Stats That Stick: May 4, 2011

Researchers found that by age 29 or 30, more than half of high school students who had worked less than 15 hours a week had completed a bachelor's degree. But for every five additional hours worked over 15 hours a week, students experienced an 8% drop in college completion. Only about 20% of those who had worked 31 hours or more a week in high school finished college. –USA Today reporting on a University of Michigan study

Only 6% of prisoners were enrolled in vocational or academic post-secondary programs during the 2009-2010 school year. Of those who were enrolled, 86% were serving time in 13 states, suggesting other states provide little access to inmate education. -Institute for Higher Education Policy

Many high school seniors may be old enough to vote, but just one-quarter of them demonstrate at least a “proficient” level of civics knowledge and skills, based on the latest results from a prominent national exam. –National Assessment of Educational Progress

Stats That Stick: April 27, 2011

Hispanics students are by far the largest minority in U.S. public schools — comprising more than 1 in 5 in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. Hispanics are also projected to account for the majority of the nation’s population growth between 2005 and 2050. –Miami Herald on the White House’s “Winning the future: Improving education for the Latino community” report

One in four children in the United States is being raised by a single parent. –Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development

From 2000 to 2010, the percentage of people over the age of 25 with at least a bachelor's degree rose from 26 percent to 30 percent. Women in that age group were slightly more likely than men to have a degree—86.7 percent compared with 86.6 percent. –U.S. Census Bureau

Funding for early-childhood education declined between 2009 and 2010 and only 26 percent of 4-year-olds were enrolled in pre-K last year. -National Institute for Early Education Research, based at Rutgers University Graduate School of Education

More than 80,000 students in Maryland are missing 20 or more days of school each year; some of the highest numbers are in Baltimore City and Prince George's County. –Baltimore Sun

Stats That Stick: April 20, 2011

Texas ranks in the bottom half of states for residents with college degrees, even though the average tuition at a Texas public four-year college is one of the most affordable at $5,623. About 25 percent of Texans have bachelor's degrees, including 8.2 percent of residents who hold a post-graduate degree. –Star Telegram

Only about a fourth of young people expect things to be easier for them than the previous generation. A majority expect to have a harder time buying a house and saving for retirement than their parents did. –AP-Viacom Poll

Stats That Stick: April 13, 2011

The percentage of high school graduates completing a “rigorous” curriculum, with higher-level mathematics and science curricula, jumped from 5 percent in 1990 to 13 percent in 2009. Those who took a “midlevel” curriculum increased from 26 percent to 46 percent in the same period. –National Assessment of Educational Progress

Approximately 3 million children in the United States have a parent in prison. –Restorative Justice blog

The overall annual price tag for incarceration, youth detention, and parole in the United States: nearly $70 billion – of which $50 billion is spent at the state level. –NAACP

A student who can't read on grade level by 3rd grade is four times less likely to graduate by age 19 than a child who does read proficiently by that time. Add poverty to the mix, and a student is 13 times less likely to graduate on time than his or her proficient, wealthier peer.- Annie E. Casey Foundation

Stats That Stick: March 23, 2011

Nationwide, an estimated 1.3 million students dropped out from the Class of 2010 without earning a diploma. Cutting this number in half would yield 650,000 “new” high school graduates who would likely make additional contributions to the nation’s economy by supporting 54,000 jobs and increasing the gross domestic product by as much as $9.6 billion by the time they reach the midpoint of their careers. -Alliance for Excellent Education

Six in ten teachers (61%) say they are able to differentiate instruction a great deal to address the different learning needs of students within a class. -MetLife

The number of U.S. schools with such poor graduation rates that they are known as "dropout factories" fell by 6.4 percent between 2008 and 2009. -Johns Hopkins University Everyone Graduates Center, America's Promise Alliance, and Civic Enterprises

U.S. children are more likely to have access to digital media -- such as television and the Internet -- compared with trends a decade ago. But low-income, Hispanic, and black children consume more media than their middle-class and white peers and it is less likely to be educational. -Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop

Stats That Stick: March 16, 2011

In Singapore, the attrition rate of teachers is less than 3 percent annually, which is less than half the annual attrition rate for teachers in the United States. –Alliance for Excellent Education and the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (SCOPE)  

In raw numbers, the United States produces many more low-achieving students than any other OECD nation, including even two developing economies, Mexico and Turkey. –Thomas B. Fordham Institute

Seventy percent of all high schools offered classes or seminars to students to help explain the college application process, although about one-third did not. -College Board Advocacy & Policy Center

Stats That Stick: March 9, 2011

The U.S. Department of Education estimates that 82 percent of America's schools could fail to meet education goals set by No Child Left Behind this year. -U.S. Department of Education

In 1988, 57% of middle and high school students said it was very likely they would go to college. By 1997, this level had increased to 67%. Today, 75% say it is very likely they will go to college. On average, teachers predict that 63% of their students will graduate high school ready for college without the need for remedial coursework, and that 51% of their students will graduate from college.
-MetLife

Los Angeles has increased the average size of its ninth-grade English and math classes to 34 from 20. Eleventh- and 12th-grade classes in those two subjects have risen, on average, to 43 students. -New York Times
 

Stats That Stick: March 2, 2011

Fewer 18-year-olds surveyed in 2008 reported receiving any arts education in childhood than did those surveyed in 1982, dropping from about 65 percent to 50 percent.  Just 26 percent of African-Americans surveyed in 2008 reported receiving any arts education in childhood, a huge drop from the 51 percent who reported as much in 1982. - National Endowment for the Arts

Twenty states and the District of Columbia have spent less than 5 percent of their allotments under federal stimulus funds designed to save educator jobs this year and next. Only four states—Kansas, South Dakota, California and Georgia—have spent more than 80% of their shares. -Education Week

Stats That Stick: February 23, 2011

Providence (Rhode Island) school district plans to send out dismissal notices to every one of its 1,926 teachers.
-The Providence Journal

State education officials have ordered the emergency financial manager for Detroit Public Schools to immediately implement a plan that balances the district's books by closing half its schools.
-The Associated Press

More than 70 percent of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s students are Latino, yet fewer than 25 percent of the district’s teachers are of Latino descent. -U.S. Department of Education

Stats That Stick: February 16, 2011

The Obama administration is keeping domestic discretionary spending level, but it is asking $77.4 billion in education funding, including $49 billion excluding Pell Grants, for fiscal year 2012. That's a roughly 4 percent increase in non-Pell discretionary funding over fiscal year 2010, the most recent budget enacted. –Education Week

Enrollment growth in fall 2010 slowed its pace at community colleges, increasing just 3.2% from the previous year. This contrasts with more dramatic increases in recent years: more than 11% between fall 2008 and fall 2009, and nearly 17% between fall 2007 and fall 2009. -American Association of Community Colleges

Graduates of rural high schools typically earn fewer math credits than their peers at nonrural campuses. -Journal of Research in Rural Education