only 2.7 percent of all students.

The number of African American students grew by 1.9 percent, representing a net increase of 10,690 students, which is smaller than the increase of 13,230 experienced last year. African Americans comprise 14.4 percent of the total public school population in 1997-98 compared to 14.3 percent in 1996-97. Although the increase in African American student numbers was smaller than the year before, the percentage of African American students within the state increased for the first time since 1991-92.

The Hispanic student growth rate, 3.0 percent, is smaller than last year's growth rate of 4.3 percent. Although this rate of growth is not the highest among the ethnic groups, it is the most significant. The Hispanic student population continues to drive statewide growth. Of the 62,902 student increase in Texas' total enrollment, 69.1 percent, or 43,462 students were Hispanic. This population now accounts for 37.9 percent of the total number of students.

In contrast, the White population grew by only 0.2 percent, or by 4,001 students. This rate of increase is the smallest among all the ethnic groups. The percentage of White students statewide has dropped from 49.0 percent six years ago to 45.0 percent this year. The reduction in the percent of White students in the total student population over the last several years is attributable to the increasing growth rates of minority students relative to the growth for the White student population.

Growth by Grade

At the state level, all grades except grade 6 reported some growth for the 1997-98 school year. As in 1996-97, grades 11 and 12 demonstrated some of the highest rates of growth. Grade 11 grew 3.7 percent, contributing a gain of 8,243 students and grade 12 experienced a rate of growth over 6.0 percent, with an increase of 11,853 students. The 6th grade state total enrollment decreased by 120 students to 297,957, a 0.04 percent decline.

By far the largest number of students new to the Texas public schools are children entering pre-kindergarten and kindergarten. Over 291,000 students entered public schools at these two grade levels in 1997-98, which represents 52.2 percent of all new students. Other than pre-kindergarten and kindergarten, grades 1 and 9 also have a large percentage of new students. Almost 12 percent of all 1st graders and nearly 10 percent of all 9th graders are students who were not enrolled in Texas public schools the prior year. These grades are traditional entry points for students previously enrolled in private schools.

On average, pre-kindergarten and kindergarten have higher percentages of minority students, 64.7 percent, than the total student population (55.0 percent). Statutory requirements for pre-kindergarten education stipulate that limited English-proficient (LEP) or economically disadvantaged pupils are among those who must be identified and served in pre-kindergarten. These student characteristics are highly correlated with ethnicity in Texas. In grades 1 through 5, the ethnic distribution remains very similar to the state averages, while the secondary grades (grades 6-12) have slightly more White students, 47.8 percent compared with 45.0 percent statewide.

Dropouts

Data for students who drop out of Texas public schools are collected in the fall following the year the students left school. Thus, dropout data reported in the 1997-98 edition of Snapshot reflect students who dropped out during the 1996-97 school year. During that reporting period--August 1996 through October 1997--26,901 students in grades 7-12 dropped out of Texas public schools. This is a decline of 2,306 dropouts from the previous year. The annual dropout rate for 1996-97 is 1.6 percent; 0.2 percent less than the dropout rate reported for 1995-96.

Both the Hispanic and African American student groups continue to be disproportionately represented among dropouts. As shown in Exhibit 7 below, 69.1 percent of all dropouts are either Hispanic or African American. Overall, the percent of total dropouts who are minorities increased slightly to 70.7 percent, compared with 70.4 percent in 1995-96. Furthermore, dropout rates for both Hispanic and African American students remain higher than the state average of 1.6 percent. The Hispanic and African American annual rates were 2.3 percent and 2.0 percent, respectively. The dropout rate for Asian/Pacific Islanders and Native Americans combined was 0.9 percent, and White students had a dropout rate of 1.0 percent.

Since dropout information has been collected in Texas, Hispanic and African American students have consistently exhibited the greatest dropout rates among all the ethnic groups. However, the gap between the White and nonwhite dropout rates has diminished over time. In 1987-88 the difference between dropout rates for minority and White students was 3.4 percentage points. This difference has closed to 1.1 percentage points in 1996-97. While this represents improvement, there is no doubt that minority and economically disadvantaged students are not completing high school as often as are their White and non-economically disadvantaged peers.

The 12th grade dropout rate was highest, at 2.5 percent, followed by a rate of 2.3 percent for 9th graders. In terms of raw numbers, however, more students drop out in 9th grade, 8,374 versus 5,349 in 12th grade. The 1996-97 dropout rates reported for 10th and 11th graders were 2.2 percent and 2.1 percent, respectively.

Nearly 35 percent of all dropouts are identified as economically disadvantaged, and a remarkable 80.6 percent are overage for their grade. Consistent with data reported over the last nine years, more males than females dropped out during 1996-97 (54.3 percent versus 45.7 percent). See Exhibit 8 below.

Urban districts and districts with high percentages of minority students have the highest dropout rates. Exhibit 9 below, depicts the relationship between community type and dropout rates. Both minority students and economically disadvantaged students are found in greater numbers in urban areas, which may partially explain why these rates are higher than average.

As a group, districts with the greatest student enrollment--those in urban areas--have consistently reported greater dropout rates than smaller districts. However, the relationship between dropout rates and campus size does not show the same pattern. Among campuses, the dropout rate for the smallest schools (those with fewer than 200 students) is the greatest-a dropout rate of 5.8 percent. Analysis reveals that only 12.2 percent of these small schools with dropouts are in rural areas. The remainder are small campuses located in urban settings which appear to be specifically designed to serve students at greater risk of dropping out.

Graduates

As with the dropout data, information for graduates of Texas public schools is collected in the fall following the year of graduation. During the 1996-97 school year, 181,794 seniors graduated as the class of 1997 from Texas public schools. This count is an increase of 5.8 percent over the class of 1996 graduates. Of the class of 1997 graduates, 16,825 were identified as special education students. Statewide, White students accounted for 54.4 percent of all graduates, Hispanic students 29.8 percent, African American students 12.6 percent, and Asian/Pacific Islander and Native American students the remaining 3.3 percent. See Exhibit 7 above, for a disaggregation of the ethnic groups for the 7th-12th grade student population, graduates, and dropouts.

Students in Texas public schools who exceed the minimum graduation requirements may graduate with an "Advanced," "Advanced with Honors," "Recommended High School Program," or "Distinguished Achievement Program" diploma type. The requirements for each type are defined by the SBOE. For the class of 1997, graduates with either of the "Advanced" seals totaled 71,602, an increase of 3.9 percent from the prior graduating class. The number of students graduating under the Recommended High School/Distinguished Achievement Programs was 2,495 for the class of 1997, an increase of nearly 206 percent from the graduating class of 1996. The rapid rate of increase in diplomas of these latter two types is due to the small numbers reported and to the fact that these programs are still less than four years old. The class of 1998 will be the first graduating class for which the Recommended High School Program/Distinguished Achievement Program requirements were in place since the 9th grade year. Counts of participants in these programs are expected to increase dramatically over the next few years, as the older "Advanced" and "Advanced with Honors" diploma types are phased out.