The US Is Falling Behind In Early Education

As this election season kicks into high gear one of the topics that seems to be missing from the candidate’s plans is education. With so much focus on ISIS, emails, and decades old conversations, it seems that the concerns that the candidates discussed early in the election cycle have fallen by the wayside. It wasn’t all that long ago that we were recapping each candidate’s stance on Common Core, but we haven’t heard much about education in weeks from either the Democratic or the Republican candidate.

And given the recent data from the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), that’s not good.

The United States is – in short – severely lacking in the realm of Early Childhood Education. With a total of 36 countries ranked, the U.S. came in 29th – and hasn’t shown improvement since 2005. While other developed countries are averaging about 71% of 3 and 4 year olds being enrolled in some form of education, the U.S. is only enrolling about 42% (in 2005 the U.S. was enrolling 39%). Students in the U.S. who attend preschool at some point tend to fare much higher on “internationally benchmarked math exams” at age 15, proving that preschool is essential to a child’s education.

Additionally, while the U.S. used to be head and shoulders above the rest when it came to the number of citizens receiving college degrees, other nations are now catching up… and not charging their students nearly as much for the honor of earning an undergraduate degree. As the price of college tuition continues to increase, it is likely that the number of citizens earning degrees will decrease and that the U.S. will be surpassed in this educational arena as well.

At Pay4SchoolStuff.com we care about all aspects of education as it impacts the family environment and we would love to hear from you about this issue! Did your kids go to pre-school? Did you feel it was a worthwhile investment? Was there a public option available or did you send them to a private or religious institution? Let us know in the comments or on Facebook!