Education
Transparency: Why do we not have online access to every fact relevant to educating our children ?
1. What are the acceptance rates and graduation rates into and out of good universities of all high schools ? This turns out to not be easily available data to get:
2. What are the social conditions at high schools ? One could obtain this by looking at attempted suicides for example.
3. Why aren't all kids asked to rate their school on a number of factors and that information be searchable?
4. Why is there no email listed on the Department of Education Website ?
5. How does the US stack up against foreign countries;
1 in detail: Outcomes: This is excerpted from a post from http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/97742-top-20-matriculation-lists-high-school-web-sites-6.html
1. For the most part, senior class size was either reported directly somewhere on the web page (class of 2004 or 2005 typically), or I calculated it as the average from the matriculation pages. In cases where I marked a "~", its more of a calculated guess based on upper school student body # or some other less direct measure I found on the web sites. Probably close enough for this ballpark analysis. Georgetown Prep doesn't seem right to me...too big.....if anyone has any corrections, please speak up.
2. Combined SAT was either directly reported as a combined total or added from V & M scores reported on the school web pages. Again, I did not discriminate.....I took what I could find.....may be class of 2005, 2004, as juniors or seniors, so comparability is not exactly apples to apples, but it does give one an idea of gross differences. Where I marked an "~", the reference was some remark I found in the text that was less precise than I'd like.
3. What's a slice & dice like this without some kind of quasi-Ivy analysis? From the shortlist of 20 top colleges/uni's for each HS (NOT THE ENTIRE MATRICULATION LIST), I calculated the percentage of matriculants heading to Ivies, Stanford, MIT, & SWAP (Swarthmore, Williams, Amherst, & Pomona). These stats will be very lumpy, but perhaps interesting nevertheless. Note that for SWAP as some have opined, Swarthmore is altogether absent in the top 20 lists, with Williams being the college most reported, followed by Amherst & Pomona.
4. Following up on interested dad's observation, I calculated the in-state percentage of matriculants out of the top 20 for each school. Haven't studied it thoroughly yet, but I'd say Pennsylvania is similar to California in staying close by. Likewise, Dixie southerners appear to stay close to home. Note that I included DC colleges in the Maryland HS calcs, but all others were pure in-state calcs.
Have at it:
High School/ Snr class # / SAT comb / % Ivy, SM &SWAP / % In-State
Andover MA 315 1363 30% 19%
Bullis MD 78 NA 1% 21%
Castilleja CA 48 1410 NC NC
Cate CA 69 NA 12% 40%
Chapin NY 41 NA 37% 19%
Chestnut Hill PA 45 NA 8% 62%
Choate CT 201 ~1300 20% 15%
Cinci Country Day OH 72 1276 4% 32%
College Prep CA 80 1437 29% 53%
Collegiate NY 52 NA 57% 14%
Culver IN 206 NA 0% 45%
Deerfield ~165 NA 38% 20%
Delbarton NJ 101 NA 29% 11%
Durham Academy NC 93 1296 2% 77%
Episcopal Acad PA 115 1298 22% 32%
Ethel Walker CT 36 NA 3% 10%
Fountain Valley CO 59 1145 4% 27%
Georgetown Prep MD 199 NA 3% 20%
Gilman MD 99 1345 20% 23%
Groton CT 87 1390 24% 24%
Haverford PA 79 1290 16% 45%
John Burroughs MO 97 1380 14% 23%
Kent Denver CO 107 1265 10% 18%
Kentucky Country Day 51 1238 2% 25%
Landon MD 78 1294 12% 17%
Lawrenceville NJ ~190 NA 26% 6%
Mary Inst & St Louis CD MO 143 1280 10% 21%
Menlo CA 130 1295 NC NC
Milton MA 181 NA 26% 27%
Oregon Episc 62 1317 3% 29%
Park MD 69 NA 8% 16%
Penn Charter PA 101 1309 11% 55%
Peddie NJ ~130 NA 14% 11%
Pine Crest FLA 126 1327 19% 34%
Poly Prep NY 97 NA 9% 30%
Potomac VA ~75 NA NC NC
San Francisco Univ HS 113 1337 19% 47%
Saint Andrews FLA ~145 1225 2% 43%
Shipley PA 78 NA 15% 29%
St Andrews DE 67 1321 14% 6%
St Christophers VA 75 ~1200-1300 1% 67%
St Pauls NH ~133 NA 42% 8%
Thacher CA ~53 1300 21% 34%
Thayer MA 106 NA 0% 43%
University School Nashville TN 77 NA 6% 28%
Webb CA ~90 NA 14% 52%
Westtown PA 95 NA 4% 32%
I apologize for not formatting too well, but hopefully you'll get the jist........also, I didn't get to the calcs for Menlo or Castilleja.
2. in detail:
Take a look here: http://www.teensuicidestatistics.com/ in fact suicide attempts are a great way of looking at social conditions in school.
http://www.suicidology.org/c/document_library/get_file?folderId=228&name=DLFE-227.pdf
3. In detail:
PISA scores of 15 year olds:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_Student_Assessment
SOBERING FACTS:
Excerpted from:http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/12/16/literacy
"Not only does it find that the average literacy of college educated Americans declined significantly from 1992 to 2003, but it also reveals that just 25 percent of college graduates -- and only 31 percent of those with at least some graduate studies -- scored high enough on the tests to be deemed "proficient" from a literacy standpoint, which the government defines as "using printed and written information to function in society, to achieve one's goals, and to develop one's knowledge and potential."
Excerpted from; http://www.carolinajournal.com/exclusives/display_exclusive.html?id=4837
Differences
China has about 194 million students in K-12, India has 212 million, and the United States has 53 million. While China and India educate only a fraction of their children compared to the United States, their raw numbers dwarf those of America, and their middle class is rapidly growing, so those figures will increase over time.
PISA scores of 15 year olds:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_Student_Assessment