The State of American Education

This year on May 31, 2008, it will be a year since the following press release went out regarding the state of affairs over education in America entitled, "Report on the State of American Education Shows High School Students Taking More Advanced Coursework." It indicated that high school students in the United States have been taking more courses in mathematics and science, social studies, the arts, and foreign languages.

All of these statistics are according to The Condition of Education 2007 report released by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). It is a congressionally mandated report providing an annual statistical outlook on education in the U.S. 48 indicators cover various aspects of education, from student achievement to school environment.

Many of today's students are minority students who make up 42 percent of public school enrollment. Twenty percent of school age children speak English plus another language at home.
This report shows that the rate of college enrollment right after high school increased from 49 percent to 69 percent in the year 2005, and female college enrollment surpassed male enrollment starting in 1978 and continues to grow, widening the gender gap.

Last year this report showed that U.S. public school enrollment is becoming increasingly diverse and that more people are enrolling in postsecondary education. It also pointed out that more bachelor’s degrees have been awarded than in the past.

High school course taking results indicate that between 1997 and 2005, the number of students taking AP exams more than doubled to about 1.2 million. The numbers of blacks and Hispanics grew faster than those from any other racial or ethnic group. In the year 2004, Asian/Pacific Islander graduates were more likely than graduates of any other race or ethnicity to have completed advanced coursework in science, mathematics, English, and a foreign language.

Students who eventually dropped out of high school were behind their peers who graduated on time in the total number of credits they earned in their freshman and sophomore years, as well as the amount they earned in English, mathematics, and science courses. Year-to-year change shows that credit accrual declined for dropouts, putting them further behind. About three-quarters of the freshman class graduated from public high schools on time in 2003–04.

Interestingly enough, the number of bachelor's degrees awarded increased by 33 percent between 1989-90 and 2003-04. The number of associate's degrees increased by 46 percent. What's more, minority students have accounted for about half of the growth in associate's and bachelor's degrees.

Adults between the ages of 25 to 34 with a bachelor's degree or higher have higher median earnings than their peers with less education, and these earnings differences increased from 1980 to 2005. The average total price for one year of graduate education (full time) ranged from $21,900 for a master's degree program to $41,900 for a first-professional degree program.

For more information on educational statistics, and charities that help students get a better education, such as Children of the City, visit Rocco Basile's website at http://www.roccobasile.org/


Resource: The NCES is the statistical center of the Institute of Education Sciences in the U.S. Department of Education.

The full text of The Condition of Education 2007 (in HTML format), along with related data tables and indicators from previous years, can be viewed at http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe.