June 2008
Beyond High School Reform
By Gene R. Carter, Executive Director, ASCD
What comes to mind when you hear the words digital, flexible, global, personalized, rigorous, and relevant? To educators, these words might describe learning in the 21st century. Now, what do you think about when you hear words like antiquated, failing, one-size-fits-all, unprepared, and dropout? "Oh," you say, "high schools."
In this dichotomy, the contrast between where U.S. high school education is and where it needs to be is clear. It has been for decades, the authors in the May 2008 issue of Educational Leadership point out. Although significant attention has been given to improving education in the elementary grades, when it comes to high schools, Bob Wise, former governor of West Virginia and president of the Alliance for Excellent Education, writes, "National efforts have, for the most part, simply propped up an antiquated system instead of rethinking and repairing it" (p. 10).
This month, as high school students across the United States receive their diplomas, our failure to improve that system will be evident in the number of students who don't. Studies of graduation rates indicate that nearly one-third of high school students drop out before graduating. That means that one student drops out every 26 seconds; between 6,000 and 7,000 drop out every school day; and 1.2 million drop out every year. Among African American and Hispanic students, the graduation rate is about 55 percent, or roughly one in every two students.
Furthermore, the studies raise questions about whether the students who do graduate will be prepared with the problem-solving, critical-thinking, and oral and written communication skills needed to succeed in an increasingly global market—questions that are echoed in the public's perception of high schools as reported in last year's Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll. The poll found that 40 percent of respondents do not think most public school students leave high school prepared for college, while 50 percent think the same students do not leave school prepared to do skilled jobs.
Some high schools, however, have turned the system and those perceptions upside down, and instead of "re-forming" what does not work in the current model, they are developing new models. In the May Educational Leadership, authors Linda Darling-Hammond and Diane Friedlaender describe five urban California high schools that, despite being nonselective in their admissions and serving mostly low-income students of color, have significantly raised student graduation and college attendance rates above the state average. The authors cite personalization, rigorous and relevant instruction, and professional collaboration as common elements in each of the five schools. Unfortunately, though, these schools are the exception, not the norm. "Unless policy systems change," the authors write, "these schools will remain anomalies rather than harbingers of the future" (p. 21).
ASCD agrees that a policy change is needed to reverse the startlingly high dropout rates, lack of student engagement, and inadequate flexibility that stifle rather than promote innovation in our nation's high schools. The Association has made high school redesign a top legislative priority and, with the help of its Educator Advocates, is working to build support in the U.S. Congress for the Getting Retention and Diplomas Up Among Today's Enrolled Students (GRADUATES) Act.
The GRADUATES Act reflects much of what ASCD has proposed for high school redesign. It will increase student engagement and reduce dropout rates by providing multiple pathways to graduation, smaller learning communities and personalization, mentoring programs, career academies, expanded learning time, work-based learning opportunities, and increased autonomy and scheduling flexibility at the school level. All of these approaches have the potential to create evidence-based, systemic, and replicable models for high school redesign that improve student achievement and prepare students to succeed in postsecondary education and the 21st century workforce.
Creating schools that are more in line with educators' ideas of 21st century learning will require the participation of parents and caregivers, community members, business partners, and policymakers at all levels. For the dedicated educators who struggle to engage students in an outdated system, for the businesses and community organizations that demand a workforce equipped with the critical-thinking and problem-solving skills needed to fuel success, and most of all for the students who will be tomorrow's leaders, we must move beyond the talk of high school reform. We must move to action.
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