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The Education of Hispanics in Michigan: By Marcelo E. Siles, Ph.D. Rosemary J. Aponte, M.A. October 1995 A Publication of: Julian Samora Research Institute
SUGGESTED CITATION Silest Marcelo and Rosemary Aponte. The Education of Hispanics in Michigan: A Comparative Assessment. Statistical Brief No. 4, The Julian Samora Research Irtstitute~ Michigan State Universitar, East Lansing, Michigan. October 1995.
Related Reading from JSRI Publications: RR-05 Aponte, Robert and Marcelo Siles. " Latinos in the Heartland: The Browning of the Midwest. " 81 pp. (1994) $6.00 RR-11 Lopez, Elias S. "Social Capital and Educational Performance of Latino and Non-Latino Youth" (forthcoming)
Table Of Contents
*Population data for the Midwest suggest that the White population will continue to decline, while the Black and Hispanic population continues to increase. *More than 27% of Latinos in Michigan fall within the prime K12 education years, ages 5 to 17. In contrast only 188 of the White population and 23k of the Black population do. *Given the differences in the age structure of the populations (over 50 percent of Hispanics and 45 percent of Blacks are under age 25, compared to 36 percent of Whites), public education issues will be increasingly tied to minority issues such as equity, diversity, and opportunity. *One-third of Hispanic youth aged 5-17 are not accounted for in public school enrollment figures. *In l990-91, only 1604 Hispanic students in Michigan graduated from high school, while Census data collected that year indicates that there were 4,064 Hispanic 18 year olds, the typical age of graduation. *Of those 25 and over, Hispanics have the lowest levels of high school completion, with only 618 having diplomas as compared to 65W of Blacks and almost 796 of Whites. *Hispanics in college are more likely to be equally represented by gender than are their Black and White counterparts. Highlights | Background | A Focus on Michigan | References Three themes have captured popular media attention in recent years. One is the increase in the minority and immigrant population -i.e., the "browning of America". The second encompasses real changes in the job market ranging from downsizing companies eliminating "good jobs", to the continued mechanization and/or export of low skill jobs, to the inability of business to find workers sufficiently educated to fill available positions. Both of these themes are linked with yet a third issue that has seared the national consciousness -- affirmative action. This paper will touch on these three themes in its focus on the demographic changes and educational status of Hispanics in Michigan. In a time of fierce debate about the need for affirmative action in both the educational system and the workplace, it is imperative to look at the record to see it the much talked about "level playing field" has been reached. The first questions we will explore regard the success Hispanics and other minorities have had in improving their educational attainment. Are these kids getting through the K-12 system? Are they moving successfully through postsecondary education? With affirmative action in place, what does the educational attainment of Hispanics look like? And what do the findings suggest for a day when it might not be? Before we address these questions, however, we will provide a context for our analysis.
The Browning Although the Midwest, with several exceptions, has escaped the kind of media attention given to increasingly Latino states such as California, Texas, New York and Florida, it has not escaped the "browning" phenomenon. Recent research by the Julian Samora Research Institute (Aponte and Siles, 1994) found that "Latinos captured the bulk of population growth in the Midwest over the 1980s...More than 56W". In fact, the report documents an actual decline in the region's White population, while the Hispanic population grew by more than 35W and the Black by almost 7W. The growth in the minority population of Michigan reflects a similar pattern. The number of Hispanics grew 24t between 1980 and 1990, and the Black population increased 8t during the same period. A concurrent decline in the number of White residents means that minorities are comprising an increasing percentage of Michigan's population (Aponte and Siles, 1994).
The Jobs These demographic changes have taken place during a period of economic restructuring that has resulted in a substantial decline in the employment sectors that traditionally provided the primary source of jobs for low-skilled workers or minority employees. Aside from service sector jobs, the greatest growth in new employment opportunities are for those a college education or more. The Department of Education estimates that 89% of all new jobs will require some of level of post secondary training. The much cited "Workforce 2000" report from the Hudson Institute noted the fastest growing job fields; to be those in the professional, technical, managerial, sales, and service sectors. All but the latter demand college level education for workers filling those positions. Indications are that even the service sector jobs of the future will require higher levels of education than have heretofore been necessary, as what are now middle skill jobs become the low skill jobs of the future.
