Approximately 2.9 million Hispanics are enrolled in U.S. high schools, representing 17% of all secondary public school students. Yet, Hispanic students are less likely than their non-Hispanic peers to complete high school, and high school dropout rates are highest among recent Hispanic immigrants who face the enormous challenge of learning English, performing well on state academic assessments, and graduating within four or fewer years.

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) offered some promise in helping bring more accountability to high school graduation rates.  Under NCLB, states must include graduation rates as an indicator in determining AYP for high schools, and while the law, as passed by Congress, requires the disaggregation of graduation rates by race and ethnicity, the reality has been quite different. This has important implications for Latinos and English language learners (ELLs) for two reasons: 1) Latinos and ELLs have a disproportionately high dropout rate compared to other groups, and 2) accountability that is principally based on test scores can have the unintended effect of creating incentives for schools to push out low-performing students, which have traditionally included Latinos and ELLs, thereby exacerbating the already high dropout rate in these groups. 

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