1. Back to School 2012: Tell the Good News! AASA Back-to-School Toolkit For School Leaders Making the Case: America’s Public Schools Are Strong and Continuing to Improve September 2012 Your District Logo Here

2. About This Presentation Use these slides as desired in conjunction with the back-to-school speeches. You may supplement the information provided here with data from your own school district. AASA grants permission to AASA members to use and reproduce this material, in whole or in part and by any means, without charge or further permission.

3. Toolkit Focus America’s schools are working, and not just academically. A robust set of data/indicators illustrate that child well-being has improved, schools are safer and parents are more engaged within schools than in the past. While there is still room for improvement, it is time to make the case for what is right in our nation’s schools and communities when it comes to providing for our children.

4. Schools Are Safer The rate of public schools recording at least one incident of serious violent crime is down by 20% compared to 1999-2000. An April 2012 survey by Gallup found that 84% of parents believe strongly or somewhat strongly that their child is safe in their school.

5. Student Smoking Rates are Down Percentage of adolescents who smoke regularly has reached its lowest level since data was first collected. In 2011, about 2 percent of 8th-graders reported smoking cigarettes daily, a decline from the peak in 1996, when over 10 percent of 8th- graders reported daily cigarette smoking. Similarly, declines in daily smoking were reported for 10th-graders—6 percent in 2011, down from a peak of 18 percent in 1996; and for 12th-graders—10 percent, down from a peak of 25 percent in 1997.

6. Student Drinking Rates are Declining Between 2006 and 2011, heavy drinking declined from 9 percent to 6 percent among 8th-graders, from 20 percent to 15 percent among 10th-graders, and from 25 percent to 22 percent among 12th-graders.

7. Schools Are Meaningfully Engaging Parents Most teachers (91%) and parents (80%) agree that their/their child’s school helps all parents understand what they can do at home to support a student’s success in school 83% of students agree that their teachers and parents work together to help them succeed in school Compared to 1987, fewer teachers and parents believe that lack of parent engagement is widespread. Fewer teachers (35% vs. 48%) and parents (47% vs. 52%) say that most or many parents take too little interest in their children’s education

8. U.S. Schools Are NOT Failing All Students U.S. 15-year olds in schools with fewer than 10% of kids eligible for free or cut-rate lunch score first in the world in reading, outperforming even the famously excellent Finns U.S. schools where fewer than 25% are impoverished (by the same lunch measure) beat all 34 of the relatively affluent countries studied except South Korea and Finland (which have very few poor students) U.S. schools where 25 to 50% of students were poor still beat most other countries in reading

9. Reading Scores Have Also Improved 4 th Grade NAEP reading scores have increased from 217 to 221 between 1992 and 2011 8 th Grade average reading sore in 2011 (265), was higher than the scores in both 1992 (260), and 2009 (264) Source: NCES

10. Math Scores Are Higher in 4 th and 8 th Grade The average 4th-grade NAEP mathematics score in 2011 was higher than the scores in both 1990 and 2009. 82% of 4 th grade students in 2011 were at or above “basic” compared to 65% in 2000. 40% of students are at or above “proficient” in 2011 compared to 24% in 2000. The average 8th-grade mathematics score in 2011 was higher than the score in all previous assessment years

11. History Scores Are Up From 1994 to 2010, U.S. history scores for all groups of students increased from 205 points to 214 points for 4th-grade students, from 259 points to 266 points for 8th-grade students, and from 286 points to 288 points for 12th-grade students.

12. Geography/Civics Scores Are Up For geography, the average score for 4th- grade students was higher in 2010 (213) than in 1994 (206) For civics, the average score for 4th-grade students was higher in 2010 (157) than in 1998 (150), the first year the assessment was administered Geography Civics Source: NCES/NAEP

13. More Students Are Taking Advanced Math Coursework The percentage of students who took calculus rose from 5 percent to 16 percent from 1982 to 2009.

14. More Students Are Taking Advanced Science Coursework Between 1982 and 2009, there were increases in the percentages of graduates who had completed coursework in biology (77 percent vs. 96 percent), chemistry (32 percent vs. 70 percent), and physics (15 percent vs. 36 percent)

15. More Students Are Taking Foreign Language Coursework Foreign language course taking also became more prevalent between 1982 and 2009, with an increase from 54 percent to 86 percent in the percentage of high school graduates who had taken a foreign language

16. College Enrollment Has Increased For All Groups of Students Over the 35-year period between 1975 and 2010, the rate of immediate college enrollment after high school ranged from a low of 49 percent in 1979 and 1980, to a high of 70 percent in 2009. This rate increased most recently from 2001 to 2009.

17. College Enrollment Has Increased for All Groups of Students In 2010, 68 percent of high school completers enrolled in a 2-year or 4-year college immediately after completing high school, up from 49 percent in 1980. Between 1980 and 2010, the immediate college enrollment rate increased from 50 percent to 70 percent for White, non-Hispanics and from 44 percent to 66 percent for Black, non-Hispanics. Among Hispanics, the immediate college enrollment rate increased from 47 percent in 1999 to 60 percent in 2010. 88 percent of two- and four-year colleges reported enrolling students with disabilities in the 2008-9 academic year.

18. More Students Are Staying in School and Graduating In school year 2008–09, more than three-quarters of public high school students graduated on time with a regular diploma. Between 2005-2011 there was an 11 percent reduction in the rate of high school students not graduating in four years. The high school dropout rate fell from 6.1 percent in 1972 to 3.4 percent in 2009. From 1990 to 2010, dropout rates declined for Whites (from 9 percent to 5 percent), Blacks (from 13 percent to 8 percent), and Hispanics (from 32 percent to 15 percent). Source: NCES

19. And All of These Great Things Are Happening Despite Fewer $ for Schools 36% of Americans believe the biggest problem with the public school system is a lack of funding. This number has risen by 12% since 2006. Americans continue to support their public education systems. Even in this time of fiscal uncertainty, Americans are willing to pay more taxes to provide funds to improve the quality of the nation's urban public schools. Nearly two-thirds (62%) of Americans said they would be willing to pay more taxes, virtually unchanged from the 66% responding 'yes' in 1998.

20. Spread the Good News About Public Schools! In addition to this PowerPoint, consider: Submitting our sample op-ed/editorial to your local paper Sharing this positive data at your next Back-to- School Night or in a newsletter Sending a press release (see the AASA sample) to your local paper

21. Questions? Email AASA’s Policy & Advocacy Team: Noelle Ellerson, nellerson@aasa.orgnellerson@aasa.org Sasha Pudelski, spudelski@aasa.orgspudelski@aasa.org