Teacher Summary Rating Form (Required: Fill & Download for Free

IntroThere is one issue in the United States that I feel disproportionately affects women and yet is not really considered a “women’s issue”.I want to clarify, that it’s not that I don’t think the same thing hurts and affects men and boys, I want this to be implemented so that everyone can benefit!But I do think that young girls are affected more immediately when they are denied access. And I also think that we could get a lot more ammunition behind advocacy on this issue if we framed it as a women’s rights issue.TLDRThe answer will be long and much of the first three sections focus on presenting the data and research about our current sex education system and current and past American sexual behavior. If you wish to, you can skip to the conclusion of these sections and then read “How it Hurts Women” to see how this is a women’s issue and what can be done about it.Sex EducationBefore I go too in-depth I want to start by showcasing some current information so that we can see the extent of the problem.Current EducationCurrently only 13 states in the US require that the information presented in sex education classes be medically adequate.To state this in much clearer terms, educators want to have the ability to lie to their students.26 states require that sex education programs must stress abstinenceThe other 9 states who require discussion of abstinence only necessitate that it be mentioned but don’t require it to be stressed above the other choices.Research has shown that there are widespread gaps in what students are taught across the United States in sexual educationStudents living in some areas receive more competent sexual education, while others do not. There’s no consistency and few states have any standard criteria for these classes.Abstinence-only classes have been repeatedly called out for disproportionately judging and slut shaming girlsWhile they promote the idea that abstinence until marriage is appropriate, they seem to focus primarily on stressing how sex devalues girls.One parent sat in during her son’s sex education class and was appalled by the things the instructor said.As the instructors alternately slut-shamed sexually active girls and warned of dire consequences for boys, she live-tweeted her shock and horror."You'll find a good girl. If you find one that says 'no,' that's the one you want." HE ACTUALLY JUST SAID THAT," Dreger wrote about a male teacher's message to the class.America’s Crappy Sex Ed Policies Are Harming Us AllNotice that they were shaming girls who were sexually active but were just giving boys warnings about the consequences of sex. There was no real judgment upon boys for asking girls for sex, the judgment was placed entirely on whether girls responded positively or negatively.In 2011 Mississippi banned the use of condoms for in-class demonstrations…of how to apply condoms. At the same Mississippi had the second highest rate of teen pregnancy in the country.In response an education non-profit started teaching students how to properly don a sock for those engaging in “shoe activity”. They also released a video which was viewed 1.5 million times.America’s Crappy Sex Ed Policies Are Harming Us AllTeen pregnancy rates in the US are the highest in the most religious states, especially concentrated in the Bible BeltData from the CDC.U.S. Teen Birthrates Are Down, But Still High in These StatesLinking Religion and Teen Pregnancy: There's a Map for That - TheHumanist.comResearch has consistently shown that abstinence-only education does not delay the onset for first vaginal intercourse and is correlated with a higher rate of teen pregnancy.Comprehensive-sexual education consistently outscores abstinence-only education on these measures and yet is still opposed in religious states that feel abstinence until marriage is the only option that should be taught to students.Abstinence-Only Education and Teen Pregnancy Rates: Why We Need Comprehensive Sex Education in the U.STo provide a summary of two studies:Like the Mathematica study, Kirby’s study came to the conclusion that there was no strong evidence that abstinence-only-until-marriage programs delay the initiation of sexual intercourse, hasten the return to abstinence, or reduce the number of sexual partners. The study did find that two-thirds of the comprehensive programs examined had at least one positive sexual behavioral effect. In fact, 40 percent of the comprehensive programs examined achieved the three important effects of delaying the initiation of sexual intercourse, reducing the number of sexual partners, and increasing condom or contraceptive use.Comprehensive Sex Education vs. Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage ProgramsDespite being consistently shown ineffective compared to comprehensive sexual education, we have spent 2 billion dollars on abstinence-only education programsAbstinence-only education doesn’t work. We’re still funding itAmerican Sexual BehaviorMuch of the fear around comprehensive sex education is rooted in the idea that modern day youth are more sexually active than ever before and are being encouraged to have sex by educators. But this couldn’t be further from the truth.Rates of premarital sex have remained about the same since the 1940sEven Grandma had premarital sex, survey findsTrends in Premarital Sex in the United States, 1954–2003The average age Americans lose their virginity has remained about the same since the Baby BoomersThe Boomers averaged at age 17.6. Millennials average at 17.4.Here's The Average Age People Lost Their Virginity In Each DecadeSome evidence suggests that teens today are having less sex than previous generationsAccording to recent research