Texas public schools are losing one out of five students.
Each fall, IDRA releases its attrition study. Attrition rates are an indicator of a school’s holding power, or the ability to keep students enrolled in school and learning until they graduate. Key findings from the 2019-20 study show the following.
- Texas is failing to graduate one out of every five students – which translates to losing 10 students per hour. The statewide attrition rate is 20% (down from 20% last year).
- Texas high schools lost 86,789 students in 2019-20.
- At this rate, Texas will not reach universal high school education for another two decades in 2038.
- Black students and Hispanic students are about two times more likely to leave school without graduating with a diploma than White students.
- In the last 34 years, Texas schools have lost a cumulative total of more than 4 million students from public high school enrollment prior to graduation
It doesn’t have to be this way. This infographic highlights key findings from the study and points to steps we can take to graduate more students.
Note: Since the study’s enrollment data is collected in the fall, this analysis does not indicate the effects of COVID-19 on school attrition.
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