Educational Achievement Gap Narrowing in the United States

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Educational Achievement Gap Narrowing in the United States

The ideal of "No Child Left Behind" begins to look attainable

17 August 2005

Some of the best recent news concerning American education has been the latest test results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) showing that 9-year-old American students earned the highest scores in reading and mathematics ever in the more than 30 years in which the test has been administered. Better yet, in this age group, all subgroups achieved higher scores: boys and girls, black, whites and Hispanics.Perhaps most importantly, achievement gaps among different racial groups shrank significantly.

Recent testing has also shown that, although a performance gap in reading proficiency between 13- and 17-year-old white students and their black and Hispanic peers was still present in 2004, this gap is smaller than it was in 1975.

Average mathematics proficiency for both 13- and 17-year-olds was higher in 2004 than in 1973 for all racial and ethnic groups.

The No Child Left Behind Act, one of the signature legislative achievements of President Bush’s first term, requires every state in the United States to test students from grades three through eight in reading and math, to pay extra attention to those who are lagging, and to reveal and address the gaps in achievement among racial groups. The act also requires state-level National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) testing every other year, so that the public can compare national and state results. (An executive summary of the act is available on the Department of Education Web site.)

Primary and secondary education has always been predominantly a local matter in the United States. But the federal government has also historically played a role, as early as 1787 through the Northwest Ordinance authorizing land grants for the establishment of educational institutions. Today, U.S. public education is a complex system perhaps best characterized as a joint enterprise in which 50 different states, thousands of local school districts and the federal government seek to improve the performance of America's schools and other educational institutions.

The following fact sheet, based on statistics provided by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, has been put together with the aim of rendering the U.S. educational system more intelligible to an international audience:

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U.S. Department of State
International Information Programs
Washington, D.C.
August 17, 2005

THE U.S. COMMITMENT TO EDUCATION

Federal funding for education increased 104 percent from 1985 to 2003 after adjustment for inflation. Federal off-budget support for such items as educational loans and work-study aid increased 207 percent from 1990 to 2003.

The United States in 2000 ranked highest among the six G8 countries for which data was available in terms of expenditure per student at both the combined primary and secondary level -- see U.S. school structure chart -- as well as for higher education

The G8, or Group of Eight industrialized countries, comprises Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Looking beyond the G8, spending per pupil is comparable to that in the United States only in Denmark, Switzerland, Austria, Norway and Sweden. U.S. per-pupil expenditure on elementary and secondary education in 2003 averaged $8,019. However, funding for schools is largely a local and state matter in the United States and thus the national average can obscure wide variation. The District of Columbia, for example, spent the most per pupil among states or state-equivalents ($13,328), followed by New Jersey ($12,202), New York ($12,140), Connecticut ($10,372) and Vermont ($10,322). Utah, Arizona and Oklahoma, on the other hand, spent less than $6,000 per pupil.

In the school year 2003-04, funding for kindergarten through Grade 12 public education typically came from the following sources:

· Local: 43.4 percent
· State: 48.0 percent
· Federal: 8.6 percent

With 3,044,012 teachers and 48,132,518 students in American public schools in 2003-2004, the average number of pupils per teacher stood at 15.81.

Public primary school teachers with minimum qualifications in the United States were paid the second highest average starting salary of all G8 countries reporting data ($28,681 in 2001).

Average annual salary of public elementary and secondary school teachers in California as of the 2002-2003 school year — highest of any state in the nation -- was $56,300. Teachers in South Dakota received the lowest pay — $32,400. The national average was $45,900.

Primary and secondary school teachers in the United States also taught more hours per year than teachers in the other G8 countries reporting data in 2001.

Almost one-quarter of U.S. 18- to 29-year-olds were enrolled in higher education in 2001, the highest enrollment rate among the G8 countries providing data.

Among the OECD countries, Greece reported the highest proportion of 18- to 21-year-olds enrolled in post-secondary education in 2001 at 54 percent, followed by South Korea (51 percent), Belgium (42 percent), the United States (36 percent), and France (35 percent).

Eighty-eight percent of 16-year-olds and 75 percent of 17-year-olds were enrolled in secondary education in the United States in 2001.

Among all countries reporting such data, the United States spends the most per student in higher education as of 2000, followed by Switzerland, Sweden and Canada.

The number of computers available for classroom use in the United States’ 114,000 elementary and secondary schools is 14.1 million. That works out to one computer for every four students.

SOME INDICATORS OF PROGRESS

Young Americans are achieving higher levels of education: 29 percent of young adult Americans age 25-29 had completed college in 2004 compared with 16 percent in 1970.

