The Harper's Index Book
by Charis Conn
School Days (daze???)
number of Los Angeles high school students who earned a varsity letter in comedy in 1998: 362
Percentage of Americans who believe that career preparation should begin in elementary school: 18
Chance that a U.S. high school student owns a promotional item from a cigarette company: 1 in 3
Percentage of public-high-school teachers who favor banning students from kissing and hugging on school grounds: 69 (is that a coincedental number or what???)
Percentage of Americans who believe that sex education should be a required school subject: 60
Percentage who believe that the teaching of evolution should be required: 28
Ratio of federal spending each day on a U.S. public-school student to the amount spent on a federal prisoner: 1:4
Minimum amount of salsa USDA regulations allow a public school to offer as a serving of vegetables, in tablespoons: 2
Number of U.S. public schools that own their own Taco Bell: 220
Days a Denver schoo principal was put on leave in 1998 for allowing junior-high-school students a sip of wine on a trip to Paris: 13
Days an Ohio public school suspended a fourteen-year-old girl in 1996 for giving a Midol tablet to her classmate: 80
Average number of public-school students expelled for firearm possession each day of the 1997-98 school year: 22
Chance that the murder of a student at a U.S. school between August 1997 and August 1999 was caused by beating, strangling, or knife wounds: 1 to 4
Chance that a U.S. public high school has at least one police officer stationed there full-time: 1 in 5
Percentage change since 1990 in the number of U.S. high school students enrolled in Junior ROTC: +95
Chance that a Chicago high school student is: 1 in 11
Percentage of murders of U.S. children in 1996 that took place at school: 0.4
Chance that a U.S. student death at school in the 1998 school year was a suicide: 1 in 5
Ratio of U.S. students killed in or ner schools in the 1998 school year to those killed in the 1992 school year: 1:2
Chance that an American murdered at school between 1996 and 1998 was a girl: 1 in 4
Chance of this between 1992 and 1994: 1 in 20
Number of times in 1998 that one New Jersey high schools was evacuated due to bomb threats: 30
Chance that a U.S. public school building is in need of "extensive repairs or replacement": 1 in 3
Chance that a New York City public school was heated with coat in 1995: 1 in 4
Chance in 1999: 1 in 4
Chance that a gay Massachusetts teenager reported being threatened or injured at school in 1997: 1 in 4
Number of U.S. high school students that have hired a Massachusetts firm to test students' hair for evidence of drug use: 80
Chance that a public-high-school student is taught physical sciences by a teacher without a science background: 1 in 2
Percentage of professors of college freshmen and sophomores who believe a diploma from the local public high school guarantees basic skills: 33
Percentage of parents and high schools students, respectively, who believe a diploma from the local public high school guarantees basic math and reading skills: 32, 22 (I wonder if they still believe in Santa Claus?)
Percentage change since 1960 in the number of Americans who belong to a Parent-Teacher Association: -46
Margin by which the ten-member Kansas Board of Education voted to drop human evolution from the curriculum in 1999: 2
Higher Education
Number of U.S. colleges offering an academic course in "leadership" in 1998: 237
Percentage of full-time U.S. undergraduates who are over the age of twenty-two: 34
Percentage of U.S. universities that used student evaluations as a factor in granting tenure in 1973: 23
Percentage that do so today: 88
Minimum number of students invited to join Phi Beta Kappa in 1998 who did not accept: 2,400
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