Redefining What High School Students Learn

Abstract

PERHAPS a flat world makes it easier for lemmings to run faster. And maybe that's why our policy makers and assorted politicians seem to be following an agenda for K-12 education that could lead us all off the cliff. For once, the major issue is not just the No Child Left Behind Act's imposition of a business model of accountability on the nation's public schools. The new worry is the business community's sudden alarm about a dearth of math and science talent to fuel our competitiveness. So the President wants to pitch career and technical education (yet again) in favor of programs to stimulate math and science instruction, the governors are insisting that high school reforms focus on math and science, and almost every public official now speaks of a gloomy future if we don't swell enrollments in engineering and the sciences. For example, up to the very end of the most recent report on the gap in the manufacturing industry, released in 2005 by the National Association of Manufacturers, the shortage of math and science expertise seems to dominate the industry's concerns. Manufacturers across all sections of the country report shortages of technical and engineering employees. Yet one-third also face shortages of unskilled production employees. And then comes this revealing statement, literally on the last page of the report: To better understand which skill deficiencies among current employees significantly contribute to negative business performance, the most frequently cited concern is inadequate basic employability skills, including attendance, timeliness, and work ethic. This finding poses an interesting challenge to the public education system, the report notes. It certainly does. And it calls into question the pell-mell rush to embrace so-called rigor in the high school curriculum, which many students regard as irrelevant to them. It makes one wonder about the human costs of the high-stakes testing that consumes the life of schools at the expense of other values. And it challenges policies that push students of school prematurely--before they have had a chance to develop the skills that will serve them well in the workplace. The current campaign for high academic standards is becoming an either/or choice for students--a sort of take algebra II or get out kind of dilemma. Students do need to have basic competencies they can build on later in life, and every student should be challenged to reach his or her fullest potential. Without any doubt, poor and minority children need to have a fair shot at the advanced courses that lead to math- and science-based professions. In fact, if we don't make that happen, our pool of researchers and engineers will truly shrink to dangerous levels because one-third of the school population will soon be either low-income or minority or both. (Incidentally, white, higher-income high school students in this country compete well on international tests in math. Our poor children, however, do worse than poor children in other countries.) Judging by the increasing dropout rates and widespread lack of student engagement in learning, it seems that too many young people are turned off by the punitive methods being used to make them better students. Some of the blame must be laid at the door of educators who have lost their sense of purpose. At a time when young people crave mentoring by adults and want some clarity about values in their lives, schools give them drill-and-kill education. Even advanced students are feeling cheated as they waste time underlining phrases instead of studying rich literature in order to prepare for state tests that mean little to their future. …