Chapter 3: Beyond School Structures and Individual Blame: Centralizing School Culture to Understand and Respond to the Latina/o Dropout Crisis

The graduation/dropout crisis facing the nation has gained considerable attention over the last decade, particularly in the context of complex and sometimes controversial educational policies such as the standards movement, No Child Left Behind (NCLB), and high-stakes standardized testing. In President Obama’s first State of the Union Address, he stated, “We have one of the highest high school dropout rates of any industrialized nation.” At present, the graduation rate for all U.S. students hovers at 70% but if specific subgroups are considered, the situation is far worse for African Americans and Latinos, only half of whom graduate from high school (Orfield, Losen, Wald, & Swanson, 2004).