Great teachers and informed educators know that the Common Core State Standards are simply what we already knew about world-class education. There is little to be argued over.
Gov. Jeb Bush’s Foundation just provided some statistics, which I have posted here, in case you are in a school district, or other entity where the argument over Common Core ensues. Hope these are helpful:
Eighty-one percent of American 18-year-olds are unprepared for college coursework.
More than 25 percent of students fail to graduate from high school in four years; for African-American and Hispanic students, this number is approaching 40 percent.
According to ACT, three-quarters of American students who do achieve a high school diploma are not ready for college coursework and often need remedial classes at both the university and community college levels.
On the 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress – known as the Nation’s Report Card, only 35 percent of 8th graders performed at grade level or above in Math, while just 34 percent of both 4th and 8th graders scored at grade level or above in English.
U.S. students have fallen to 14th in the world in reading and 25th in math.
States and students spend $3 billion annually to reteach high school classes to college kids.
Thirty percent of high school graduates can’t pass the U.S. military entrance exam, which is focused just on basic reading and math skills.
Parents in the U.S. spend $5-7 billion a year on tutoring programs. Tutoring programs offering additional out-of-school instruction to students are drawing a growing number of clients as parents continue to be concerned about the quality of their children’s schools.
The U.S. has more than 600,000 manufacturing jobs vacant because there aren’t enough qualified people to fill them.
The Alliance for Excellent Education estimates that if the 1.3 million high school dropoutsfrom the class of 2010 had earned their diplomas instead of dropping out, the U.S. economywould have seen an additional $337 billion in wages over these students’ lifetimes.
A survey conducted last year by McKinsey & Company found that 87 percent of educational institutions thought they had prepared their students well for employment, but only 49 percent of employers agreed that their new employees had the training they needed.
A Deloitte survey found that 63 percent of life science and aerospace firms report shortages of qualified workers. In the defense and aerospace industries, many executives fear this problem will accelerate in the coming decade as 60 percent of the existing workforce reaches retirement age.
Winning for Kids 