children out of school in america - University of Tennessee Digital ...

We found children out of school in all the areas
we surveyed across the country.
We found both minority group and white children
out of school. Mexican-American (11.4 percent),
Portuguese (8.3 percent) and Puerto Rican (7.8 percent)
children had the highest nonenrollrnent rates.
Among all children surveyed, poverty was as strong
a factor as minority group status in characterizing
families of children out of school. The percentage
of children out of school correlated with the percentage
of children in families receiving Aid to Families
with Dependent Children (AFDC) or other public
assistance as their sole income. i3 The major exceptions
were (1) children from Portuguese immigrant
families in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where all
family members 16 or over worked, usually in lowpaying
factories, and (2) children in states with relatively
low welfare payments like Maine, Alabama,
and South Carolina.
We found children more likely to be out of school
if the head of their household had not completed
the 10th grade. 14 In a New Bedford Census Tract
(6526) where only 17 percent of heads of households
had completed 10th grade, and in Floyd County
(Mud Creek Area) where only 24 percent had done
so, both areas had 9.2 percent of their children
out of school. However: in a Denver Census
Tract (41.01) where 95 percent of heads of households
had completed at least 10th grade, only 2.6
percent of the children were out of school. In Portland,
Maine's Census Tract 19, 96 percent had completed
10th grade and there were no children found
out of school.
There are some interesting findings when areas
are rank ordered by selected characteristics.l 5 For
example, a Census Tract in Denver (41.01) ranked
high on minority enrollment, education of head of
household and income. While we found very few
children out of school in this Census Tract, it had
13 Our questionnaire asked families their source of income
but not amount of income.
14 Head of household is male in two-parent families and
either male or female in single-parent families. See Appendix
H for percentage breakdown for head of household
of families with school-age children completing lOth grade
or more for each· area we visited. We gathered information
on educational attainment of head of household from
68 percent of the families with school-age children interviewed.
44
the highest percentage of secondary school students
suspended at least once of all the areas we surveyed.
In a predominantly Portuguese Census Tract in
New Bedford (6526), we found the lowest percent of
heads of household completing 10th grade or above.
This Tract had the highest percent of 16- and 17year-old
children out of school.
In many areas, nonenrollment problems correlated
with high percentages of minority enrollment.
But in the Riverton Housing Project in Portland,
Maine, which is 96 percent white, we found high
percentages of low-income families and families
whose heads of household had not completed 10th
grade. Riverton had the highest percentage of children
out of school, and it was relatively high in the
percent of secondary school students suspended.
CDF Survey Undercount
Although we tried to gather more detailed information
on children out of school than the U.S. Census,
like the Census, we believe our data understate
the extent of the problem.
First, we found at least one person at home in 77
percent of the households we visited. It is likely that
a substantial number of our "no answers" were
single-parent families with the mother at work. Since
children in female-headed households tend to be out
of school more often than children in non-femaleheaded
families, many of our "no answers" could
have been families with children out of school.
Second, while translators accompanied our monitors
in Holyoke, Somerville, Springfield, and New
Bedford, Massachusetts, the lack of knowledge about
school procedures among those interviewed and the
difficulty in communication probably resulted in an
undercount of non-English-speaking children in those
areas.
Third, people surely withheld information everywhere.
Monitors were asking questions about sensi-
15 See Appendix G for all 30 areas ranked by children out
of school 45 or more days, secondary school-age children
suspended at least once, single-parent families of schoolage
children, families with AFDC or other public assistance
as their sole income, heads of households completing
lOth grade or above, and percent minority children.