in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, millennials are less sexually active than their elders from Generation X and the Baby Boom, and with fewer people.Millennials Are Having Less Sex Than Other Gens, But Experts Say It's (Probably) FineCDC Report Shows Decline in Teen Sexual Activity, PregnancyResearch further suggests that teens and young people today are more likely to use contraception but still less likely when compared to European teensThe proportion of U.S. females aged 15–19 who used contraceptives the first time they had sex has increased, from 48% in 1982 to 79% in 2011–2013Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health in the United StatesWaiting for the right one? Teens are having sex later, CDC findsDespite being referred to as the “hookup generation”, most adolescents report that their first sexual experience happened within a relationshipAmong sexually experienced adolescents aged 15–19, 73% of females and 58% of males reported in 2006–2010 that their first sexual experience was with a steady partner, cohabitor, fiancé or spouseAdolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health in the United StatesAdolescent sexual activity is much more likely today to be described as wantedAdolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health in the United StatesLARC Birth ControlLong-Acting Reversible Birth Control has been shown to be highly effective at preventing pregnancy and has been shown to be safe to use for teens.Research has shown LARC to be 20 times more effective than birth control pills, the patch, or the vaginal ring.Understanding LARC |Despite it’s effectiveness and safety, few adolescents and young women are aware of these optionsRecent studies show a lack of knowledge about LARC methods among young women, as well as persistent misconceptions among providers regarding who is eligible for LARC use.Teen pregnancy prevention on a LARC: an update on long-acting reversible contraception for the primary care provider.Declines in teen pregnancy are primarily attributed to use of contraception, not to abstinence.Contraception accounted for 86% of the decline in teen pregnancies between 1995 and 2002, while abstinence accounted for 14%. Between 2003 and 2010, the proportion of teens who had ever had sex did not change, indicating that abstinence did not play a role in the teen pregnancy declines during that time. However, teen contraceptive use continued to improve during this period.Contraception Drives Decline in Teen Pregnancy—and Expanded Access to LARC Methods Could Accelerate this TrendThere is considerable evidence that LARC methods could continue to drive decreases in teen pregnancyBut that is only going to happen in adolescents and young women are aware that these options exist and can gain access to them.Conclusion of these SectionsAmerican premarital sex has remained the same across decades and across generations. Adolescents today are no more likely to be sexually active than before and in fact may even be less sexually active than in the past. They are more sexually responsible with use of contraceptives and they have better sexual attitudes and outcomes.Recent insistence on abstinence only education is ineffective, leads to worse outcomes and does not combat any of the issues it claims to be against.How it Hurts WomenUsually discussions of sex education end here. We talk about why abstinence until marriage does not work and why comprehensive sexual education is the better outcome.We do this, specifically, because there are lots of hysterics surrounding the idea of premarital sex in the United States despite the fact that most people are having it and have been having it for decades. Advocates and educators feel the need to walk on eggshells to avoid the hysterics by religious conservatives and politicians. I say it’s time to stop begging and appeasing for change and to fight back.Above, the answer briefly touched upon some of the obvious shortcomings of our current education. Abstinence only education tends to incorporate slut shaming into its narrative and focus disproportionately on shaming young girls who engage in sexual activity. And, since many young women are not educated about the birth control options available to them, they rely on less effective options like condoms.But the problem extends deeper than that. It extends even into comprehensive sexual education and the way that we teach teens to think about sex.Peggy Orenstein has published several books on the topic of young women and their attitudes towards sex and their role in sexual relationships.One of the main issues she touched upon was the fact that Americans tend to frame discussions of sex entirely around considerations of risks and and dangers. Comprehensive sexual education is no exception to this. It may have some in-depth discussions about anatomy and then focuses primarily on subjects like rape/sexual assault, contraception, pregnancy prevention and STD’s. And then ends there.In a comparison between American girls and Dutch girls in university we found that the Dutch girls had more favorable sexual outcomes:They had fewer negative outcomes such as STD’s, pregnancy or regret. They also had more positive outcomes, like good communication with their partner who they said they knew well, preparing responsibly for sex and reported enjoyment.The difference between the groups was that the Dutch girls reported that the people in their lives such as teachers, doctors and parents talked to them frankly about sex, sexual pleasure and the importance of mutual trust within their sexual relationships.Now if you contrast this with American sexual education, no such thing occurs. Almost no discussions of sex focus or revolve around the idea of sexual pleasure, let alone