The Education Given these changes in the labor market, educational attainment becomes an even more significant predictor variable for a broad range of social and economic indicators of well-being or distress. These include such variables as family income, labor force participation, household type, health status, type of occupation, housing condition, and contact with the criminal justice system. An analysis of the educational attainment of Hispanics in Michigan provides a powerful tool for assessing their current and future socioeconomic well being, and that of the state as a whole, given the changing demographics. It also says a great deal about whether or not they will be able to compete for the jobs of the 21st century, with or without affirmative action policies in place. The data for the Midwest as a whole are not auspicious. Aponte and Siles (1994) provide data (see Table 1) indicating that although all groups improved their educational attainment between 1980 and 1990, Hispanics continued to lag behind both Black and Whites. In 1980 less than 44k of Hispanics over the age of 25 were high school graduates (compared to approximately 69t of Whites and 558 of Blacks). In 1990 just under 53W of such Hispanics were high school graduates, compared to almost 79% of Whites and 65% of Blacks). As reflected in Table 1, only about 10W of Blacks and Hispanics in the region had a college degree, as compared to 19% of Whites.
How Michigan's Hispanics fare in terms of educational attainment will be the focus of the remainder of this paper. What are their K-12 graduation rates as compared to other groups? To what extent are they participating in higher education and what proportion is successfully completing post-secondary education? How many go on to obtain post baccalaureate degrees7 Although complete answers to these questions are hindered by the lack of good drop:-out data for all education levels and by the lack of data from private schools, the answers given below provide a good proxy measure of the educational status of Hispanics in Michigan. Highlights | Background | A Focus on Michigan | References
Demographic Overview Table 2 provides an overview of Michigan's population by age, race, and Hispanic origin and sets a point of reference for the educational data which follows. Hispanics constituted 2.2% of the state's population in 1990; Blacks almost 14t and Whites about 84%. It is particularly noteworthy, however, that for the age group 5-11 years, which encompasses the major portion of the K-12 education period, Michigan's Black and Hispanic populations are represented in greater proportions relative to other populations than that reflected by their overall numbers.
Table 3 explains why: Blacks and Latinos have a very young age structure as compared to the White population Over 26 percent of Latinos are aged 5-17, making K-12 education a key issue for Hispanics. In contrast, only 18W of Whites fall in that age group. In fact, Hispanics have the youngest age structure of any group: more
than half of the Hispanic population is under 25 years of age, that is,
in the prime education years. In contrast, only about 28 of Whites and 35%
of Blacks fall into this age group. Figure l provides a graphic depiction of the sharp differences in age structure: almost 40W of the Hispanic population is 17 years of age or younger, compared to only 338 of the Black population and 25% of the White. Indications are that this pattern will persist, given the data for the 4 year and under population -- l2k of the Hispanic population as compared to 7% of White and lO% of Black are 4 years of age or less.
Educational Attainment: 25 and over Population Table 4 provides data on the educational attainment of those 25 years of age and over. Blacks and Latinos lag in percentages of high school completion behind Whites: while almost 79W of Whites have a high school diploma, only about 65% of Blacks and 61t of Hispanics do. That is one-third or more of the latter two groups lacks a high school diploma.
The picture is similarly dismal with post-secondary education. While more than 18t of Whites have a college degree, only 10t of Blacks and slightly over 11% of Hispanics do so. Given the relationship between parents' education and educational aspirations of children on the one hand, and between parents education and the ability to assist children with their own education on the other, these figures portend a problem in the K-12 education statistics. We turn to those in the next section. E
K-12 Education Data on enrollment in Michigan public schools is presented in Table 5. Enrollment data is based on the actual count in school on the fourth Friday of September. Minorities constitute approximately 22% of the K-12 school population, with Black students the dominant proportion.
Hispanic youth, however, are most likely to be "missing" from public school enrollment. When the enrollment data for each group is compared to the population of 5-17 year olds in the group (see Figure 2), it becomes clear that a substantial portion of children are not in the public school system. The figures for Hispanics show them to be the most likely not to be accounted for by public school enrollment. For example, although 1990-91 figures indicate that there were 34,562 Hispanic children enrolled in public school that year, census data indicate that there were 51,935 Hispanic children age 5-17. Thus, the public school figures account for only two-thirds of Hispanic children in that age group; in other words: one-third of Hispanic children appear to be out of the public school system. The numbers for Black and White children show them more likely to be
included in the public school system: 261,146 of the former were enrolled
out of-a total population of 294,702 (eighty-nine percent accounted for
by public school enrollment); eighty-six percent of White children are accounted
by public school enrollment. Figure 2 provides a graphic depiction of this
data. Since figures on private school enrollment are not available by race/ethnic categories, it is difficult to say to what extent these differences reflect either drop-outs or private school enrollment. Michigan State Board of Education data indicate that on average about 10~ of K-12 enrollment is in the nonpublic school sector Michigan State Board of Education, 1992). That percentage is certainly too small to account for the "missing" children clearly pointing to the need for additional research to find out where they are, and what their absence from the system means. Whether these missing children represent drop-outs is not clear. The State of Michigan has not collected drop-out data by race/ethnic origin categories since the 1985-86 school year. For that year the official drop out rate, defined as the percentage of students in grades 9-12 leaving school and not returning the following year, was 10. 9t for Hispanics, 12k for Blacks, and 4.5t for Whites. With this awareness that not all children are accounted for by public school enrollment, and the lack of data on drops outs, we look to another methodology to solve the mystery.
