I first saw FlowingData mention a display to call attention to the insanely high number of high school dropouts. It says 857 per hour. Wow. Do they really mean in the U.S. alone? That would be 7.5 million per year, or more than the entire class of seniors. That can't be right. Well, according to the New York Times report, it's "every single hour, every single school day".... ah, that's getting closer to real numbers, and according to the College Board's own page on the installation, it's "More than 1.2 million students drop out of school every year, which averages out to 6,000 students every school day and 857 every hour".
Okay, that sounds better, but still not quite right. The 2010 American Community Survey reports that 16.8% of 18-24 year-olds do not have a high school education (this number drops to 14.4% for the 25 and older population, presumably because some of those 18-20 year-olds eventually finish or get their GEDs). That 18-24 year-old demographic constitutes about 10% of a 300 million person population, or very roughly 4.5 million people for each age category.
The College Board wants us to equate the 1.2 million dropouts with people who never get a high school degree (or equivalent), but clearly that's not the case. Some of those kids go back and get their degrees. And, likely, some of those kids are going back and dropping out again, and getting counted twice, or three or more times.
A sixth of the adult population without a high school degree is bad enough without trying to make it 25% through shady accounting. I'm a little surprised FlowingData didn't catch this (and worse, reported 857/hour without the "while school is in session" qualification).
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