WASHINGTON -- An annual survey issued by the federal government Thursday paints a picture of a nation newly committing itself to education at all levels, with more toddlers in preschool, more high school students going directly to college and more adults returning to class.
The report, a comprehensive statistical survey of the nation's educational system, shows high school students taking more demanding courses and achieving at their highest levels in mathematics and science since a federal commission declared in 1983 that the quality of U.S. schools posed a national crisis.Despite worries resulting from school shootings at Columbine and elsewhere, the report says that school violence has not increased in the last quarter-century and that an overwhelming majority of teachers remain very confident they can maintain discipline in the classroom.
The data, issued by the National Center for Education Statistics at the Department of Education, did show more parents turning away from local public schools, to private schools or school choice programs like charter schools. And the level of parent confidence in the schools, customarily high, has slipped slightly in the past few years.
Further, federal education officials acknowledged other reasons for some concern. For one thing, students in the United States still lag behind those of many industrialized countries in both math and science. And while the officials say rigorous courses can allow needy children to rise above failing schools, the report shows that poor minority children remain less likely than their white peers to take those courses or even attend schools where they are offered.
Still, the numbers show a nation pushing hard to improve its schools and its overall level of education.
"All the indicators suggest that we're setting higher expectations, and students are learning up to those expectations," said Frank S. Holleman III, deputy education secretary. "The American people are very serious about education."
The report, "The Condition of Education," looks at 67 vital signs of the nation's educational health, from readiness for kindergarten to the cost of college, from attitudes about mathematics to a graduate degree's effect on voter participation.
The nation's public schools had 43.2 million students in 1999, the report said, with baby boomers' children causing enrollment to bulge in elementary and middle schools. But the number of people choosing to send their children to pre-school, or to go to college, or to return to school for adult education, is also increasing, producing higher numbers at all levels of schooling.
Enrollment from one level of education to the next varies by gender, by race and by income. For instance, fully 60 percent of black 3-year-olds and 81 percent of black 4-year-olds attend pre-school, compared with only 47 percent and 70 percent of their peers among whites, and 26 percent and 64 percent of peers among Hispanics. Poor white children are the least likely to attend preschool.
Women, who a few years ago began to edge out men as a percentage of the college population, are entering higher education at even faster rates.
The report says high school girls are more likely than boys to say they will definitely get a bachelor's degree, and women increased to 57 percent of the college population in 1998.
After the issuance of "A Nation at Risk," the 1983 federal report that described the nation's schools as woefully substandard, a panel charged with proposing means for improvement recommended that all students be required to take more, and more rigorous, course work.
The new numbers suggest that schools have largely followed that advice. The average number of courses taken in high school had increased to 25 by 1998, from 22 in 1982. The number of students taking the highest-level math courses increased to 27 percent from 11 percent in that period, and the number taking both chemistry and physics jumped to 19 percent from 7 percent.
"States are requiring more courses, and moving away from anything-goes, shopping-mall high school that was in vogue 30 years ago," said Christopher Cross, president of the Council for Basic Education, which assists states in setting up academic standards.
Nancy Grasmick, Maryland's superintendent of schools, said: "We recognized we had not challenged our students to the extent they need to be challenged. We're encouraging a much higher level of performance."
The report says students from families that are poor or not well educated increase their odds of finishing college by taking rigorous high school courses -- so much so that they are then just as likely as their better-off peers to graduate.
"For low-income students in particular," said Holleman, "taking the right courses is critical not only to their decision to go to college, but to their success once they attend."
And, in fact, students as a whole are achieving at higher levels. According to the report, the number of 17-year-olds who showed advanced mathematical proficiency on the National Assessment of Educational Progress test increased to 60 percent in 1996 from 49 percent in 1982.
But educators and officials pointed out that U.S. students still did not take courses as rigorous as their peers in many other industrialized countries. According to the report, 39 percent of mathematics courses in Japan and 28 percent in Germany received the highest-quality rating by a panel of researchers, while none in the United States did.