Stats That Stick: September 28, 2011

States with little to no mention of the American civil rights movement: 35
A new study from the Southern Poverty Law Center has  found ignorance  by American students of the basic history of the civil rights movement has not changed — in fact, it has worsened, according to a new report by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The report says that states’ academic standards for public schools are one major cause of the problem, according to the New York Times. The report assigns letter grades to each state based on how extensively its academic standards address the civil rights movement. Thirty-five states got an F because their standards require little or no mention of the movement, it says. Read Entire Post

Stats That Stick: September 21, 2011

Teachers Detroit plans to cut over the next four years: 40 percent
Detorit Public Schools expects to shed nearly 40 percent of its teachers in the next four years to help close a $327 million deficit, yet projects a loss of just 6,000 students under a state-approved fiscal blueprint, according to the Detroit News. The district would cut more than 1,500 teachers by fall 2015. Read Entire Post

Stats that Stick: September 14, 2011

Students from middle-class schools that earn a college degree by 26: 28 percent

A new report, "Incomplete: How Middle-Class Schools Aren't Making the Grade," released this week shows that middle-class public schools educate the majority of U.S. students but pay lower teacher salaries, have larger class sizes and spend less per pupil than low-income and wealthy schools. It also found middle-class schools are underachieving. It pointed to their national and international test scores and noted that 28 percent of their graduates earn a college degree by age 26, compared to 17 percent for lower-income students and 47 percent for upper-income students.

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Stats that Stick: September 7, 2011

New Yorkers who are dissatisfied with the quality of the city’s public schools: About 6 in 10
The New York Times conducted a recently released poll that shows New Yorkers are broadly unhappy with their public schools. In addition, most do not believe Mayor Michael Bloomberg has helped improved the situation. Bloomberg has made improving schools a key issue during his tenure as mayor, yet only 34 percent of those surveyed said they approve of how Bloomberg is handling education. City officials told the Times the numbers do not tell whole story, noting the gains they have made such as getting graduation rates to an all-time high. Read Entire Post

Stats that Stick: August 31, 2011

High school graduates who think their high school diploma is not enough to compete in today’s society: 90 percent
A new report shows that roughly 90 percent of 2010 high school graduates believe it’s not enough to be able to compete with a high school diploma, and they believe college is important. The report, released by the College Board – which administers the SAT and Advanced Placement exams – surveyed roughly 1,500 students who graduated in 2010 one year later. Three-fourths of students said they had a “good” or “great” 2010, and only 9 percent said they were dissatisfied with their high school experience. However, nearly half said they wish they had enrolled in different classes in high school, especially more difficult science, math, and writing courses. Read Entire Post

Stats that Stick: August 24, 2011

Students in rural America who are of color: 28 percent

Education Week reported on the increasing population and diversity of rural schools in the United States. Rural school enrollment is growing -- between 2004 and 2009, rural schools grew 11 percent, from 10.5 million students to 11.7 million. In that same time, growth was fastest among students of color – this number went up 31 percent. Education Week also reported the highest-poverty schools are even more diverse. Roughly 59 percent of children in the top 10 percent of districts in poverty are students of color.

Money Americans spend on back-to-school shopping: $7 billion

As the school year starts around the country, the New York Times reported on census data that showed American spend billions of dollars while preparing their children to go back to school. Other interesting statistics from the census included: 55 million students will be enrolled in pre-kindergarten through high school this fall, 11 percent of them will be in private schools, and minority groups made up 43 percent of pre-kindergarten through high school students in October 2009.

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Stats That Stick: August 17, 2011

Americans who believe their public school system has a hard time getting good teachers: 52 percent

According to the Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll on the public's attitude toward the public schools, of the roughly 1,000 people surveyed, over half of Americans believe their local school district has a difficult time recruiting quality teachers. However, the vast majority of Americans appreciate and trust public school teachers in general.

ACT test takers who will need at least one remedial course in college: 75 percent

ACT’s annual report released this week shows three in four students who took the ACT test did not achieve all of the company’s preparedness benchmarks and therefore will likely need to take a remedial course to brush up on high-school material while in college. Bob Wise, president of the Alliance and former West Virginia governor, says this type of remedial course taking is dangerous because students are more likely to drop out of college if they feel like they repeated high school material.

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Stats That Stick: August 10, 2011

Teach for America 2011 acceptance rate: 11 percent Washington Post “Campus Overload” blog August 3, 2011

If you thought getting into a prestigious college was tough, just try getting accepted into Teach for America, which was yet again a top employer for graduates at many top universities. Teach for America places recent graduates, grad students and professionals in underserved urban or rural public schools for two-year teaching stints, and it received a record number of 48,000 applications for this fall. The organization selected 5,200 applicants to be teachers — 77 percent graduated this spring, 6 percent of them graduate students and 17 percent professionals.

Homeless children in public schools: 41 percent increase from 2006-7 to 2008-9 school years

A new report “The State of America’s Children 2011,” released by the Children's Defense Fund shines light on the economic recession's impact on children in the public school system. In addition to that startling statistic, the report also found that 79 percent or more of black and Hispanic youth cannot read or do math at grade level in the fourth, eighth or 12th grades in public school.

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Stats That Stick: August 3, 2011

Once nearly 100 percent, the teacher tenure rate in New York City dropped to 58 percent of under tougher evaluation guidelines that the city put into effect this year. A decision on tenure was deferred for 39 percent of eligible teachers, up from 8 percent a year ago. (New York Times)

Four out of 10 new public school teachers hired since 2005 came through alternative teacher-preparation programs, according to a survey just released by the National Center for Education Information,  up from 22 percent of new teachers hired between 2000 and 2004. (Education Week)

On Tuesday, the Kentucky Department of Education reported that for the 2009–10 school year, the state’s high school graduation rate was 76.6 percent. (Bowling Green Daily News)

The South Dakota Education Department reported Tuesday that 94 percent of the state’s public school districts made adequate yearly progress under the federal education improvement law, down 1 percentage point from a year ago; about 80 percent of the individual schools made adequate yearly progress. (Rapid City Journal)

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Stats That Stick: July 27, 2011

High school graduates earn a national average of $8,000 more annually compared to high school dropouts. (Alliance for Excellent Education)

Nearly 87 percent of New Mexico’s schools are not making adequate progress under the federal No Child left Behind (NCLB) Act. When it comes to student proficiency, only 42 percent of New Mexico students perform at grade level in math and science and only 50 percent are proficient in Reading. (New Mexico Public Education Department)

The number of Louisiana public schools considered failing—or “academically unacceptable”—under the state’s accountability program jumped from 48 last year to 135 this year. (Education Week)

Students with disciplinary actions were five times more likely to drop out (10 percent) than students with no disciplinary action (2 percent), according to a new study of nearly one million Texas secondary school students released by the Council of State Governments. Additionally, students with disciplinary actions were more than six times more likely (31 percent) to be held back at least once, compared to students without (5 percent).

 

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