Most of us will take some time today to give thanks for, or at least acknowledge, the great things in our lives.
But I'll bet you weren't planning to include our public schools among them. They've been a favored target for bashing from all quarters of society. Nearly everyone has an opinion about what schools are doing wrong.
I'm going to take a holiday from all that and give you some reasons to be \o7 thankful \f7 for American public schools.
The reasons are many, according to Sandia, a research group based in New Mexico. They are outlined and supported in a recent report entitled "Perspectives on Education in America." Many of these accomplishments may surprise even the most dogged school-watchers.
For example, high school students aren't as lazy and unskilled as some curmudgeons would have us believe. The percentage of Americans who graduate from high school has risen throughout this century, from 10% in 1910 to about 80% in 1990--and the figure rises to about 85% if you count the dropouts who return to pass the General Education Development (GED) test. Japan's rate is 87% to 88%.
The dropout rate, meanwhile, has declined steadily. The trend is especially encouraging among black youths, whose dropout rate was below 15% in 1990, compared to 27% in 1970.
A lot is said about students' math, science and reading skills, but consider some statistics from tests administered by the National Assessment of Educational Progress in 1988:
The tests found that math skills had improved from a decade earlier across the nation among 17-year-olds, especially minority teen-agers. In 1977, 70% of black students demonstrated basic proficiency; in 1986, 85% did so. Among Latinos, the basic proficiency rate rose to almost 90% from 78%.
Reading proficiency increased for 17-year-olds in all ethnic groups and communities; the scores of low-income urban students rose the most.
About 95% of American 17-year-olds have basic skills in science, a figure that has remained steady since 1977.
There is also good news on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) front, once you sort through the statistics. Most news reports focus on the national average SAT score. This can be misleading because in the last decade, the SAT has become more accessible. More students from lower-performing groups have been added to the traditional group of test-takers.