mutual pleasure. We might say the word ‘vagina’ or ‘vulva’ but we don’t mention the word clitoris.The Dutch parents tended to frame their discussions of sex around balancing sexual responsibility and enjoyment. And they saw far greater outcomes than we do in the US.And finally, if you think that the biggest obstacle is American parents and public themselves this does not totally seem to the case. American parents were not necessarily less comfortable discussing sex. In addition, research shows that the majority of American parents want their children to receive good sexual education in schools.More than 93 percent of parents place high importance on sex education in both middle and high school. Sex education in middle and high school is widely supported by parents regardless of their political affiliation.Parents’ views on sex education in schools: How much do Democrats and Republicans agree?In this answer I discussed some of the biggest sexual myths that affect young women: Lauren Campbell's answer to What are the biggest sexual myths?And I’ve discussed the problem with young women flocking towards getting risky cosmetic labiaplasty’s because they think that their natural vulvas are unnatural or undesirable: An Investigation Into The Disturbing Rise of Labiaplasty in Young Girls - SWAAYYoung girls are not having the most favorable sexual outcomes, not because “sex is bad” but because they are not being taught productively about sex, outside of fear and risks. They are not being educated about the most effective options for contraceptive use because there are a minority of hysterical fundamentalists who think that denying people information about contraception will prevent them from having sex. Girls are disproportionately affected by unplanned pregnancies. And lack of information about their body is leading to them pursuing cosmetic surgeries that have serious potential risks.This lack of sexual education is harming young women in a variety of different ways. And the more we frame this as a liberal vs religious debate the longer we are denying a few fundamental notionsEveryone is in agreement that we do not want a high rate of teen pregnancy or risky sexual behaviorMost Americans want their children to receive accurate and comprehensive sexual education in schoolsNone of us want to spend billions of federal dollars on programs that we know are ineffective at what they aim to reduceWomen and girls are disproportionately affected by lack of knowledge about their bodies and their contraceptive optionsMany other countries have established broad-sweeping sexual education courses that would make many American parents blush. But their outcomes are undeniably favorableConclusionLack of sexual education is an issue that harms everyone, men and women alike. However women disproportionately feel the consequences of having their access denied in the form of unwanted pregnancy, lower sexual fulfillment, slut-shaming and lack of access to the most effective contraception.For more information: What young women believe about their own sexual pleasure

Introduction:Providing some context for myself, I went to a smaller high school built exclusively for STEM subjects, and picked students from the surrounding areas that applied, so I have a bit of a different experience. I also took classes at other high schools during middle school, so I’ve been around a bit.A lot answers point out the flaws of a traditional school system, such as excessive use of memorization, lack of support, extensive stress, focus on getting into college and disparity in terms of background, skill level, etc.These things are around because they’re hard to fix.Causes:Some of it comes from the fact that the system is outdated. In today’s economy, it’s really really hard to be stuck inside one thing without rubbing shoulders against a bunch of other disciplines, and schools don’t reflect that. Colleges are more demanding than ever, so high schools are desperately trying to get their students to become more and more exceptional, at the cost of emotional support. Societies run faster, so there’s less time to do things. It doesn’t help that funding is poor in many places, as Gaberial Poelman pointed out.Some of it comes from the fact that, well, high school students are teenagers. They need time and experience to transform into adults (I’m almost 20, so I still feel the mental growth side quite a bit), and different people grow at different rates, depending on a whole host of factors. It’s not easy being a teenager, especially in a complex environment such as ours. Balancing school, work, entertainment, friends, etc, while you are also trying to become more emotionally mature and socially independent is really, really hard. You’re bound to screw up somewhere. I did. I’m sure a lot of other high schoolers feel the same way, especially given the pressure of college applications these days.And lastly, some of it comes from the inherent problem of a system that should have been individualized. Every person learns differently, and everyone needs a different way of approaching the same thing.Subjects:Take history, for instance. Some people prefer timelines, dates, and organized events. Some people are frustrated by the fact that history is never clear cut, so doing this whole timeline thing is arbitrary. As Brooke Schwartz mentioned, rote memorization is a problem. It should act as placeholder in STEM subjects, and be secondary in liberal subjects. History, in particular, should not be treated as a memorization subject. It defeats the purpose; to teach history is an attempt to educate your society on said society’s past achievements and problems, and to see where current problems come from. That takes discussion and time, neither of which