Giving Compass' Take:

• The author outlines the most important statistics that are affecting education in the 2018 academic year. This includes everything from school shootings to the number of teachers running for local office. 

• How can education experts use these statistics to drive reform? 

• Read about the three consecutive methods to disrupt education reform. 

Even with a perpetual media carnival unfolding around the Trump presidency, and ahead of midterm elections that could result in an even more hectic news environment next year, the events of 2018 have been shaped to an extraordinary degree by America’s K-12 schools. Here are nine key statistics behind those and other major stories of the 2017-18 school year:

  • 59 percent: The high school graduation rate in Washington, D.C. it’s a major decline from 2017, when the graduation rate had reportedly climbed to a record 73 percent after years of progress. Though the official tally won’t be finalized until this fall, after a few hundred more seniors will likely graduate after completing summer coursework, a drop of this magnitude is striking.
  • $45,555: The average teacher salary in West Virginia, the lowest of any state that saw strikes during the 2017-18 school year, according to the National Education Association
  • 112: The number of educators running for office in Oklahoma
  • 46:  The number states where graduating from high school won’t qualify you to attend public college. According to an April report from the Center for American Progress, the vast majority of states don’t align their high school graduation standards with admissions standards to their public university systems.
  • 112: The number of people killed or injured in school shootings in 2018 to date
  • 38,762: The number of students who have left Puerto Rico’s public school system since last year’s devastating hurricane
  • 33 percent: The proportion of 4-year-olds attending state-funded pre-K programs
  • 0: Progress recorded in American students’ 2017 NAEP scores. After making considerable strides in both math and English during the late 1990s and early 2000s — the salad days of what is sometimes called the accountability era — progress since 2007 has been basically flat.

Read the full article about education statistics by Kevin Mahnken at The 74