Back To School by the Numbers

August is that time of the year when students are starting to be reminded of the impending end to their summer vacation. The store windows by now are full of ‘back-to-school’ sales announcements.

The US Census Bureau recently published some numbers from last year’s back-to-school month to set the stage for this year’s school preparation period.

Here’s the gist of it:

Parents and students spent $7.7 billion last August on clothing – best retail sales month after the holiday retail mania period. For book stores, August was actually their strongest sales month of the year, totaling $2.4 billion. Now you know why stores everywhere are all bombarding you with their back-to-school ads, catalogs, discounts, and even giant giveaways like the 1,000 iPads that Abercombie is throwing at their young, and hence school-attending, clientele.

Another interesting number – 79 million children and adults – is the amount of people enrolled in some sort of schooling – from nursery to college and beyond, full time and part time. With so many students, the above sales numbers are around $120 per student spent on clothing and books.

The report also reminds us that staying in school pays off. According to statistics, those that only made it through high school earned on average $23,000 less per year than those that got through college, and those that pursued degrees that are even higher earned another $21,000 more.

The Gifted?!

There was another stat that caught my attention. In 2009, 27% of students ages 12 to 17 were enrolled in some sort of a gifted class. In recent years the movement towards gifted and talented education has made great progress in improving access to better education for many students. But are we now moving into the Lake Wobegon effect “where all children are above average”. Is the ‘gifted’ becoming the new ‘standard’? Are we replacing what used to be called ‘honors’ with the trendier ‘gifted’? Does that muddle the picture of our education system?

On the other hand, one could say (and I believe this to be so) that all students are talented and gifted in some thing or some way, and the job of a good educator is to help the student to discover their unique interests and abilities and to kindle a lifelong passion for these. As such, there is no reason to be surprised by the number of students in the gifted class. In reality, I would wager that it is a bit of both: There is a shift within the education community to include a more diverse range of giftedness as well as some repackaging and renaming of classes to fit the current trend. (Soon we might have to create the ‘Super Gifted’ or perhaps the ‘Uber Gifted’ classes.) It is something to watch as it continues to develop.