I saw this story on the ABC news website:
Only one in four college-bound high school graduates is adequately prepared for college-level English, reading, math and science, according to report released Wednesday by the ACT college admissions test.
Some 28 percent of the members of the high school class of 2011 failed to meet readiness benchmarks in any of the four core subject areas.
“ACT results continue to show an alarmingly high number of students who are graduating without all the academic skills they need to succeed after high school,” the report stated.
The study also revealed a wide “achievement gap” between racial and ethnic groups.
The article then reveals data showing dismal academic achievement numbers for white and Asian-American students, and really dismal numbers for African Americans and Latinos.
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Time magazine recently ran a story called “Dropout Nation.” The author wrote,
In today’s data-happy era of accountability, testing and No Child Left Behind, here is the most astonishing statistic in the whole field of education: an increasing number of researchers are saying that nearly 1 out of 3 public high school students won’t graduate. . . . For Latinos and African Americans, the rate approaches an alarming 50%.
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My friend runs a great public school that proudly announces to anyone and everyone that mandatory academic learning is not the first focus of the school.
Instead, my friend and his team support kids in getting out in the community, helping them connect with mentors around an area that the student finds interesting, then using that experience as the entry way into deeper learning. All of his measurable data is on whether the students feel respected at school, whether students feels like their education is meaningful, and whether students feel like they’re prepared for life after high school. The school’s numbers are the best in the district.
Some observers are outraged that students are not being drilled daily in the traditional academic disciplines. How will they learn the material? they ask.
“They’re not learning it anyway,” my friend says flatly.
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His point, I think, is that it’s no longer acceptable to question new ways of thinking about school simply by pointing out that it’s different from what we’re used to. The data on our current model of education is in, and it’s terrible. We don’t have the luxury of dithering, sticking with the status quo, waiting for someone to come along and change the system.
The first step in changing the system is to stop doing things that we know in advance will fail. We must start trying new things, reflecting on what happened, and then doing more of the things that worked and less of what didn’t work.
Then, repeat the process.
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