American Public Schools

"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 the country are dramatic" (The Broad Superintendents Academy, 2009).

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.
• Seventy 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. (The Broad Superintendents Academy, 2009)