That's not great, but we do know that a lot of youth will attend some form of upgrading down the line. The high school dropout rate is defined as those aged 20-24 who have not graduated from high school and are not attending school. In Canada, the dropout rate is 8.5%. Now, that's disconcerting.
If you've seen The Lottery, then you know about the challenges currently facing the American education system and the consequences of the "No Child Left Behind" policies from the Bush era. The recently released Waiting for Superman appears to expand on The Lottery, providing more examples of education reform currently in action and it would seem that we in Canada should take notice. According to producer Lesley Chilcott:
"Use us as a warning sign here in Canada. My understanding is things are starting to slip here."
Things are starting to slip here? In Canada? The great bastion of socially responsible programs such as national health care, banking regulations, billion dollar super prisons, pot decriminalization, the gun registry..? This comment sent me off in search of comparable data at the OECD site and I discovered that we indeed have no right to our smug, "but we're so much better than the US" attitude when it comes to education. Check out the OECD country comparisons and you'll discover as I did that it's not all about the money.
