FactCheck.org : Santorum Exaggerates Dropout Rate
Rick Santorum incorrectly claimed that “one of three children drop out of school” in the United States. The 2009 dropout rate was 8.1 percent — slightly higher than it was in 2008, but down significantly from the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and even early 2000s, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
It’s true that a higher percentage of students in the U.S. fail to graduate on time — about 23 percent in the 2009-10 school year. But that’s still not “one of three children” and that doesn’t account for the many who take longer to graduate or who pass the General Educational Development (GED) tests, accepted by nearly all colleges and universities as evidence of high-school equivalency. The fact is that only 8.1 percent fail to graduate or get a GED by age 24. And by any measure you pick, the dropout rate has been generally declining for years.
Santorum, who is currently ahead in the national polls for the Republican presidential nomination, criticized the U.S. public education system as a “failure” on “Face the Nation.” He compared it unfavorably to the kind of individualized education that home-schooled children, such as his own, receive. He repeatedly referred to what he called “these high rates of dropouts.”