In addition to many academic measures, NELS compared the following risk factors against educational problems: single-parent family, low parent education, limited English proficiency, low family income, sibling dropout, and being home alone more than three hours on week-days. Minorities were more at risk than nonminorities from all these factors.
Overcoming Risk Factors
Nathan Caplan and others, in "Why Asian Children Excel in School" (Scientific American, February 1992), found that despite hardships and severe traumatic experiences in their native countries and attending schools in low-income inner cities, the majority of Indo-Chinese refugee students (which includes children from Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos) performed well in school. The authors found that strong family traditions and values were the important influences in these children's lives. The families were committed to a love of learning. They placed a high value on homework and did it as a family activity, with the older children helping the younger. Furthermore, parents read regularly to their children either in English or their native language. The refugee families were linked not only to their past traditions, but also to the reality of the present and to future possibilities, which "appears to have imparted a sense of continuity and direction" to their lives.
The Indo-Chinese are not the only group to have accomplished this kind of academic success. For the most part, Japanese and Jewish immigrants, two groups with strong family traditions and values of learning, have also had high academic success. Japanese students, for example, have overcome longtime racial prejudice and excelled in school, and Jewish students have attended college at a high rate. According to the National Jewish Population Survey, 2000–2001, conducted by the United Jewish Communities, 53 percent of eighteen-to twenty-four-year-old American Jews were in college or in graduate school at the time of the survey. Of those eighteen to
TABLE 7.6
Total number and percentage of students who withdrew, dropped out, or are a chronic truant, by reason, race/ethnicity, and sex, 1993–94
| Race/ethnicity | Sex | |||||
| Reason student withdrew, dropped out, or is a chronic truant1 | Total students who withdrew, dropped out, or are a chronic truant | American Indian/Alaska Native | Other minority2 | White, non-Hispanic | Male | Female |
| Total | 1,146,234 | 18,243 | 614,294 | 513,697 | 558,252 | 587,982 |
| Total withdrew, dropped out, or chronic truant rate | 2.5 | 3.6 | 4.3 | 1.6 | 2.3 | 2.6 |
| Bureau of Indian Affairs/tribal | ||||||
| Total number | 4,117 | 4,087 | – | 0 | 2,645 | – |
| Total withdrew, dropped out, or chronic truant rate | 10.5 | 10.7 | – | 0.0 | 11.5 | – |
| Alcohol or drug abuse | 13.7 | 13.9 | – | 0.0 | 18.1 | – |
| Alienation or isolation | 1.2 | – | – | 0.0 | – | – |
| Didn't like school, teachers, or other students | 10.7 | 10.8 | – | 0.0 | 10.6 | – |
| Employment | 3.8 | – | – | 0.0 | – | – |
| Family problems | 47.7 | 47.3 | – | 0.0 | 54.3 | |
| Friends withdrew/dropped out | 0.3 | – | – | 0.0 | – | – |
| Parenthood or pregnancy | 5.1 | 5.2 | – | 0.0 | 0.0 | – |
| Poor grades | 10.1 | 10.1 | – | 0.0 | 11.3 | – |
| Other | 38.0 | 38.3 | – | 0.0 | 33.3 | – |
| Don't know | 2.7 | 2.8 | – | 0.0 | 3.9 | – |
| Public | ||||||
| Total number | 1,113,037 | 11,500 | 611,971 | 489,566 | 543,385 | 569,652 |
| Total withdrew, dropped out, or chronic truant rate | 2.7 | 2.5 | 4.7 | 1.7 | 2.5 | 2.8 |
| Alcohol or drug abuse | 1.6 | 3.7 | 2.7 | – | 3.1 | 0.1 |
| Alienation or isolation | 0.1 | 8.2 | – | 0.0 | 0.1 | 0.0 |
| Didn't like school, teachers, or other students | 10.8 | 14.4 | 13.4 | 7.5 | 15.2 | 6.6 |
| Employment | 1.2 | 5.9 | 0.0 | 2.7 | 2.5 | 0.1 |
| Family problems | 19.5 | 16.6 | 13.6 | 26.9 | 18.0 | 20.9 |
| Friends withdrew/dropped out | 3.4 | 3.2 | 5.7 | – | 5.3 | 1.6 |
| Parenthood or pregnancy | 0.7 | 2.4 | 0.0 | – | 0.0 | 1.5 |
| Poor grades | 1.1 | 3.3 | – | – | 2.2 | – |
| Other | 71.5 | 51.2 | 78.5 | 63.3 | 79.8 | 63.7 |
| Don't know | 3.3 | 9.6 | 5.8 | 0.0 | 0.7 | 5.7 |
| Private3 | ||||||
| –Too few sample cases for a reliable estimate. | ||||||
| 1Withdrew, droppped out, or chronic truant refers to an individual who has not been in school for 4 consecutive weeks or more and is not absent due to illness or injury. | ||||||
| 2Other minority consists of 0.5 percent Asian/Pacific Islander, 35.9 percent Hispanic, and 63.6 percent black, non-Hispanic students. | ||||||
| 3Three were too few dropouts among private school students in the survey to produce reliable estimates. | ||||||
| Note: Percents may add to more than 100 percent as student actions may be prompted by more than one reason. | ||||||
| SOURCE: Summer Whitener, Kerry Gruber, Hilda Lynch, Carol Rohr, and Kate Tingos, "Table 3. Total Number and Percentage of Students Who Withdrew, Dropped Out, or Are a Chronic Truant, by Reasons Student Withdrew, Dropped Out, or Is a Chronic Truant, Race/Ethnicity, and Sex: 1993–94," Schools and Staffing Survey: Student Records Questionnaire: School Year 1993-94, with Special Emphasis on American Indians and Alaska Native Students, National Center for Education Statistics, Washington, DC, 1997 [Online] http://nces.ed.gov/pubs97/97449.pdf [accessed May 14, 2004] | ||||||
twenty-nine who were not in high school, 81 percent had attended college, including 32 percent who had earned a bachelor's degree already and 10 percent who had graduated with an advanced degree. In schools that emphasize parental involvement and structure in the children's learning environment at home as well as in school, African-Americans have also had outstanding achievement.
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