One in four children evacuated in the wake of the hurricane failed to pass on to the next grade this year.

One in four Houston Independent School District students displaced by Hurricane Katrina failed to make enough academic progress to be promoted to the next grade this school year — a far higher rate than their classmates and an indicator of the massive challenges still facing area schools.

About 700 of the 2,900 Katrina students returning to HISD this year were held back, including 41 percent of high school sophomores and 52 percent of juniors. That 24 percent retention rate was among the highest in the area, according to retention rates released by some local school systems.

"These kids have worked hard, but many of them were not prepared for the rigorous Texas standards," HISD spokesman Terry Abbott said.

On the other hand, many of these kids didn't work hard at all, based upon my experience. They arrived woefully behind due to an inadequate system of education in New Orleans and the surrounding area, took the initial outpouring of generosity (our school bought every single evacuee kid over $200 in clothes and school supplies -- despite having many impoverished children in the neighborhood who didn't gt freebies from every social service agency) as a sign that the year was a free ride, and complained that what was expected of them was more than they would need back in Louisiana schools and therefore didn't do much work because they expected to be back there this fall. Add to that the isues raised in the article and you can understand why the numbers show what they show -- especially since HISD received so many of the children coming from the lowest socio-economic backgrounds.

I hate to say it, but looking back over the last year I'm just not surprised by the number of failing kids, especially in the upper grades.