Institutional racism is responsible for the high Hispanic dropout rate in Michigan. The term "pushout" is more appropriate than "dropout" for these students who are systematically ignored and devalued until they become alienated and leave school. Negative expectations are broadcast to Hispanic American students as soon as they…

A group of three conference papers, all addressing the subject of effective programs to decrease the number of school dropouts, is presented in this document. The first paper, "Systemic Approaches to Reducing Dropouts" (Michael Timpane), asserts that dropping out is a symptom of failures in the social, economic, and educational systems.…