Stats that Stick: May 9, 2012

Percent of elementary and middle school teachers who are men: 18.3

The economic downturn seems to have worsened an already-vast gap between the numbers of men and women teachers, particularly in the early grades. Experts argue that the diminishing status of teachers generally, coupled with continuing sexism against men working with children, is helping tamp down the number of men willing to enter the field.

Approximate number  of students (in millions) who will take at least one Advanced Placement test this school year: 2

Those 2 million students will take 3.7 million end-of-year AP exams in the next couple of weeks. These figures are well over double those from a decade ago. Last year, 18 percent of U.S. high school graduates passed at least one AP exam (by scoring 3 or higher on a scale of 1 to 5), up from 11 percent a decade ago.

Percent of teachers who are incorporating digital games in lessons to engage students: 50

The survey, which consisted of responses from a random sample of 505 teachers of those grades across the country in March of this year, found that 50 percent of the teachers reported using digital games in classroom instruction for at least two days a week.