High schools should be better aligned with higher education
10/28/03 -- "High schools are the most deeply troubled of our public school institutions," charges Marc Tucker, president of the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE).
"A majority of students lack incentives to take tough courses or to study hard, and many find school boring and often alienating," he says. "A large fraction fail to graduate. And many of those who do earn diplomas lack the knowledge and skills they need to acquire good jobs or to be successful in college."
Tucker spoke at a conference on high school reform convened in September by NCEE and the National Governors Association's (NGA) Center for Best Practices.
Speakers at the conference discussed strategies to create multiple high school models that do a better job of linking high school instruction to postsecondary education and the skills needed for success in the workplace.
Several of the speakers also recommended a more rigorous high school curriculum, clearly articulated standards for higher education, and that students in their last two years of high school be given more choices.
According to Tucker, "high school may be the most important but least successful link" in the education system. "Improving the performance of our secondary education system is the greatest unaddressed challenge in school reform."
Dane Linn, director of the NGA Center's Education Division, says the standards movement of the past 10 to 15 years mostly addresses elementary schooling and neglects high schools.
"We can no longer allow students to graduate unprepared for college and without the skills they need for the workplace," Linn says. According to Linn, 29 percent of college freshman must take remedial courses in college.
The Danish model
Hilary Pennington, president of Jobs for the Future, says we need to think of high schools as part of a continuum with postsecondary education. "No one can make a decent wage without some postsecondary education. It makes a lifetime difference in earnings."
According to Pennington, of 100 students who enter high school, 67 will graduate, 38 will go to college, and just 18 will get an associate's degree or a bachelor's degree.
One model of secondary schooling attracting interest among U.S. policymakers is the Danish system, which does a better job of linking secondary schooling with postsecondary training.
Roland Svarrer Osterlund, director of the Danish Ministry of Education, explained how it works: Danish youths attend a folkeskole from ages 7 to 16 which provides a demanding national curriculum. During their last year there, ninth grade, they take a set of national exams in core subjects.
After that, students can end their formal schooling, take an optional 10th year as a "bridge-building year," or move on to what Osterlund calls the "upper secondary" level of education: They can either go to gymnasiums, offering three-year academic programs that prepare students for university studies; three-year technical or commercial "vocational colleges"; or what he calls "sandwich programs," apprenticeship programs that include both school and work site components.
NCEE Vice President Judy Codding says about 55 percent of Danish students take the extra 10th year, and there is no stigma attached to those who do. Students use the extra year to make decisions about their future or prepare for exams.
Some U.S. education leaders questioned whether the Danish model could be adapted to the U.S. education system.
Sylvia Robinson, the education adviser to Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, says we would have to change the public's mostly negative attitude toward vocational education.
Florida Education Commissioner Jim Horne raised the question of whether 16-year-olds can make a decision that will affect the rest of their lives. He also noted the difficulty of linking high schools and postsecondary schools when they have different governing bodies.
Reforms under way
Several school districts and states already are carrying out successful high school reform efforts.
University Park Campus School in Worcester, Mass., for example, requires every student in grades 7-12 to take a rigorous college preparatory program.
Expectations are aligned with the requirements of postsecondary programs, Pennington says, and the school offers internships to help students connect with the outside world. Thanks to a partnership with Clark University, every student who graduates with at least a B average gets free tuition at Clark.
The New York City school system has plans to create 100 new, small high schools that are academically rigorous with help from private business and university partners, says Michelle Cahill, senior counselor for education policy for the city's education department.
The city has already established more than 30 of these schools, using a $51 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
These schools, which are replacing large high schools, are focusing on intensive English language literacy and strategies to engage disconnected youths, Cahill says. In the program's second year, she says, the district received 15,000 applications for 2,000 slots.
Policy recommendations
Tucker calls for policymakers to adopt a system with clear expectations and high standards for both students and schools. At the heart of this system would be "gateways," standardized exams that students must pass at key points in their academic careers.
The first such gateway, for example, would be a rigorous assessment that students would have to pass to advance to the upper division of high school -- 11th and 12th grades.
Tucker calls for state legislation to allow every student who meets the standard in high school to go directly to a community college or a four-year college. If students are ready for college early, he says, "Why spend two more years in high school?"
Other gateways would be exams students must pass to be admitted to the upper years of a less-demanding four-year college and for technical degree programs in postsecondary institutions.
When students leave high school, they should be prepared for college without the need for remediation, Tucker says. A more rigorous curriculum and more choices after the second year of high school would lead to more motivated students.
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| Reproduced with permission from the 2003 issue of School Board News. Copyright © 2003, National School Boards Association. Opinions expressed in this newspaper do not necessarily reflect positions of NSBA. This article may be printed out and photocopied for individual or educational use, provided this copyright notice appears on each copy. This article may not be otherwise transmitted or reproduced in print or electronic form without the consent of the Publisher. For more information, call (703) 838-6789. |