Jobs are top of mind for most Americans, not only those needing work to help their families make ends meet, but also politicians who hope to keep their jobs on Election Day 2012. As many of us ask, "Where are the jobs?" an equally important question is, "Where are the workers?"
Business leaders who have asked that question don't like the answer. According to recent data from The Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, by 2018, our economy will fall 3 million employees short of the 22 million college-educated workers it needs to thrive. The bottom line is that millions of high school students who should be acquiring the education and skills that will enable them to lead the 21st century global economy are being shortchanged by America's public school system. Members of Congress have the opportunity to reverse that trend, and if they don't take action, our nation's future is in serious jeopardy.
A chorus of voices is now unified in challenging Congress to act immediately to ensure that our public education system truly works for all students through the long-awaited re-authorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).
The Campaign for High School Equity (CHSE), a diverse coalition of leading civil rights and education advocacy organizations primarily representing students of color, recently unveiled its Plan for Success to guarantee that all high school students graduate ready for college or the workforce regardless of race, ethnicity, income, or ZIP code. The plan is a comprehensive framework for the strong federal leadership that is necessary to make this a reality.
When it comes to preparing our young people to meet the demands of the 21st century workforce, there are at least two things we know for certain:
ESEA must also guarantee a well-designed accountability system that ensures public access to high-quality and transparent academic performance and graduation data to make certain that schools are serving our children well. The purpose of strong accountability is not to unfairly penalize schools, but rather to identify low-performing schools and help them improve. Our accountability system, therefore, must require schools to accurately and publicly report the academic progress of all students, including racial and ethnic subgroups, and it must place graduation rates on equal footing with college- and work-readiness in determining school quality.
In order to make up the anticipated shortfall of highly educated workers, America must graduate a half million more high school students each year. Students of color are the fastest growing segment of the nation's future workforce. According to the Alliance for Excellent Education, by cutting the dropout rate of students of color and Native students in half, we can generate more than $4.5 billion in lifetime personal earnings and add $412 million in state tax revenue each year. Clearly, we have a tremendous stake in ensuring that all high school students have access to a rigorous and high quality education.
ESEA has not been reauthorized since the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001. Every year that goes by without re-authorization is another year wasted--another year in which 1.3 million students leave high school without the education they need to succeed in the workforce and serve as informed participants in our democracy. One wonders exactly how many years we have left to give them the education on which our nation's prosperity and stability surely depends before the opportunity disappears--and we all pay the price.
Follow Michael Wotorson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@hsequity
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Before people call me names, think about this: in order to succeed in schools, many students must adopt attitudes and behaviors different from their parents, and this is particularly true of parents who did poorly themselves. When students are faced with choosing between parents and school, most will choose parents.
But, predictably, he is wrong about most of the points, such as a "great teacher" can overcome any problem studetnts bring to school and that bringing down the hammer of "accountability" (funny how that only seems to apply to education these days--not anyone else) is the cure for all educational challenges.
Thomas Friedman--who is so brilliant and is able to get to the reality of issues--had this to say about why America is not "number 1": http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/opinion/12friedman.html . Pay particular attention to the paragraph about student motivation. He writes exactly what the systemically insumountable obstacle is in just a few sentences. Then, he goes on to explain how a flat world is much different now than it used to be.
This is why the people who keep insisting that America is #1 and we need to "take our county back" will be forever disappointed that they can't go back in time when America was the only super power. Now the power is more distributed than concentrated, and they can protest and pretend all they want, but the world is going forward, not backward. And students do have to work to be part of it, but that Mr. Wotorson and others refuse to acknowledge.
You know what American industry can't find enough of?-- welders. Send me a qualified welder and I can have him well-employed tomorrow.
Not enough college grads? I'd love to see some figures on that, but how we got from that assertion to the notion that US high schools aren't coming through is a mystery. We might as easily conclude that in the current economic climate and with college tuition going through the roof, college has become a privilege for only the very wealthy.
But the most ridiculous assertion in this stack of ridiculous assertions is that ESEA would help with any of this. NCLB has guaranteed that schools will produce students less prepared for college (unless you're sending them to the University of Bubble Testing).
Well, where are the jobs we're preparing our students for? They're being outsourced overseas to save a buck and boost profits.
Sorry but I'm not taking education direction from the corporations of this country. Some of the same ones that contributed to our current economic disaster. They aren't going to balance their account books using education tax dollars. That's their goal. Privatization is all about getting the money, no educating students or "reforming" education.
Mr. Wotorson needs to display his research skills. First he needs to read about he five myths about education because he's promoting some of them. Second, he needs to back up his claims with citations. Please prove through independent peer reviewed research that: 1. Quality teaching outweighs students' social and economic background as the single most important factor influencing student academic outcomes, including graduation and 2. Strong school accountability is essential to ensuring academic success and lowering dropout rates.
Reauthorizing ESEA can't be done without revisions.
But NCLB and Race to the Top need to go. they are hurting students, not helping them.
Mr. Wotorson. You know the one thing that will support achieving your goals. A certificated teacher librarian in a library in every public school K-12 to start. Pre-school of all right behind. Ready to put your money where your mouth is?
Quality teaching outweighs students' social and economic background as the single most important SCHOOL factor influencing student academic outcomes, including graduation.
The single most important factor influencing student academic outcomes are the parents. Does this really surprise anyone? There is a mountain of research to support this, but if that doesn't convince you, just use common sense. Yes, the parents are more influential than teachers.
This mistake, constantly perpetuated by the media, hurts disadvantaged children the most because it misleads their parents into thinking they can just turn their sons and daughters over to the school "to get educated." In the meantime the parents of the privileged children are out buying educational toys and books before the child is even born. Research tells us that the achievement gap is firmly established before the child even enters school. This is because the informal education provided by the parents is the most powerful in a child's life. Of course, familial attitudes and values are extremely important too.
Please, Mr. Wotorson, do a little research before you write another article on this subject. This bit of misinformation has been extremely harmful to education. Parents need to know they are Number One in the education of their children.
Family background and environment dominate over the quality of the teaching. When my kids have a bad teacher, I teach them. Homework has to be done before TV and video games. I drilled my kids on their math facts - flash cards anyone - until they knew them. I took them to the library once or twice a week. I prefer that they be taught in the schools - it is much easier on my wife and myself. But it is our responsibility to see that they are properly educated and when the schools fail, it is our job to make sure that they learn and to make sure that they work - and learn to work.
It is not the school's responsibility to force educate unwilling students - nobody and nothing can do that. It is the school's responsibility to provide an opportunity to learn and an environment that is conducive to learning (the second is less common than the first). Hopefully, students will find teachers that inspire them, but this is not a requirement for teachers - it is too rare and probably requires an psychological match that does not occur frequently
To anybody out there who wants to do the right thing for kids, but doesn't want to take the trouble to get informed: find out what this guy suggests, then do the opposite.