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“Why Washington’s kids aren’t going to college”

This excellent (if depressing) article in the Seattle Times exposes the gaps in Washington’s education system:

“We think of ourselves as a well-educated state, and in many respects we are. More than half of Seattle adults 25 and older hold a bachelor’s degree, making it one of the most well-schooled cities in the nation.

“So it may come as a surprise that only about one in four public-school students from Washington’s high-school class of 2009 will finish college by 2015, according to a Seattle Times analysis of recent trends.

“While the percentage of high-school graduates who went to college jumped by nine points in the United States over the past two decades, the percentage of college-going high-schoolers in Washington fell.

“We were once well above the national average for the percentage of high-school students who go on to a two- or four-year college. But today, by some measures, we are one of the lowest states in the country …

“As University of Washington computer science professor Ed Lazowska says: ‘We are creating great jobs, and they’re going to other people’s children.'”

Read the article here.  Learn additional facts about STEM education in Washington State here.  (See a post on a related opinion piece here.)