Murdock: Future Tied to Minorities

An interesting article in the Texas Tribune today, explores the challenges facing Texas schools:

In 2011, the state reached two landmarks. For the first time, Hispanics became the majority of public school students. And to cope with a historic budget deficit, the Legislature did not finance enrollment growth in the state’s schools — something that had not happened since the modernization of the state’s public school system in 1949. Though the first turning point passed quietly and the second with much political strife, they both underscored the challenges ahead as a dramatic demographic shift occurs in public school classrooms statewide.

The article goes on to say that today 60% of Texas students are economically disadvantaged.  Students with limited English skills are 16% of them.

By 2050 the number of students in Texas will increase from 5 million to nine million.  Two-thirds of them will be Hispanic, according to Steve Murdock, demographer and director of Rice University’s Hobby Center for the Study of Texas.

Without a change in Hispanics current socioeconomic status, that also means Texas students will continue to grow poorer — and their education more expensive — in the next four decades, Murdock added.

Read the whole article here.