OK, This Post Is Not (strictly) About GPS ROI
New Web Site Maps Nationwide High School Graduation Data
Redlands, California—A new online mapping engine puts graduation data in front of educators, administrators, policy makers, and parents across the country. Editorial Projects in Education (EPE) Research Center has issued a groundbreaking report called Diplomas Count and worked with ESRI, the world’s largest geographic information system (GIS) software company, to produce the EdWeek Maps Web site. The site allows users to see graduation data at the district level and compare school districts and states across the nation at no cost.
“This is a nationwide analysis of high school graduation, an ‘apples-to-apples’ comparison,” says Christopher B. Swanson, director of the EPE Research Center. “Education has a strong relationship to future earnings. Graduating from high school is the first step to jobs with a future.” The full Diplomas Count report, issued in June, emphasizes the relationship between education and jobs…. read more about Diplomas Count here.
Most of my readers are from the US, as am I. A majority of them have college degrees, often advanced degrees .. as I do not. I started high school in the year 1959 … yes, I am that old … and I left high school in 1961, sans degree … yep, I’m a high school dropout.
A shocking statistic at that time was that in my state, New Jersey … rich, urbanized, high tax rates and a lot of spending on education, more than 50%! of my fellow students didn’t finish, either. Ok Dave, that’s ancient history, we’re in 2007 now it’s a lot better now, right?
Well if you think so, take a look at this map. New Jersey and many other populous, rich, high tax, high-spend states are still failing, badly. And, if you are from another state, don’t hurt your arm patting yourself on the back too soon … lock at how many states are doing a little better but not even attaining a C- score of 70%.
Despicable is about the only word I can think of to describe this situation. I’ve known about this failing for years, but as the old adage about the worth of a picture proves, when you see it documented like this it really brings the subject home.
I’m not a professional educator and I don’t propose to know all the answers, but I’m posting this in the hope that some intelligent responses will come in and help me understand why our nation has stagnated like this all these years. Just do me one favor and don’t base your response around money. The US spends more per high school student than virtually any nation on earth … and if you ever tried to integrate Japanese (as just one example) high school students and US high school students into the same high-tech jobs (as I have done for most of my career) you would know, beyond the shadow of a doubt that US high school education is interior … and Japan spends much less per capita than the US does … spend less, teach more?
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