Annual Condition of Education in Iowa Report Available

Last week the Iowa Department of Education released the latest edition of the annual Condition of Education report.

The report provides a wide range of state-level data, including shifts in student populations and demographics, teacher salaries and characteristics, student achievement results and school financial information. The Condition of Education report contains the most recent data through the 2014-15 school year, unless otherwise noted.

Highlights include:

Students in Public Schools
•    480,772: The number of students enrolled in Iowa’s public schools during the 2014-15 school year, up from 478,921 the year before.
•    21.8%: The percentage of minority student enrollment, up from 21.1 percent in 2013-14 school year and 5.5 percent in 1990.
•    41%: The percentage of students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, down slightly from 41.1 percent a year ago and up from 27 percent in the 2000-01 school year.
•    90.5%: The percentage of students from the Class of 2014 who graduated from high school in four years, up slightly from the year before (89.7 percent).
•    41.3%: The percentage of students from the Class of 2015 who took a higher-level mathematics course, including calculus and trigonometry. This represents no change from the year before.
•    67.4%: The percentage of students from the Class of 2015 who took chemistry. 28.8 percent took physics.
•    22.2: The ACT composite score among students in the Class of 2015 who took the college-entrance exam, up from 22 the year before.
•    67%: The percentage of students in the Class of 2015 who took the ACT, down from 68 percent the year before.

Technology Readiness
•    The percentage of schools equipped with 50 MB or more of bandwidth climbed to 71.9 percent in the 2014-15 school year from 60.1 percent in 2013-14 and 44.4 percent in 2012-13.

Schools, Teachers, Finance
•    Iowa’s average teacher salary increased 2.7 percent to $55,356 in the 2014-15 school year.
•    Iowa’s average teacher salary improved to 25th in the national rankings from 26th. Iowa’s Midwestern ranking remained 6th out of 12 states from the 2012-13 school year to 2013-14.
•    There were 34,725 teachers in Iowa schools during the 2014-15 school year, up from 34,509 in 2013-14 and 33,610 in 2000-2001.
•    There were 338 school districts during the 2014-15 school year, down eight from the year before. There are 336 school districts in the current school year.
•    The state’s total per-pupil expense was $10,240 in the 2013-14 school year, up from $9,888 the year before.