Thread: Texas border lags in education levels

Texas border lags in education levels
By Adriana Gómez Licón \ El Paso Times
Posted: 12/16/2010 12:00:00 AM MST

Statistics the U.S. Census Bureau compiled from 2005 to 2009 revealed this week that counties along the Texas border remain behind the rest of the state and country in educational attainment.
"If there are lower levels of education, you can expect higher rates of poverty," said Lloyd Potter, the state demographer and director for the Texas State Data Center.
The three least-educated counties of the nation's 3,147 were Starr, Presidio and Maverick -- all on the Texas border.


Census factoids about your city and regionof the residents ages 25 and older had a high-school education. In the Big Bend area's Presidio, half of the adults had high-school diplomas. In Maverick, also in the valley, 54 percent of adults completed high school.

Hudspeth and Culberson counties in West Texas occupied the sixth and 15th places on the list of least-educated counties. Hudspeth was at 55 percent, and Culberson at 58 percent. The valley's Zapata County ranked seventh, with 55 percent of adults with a high-school education.

El Paso, with 750,000 people, had less than 70 percent of adults with a high-school diploma.

The Texas border "is a region that has been marginalized in terms of public investment and educational investment," said Josiah Heyman, a sociologist of the University of Texas at El Paso who specializes in border and migration issues.

During the past decade, state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh has said that if the Texas border counties made up a separate state, it would be the poorest and most unemployed.

Most of the counties on the Texas border are heavily populated by Hispanics. All the counties have poverty rates higher than 25 percent. The border is also an area where the average household income is between $25,000 and $40,000. In two border counties and five others near the border, the average household income is less than $25,000.

"We have a low-educated population associated with poor economic performance," Heyman said.

Disparities may have something to do with cultural differences between Americans and immigrants from Mexico, he said. Most of these counties are "gateway" areas for immigrants looking to move farther north.

"People are migrating to the United States from Mexico, where the educational standards for completion for the common person is much lower than the United States," he said.

For many years, Heyman said, the Mexican government mandated education up to sixth grade. Now, it is up to ninth grade.

On a positive note, these border counties have improved during the past decade. The least-educated county, Starr, showed a progress of 12 percentage points to 47 percent of adults with a high-school education. Maverick showed a similar improvement, from 42 percent to 54 percent.

But because the levels of education were so low in 2000, the Texas border and the rest of the nation still show extreme differences when it comes to high-school education.

State demographer Potter said the educational gaps present a problem in the fastest-growing state because of its booming Hispanic population. "If we are becoming more Hispanic as a state, one of the challenges is to ensure that children get a better education," Potter said.

Heyman said Texas needs to keep in mind these alarming differences when funding decisions arise.

"This state has got to wake up and invest in education," he said. "We can either be a huge version of a backward and desperately poor state, or we can become one of the great eco nomies of the 21st century."

By the numbers
Percentage of adults with high-school diplomas on the Texas border:
2005-2009CensusNat.
County nameestimates2000rank
Starr County46.534.71
Presidio County50.044.72
Maverick County53.742.13
Hudspeth County55.346.16
Zapata County55.453.17
Culberson County58.256.115
Hidalgo County59.550.519
Val Verde County58.71.335
Webb County61.753.037
Cameron County62.455.244
El Paso County69.865.8202
Kinney County71.366.9272
Terrell County74.970.9555
Brewster County77.878.6815
Jeff Davis County79.674.71003
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, five-year estimates of the American Community Survey.

http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_16869234


So much for the Dream Act and so much for Bilingual Education!

Most of the counties on the Texas border are heavily populated by Hispanics.

So, the "best and the brightest" of Mexico and the hordes of others hispanics and illegals really do have something to offer the US huh...

The Texas border "is a region that has been marginalized in terms of public investment and educational investment," said Josiah Heyman, a sociologist of the University of Texas at El Paso who specializes in border and migration issues.

I feel bad for the AMERICAN children in these locations, they are paying the price for this. Isn't this one of the locations where kids are crossing every dayfrom Messico to go to OUR schools? If I were a parent here I would be raising holy hell to see MY tax dollars going to educate kids that don't even reside here, much less educating illegal invader's anchors! No wonder they aren't getting money, seems like somebody is catching on... but the tragedy is that our kids are suffering for it!!!

As I've said before....yes we complain but we are simply outnumbered.
These people from Mexico are like a cancer that we can't seem to stop from spreading. One of the problems here in El Paso is that all the old timers...the Anglos who had influence were so disgusted that they moved away and slowly but surely El Paso has been taken over by rich Mexicans. There's almost no one to complain to that isn't one of "them". Any other influential Anglos are occupied by their constant need to make a profit and frankly, the only thing that they seem to care about is how much money they can make off of those people. I can just visualize those Anglos thinking "my time is almost over and therefore it can be someone else's problem."
Those of us who are drowning in debt and have no influence are totally ignored. El Paso is one of those "good ol' boy" towns and people like us aren't part of that clique.

WOW, this couldn't be!!!!!!!LOL

You would think it would stop at the border counties yet Los Angeles and surrounding cities have even lower scores as well as the San Joquin valley.