High School Graduation Table 6 provides high school graduation figures by race/ethnic group for selected years. Although the lack of ethnic based dropout data hampers any analysis, one interesting pattern that emerges is that minority graduates are not reflected in percentages that match their school enrollment, even allowing for some error in the distribution over the 5-17 age range. Even more striking, however, is that the numbers of graduates do not compare well with the number of 1X8 years olds (see Table 2) in the group. For example, Table 6 shows l,604 Hispanic high school graduates for the 1990-91 school year; yet Table 2 indicates that there were 4,064 Hispanic 18 year olds, the prime graduating age, in Michigan that year. Even adjusting the numbers on the assumption that only about two-thirds of that number was likely to be enrolled in public school (based on the discussion above), one would still expect there to have been 2,722 graduating Hispanics.
For Blacks, although 1990 census data show 25,308 18 year olds, Table 6 reflects only 11,021 graduating from high school that year. In fact, the overall 18 year old population figures show that there were 142,306 18 year olds in Michigan in 1990, yet the public school data reflect only 88,003 graduates that year. This proxy analysis is rough to be sure, but in the absence of better data, it is the best that can be attempted. Even with a generous allowance for substantial error, the results clearly suggest a serious problem in high school graduation rates for both minority and White students.
Post Secondary Education Table 7 gives a breakdown on the range of educational institutions available in Michigan. More than 46W of college students are enrolled in public four year schools, and more than 38t are in public two year institutions (see Figure 3). Table 7 also provides figures on minority enrollment for public and private two and four year institutions.
Private institutions are more likely to have a higher proportion of their student population be made up of minority students: approximately 208 of private school enrollment 1S minority VS. about 15% for public schools as Figure 3 indicates. Given that less than 16% of all enrollment is in such schools, it is clear that public education is the primary resource for most minority post secondary education students. Nonetheless, the on-campus dynamic of higher percentages of minority students in private schools may portend differences in the college experience for these students vis-a-vis their public school equivalents. That 1S, there may be differences in the climate of racial/ethnic relations found in the two types of schools and related differences in graduation and retention rates. This issue bears further investigation.
Due to the unavailability of data from other than public institutions, and given the fact that most students are in public colleges and universities:, the remainder of this paper will focus on that educational system.
A detailed breakdown by race/ethnicity/gender for Michigan's public four year universities is provided in Table 8. Several interesting phenomena: White and Black females are much more likely to be in college than their male counterparts; and the percentage of minority students has steadily increased even in the short time span reflected here. White students represented 84k of students in 1989 -- by 1994 that figure declined to 76W~ Hispanic students are fairly equally represented in terms of gender at public four year universities. Table 9 provides data on overall enrollment in Michigan's postsecondary education institutions for 1992 and 1993, and enrollment in public four year institutions. Asian origin students are much more likely to be enrolled in public four year institutions than any other group -- 60 percent are BO enrolled. Black students are least likely to be BO enrolled -- of all Black students in postsecondary schools, only 38 percent were in public four year universities. For Hispanics, just under 48 percent are BO enrolled. This table also reflects the declining proportion of white students in postsecondary education.
Educational Attainment: Degrees Obtained Increased enrollment in institutions of higher education means little if there is not an associated increase in numbers of graduates -- from the Baccalaureate to the Doctoral level. Table 10 provides data on completion rates by race/Hispanic origin for public universities. The relatively short time period covered by the data reflects some change in the overall numbers of graduating students. However, without better baseline data, it i8 difficult to assess how much progress there has really been. We do not know how many of these graduating students are from Michigan, making comparison of numbers of graduates to potential graduates very difficult. Given substantial numbers of foreign and out of state students, it is not possible to say what these figures mean for the educational attainment of Michigan students. Clearly, however, Hispanics are not completing postsecondary degrees in proportion to the size of their population, even if we were to consider all of these graduates to have been from Michigan originally.
