The
numbers posted for Texas Public School Enrollment for 2015/16 indicate that the dropping birthrate is now being reflected in our school enrollment. Last year Texas had 390,550 kindergarten students. This year it is down to 376,813, a 3.5% drop in just one year, and the second year in a row that this number went down! Probably in all the history of Texas the statewide kindergarten enrollment number has never dropped by such a large percentage!
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| Texas School Enrollment by Grade 1997 to 2016 with graduation rate calculations. |
Texas has made monumental graduation rate progress over the past 20 years, but we still have the lowest SAT and college readiness rates in the nation. More investment must be made in education. A potentially dropping school enrollment is not a time for Texas to save money. We must raise student achievement far beyond the internal STAAR tests which results can be manipulated within Texas. We must compare our students on national tests.
Imagine if the four states with lower total SAT scores than Texas were able to only select the 62% of their better motivated students to take the SAT as Texas did. What do you think the chance is that their average total scores would be higher than Texas? This is why it must be admitted that
Texas probably has the lowest SAT scores in the nation if 100% of students were tested.
