National facts from the Center on Education Policy and American Youth Policy Forum may surprise you:

• High school dropout rates. Increasing? Just the opposite. Since 1972 overall rates declined by 27 percent, African-American rates by nearly 40 percent.

• College. There are now three to four times as many students who complete high schools’ challenging “core curriculum.” There are 26 percent more graduates going to college than 1993 – 50 percent more African-Americans. Moreover, a higher percentage complete college degrees.

• Math. The gender gap’s reversed: more girls than boys take algebra II and chemistry. National Assessment of Educational Progress math scores are up for all groups. ACT and SAT math scores increased nearly four percent from 1983 to 1999.

• Crime and violence in schools. Increasing? Nope. The 1997 overall crime numbers were 65 percent of those four years before.

The same local high school that produced more National Merit Scholar finalists than any school in Iowa was also able to put the state’s championship football team on the field. A Big Ten university has now recruited its coach.

Another high school recently received Grammy Foundation designation as one of the nation’s top ten music programs. One of its faculty, now an administrator, is responsible for creating a national award-winning student newspaper and leads a delightful faculty music group.

One of our junior highs won the regional Math Counts competition.

A number of teachers have achieved the distinction of National Board Certification.

An elementary school was selected as both one of the top 238 schools in the U.S. (National Blue Ribbon School Award) and two years earlier as one of Iowa’s “First in the Nation in Education” awardees.

Our two elementary schools in the “Basic Schools” program were nationally recognized.

Another avoided the debate about whether to make our district the nation’s preeminent writing district. It just went ahead and did it. The National Council of Teachers of English recognized and publicized this school’s innovative “Parent-Kid-Teacher Investigators” program.

It’s probably no coincidence this school also has one of the most informative and colorful Web sites.

And one of our kindergarten students just won the state poetry prize.

Moreover, skillful management of building maintenance gives us one of the best physical plants in the state.

I’ve not referred to schools or persons by name because these are just a handful of illustrations from dozens of examples. Nor are omissions deliberate. They’re just the result of aging memory and a concession to the shortness of a column.

The fact is that we have a lot to be proud of in our school district.

Students who strive. Parents who volunteer. Teachers who make the extra effort. A community that celebrates and supports its schools. Staff who contribute in dozens of ways – mostly unrecognized.

The dozens of awards and recognition are nice. But it’s the thousands of unrecognized daily events that make the difference:

• Children who put conflict resolution studies to work and talk it out instead of fight it out.

• The kindergarten teacher who spends her own money on materials for her cheerful classroom.

• The little girl who comes to school with no breakfast, again, after watching her alcoholic father batter her mother. A guidance counselor comforts the student.

• The custodian who gives a friendly greeting to a kid he recognizes as new to the school.

• The high school dropout parent who decides to go to his child’s parent-teacher conference – his first visit to a school for any reason in 10 years. The understanding teacher who succeeds in persuading him of the importance of his work with the child – and her.

• The child who comes home excited because, thanks to a teacher who kept trying alternative teaching methods, he finally understands “carry over” in subtraction.

We have a lot to be proud of in K-12 public education – nationally and right here at home. It doesn’t hurt us to pause occasionally and celebrate that fact.

Nicholas Johnson is an Iowa City School Board member. More information is available on his Web site, www.nicholasjohnson.org.