The data for the 2012 high school class find that the number of students earning a diploma has exceeded 80%. Furthermore, U.S. graduation rates have risen by 7 percentage points and Latinos and African-Americans have made higher rates of improvement. Despite this improvement, three-quarters of a million students failed to graduate from high school in 2012.
Educators have begun to examine the factors necessary to complete high school, higher education and to enter the workplace. Education Week’s 2014 edition of Diplomas Count—Motivation Matters: Engaging Students, Creating Learners, “explores the challenge of engaging and motivating students, with a focus on innovative strategies to promote the traits and beliefs that will help students achieve their goals in school and beyond.”
In a survey of more than 500 teachers and school administrators, they believe engagement in schooling is the most important contributor to student success and “most of those educators say that less than half their students are highly engaged and motivated.”
Some important findings:
- Teachers and administrators face challenges engaging students due to a lack of parental support and inadequate time and resources
- Less than half of respondents believe their pre-service training adequately prepared them to engage and motivate students.
- Only 4 of 10 educators say the majority of students at their schools are highly engaged and motivated.