Each year kids go back to school; here are just a few fun facts about education and back to school that you can share with them:
Fun Fact One: The largest high school in America has over 8,000 students. It is Morton High School in Berwyn-Cicero, Ill. The East Campus has over 6,000 students, and it is a co-op high school.
Fun Fact Two: The average salary for public school elementary and middle school and high school teachers in 20808 was $50,758, and for principals in the same year, the average salary earned was $97,486. There are close to 8 million teachers in the US.
Fun Fact Three: There are over 7.4 million teachers, and 2.9 million work at elementary and middle schools.
Fun Fact Four: School bus drivers are usually paid an hourly wage, and the national average wage is $16.56. A custodian is also paid hourly and makes about $14.16 on average, and a cafeteria worker’s average salary in the US is $11.60.
Fun Fact Five: Indiana has 9 of the top ten largest high school gymnasiums in America.
Fun Fact Six: Each year, over 78.8 million kids, teens, and adults enroll in school.
Fun Fact Seven: There are over 31 millions kids enrolled in school lunch programs in the US.
Fun Fact Eight: In California, about 45% of children enrolled in kindergarten through 12th speak a language other than English at home.
(Not so) Fun Fact Nine: 6% of kids age 6-11 repeat at least one grade in school. 11% of kids aged 12-17 repeat at least one grade of school.
Fun Fact Ten: A fair number of kids switch schools at some point in their life not counting the normal progression from elementary to middle school and middle to highschool. In fact from age 6-11, over 26% switch schools, and ages 12-17 42% switch school.
Fun Fact Eleven: 67% of kids like school.
Fun Fact Twelve: The oldest public school in the US was founded in 1635, and 5 of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence graduated from this school, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock, Robert Treat Paine, Samuel Adams and William Hopper. It is Boston’s Latin School.
Fun Fact Thirteen: Even though Thomas Jefferson was all for free public education, and tried to promote it, only America’s wealthy were able to get an elementary school education until the 1840s when Horace Mann and Henry Barnard and other reformers tried to get tax-funded schools. They did this because they thought that if they had schools paid for by taxes, more people would attend, and this spread of education would help produce better citizens, unite the societies, and prevent much crime and poverty. It turns out that in a large part they were right.
Fun Fact Fourteen: High school was not really a part of school until the 1930s. Before that most Americans only completed eight years of school. Why was that and what changed it? Well, during the Great Depression, there were many communities that had little work to offer, and they figure that keeping teenagers in the classrooms would keep them out of the work force, thus reducing the competition for many adults who required higher pay than a teen would.