1. Every year in the U.S, approximately 1.2 million students—that's 7,000 every school day—do not graduate from high school on time.  Nationally, on-time public high school graduation rates are approximately 70%.

 

2. These national graduation rates also vary by race.  Among minority students, only 57.8 percent of Hispanic, 53.4 percent of African American, and 49.3 percent of American Indian and Alaska Native students in the U.S. graduate with a regular diploma, compared to 76.2 percent of white students and 80.2 percent of Asian Americans.

 

3. Of every 100 students who start 9^th grade in North Carolina, no more than 70 graduate in five years.  That is the equivalent of 131 students dropping out for every day schools are open each year.  In North Carolina there were 19,184 dropouts in 2008-2009.

 

4. North Carolina’s constitution requires the state to provide a “sound basic education” to every child.  Unfortunately, the state has been and still is failing in this area.  In the year 2000, North Carolina officials vowed they would close or significantly narrow the racial achievement gap by the year 2010.  They spent two years studying the problem and then released several reports offering recommendations.  Then for the next eight years, the state made only limited efforts to accomplish its ambitious goal.  Not only have these efforts failed to fulfill the promise to close the achievement gap, the gap has not even narrowed.  On every measure, minority students are still failing to achieve the success of their peers:

• In 2008-09, only 43.6% of black students in grades 3 through 8 scored at Level III or higher on End-of-Grade (EOG) math and reading tests, compared with 76.7% of white students.
• In 2008-09, 84.2% of white students grades 9-12 were performing at grade level or higher on End-of-Course (EOC) tests in required subjects, compared with 58.3% of black students.
• In 2007-08, about 4 out of every 100 white students in grades 9-12 left school without a diploma, compared with 6 out of every 100 black students and seven out of every 100 American Indian and Hispanic students.
• Suspension rate data from 2004-2005 through 2007-2008 show that black students are almost four times as likely as white students (American Indian students are almost three times as likely as white students) to miss class time because they were on short-term suspensions.

 

5. The state’s failure can also be seen in the prevalence of poorer-quality teachers in high-poverty and high-minority schools.  Schools with higher percentages of students eligible for free lunches are more likely, compared to schools with lower percentages of such students, to have teachers who have less than three years experience, who received their degrees from less-competitive programs, and who scored lower on certification exams.

 

6. Quality early care and education help prepare children for academic and economic success in the future.  Childcare subsidies help low-income, working parents afford quality childcare for their children. There are currently over 17,000 N.C. children who are eligible for child care subsidies but do not receive them because the subsidy program is underfunded.

 

7. Children in immigrant families in N.C. are 15% less likely to be enrolled in Pre-K/Nursery School than their peers in U.S. born families.  Children learn more during their early childhood years than during any other time in their lives, and children who have early, quality education do better in school and are more likely to graduate high school.

 

 

SOURCES

1. The Alliance for Excellent Education, “About the Crisis,” http://www.all4ed.org/about_the_crisis.

2. Ibid.

3. North Carolina’s New Schools Project. “The High Cost of High School Dropouts.” http://newschoolsproject.org/page.php?p=2.1.  For statistic on 08-09 dropouts see: Public Schools of North Carolina: Department of Public Instruction, “Annual Dropout Reports: 2008-2009,” p. 104. http://www.ncpublicschools.org/research/dropout/reports/.

4. NC Justice Center, “Exposing the Gap, Revisited,” http://www.ncjustice.org/sites/default/files/2010%20Achievement%20Gap%20report.pdf.

5. NC Justice Center, “What Does a Sound Basic Education Cost?” by Stephen Jackson, http://ncjustice.org/sites/default/files/1174_btcrpt10apr08edu.pdf.

6. Action for Children North Carolina, “Early Education and Care,” http://www.ncchild.org/issue/education/main-area-of-work/early-education-and-care.

7. Action for Children North Carolina, “Children In Immigrant Families,” http://www.ncchild.org/publication-or-research-type/children-immigrant-families-2010.