College enrollment rates of 18-24-year-olds have increased from 26 percent in 1980 to 38 percent in 2003; the enrollment rate for females increased more rapidly than for males.

Only U.K. fourth-graders scored higher than their U.S. counterparts among all the G8 countries on the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2001 combined reading literacy scale.

THE REWARDS OF STAYING IN SCHOOL

The earnings premium associated with higher education compared with secondary education for adults ages 25 to 64 is higher in the United States than in the other five G8 countries for which data are available.

Average annual earnings of workers age 18 and over with an advanced (post-bachelor’s) degree: $74,602. This compares with $51,206 a year for those with bachelor’s degrees, $27,915 for those with a high school diploma, only and $18,734 for those without a high school diploma.

SIZE AND GROWTH RATE OF SCHOOL-AGE POPULATION

The percentage of young people ages 5-14 can vary considerably worldwide. Turkey, for example, has 21 percent of its population between the ages of 5 and 14, while the United States and Ireland have 15 percent, and Italy, Japan and Spain each have 10 percent.

Nearly 75 million students are enrolled in school throughout the United States from nursery school to college.

Sixty percent of all 3- and 4-year-olds are enrolled in nursery school, up from about 6 percent in 1964, when these data were first collected.

The projected number of students to be enrolled in the nation’s elementary and high schools (grades K-12) this fall: 54.6 million. That number exceeds the 1970 total of 51.3 million, at the crest of post-World War II “baby boom� school enrollment.

Projected percentage of elementary and high school students enrolled in private schools this fall: 12 percent.

Percentage of elementary and high-school students who are minorities (i.e., people who are other than non-Hispanic white): 40 percent. This compares with 21 percent in 1970, when the crest of the baby boom was enrolled at this level of school.

Percentage of elementary and high-school students with at least one foreign-born parent: 22 percent.

Number of school-age children (5-17) who speak a language other than English at home: 9.9 million. These children make up nearly one-fifth of this age group. Most of them (7.0 million) speak Spanish at home.

HIGHER EDUCATION

Sixty-four percent of the U.S. 2003 high-school graduating class went directly to college.

The projected number of students enrolled in the nation’s colleges and universities in fall 2005: 16.7 million. This is up from 12.1 million a quarter-century ago.

Percentage of all college students age 25 and over: 37 percent. The majority of these older students (56 percent) attend school part-time.

The number of foreign students enrolled in U.S. institutions of higher education in 2001 was greater than in any of the other G8 countries: 582,996. Of these foreign students, 14 percent, or 81,579, were from Europe and Eurasia.

THE RISING COST OF COLLEGE

Average tuition, room and board (for in-state students) at the nation’s four-year public colleges and universities for an entire academic year: $10,660. That is double the corresponding figure in 1990.

Average tuition, room and board at the nation’s four-year private colleges and universities for one complete academic year: $31,051. That is more than double the corresponding 1990 figure.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

The National Center for Education Statistics has published Youth Indicators: Trends in the Well-Being of American Youth since 1988, providing statistical analysis on both positive and negative aspects of the youth experience. Youth Indicators provides data on the distribution of youth between the ages of 14 to 24, their family structure, economic factors, school and extracurricular activities, and health factors.

The Digest of Education Statistics 2003 is the most up-to-date compilation of statistical information covering the broad field of education from pre-kindergarten through graduate school. Topics in the Digest include: the number of schools and colleges; teachers; enrollments; graduates; educational attainment; finances; federal funds for education; employment and income of graduates; libraries; technology; and international comparisons.

Comparative Indicators of Education in the United States and Other G8 Countries: 2004 provides the most current information from the Indicators of National Education Systems (INES) project at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the international assessments conducted by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), and the OECD’s Program for International Student Assessment (PISA).

The OECD’s INES Project has been working since 1988 on developing a system of indicators for cross-national comparisons in education.

The work of INES is carried out by three Networks and a Technical Group, each of which has voluntary membership and is focused on a different charge:

• Network A, chaired by the United States, develops indicators on learning outcomes;

• Network B, chaired by Sweden, develops indicators of the social and economic outcomes of education;

• Network C, chaired by the Netherlands, develops indicators on structures and processes of schools; and

• The Technical Group, chaired by the OECD Secretariat, ensures the comparability of administrative data, developing indicators on educational participation, access, human and financial resources, and school completion.

American Teenagers: an Electronic Journal of the U.S. Department of State (July 2005) provides a wide variety of insights and perspectives into teenage life today in the United States.

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(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)