Majority of Texas School Children are Now Economically Disadvantaged - Monday, January 11, 2010
Two new reports find that the majority of Texas public school children today are economically disadvantaged. Texas is one of only four states nationwide, with K-12 student populations where more than half of students are both from low-income homes and from communities of color. According to A New Diverse Majority: Students of Color in the South's Public Schools, a report from the Southern Education Foundation (SEF), Texas also remains one of the Southern states with the highest drop-out rates among African Americans. In a New York Times article on the report, the implications for Texas are "enormous...when we realize that the majority of graduates of our schools in the long run are going to come from backgrounds with educational deprivation.” Also in recent news, the Texas Education Agency released a study on student enrollment with similar findings. The majority of the 4.7 million students enrolled in public schools are economically disadvantaged, according to the report and the jump in enrollment by economically disadvantaged students is twice the increase in Texas public schools overall over the last 10 years. While enrollment overall has gone up by about 20 percent, there are roughly 40 percent more school-going children who are economically disadvantaged compared to just a decade ago, according to the report.
