Southeast Texas P-16 Council

Researchers from Texas A&M and a center in Bethesda, MD, found that more than half of Texas students were suspended or expelled at least once between 7th and 12th grade.

Texas A&M University Public Policy Research Institute and the Council of State Governments Just Center in Bethesda, MD, conducted the study on over 1 million Texas who were 7th graders in 2000, 2001, and 2002 from six years of discipline records.

The researchers also found that  ”when students are suspended or expelled, the likelihood that they will repeat a grade, not graduate, and/or become involved in the juvenile justice system increases significantly. African-American students and children with particular educational disabilities who qualify for special education were suspended and expelled at especially high rates.”

In the study, “Breaking Schools’ Rules: A Statewide Study of How School Discipline Relates to Students’ Success and Juvenile Justice Involvement,” researchers noted:

• Of the nearly 1 million public secondary school students studied, about 15 percent were suspended or expelled 11 times or more; nearly half of these students with 11 or more disciplinary actions were involved in the juvenile justice system.
• Only three percent of the disciplinary actions were for conduct in which state law mandated suspensions and expulsions; the rest were made at the discretion of school officials primarily in response to violations of local schools’ conduct codes.
• African-American students and those with particular educational disabilities were disproportionately disciplined for discretionary actions. Repeated suspensions and expulsions predicted poor academic outcomes.
• Only 40 percent of students disciplined 11 times or more graduated from high school during the study period, and 31 percent of students disciplined one or more times repeated their grade at least once.
• Schools that had similar characteristics, including the racial composition and economic status of the student body, varied greatly in how frequently they suspended or expelled students.

There will be 1.3 million new jobs created in Texas from 2008 to 2018,  a new study by  shows.

For those with just a high school diploma, the number of jobs estimated to be create by 2018  drops to 559,000

For those without a high school diploma that number drops even further to 356,000 — a rate of only about 20,000 new jobs per year.

The study,  ”Not Just Kid Stuff Anymore: The Economic Imperative for More Adults to Complete College” was published June 22, 2011, by the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) and the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS).

The report estimates there were 280,802 high school students receiving diplomas in 2009-10 and there will be 337,406 new high school graduates in 2020 — a growth of 20.2 percent.

The situation is tougher nationwide:  ”Over the next decade there will be no national growth in the number of high school graduates, the report’s authors write, and “Thirty-one states and the District of Columbia will experience a decline in the number of high school graduates between 2010 and 2020.”

The report which call for getting more adults to complete college, notes, that assuming  no changes in grant aid or other policies that affect enrollment, college enrollment by adults will grow nationally twice as fast as enrollments by traditional-age students – a reversal of the trend from 2000 and 2008  when high school graduates grew faster than enrollments by adults age 25 and older (25.3 percent v. 23.6 percent).