Education Public Policy - National Graduation Rate Up to 80% (UNIT 5)

US public schools reach graduation milestone, new report says

 

Education public policy has helped to improve the public school graduation rate in the United States drastically over the past several years. More measures are being taken to ensure that students do not dropout, from more one-on-one contact with students to shutting down schools with high dropout rates. The current graduation rate is around 80 percent, and researchers are beginning to predict a 90 PERCENT national graduation rate by 2020.

The current data and public policy's success is amplified by the decrease in minority and low income dropouts. There has been a decrease as well in "dropout factories" (schools that produce high amounts of dropout students). If the rate remained the same from the early 2000s, studies show that around 1.7 million students would have dropped out between then and now.

Various changes in state laws and government intervention has aided this improvement. Many people are giving their own advice for how the United States can get its graduation rate up to 90 percent. Even though there has been minimal improvement in other areas, education has certainly been successful in, at the least, keeping more students in school. Current public policies about education are providing positive results that will hopefully continue to trend positively for some time.