classrooms can afford much of.With math, it’s even worse. The only way to achieve mathematics on a level proficient enough for an engineering major is to apply it, and apply it heavily. There’s no tricks, no way around this. You cannot go around learning Bernoulli, Navier-Stokes, or the Rocket Equation without a seriously solid background in calculus, and you have no chance in calculus without algebra solid enough to withstand and explosion of four or five variables. Algebra takes practice, hundreds, even thousands of problems of grinding through math.Now put in each of the other subjects, their own peculiarities, and add them on top of each other. What you end up with is a nightmare for both teachers and students, in a large part because no one can specialize enough at this early stage, and everyone is expected to do something. Given the efficiency of our education system, this becomes almost impossible. A student who was trained from an early age on how to study like me has an advantage. I kept my grades at the A line until the last year of high school. But this doesn’t prepare you for the actual subject, which is why APs are in question in a lot of universities. Why teach college prep classes when your kids are not ready for the subjects in college?In a lot of colleges, the people who teach you the subject are actual professors, who spent their lives dedicated to said subject. Learn a social studies topic? Someone wrote their thesis paper on it. Learn linear algebra? The woman you are listening to probably has a theorem named after her. Learn computer science? Maybe the professor wrote his own language.Against this kind of rigor, a half-shot, hastily assembled base is useless. And poor funding and bad teaching exasperates this. The only way to do it properly is to individualize the approach to every student, and that’s basically something the student has to learn from him or herself.Emotional Support, Sex Ed, and Counseling:On top of doing badly in the subjects that schools were supposed to teach, picking the right subject isn’t always great either. Living in a dorm or an apartment requires the student to probably know how to cook, how to keep a budget, and if they have a job, how to pay taxes. These things should probably be taught, not only by the parent, but also by the school. The education system is supposed to prepare the student to become a member of society, both productive and prosperous, and the backbone of a society is their ability to feed themselves and interact with each other, along with the ability to sustain their population, form meaningful relationships, and form families, whether traditional or not.It’s not just a question of more funding. It’s a question of how we’re approaching the problem. Counseling is important because to prepare a student for his or her future, there needs to be some sort of mentor who’s been there, as well as people who understand how the age group in high school are best served.You can’t just have a counselor who knows how to get kids into college, but you need at least that. High schools need a better understanding of how to teach sex ed, without being constrained by petty politics. An understanding of anatomy and physiology, contraceptive measures, and sexually-transmitted diseases should be taught. Better yet, understanding of healthy relationships and how to notice signs of depression and mental illnesses should also be included in a similar program, because people need that. People of all ages, but teenagers should be taught this in high school because they have a particular massive capacity to adapt and learn.What, and how, to Teach:How to learn is more important than what to learn, especially today. All the knowledge in the world is probably so massive no single society could have all of it at a time, let alone a single person, but people take different paths through life and they will need to know different things.High school, in particular, is a time where students are most available and willing to take in information, having the maturity to understand that they are growing, and the relatively blank slate of pre-adulthood, where they’re not shackled by social and financial responsibilities. This is the best time to teach them how to learn, how to study, and how to understand not only academic, but technical, social, and even political ideas and topics, because they’ll likely do that for at least four years in college. Ideally, high school students who go into college should be independent enough to live on their own, socially capable enough to make friends, and academically capable enough to not only approach a classroom, but a library or the Internet and start picking up things, finding out where to get mentors, building up knowledge with peers, etc. Some of these things come naturally from being around other high schoolers, but a lot of these could be improved with better approaches to high school education.Time, and Some Ideas to Solve These Problems:So how do we do all of this without killing the student? Here, we approach the final problem of the high school system. Students are burdened, overly so. Between extracurriculars and schoolwork, sleep time is lower than ever, and stress is higher than ever.A big part of this is to cut down on college applications. Give a better solution than 100,000 people applying to UCLA and only a few thousand getting in. Have more particularized rather than higher requirements, and lower costs for college so students don’t kill themselves maintaining a 4.0 for their scholarships. Lower requirements means spending more time on things you actually really need for longer futures. If you’re a STEM kid, you could afford to not play sports for 4 years in a row, and focus on building that app you always