factoids

from The Condition of Education 2009:

• In 2007, 6.7 million or 13.6 percent of public school students received special education services.
• The ratio of students to teachers, which is sometimes used as a proxy measure for class size, declined between 1990 and 2006, from 17.6 to 15.9 students per teacher for all regular public schools
• Total expenditures per student in fall enrollment in public elementary and secondary schools rose 31 percent in constant dollars between 1989–90 and 2005–06, from $8,627 to $11,293
• [F]or 17-year-olds, the average reading score was higher in 2008 than in 2004, but was not measurably different from the score in 1971
• [F]or 17-year-olds, the average [mathematics] score in 2008 was not measurably different from the scores in either 2004 or 1973.
• about three-quarters of the 2003 freshman class graduated from public high schools on time in 2006

homeschooling

• In 2007, about 1.5 million, or 2.9 percent of all school-aged children in the United States were homeschooled.
• This number has increased from 850,000 in 1999 and 1.1 million in 2003.
• In 2007, 36 percent of parents of homeschooled children cited a desire to provide religious or moral instruction as the most important reason for homeschooling their child, followed by 21 percent who cited concerns about school environments, and 17 percent who were dissatisfied with academic instruction.
  

college

Looking next at college enrollment, the percentage of students who enroll in college right after high school increased from 49 percent in 1972 to 67 percent in 2007.

Approximately 58 percent of first-time students seeking a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent and attending a 4-year institution full time in 2000–01 completed a bachelor’s degree or its equivalent at that institution within 6 years

• the top field for bachelor's degree earners was business, which accounted for 21 percent of degrees awarded.
• Social science and history was the next largest field at 11 percent;
• followed by education and health professions and related sciences, each of which accounted for 7 percent of degrees awarded;
• the next largest fields were psychology and visual and performing arts at 6 percent each;
• followed by engineering, communication, and the biological sciences at 5 percent each.
  

In 2007, young adults with a bachelor's degree earned about $45,000 a year.

• This is about $10,000 more than those with an associate's degree,
• About $16,000 more than those who had completed high school, and
• About twice as much as those who did not earn a high school diploma.
  

Briefing on the Condition of Education 2009
the condition of education web site