Questions for Further Investigation The data in this report raise as many questions as are answered. Of particular importance is the identification of the children "missing" from the data. Where are the children who are not in the public K-12 school system? Almost one-third of Hispanic children are not accounted for. Of particular significance to this mystery are the low numbers of Hispanic high school graduates. Why, for example, in a population of over 4,000 Hispanic 18 year olds in 1990 were there only 1604 graduates? Given national data (National Center for Education Statistics, 1993) that indicates that only 65t of Hispanics aged 19-20 have completed high school, there is cause for concern that Michigan is replicating the national picture. Data must be collected that "locates" the missing students, including specific identification of drop-outs. That information is not currently available. Given the scope of the problem revealed by the data, high priority needs to be assigned to this investigation. In addition, data indicating that Black males are not going on to college at the same rates as their female counterparts suggests a need for research to find out why. Given the recent attention to the problem of joblessness experienced by young Black males and the associated social problems), additional research needs to explore the reasons why they are not succeeding in moving into higher education. If high school drop-outs are found to explain both the case of the "missing" children and the low rates of Black male participation in higher education, research must identify the factors that are driving children to drop-out, as well as what can be done to change those factors.
Finally; attention needs to be paid to the recruitment and retention of minority students in higher education. Why are completion rates so low? Is there some significance to the fact that on average private schools have a higher minority presence than do public universities? Are there differences in completion rates between public and private institutions and are there associated differences in recruitment and retention?
Policy Implications The social and economic consequences of a growing minority population with persistently dismal educational attainment levels are dire. They speak of large unemployed and unemployable segments, disinherited from the benefits of the material and technological advances of society. In a cruel irony, those very benefits are like nails in the coffin of despair, because it is that sector that will provide the preponderance of new jobs and opportunities. The room at the table for the poorly educated has sharply diminished in recent years and may all but disappear as technology develops other non-human ways of accomplishing the lowskill tasks that formerly existed in abundance for the poorly educated worker who had a strong back. As the much bally-hooed "Workforce 2000" projections indicate, it is the growing minority population that will provide an increasing percentage of the future workforce. The demographic figures for Michigan and the Midwest parallel the national pattern in that regard. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that attention be paid to the education of minority children. This includes not only insuring that they complete high school, but that they go on to complete post secondary education. Policy makers working on the basis of the research of social scientists in the areas specified above, must support programs that address the factors contributing to high drop out rates from high school. They must ensure that K-12 education is sufficiently funded in both rich and poor districts so that children who need extra help can get it and that equivalent resources are available to all. They must support educational programs that make it possible for all children to have access to higher education and to be able to successfully complete their academic program. Given the demographics of an aging White population with declining percentages of children in school and increasing minority populations, particularly Hispanic, with a large percentage of their population in the prime education years, the political ramifications of these recommendations may be less than gentle, particularly in a context of the increasing economic distress experienced by many middle-class American families. In recent testimony before the House Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunity (1/12/95), U. S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley noted that a little noticed "second baby boom was underway such that elementary and secondary enrollment highs set in 1971 by the original baby boomers would be broken in 1996" -- much of this burgeoning school age population consists of Hispanic and other minority children. Given a context where education is the center of the knowledge society and school its key institution, as Peter Drucker has observed, the failure of any group to achieve educationally means the failure of that group to succeed at all. In a time when affirmative action is under attack and where achievement alone is the password to higher education, the record as documented here makes clear that Hispanics are not being prepared to compete on a level playing field either in terms of access to postsecondary education or, by extension, the labor market. High school drop outs earned less than half ($12,809) what Bachelor degree holders earned ($32,629) in 1992. According to Department of Education data, 89t of new jobs being created require some form of postsecondary training. Where will those without adequate education end up? Perhaps the fact that-44t of those on welfare and 82t of those in prisons are high school dropouts (Riley, 1995) provides some idea of what the future holds if the system does not address the educational problems that clearly exist for Hispanics and other minorities. Highlights | Background | A Focus on Michigan | References Aponte, Robert and Marcelo Siles. Latinos in the Heartland: The Browning of the Midwest. Research Report #5. The Julian Samora Research Institute. Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI. November 1994. Johnston, William B. Workforce 2000 - Work and Workers for the 21st Century. The Hudson Institute. Indianapolis, Indiana. June 1987. Michigan State Board of Education. Condition of Michigan Education 1992! September 1992. Riley, Richard W. Speech of the U. S. Secretary of Education before the House Committee on Economic and Educational opportunities on "The Federal Role in American Education". January 12, 1995 . Washington, D.C. |
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