wanted. If you want to be an artist, you could apply based on your skills and talents. Grades reflect your competency in a subject, not your ability as a person; or at least, they should. Right now they do neither, and that wastes massive amounts of time.Homework is another big one. Math, English, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, all of these require practice. Large amounts of it. So make sure when you give homework, it’s as efficient as possible. A better mixture of problems and projects would help, because it’s as important to see things in a larger context as it is to be good at particular things.More teachers is another big one. Raise the pay, raise the reputation, and raise the amount of aides. Have more systems where talented students can help other students by becoming TAs in subjects, note-takers, and tutors. Use online learning to get the immediate summaries across, or even better, switch some homework time with some subject time. Particularly the earlier stages of teaching a STEM topic, because three heads are better than one, and there’s usually three heads in a classroom and one at home.Distill textbooks. Problems can be generated. Textbooks are not worksheets, and do not require page after page of problems no one bothers to use properly. Teachers need to do this, so you need more teachers and more TAs. Available manpower is a big problem in high schools when you look at it this way.None of these things, of course, will entirely alleviate the problem, because we have an old system to work with. But engineers don’t usually rip away the old thing entirely; they work with what they have, and what we have is a system capable of putting students in and putting some students out. Tweaks here and there, streamlining, and modifications could go a long way. It’s picking the right changes that is hard.

I could not provide you with statistics directly, since this is something that "falls through the cracks" in terms of statistical interest.Indirectly, I can observe a few things, and personally I can also observe a few. First, I can look at the unemployment rate for people with a degree of some description. Since you've specified "absent-minded professors," I'll look at people with an MA/MS and above.The unemployment rate for people with a Masters degree and above in the US is between 3.4 and 2.2%. (Earnings and unemployment rates by educational attainment)However, it is possible to be employed and still be unable to perform socially in some significant pattern. This is usually associated with some sort of mental illness or learning disorder. The rate for various mental illnesses and learning disorders in the general public in the US varies from around 14.9 to 28.3% for any sort of mental illness in the general US population. (Any Mental Illness (AMI) Among Adults)With a lower rate of unemployment than mental illness, it can be generally assumed (not strictly) that there is some overlap between mental illness and being employed, the extent to which is not known.People with major mental illnesses are less prevalent in the population, with an overall prevalence of 4.1%. (Serious Mental Illness (SMI) Among U.S. Adults) It's reasonable to assume a great deal of overlap between that population and the unemployed, both because major mental illness can be incapacitating, and because long-term unemployment can facilitate serious depression.In terms of disabilities, neurological or mental disorders lead the causes for granting disability, constituting 18.7% of the overall US DALY for 2010. (U.S. Leading Categories of Diseases/Disorders)Within the category of disability, I am most familiar with autism (and to some degree, it sounds like you are describing autism). Unemployment rates for people with autism are incredibly high: for young adults, only 32.5% of those with autism work for pay. The national average is 59% for 2009. Of young adults with autism spectrum disorders, only 29% were looking for work if they were unemployed, versus 47.7% overall job seeking among unemployed young adults. (Employment Research and Reports) After high school, the rate of employed autistic young adults drops sharply from 66 to 47% after ten years, and continues to drop.Other disabilities show a similar pattern. Overall, the unemployment rate for persons with disabilities is double that of persons without: 10.8% versus 5.3%, for the most recent BLS statistics. (U.S. Department of Labor)Of course, you've specified persons who are otherwise academically qualified, and overall disability statistics include persons who are not necessarily academically or professionally qualified.For that, I'll have to resort to something I'd rather not, and discuss IQ as a proxy for the ability to get those certifications--it's a poor proxy, since it's possible to be quite intelligent and not want to bother to pay the exorbitant amount of money needed to get professional and academic certifications. It's also a poor proxy because the test is highly cultural, and requires certain types of middle class cultural literacy (vocabulary, especially, requires library access and exposure to what are considered cannonical and classic literary texts--not everyone has exposure to those, whether intelligent or not.)A famous example of why IQ is a poor proxy for all this is in an anecdote given by a teacher: her children were asked to memorize the word "banister" for a vocabulary test. The vast majority of the children in her classroom lived in one story homes, or apartment buildings, and had nothing with which to associate the word, making it more difficult to memorize and associate the word with a definition. Because the vocabulary list for that test contained a number of words that referenced things outside the experience