Okay, well maybe these statistics won't be shocking to you, but having not paid much attention to the state of elementary and secondary education since leaving it myself 15 years ago, they were shocking to me:
- Only 50% of students in low-income communities will graduate from high school and those who do graduate perform on average at an 8th grade level
- Fourth graders going to school in a low-income community are already 2-3 grade levels behind
- Only 1 in 10 students growing up in poverty will graduate from college
- About 1 in 10 young male high school dropouts is in jail or juvenile detention (compared to 1 in 35 young male high school graduates)
- Nearly 1 in 4 young black male high school dropouts are incarcerated (compared to 1 in 14 young male asian, white or hispanic high school dropouts)
- Taking into account the cost of lost tax revenues, since dropouts earn less, and the cost of providing food stamps and other aid and increased cost of potential incarceration - the collective cost to the nation of each high school dropout is $292,000
- Young female dropouts are 9 times more likely to be single mothers
Sources: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/education/09dropout.html, http://www.teachforamerica.org/what-we-do/the-challenge/, http://www.clms.neu.edu/publication/documents/The_Consequences_of_Dropping_Out_of_High_School.pdf, http://www.wearetheundercurrent.com/2010/03/the-achievement-gap-should-be-a-priority/
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