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The literature sees community members of Mexican ancestry as persons who are denied full participation in matters of school policies and practices. It also cites that forty percent of children of Mexican ancestry who enter school drop out before they graduate from the twelfth grade. In view of these perceptions, this study was designed to examine what relationship existed among three factors: (1) the goals of a school district; (2) student academic achievement as indicated by GPA; and (3) the intra- group variability among Chicano, Mexican American and Mexican students. This study assumed that if students, parents and teachers prioritized goals congruently, students would do better in school than if there was not a congruity of ranking. However, data results revealed that the existence or nonexistence of goal -ranking congruence among students, parents and teachers made no practical significant difference in student GPA. The research sample included 267 middle school age students of Mexican ancestry, their parents and 74 teachers. The three groups of students, that is, Chicano, Mexican American and Mexican, each ranked communication, work skills, logical thinking, critical thinking skills, study of one's own heritage and other ethnic groups, and accomplishing one's own potential among the seven most important goals. It is recommended that school districts develop their goals with representative input from the total community and that goals be coherently and consistently publicized among professional and lay people in order that the purpose and consistency of school practices be underscored.

The problem with which this study is concerned is the development of a process model through which culturally-relevant learning materials could be developed. "Culture-based learning materials" are defined to be materials which take into account the child's cultural/linguistic/experiential background and his natural interests. An illustration of the use of the model, for the purpose of demonstrating how to devise culture-based learning experiences via the model, is provided. Teachers of elementary school children in three school districts in northeastern New Mexico were invited to participate in the illustration. Their duty was to collect data via the instrument designed in the second part of the model. The data collected indicate that the majority of children attending these schools are "bilingual" in Spanish and English. Certain literature on teaching Mexican-American children is therefore summarized. For illustrative purposes mathematics was chosen to represent the school's curricula. Hence a synthesis of certain literature on teaching mathematics to "bilingual" children is also provided. Illustrative culture-based mathematics learning experiences for use by teachers in northeastern New Mexico are presented and discussed.

The purpose of this study was to determine if the successful aspects of alternative schools aimed at retaining potential high school dropouts could be conducted in the traditional school setting with similar results. The study explored the effect of career education, individual counseling and weekly progress monitoring on how long potential high school dropouts will remain in school. The experimental hypotheses were focused around the following research problems. The first question was "Does the combination of career education, individual counseling and weekly progress monitoring have a more significant effect than weekly counseling and weekly progress monitoring or just weekly monitoring." The second research question asked, "Do the previous methods of intervention significantly effect how many classes students complete." The third question was "Does career education have a more significant effect on females." The fourth question was "Does career education have a more significant effect on Mexican-American males." The research design included three groups of potential high school dropouts who were randomly assigned to three treatment levels. There were two experimental groups and one control group. The first group participated in a career education class, weekly counseling and weekly progress monitoring. The second group participated in weekly counseling and weekly progress monitoring and the control group participated in weekly progress monitoring. The dependent measures were number of days students remained in school, number of classes they were enrolled in at the end of the semester or when they withdrew and the percentage of students in each group that completed the semester. Results of an analysis of variance and Chi Square analysis revealed that career education did significantly effect retention of potential dropouts. Results of t-tests revealed that career education did not significantly increase retention of females or Mexican-American males.

The problem of this study has been an investigation and comparison of the school dropout rates of Mexican American and Anglo Students and their reasons for leaving school in a large metropolitan school district in Texas. The specific purposes were (1) to ascertain the dropout rates of Mexican American and Anglo students within similar socioeconomic status and to compare these rates; (2) to compare the reasons for dropping out of school given by Mexican American and Anglo students; and (3) to delineate the implications for the school district's instructional program and its operation. Based on an analysis of the findings of this study, the following conclusions were formulated: (1) the school district studied is not meeting the needs of Mexican American students, particularly Mexican American females; (2) it can be expected that Mexican American female students are more likely to drop out than are Anglo females; and (3) Mexican American and Anglo dropouts do not believe that there is anyone on the school staff in whom they can confide their decision to drop out.

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