of her students, they struggled to memorize the content and performed poorly on the exams, leading to problems for the teacher and the perception that the class was less capable/able academically. This is symptomatic of why IQ tests and various measures are poor proxies, but is not by any means the only reason.Another example is in the following critique of association between IQ and educational attainment: Intelligence and education: causal perceptions drive analytic processes and therefore conclusions. The gist of the paper is that the connection between IQ and educational attainment is poorly specified and often taken for granted in papers on the two, and where it is explicitly conceptualized, it is done so in disparate ways that lead to poor specification overall of the relationship between the two.Nevertheless, I'll press forward with IQ and educational attainment. I do want to make it clear that it's not so easily associated, nor is it a clear proxy before discussing it, however.Inside the category disability, I am most familiar with autism statistics and will give those as an example for attainment, IQ and associated other. I should note here that autism is relatively rare, though diagnostic prevalence is growing. (Currently, it's roughly 1%: Facts About ASDs) The more common form of disability, mental illness, psychiatric disturbance or general other can and often is co-morbid with autism, but does not share the same diagnostic features. As a result, I may be understating the case a bit.As for IQ itself among populations with some sort of disability (the social and civic problems you mention are a form of disability), it generally measures low. For children with autism spectrum disorders, between 30 and 60% have IQ scores within the intellectual disability range. (Risk for cognitive deficit in a population-based sample of U.S. chi...)It is generally found, through a variety of mechanisms, that IQ, GPA and educational attainment are linked. This paper uses twin studies internationally, and finds a fair amount of support for that correlation. (Page on nih.gov) The authors do discuss environmental factors, which are an important and until recently ignored part of the expression of IQ, and find that correlations between what they estimate to be the genetic proportion of IQ expression and educational attainment drops off by 24, along with their other dimensions of IQ expression. In general, this lines up with overall educational attainment: only ~37% of the general US population goes to college and finishes a BA/BS in 2013. (Page on ed.gov)It's not clear that this is directly a result of IQ, though it seems reasonable to assume it plays some role in the ability to enter college and do academic work.Taken together, this suggests that the proportion of persons with disabilities who finish a BA/BS is smaller than average. And in fact, this is accurate, though the drop-off is less precipitous than you might assume. The data is from 2008, but states that roughly 20% of the workforce has at least a BA/BS and a disability. (CPS Work Disability Tables) The overall percentage of the labor force with a BA/BS is 31.2%, from the same table. The population ranges from 16 to 74 years of age.This, of course, is overall work disabilities, and non-specific. For persons with autism, the picture is largely mixed, in terms of academic or educational achievement. The vast majority of the studies done on educational attainment for people with autism are done on children, and pertain to early intervention programs. Research on adults is done based on the functioning model, which I've discussed elsewhere as leading to diagnostic and practical problems for understanding the ability to conceptualize daily functioning.This study attempts to qualify that difference for HFA (a group of which I am a part), noting that overall comprehension is impacted but mechanical tasks are not, which typically indicates an inability to do academic work at the college level. IQ is used here to specify whether or not the group is high functioning (in this case defined as having an IQ > 70): Academic achievement in high functioning autistic individuals The study does date from 1993, and a very different definition of autism, and results are not necessarily indicative of current trends.For gifted autistic students (IQ > 91st percentile), this trend is very different. The diagnosis of ASD, verbal comprehension and other forms of what they refer to as "academic acceleration" were not significantly correlated to the predictability of their academic achievement, suggesting that for people with ASD and a high IQ, their diagnosis is not determinative or suggestive of their ability to perform academically, whether for the better or worse. The study did find a correlation between working memory and processing speed with math, reading, and written language, but again this was not significantly correlated to predictability of educational attainment. (Predicting the academic achievement of gifted students with autism ...)The Teal Deer Summary:First, some significant portion of the population with disabilities that is unemployed, though it makes no claims with respect to whether or not they are unemployable, or simply unemployed. The government has made a significant effort to encourage the employment of disabled persons, but this has not necessarily encouraged employers to do so.Second, of persons with disabilities, autistic persons have much higher unemployment rates than normal (double the normal rate), and based on their IQ scores, their educational attainment may or may not be able to be predicted. The higher the IQ score, the less can be predicted by diagnosis.Third, people with disabilities constitute a fair chunk of the labor