Prompted by some sad information regarding the state of California and their graduation statistics (Wolf Blitzer interview with CA republican, stating that they were graduating students that can read and write at the 8^th grade level from high school and he felt this was high and good for their curricula-CNN News, Situation Room Segment, Monday, May 15, 2006) I was curious to know how many students we are graduating and at what level of reading and math comprehension they were achieving.  Maybe you are too.  I went to the web site http://nces.ed.gov and found the following.

The population of youth enrolled in school between the ages of 14 and 17 is shown below.

The average reading level has been simplified by using 1971 compared with 2004 and is broken down by region, this represents basic understanding and comprehension of the English language including grammar, etc.  Note that there is no change in the Southeast and the sip comes in the Central or farming portion of the United States.

Ethnicity and sex for the years 1971 through 2004 are depicted below.  Please note the growth in number of Hispanics compared to the other relevant ethnic groups for the same period of time; making them no longer a minority, but the majority.

Mathematically the numbers are much grimmer.  The statistics begin with only the 4^th grade level of achievement across the United States and take into account 13 year olds.  The significant years begin with 1978 and end in 2004.  Note that all mathematical skills a considerably lower over the same time period.  Please see below.

The final chart depicts the number or percentage of graduates per ethnicity from 1982 until 2000 regardless of skill levels.  Please see below.

As these statistics show; we are graduating more students, but with noticeably lower levels of comprehension in mathematics and grammar or the English language than ever before.  This is a dangerous trend because these same students will one day be charged with governing our great country and if they do not even have the necessary skills to effectively communicate or solve the most basic of problems we are going to fail as a nation and fall behind the remainder of the world!  Help save our children by urging our congress people to consider standardizing the educational requirements across the United States, hiring and recruiting the best and brightest teachers we can garner, and paying them to elevate the educational learnedness of our children before it is too late!

Sources;

http://nces.ed.gov

CNN News, Wolf Blitzer, the Situation Room segment, Monday, May 15^th, 2006

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