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buddle: The high school ages are typically 15-18, but I'm not sure about the attendance rate, though I doubt its is above 90%. Many urban schools bring the number way down and they have the larger percentages of the total population.
One thing I have noticed over the years is that the educational quality seems to be dropping where as the cost continues to increase (beyond that of inflation). It seems nowadays high school kids (I speak as though I am old, but I've only been out of college for a couple of yrs.) are no longer required to think on their own. In classes you repeat a bunch of similar problems and that’s good enough to pass. Discussions seem to happen less and less so students don't really have an opportunity to form and defend their own ideas; they are being fed the ideas of the educators and accept them as they are, without giving any thought. This may be a result of poor funding toward the salaries of the teachers and their supplies, you really no longer have the top teachers educating (They will be teaching at a better school or they have joined the rest of the work force).
I know when I attended high school some of the school's money that came from taxes was diverted toward the schools in the urban area, this didn't really effect our school district as it was and still is one of the top in the state and nation. Though my school was not affected I can see how other schools that didn't have the prestige may have lost out tremendously.
In addition our great governor has cut the funding for the colleges and universities. I can see this having a tremendous effect in the next decade, not only for the quality of education (which I hope doesn’t decline), but for the university budgets themselves. The university I attended had to cut its football program (was saved thanks to the financial support of alumni and parents) as a result of the budget cuts. Additionally majors were merged or eliminated to save cost. If another cut like that happens I don’t see how the school will survive (I’m sure they’ll find a way but at what cost, eliminating the higher paid professors and cut all sports), this would eliminated one of the top engineering schools in the nation, as well as many other small universities/colleges. All that will remain would be the larger school, who would obviously see a dramatic increase in applications.
That’s a bit of my thoughts, sorry for the little rant ant the end, but I REALLY do not like what our governor is doing to the entire public school system.
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