Wake up call: We are 51% of 5 million students in Texas.

Hispanics are over 51% of almost 5 million Texas students. (Texas uses the term "Hispanics" to quantify our community.)

Of course, when the Librotraficantes attended public hearings Wednesday November 20 at the Texas Education Agency in Austin, Texas to discuss the new education bill HB5-Latinos were not 51% of those testifying.

We were possibly 6 of 89-maybe 7% of the folks in attendance to testify. The majority of people were business folk, representing the interests of their industries.

Many of of these business people made it clear that they were worried about a shortage or workers that will simply get worse, especially with the number of tradesman and professionals who will retire in the next 5 years.

Of course, Latinos were never addressed directly, but every conversation walked around the notion of how our young shall be educated for work. Our contingent was the only group actively championing the intellectual life of our young, pushing for classes other than the work courses, such as Data Management, mandated by HB5.

The other alarming number is the official drop out rate for our community. The TEA lists the drop out rate for Hispanics as 12.8%, which we then know means it is higher than that. So if we are over 50% of 4.9 million students, a 12.8% drop out rate means that over 313,000 students will drop out.

The TEA must act now to change this. January 20 The TX State Board of Education must endorse Mexican American Literature and Mexican American History for high schools. Mexican American Studies courses have been proven to increase graduation rates in Tucson Unified School District to 93% and 98%.

We will be providing updates soon. Next update will consist of the testimony we submitted.