Facts about public education in Dallas County

• Dallas County has roughly 2.5 million residents and over 800,000 students involved in early childhood, public K-12 and higher education.
• They are educated by 1500+ early childhood providers, 15 ISDs, 80 different charter schools and numerous 2-year and 4-year all operating in an independent manner with insufficient sharing of data, best practices or coordination of strategic plans.
• About 70% of students in Dallas Count public schools are eligible for free and reduced lunch.
• Every year almost 5,000 students who started 9th grade at the same time in a Dallas County public school fail to graduate from high school.
• The average college graduate earns roughly $1 million in their lifetime that a high school dropout.
• The cost to the Dallas region for each 9th grade cohort's subsequent failure to send 100% of students to some type of post-secondary education is over $5 billion!
• By 2040, if current educational attainment trends persist, Texans will experience the following:  $15 billion delcine in state tax revenue; 15% increase in number of households living in poverty; increase of 100,000 in prison population and additional $1.5 billion per year in incarceration costs. 

(Data drawn from materials published by Commit in Dallas, Texas)