Hispanic Dropouts Essays -- Teaching Education Spanish Hispanic Essays

Hispanic Dropouts White, black, Mexican, Asian; no matter what the ethnicity, students will drop out of school. Yet when the term dropout is mentioned, Hispanic often comes to mind. Why is this? Schools all over the United States are affected by the Hispanic school dropouts. Many questions need to be answered on this topic: What is a dropout? What is causing these students to dropout? How many are actually dropping out? What is the future like for the dropouts? And what can be done to help lower the dropout rate? What exactly is a dropout? Although difficult to define, a dropout is considered a student who leaves school for any reason and does not continue on into any other type of schooling (United States Department of Education Consumer Guide [USDE], 1996). Unfortunately, a dropout could definitely be considered a quitter, which in the United States is not a term one wants to inherit. To not be named as a dropout, one must graduate. There is more than one path to high school completion (USDE, 1996). Regularly, a student receives a diploma after a certain required course load is completed. On the other hand, some students can complete high school by a means of an equivalency test and receive a diploma that way. Unfortunately, each state, district, and even school uses the term dropout differently (USDE, 1996). The United States Department of Education?s National Center for Educational Statistics has stated three separate ways used to calculate the dropout rate. The first is when the percentage of students who drop out in a single year are reflected by the event rates. The second is when the status rates reflect a percentage of those students who in a certain age range have not finished high school ... ...from the World Wide Web: http://www.ed.gov/pubs/OR/ConsumerGuides/dropout.html. United States Department of Labor. (2003). Employment Situation Summary. Retrieved November 12, 2003 from the World Wide Web: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm. Valladares, M.R. (2002). The Dropouts. Hispanic, 15(12), pp.36-40. Retrieved November 9, 2003 from EBSCO database (Masterfile) on the World Wide Web: http://www.ebsco.com. Viadero, D. (1997) Hispanic dropouts face higher hurdles, study says. Education Week, 16(41), pp. 3. Retrieved on November 12, 2003 from EBSCO database (Masterfile) on the World Wide Web: http://www.ebsco.com. Zehr, M. A. (2003). Reports Spotlight Latino Dropout Rates, College Attendance. Education week, 22(41) p.12. Retrieved September 28, 2003 from EBSCO database (Masterfile) on the World Wide Web: http://www.ebsco.com.