Statistics on American K-12 Public Education

While most parents think their children are receiving a quality education, the majority of American students are falling behind their international counterparts. The consequences to our country are dramatic.

Consider these stark statistics:

We have low expectations for American students.

American students rank 25th in math and 21st in science compared to students in 30 industrialized countries. America's top math students rank 25th out of 30 countries when compared with top students elsewhere in the world. By the end of 8th grade, U.S. students are two years behind in the math being studied by peers in other countries. Sixty eight percent of 8th graders can't read at their grade level, and most will never catch up.

Too many students drop out.

More than 1.2 million students drop out of school every year. That's more than 6,000 students every school day and one every 26 seconds. The national high school graduation rate is only 70 percent, with states ranging from a high of 84 percent in Utah to a low of 54 percent in South Carolina. Graduation rates are much lower for minority students. Only about half of the nation's African-American and Latino students graduate on time from high school.

Dropping out has dire consequences for the dropout...

The poverty rate for families headed by dropouts is more than twice that of families headed by high school graduates. Nearly 44 percent of dropouts under age 24 are jobless, and the unemployment rate of high school dropouts older than 25 is more than three times that of college graduates. Over a lifetime, dropouts earn $260,000 less than high school graduates. The health of an 18-year-old high school dropout is similar to that of a more educated person over two decades older.

...and for society.

Dropouts from the class of 2007 will cost our nation more than $300 billion in lost wages, lost taxes and lost productivity. Dropouts contribute about $60,000 less in federal and state income taxes. Each cohort of dropouts costs the U.S. $192 billion in lost income and taxes. Sixty five percent of U.S. convicts are dropouts and lack of education is one of the strongest predictors of criminal activity. A dropout is more than eight times as likely to be in jail or prison as a high school graduate and nearly 20 times as likely as a college graduate. For each additional year of schooling, the odds that a student will someday commit a crime like murder or assault are reduced by almost one-third. Each year, the U.S. spends $9,644 per student compared to $22,600 per prison inmate. Increasing the high school completion rate by just one percent for all men ages 20 to 60 would save the U.S. up to $1.4 billion per year in reduced costs from crime.