February 2008
Tomorrow's Leaders, Today's Challenge
By Gene R. Carter, Executive Director, ASCD
Last month, the Baltimore City Public School System announced that it will pay high school students up to $110 for raising their scores on Maryland's graduation exams. As part of an initiative to improve student performance in the city's schools, the cash rewards will specifically target those who have previously failed at least one of the state's exams. Although the Baltimore school system is not the first to reward students with cash, media coverage highlighted concerns from educators, parents, and students about the appropriateness and effectiveness of the measure.
Whether or not the cash will help to raise exam scores in Baltimore, the factors that led officials to offer the incentive highlight a challenge facing school systems throughout the United States: how to provide students at all levels with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in school, work, and life in the increasingly global and competitive 21st century.
A 2005 survey of U.S. high school dropouts sheds some light on why the current education system is not reaching all of our students. The survey, conducted for the Gates Foundation, showed that of those who dropped out
- Almost half (47 percent) cited a lack of interest in class as a reason. They reported being bored and disengaged from high school.
- Almost 70 percent said they were not motivated to work hard. Many felt that they could have graduated had more been demanded of them academically.
These responses beg the question of whether students like those in Baltimore are not capable of doing the work, or whether they are just not engaged in it. Although the city wants to inspire and motivate those most at risk of failing or dropping out of school, the cash incentive may be too little too late. If students do accept the offer and improve their scores, what happens next? The learning ends with the reward.
It is widely accepted that significant improvements in training today's students, tomorrow's workforce, will require real change in current education practice. We cannot continue to allow disengagement to cause our students to fail or drop out of school. A 2006 paper released by the Consortium for Entrepreneurship Education makes the case that entrepreneurship education "reach[es] out to kids who lack interest in traditional learning models or approaches" and that "students of all kinds, from the disaffected to the gifted and talented, can be motivated to dream big dreams and work to make them happen." In the Baltimore example, what would happen if students were instead given a small sum and then equipped with the knowledge and skills to grow it through investment? In addition to earning more money, they would be more actively engaged and gain financial skills they could use for the rest of their lives.
Educators, policymakers, business leaders, and parents must face the facts. In the world's most advanced economies and in those experiencing rapid development, skills are now a major factor driving economic growth and broader social outcomes. Children are growing up in a more interconnected world that demands a highly skilled and educated workforce. Fixing the situation in Baltimore and around the United States requires more than stopgap measures; it requires a paradigm shift from a one-size-fits-all education model to a system that instills 21st century skills such as entrepreneurship in our students.
Many member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development have already included entrepreneurship in their national education curricula, but in the United States, although programs do exist, the vast majority of students cannot easily access these opportunities. To change this, the Youth Entrepreneurship Strategy Group, which consists of national leaders from the fields of education, youth development, public policy, and business, has begun a discussion to develop and implement a strategy to offer entrepreneurship education in U.S. public schools.
The addition of entrepreneurial education need not constitute a new curriculum or another mandate. Rather, as the Consortium for Entrepreneurship Education emphasizes, integrating entrepreneurship into already-existing curricula—for example, by enabling students to apply key math and science concepts to real-life situations—will more fully engage them in their learning and better prepare them for the challenges of the world they will be asked to lead.