force, and especially the labor force with at least a bachelor's degree.Fourth, people with disabilities constitute a fair chunk of persons who are unemployed generally, at rates varying based on the disability.Fifth, and finally, people with mental or intellectual disabilities constitute the largest group of persons with disabilities.Conclusions:The question asked about prevalence for people with high educational attainment who manage to "slip through the cracks"--based on the previous, I'm going to have to say there are probably a significant chunk of people who do so, and that because high IQ and autism is unable to be correlated with educational attainment (and because it seems like that is the group the question is focused on), this group is probably heavily constituted of persons with autism and/or mental illnesses.Because autism is co-morbid with things like anxiety conditions, teasing out how much of each kind of person is in that group would actually require direct study, and a great deal of care taken in the process to ensure that the delineation between the categories was clear.If I had to guess, and this is a guess, I'd say somewhere in the neighborhood of 20% of persons with autism and/or mental illness and high educational attainment do not manage to attain the performance we associate with social or occupational success. Factors contributing to this may be anything from the inability to successfully negotiate bureaucracy or the daily social interactions required of occupation, to the inability to perform consistently due to the persistent cost of social, interpersonal, or functional interaction in populations that have issues with those interactions.Just from personal experience, and from listening to conversations on sites for people with autism, the mid-life crisis appears to hit people with disabilities particularly hard. Many report suffering a breakdown in their late thirties and early forties that lead them to unemployment, institutionalization and/or some sort of serious breakdown of social involvement. Causes vary, but are typically attributed to the inability to handle the stress caused by the long term requirement to compensate for disability, the burden of which is typically placed on the individual.They wear out or break down due to long term, persistent, malignant stress which they are typically forced to compensate for by themselves, or to hide from prospective employers--the unemployment rates are gathered on persons with a known disability, and generally speaking, people who are able to "hide" their disabilities tend to do so whenever possible.As a result, the numbers of persons with something that may qualify as a disability may be significantly higher than reported in the working population.The overall prospects for young adults with disabilities are equally bleak, as I discussed--problems with employment start nearly immediately in the working life of young adults with autism and other disabilities, and do not appear to get better over time.Generally speaking, I think it's fair to say this is a significant and persistent problem in the US.The current economic problems, including the trend of employing persons for part time work only and based on at will employment (both of which increase the stress levels of people who need stability for various reasons), is very probably a significant part of what I'd guess was the current rate of persons falling through the cracks--it's a problem for employment overall, and in especially vulnerable populations, is liable to have an increased effect.In addition to that, from personal experience attending job fairs for the disabled, employers often are reluctant to shoulder what they perceive to be the additional cost and burden of employing persons who may need accommodation. The job fairs I've attended have often featured employers who were very poorly informed about schedule A (in one case, most of the employers had no idea what schedule A was, let alone what disability or disability ratings mean), accommodations, the ADA, and seemed very lukewarm on the prospect of offering employment and accommodations to the disabled.Employers may have unrealistic expectations* of the disabled because of general ignorance on the topic, and may therefore decide that hiring them is not worth their time.It is worth noting that federal employment is a little more welcoming, and that there are tax breaks available to employers who hire disabled persons, but it has not been my observation (again from personal experience) that companies are particularly interested in these incentives.Overall, I'd say the picture is fairly negative here in the US.Again, much of this is guesswork and may not be indicative of the actual state of affairs, so do take me with a grain of salt, as the expression goes._______________________* As an example, employers may expect the disabled to be able to move across country on short notice. For people with physical disabilities, as well as those with mental illnesses, intellectual disabilities or other conditions that require a provider network, this may be impossible to do quickly.This process is compounded when the disability is relatively rare (for instance, when it affects 1% of the population--autism, for example....)Finding a provider who is educated on or has the correct facilities for relatively rare kinds of disabilities is not a quick process, and since care is split here in the US between public and private providers, it may be difficult to get referrals when one moves--your current providers may simply not have any connections in the area you're asked to move to, and getting provider networks without previous exchange protocols to exchange medical records can be incredibly difficult and time consuming.