School & Academic Issues

The top 6 qualities that teens say makes for a great teacher:

1. Explains things clearly: 70%
2. Funny & entertaining: 47%
3. Helpful: 40%
4. Patient: 32%
5. Understanding: 23%
6. Passionate about their subject: 22%

(Source: Aventa Learning Survey of 500 students ages 13 to 17; USA Today, 6-22-2010, p. 10)

*Across the nation, 1.2 million kids drop out of school each year (around 7,000 a day!)

Around one in 3 students fail to graduate with their class.

High school drop outs make around $19,000 a year, and will be out earned by their peers who graduate by $1 million over the course of a lifetime.

They are nearly 4 times as likely to be arrested, and 8 times as likely to be incarcerated.

A 2006 Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Survey found that only 35% of dropouts said they struggled academically; the others were either bored, felt high school was a waste of time, had social issues either at school or at home, or dropped out for other reasons.

43% of kids overall said they felt no connection to even a single adult at school, which is a problem in itself. (Source: Tyre, 2010)