The 2012 Revised Edition of A Public Education Primer: Basic Facts about the U.S. Education System is now available for free download at the Center on Education Policy’s website. The Center on Education Policy is a national, independent advocate for public education and works to help Americans better understand the role of public education in a democracy and the need to improve the academic quality of public schools.
The 2012 Revised Edition of A Public Education Primer report was written by Nancy Kober, a CEP consultant, and Alexandra Usher, CEP research assistant, with assistance and advisement made by Diane Stark Rentner, CEP’s director of national programs, and Jack Jennings, CEP’s president and CEO. The report comes out during a critical crossroads time in education. It provides an overall, data-driven snapshot of elementary and secondary education in the nation’s public schools.
Data-based report
The 2012 Revised Edition of A Public Education Primer is important in its concise, factual nature. It pulls together recent data about students, teachers, school districts, schools, and other aspects of elementary and secondary education in the U.S. As much as possible, the data compiled in the report come from the federal government, primarily the National Center for Education Statistics, the data-gathering arm of the U.S. Department of Education.
National education landscape report
Included in the 2012 Revised Edition of A Public Education Primer are facts and figures on the distribution of students, student demographics, educational entities and their responsibilities, funding, student achievement, teachers, and other school services. The data in this report represent national averages. The experiences, trends, and issues in specific local communities, of course, may vary somewhat from the broad strokes, data picture presented in a national averages report.
Comprehensive public schools perspective
The 2012 Revised Edition of A Public Education Primer highlights important and sometimes little-known facts concerning the U.S. education system, how things have changed over time, and how they may change in the future. Together these facts provide a comprehensive picture of the nation’s public schools, including data about students, teachers, funding, achievement, management, and non-academic services.
Key facts
Among the facts given in the 2012 Revised Edition of A Public Education Primer, some may surprise and others merely confirm. Just a few of the key, national points are highlighted below. Full descriptions, breakdowns, charts and figures, and data support are supplied succinctly in the 2012 Revised Edition of A Public Education Primerreport.
- Nine out of ten students in the U.S. are educated in public schools.
- The U.S. public education system consists of almost 14,000 local school districts and almost 99,000 schools.
- More than 1 million preschool children are educated in public elementary and secondary schools.
- The nation’s very largest school districts—those with enrollments of 25,000 or more—make up just 2% of all districts but educate 35% of the nation’s students.
- The U.S. educational system is more decentralized than those of most industrialized nations.
- More than 90% of funding for public schools comes from state and local sources.
- More than three-fifths of the nation’s public school students live in the South and West.
- Overall, more students attend public schools in suburban areas than in cities, towns, or rural areas. But more African American and Latino students attend schools in cities than in other types of communities.
- Two-thirds of African American and Latino students attend schools in which more than 50% of the students are from low-income families. Less than one-fourth of white students attend schools with poverty rates this high.
- Since the early 1970s, reading and math achievement has increased for younger students but has not improved significantly for high school students, according to long-term data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress.
- Since the early 1990s, reading and math achievement has improved for 4th and 8th graders, according to the main NAEP tests. For 12th graders, average reading scores have risen since 2005 but are still lower than in 1992.
- At grades 4 and 8, reading and math achievement has increased for boys and girls since the early 1990s, but at grade 12, average reading scores have decreased for both genders. Girls continue to outperform boys in reading.
- More than half of all public school teachers have advanced degrees, and more than half have at least ten years of teaching experience.
- Students in high-poverty schools are more likely to be taught by an out-of-field teacher or a first-year teacher than students in low-poverty schools.
Important data-based reference for any education stakeholder
Whether you are involved in education as an educator, a parent, a policymaker, or industry or agency association stakeholder, this is a reference you should have on your digital desktop. Its factual nature offers critical, data-based perspective of the national education framework. Its figures and facts and clear areas breakdown makes it easy to access, even for familiar information. For a report of this nature, its 84 pages, complete with charts and figures, is amazingly small.
Again, a PDF download of the 2012 Revised Edition of A Public Education Primer, a handy resource available without cost or registration, can be made at the Center on Education Policy’s website.
Find the take in this article to be helpful? The writer is a former US National Technology and Learning Teacher of the Year, a former US Web-based Education Commissioner during the Clinton administration, and former Vice President of Global Knowledge Exchange, now writing on National Education issues. To keep current on similar articles, view the suggested links below and click the free, “subscribe to get instant updates” link at the top of this article to get a conveniently customized news delivery.
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