ABSTRACT
The low mathematics achievement of language minority (LM) students in United States schools has been well documented. The 1985 Condition of Education report of the National Center for Education Statistics notes that the basic skills and problem-solving competencies of blacks and Hispanics are much lower than those of white children (p. 59). Not surprisingly, this problem is reflected at the high school level in other ways, such as disproportionately high dropout rates for LM students. In 1980, the Condition of Education identified Hispanics as having the highest dropout rate for high school sophomores of all racial/ethnic groups (the overall rate was 14.4%; the rate for Hispanics was 19.1% and for white, non-Hispanics 13.0%) (p. 210).
