Public Education Trends

Higher education in America is facing many challenges, i.e., low retention, low graduation rates and less funding. Postsecondary institutions are scrambling to remain a competitive entity within society. In order to do so, students must remain in school (Talbert, 2012). The Office of the White House states (2014), educational attainment is critical to our county’s economic success. In essence, the work force is creating more jobs requiring more education and a higher level of skill than was previously achieved. Individuals with only a high school diploma will not make into the middle class sector because of

High school graduation rates are low throughout the country due to many factors. The high school graduation rate in the United States is at 83.2 percent (Strauss, 2016, October 26). That is a modern record but there are still gaps in graduation rates for students that come from low-income families and other social factors so the graduation rate should still be higher. Education must be a valued asset in the home and if it is not seen that way then students can become disinterested. Teen pregnancy also contributes to the low graduation rate. Many families are in need of money so students have to drop out and contribute to the family’s financials. In addition, students tend to give up when they fail once and that eventually leads to dropping out of school. Also, teachers have an impact on whether many students graduate. Although there can be many factors that contribute to the low graduation rates, sometimes students should take full responsibility and say that it is their own fault for the low rates.

In October 2000, the overall picture of high school dropouts had changed little since the late 1980s (Kaufman et al. 2001): For every 100 young adults enrolled in high school in October 1999, 5 had left school without completing a program; of 34.6 million U.S. young adults aged 16-24, 3.8 million—almost 11 percent—had not completed high school and were not enrolled. Some studies have shown that students in schools with a concentration of multiple risk factors (e.g., large schools, large classes, high poverty, inner city location) have less than one chance in two of graduating from high school; furthermore, the economic costs of dropping out have increased as time goes on (Castellano et al. 2001). Adjusting for 50

Attention Getter: More Americans are getting their high school diplomas but fewer are enrolling in college.

Across the United States, high school students can encounter a variety of issues that hinder their ability to successfully complete course work to earn the required credits towards graduation. High schools across the United States have an obligation to ensure that students are achieving and receiving a diploma. It is also in the school’s best interest to ensure students are gradating both funding wise and for the overall school rating. When a student does not receive a high school diploma the action affects the student, community and the school. High school dropouts may find it harder to obtain a job that would provide a stable and productive income verses a high school graduate thus, the financial disadvantage in turn can cause

As of late, the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) has shown great improvements in its high school s. Over the past 16 years the high school graduation rates has steadily increase. Students were more likely to drop of school as they were to graduate; now students are three times likely to graduate as to dropping out. For the CPS high scholars, graduation is a strong indicator of a host of very important life outcomes, including post-secondary and employment outcomes, health, incarceration, and life expectancy. These outlooks trends potentially suggest a much brighter outlook for the thousands of Chicago enrolled students today, when we compare it to the students in previous years.

A high school diploma is a prerequisite for many entry- level jobs. There are numerous public schools in New York City that offer twelve years of education free to students from all races, ethnicities, and backgrounds. After one has graduated from public school, he or she may want to continue his or her education and go on to college. A college degree opens the door to more job prospects than would a high school degree. The federal and state governments offer students money based on students’ financial need, but the cost of college does not just stop at the cost of tuition. Students have to pay for room and board, transportation, textbooks and a multitude of other essentials to cover their everyday needs. All of these costs add up and can discourage many students from going to college or force students

Living in a highly competitive world, having a college degree is essential for many to gain more knowledge about what they are interested in and for others to get good jobs. Indeed, the US labor market has changed significantly in the last 40 years to be based on high-skill jobs, which mostly require a college degree. As a result, the percentage of Americans who go to college has grown constantly in recent years . However, getting into college isn’t as easy as it used to be. Now, it is so competitive, highly selective and very expensive, which affects many students and their families in different ways.

A post secondary education has become essential in today’s society. Many students throughout the United States focus on their education and work hard to receive perfect grades. Most importantly, the financing of each student’s post secondary education has become difficult in today’s economy due to the cost. Corresponding to American Progress, “a recent study by Georgetown University’s Center on education and workforce found that at current levels of production, the U.S. economy will have a shortfall of five million college-educated workers by 2020.” (Bergeron & Martin). This shows that the cost expense of college causes five million college educated workers to decrease. Five million people who do not have a post-secondary education will result

Annabi et al. 2011 using a computable general equilibrium model assess the dynamic effects of tax-financed increase in public education to investigate to the extent at which the benefits generated from higher education incentives offset the distortionary effects of taxation.

The great equalizer of society is education. Being as such it is imperative that generation after generation continue to pursue the academics. This was realized very early in American history and became the impetus of educational reform. The number of Americans between ages twenty-five and twenty-nine holding a four-year college degree rose from one in twenty in 1940 to one in four by 1977. However in modern times a major obstacle has manifested for college students in the form of tuition and the subsequent debt that follows. The rising costs of college has not only proven to jeopardize student performance, but also has far larger societal and economic implications. One of the adverse effects of the increase in tuition is the creation of a

Looking into the statistics rates for graduation and dropouts we should get a clearer picture, however it is more than just the number. Although, officially, the US broadcasts a high school graduation rate of 81%, should we believe these numbers? Anya Kamenetz, npr’s lead educational blogger, in her article, High School Graduation Rates: The Good, The Bad and The Ambiguous, talks about many schools are either softening up the path for graduation, or using a pushout system or even a credit-recovery program to graduate their students”(Kamenetz, 2015). One would have to question with this input what is really going on. Is there a protection of job security, trying to make their schools look good? This too,

In 2014, many of America’s political education leaders met at a national education summit in Washington, D.C. to discuss ways to improve the nation’s drop out record. In total, 22 states signed a pledge to improve their graduation rates. Each year the Department of Education releases a report with the national statistics on the number of students who drop out from public K-12 education. Despite the plethora of accurate statistics on the number of students leaving school there are various reasons attributed to why less than $200,000 of federal money has been devoted to researching the causes. This leads to the question that many educators like myself have: how do we stop students from dropping out? A report from U.S.

Undeniably the student dropout rates are a major social and economic problem in the United States (Balfanz & Letgers, 2004). In order to maintain competitive education rates to other countries, the United States desperately needs to improve high school graduation rates. Within reach is the ability for citizens and policymakers to underscore the need for

White (1992); conducted a study to determine whether existing research allow us to answer a narrow but crucial question in the larger debate over educational choice. Are student achievement differences between public and private schools large enough to be of relevance to the policy debate over educational choice? To answer such a query, the author has analyzed the research based on High School and beyond study (HSB). The HSB study was based on random sample of approximately 1000 public and private schools. The study consisted of three waves of interviews, testing and data collection. The major findings of the study are, once public and private schools are statistically equated, they appear be produce similar gain in achievement, on average catholic school students, slightly scored higher in vocabulary and