According to Tony Wagner in his book The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don’t Teach the New Survival Skills Our Children Need–and What We Can Do About It (2008), the education system in the United States needs to come to terms with some hard facts about our educational system:
- The high school graduation rate in the United States is about 70%, well behind the countries of Denmark (96 percent), Japan (93 percent), Poland (92 percent), and Italy (79 percent).
- Sixty-five percent of college professors report that what is taught in high school does not prepare students for college. One major reason is that the tests students must take in high school are primarily multiple choice assessments. They rarely ask students to explain their reasoning or to apply knowledge to new situations, so neither teachers nor students receive useful feedback about college readiness.
- In order to earn a decent wage in today’s economy, students will need some type of postsecondary education. Whether it is in a four year college, two year college, or technical school, it is estimated that 85% of current jobs and 90% of the fastest growing jobs now require a postsecondary education.
- The United States ranks 10th in industrial nations in the rate of college completion by 25 to 44 year olds.
- In 1968, the percent of the population of the United States earning a baccalaureate degree in the age group of 25-34 year olds was 25%, ranked number one in the world. In 2006, the percentage increased to 30%, a growth of 5% over 38 years, but the United States had fallen to 6th in the world, and last in the percentage of growth (King, 2010).
- Only about one third of U.S. high school students that graduate are ready for college today. Fifty-four percent of students entering certificate and degree programs at Kentucky’s public postsecondary institutions in 2002 were under-prepared for college-level coursework in mathematics, English, or reading. Forty-one percent were underprepared in mathematics, and 27 percent were under-prepared in English (DeAtley, 2010).
In today’s highly competitive global economy, all students need skills for college, career, workplace, leadership, and citizenship. The failure to give our students these skills leaves our youth and our country at an alarming competitive disadvantage. Schools have not changed; the world has and because our schools have not changed, they are not failing; they are becoming obsolete (Wagner, 2008).
According to Harris, Leithwood and Strauss (2010), the reasons for school failure start at the school level. Poor teaching is condoned, weak leadership is tolerated, and the dominant view, “What can you do with these kids?” is driven by low expectations. Poor teacher quality, such as poor classroom instruction, inadequate teacher knowledge and skills, limited teacher experience, and low teacher morale, are the results of ineffective leadership, and inadequate resources and are common causes of school failure (Harris, et al.,2010).
So, what kind of schools do we need? A better question is, what kind of schools do we need that will raise the United States to be a leader in the educational world?
Lenotte (Lezotte?) and Snyder in their book, What Effective Schools Do: Re-Envisioning the Correlates (2011), defined an effective school as: “… built on a foundation of high expectations, strong leadership, unwavering commitment to learning-for-all, collaboration, differentiated instruction, and frequent monitoring of student progress.” They list seven correlates that schools need to be successful: high expectations for success, strong instructional leadership, clear and focused mission, opportunity to learn, frequent monitoring of student progress, safe and orderly environment, and positive home and school relations.
According to the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) Accreditation Standards for Quality School Systems (2010), in order for a school to be considered a quality school system, it must meet standards related to: vision and purpose, governance and leadership, teaching and learning, documenting and using results, resources and support systems, stakeholder and community relationships, and commitment to continuous improvement. Throughout school reform, SACS has attempted to restructure schools to meet accountability demands. The central purpose of SACS is the improvement of education in the southern United States through the process of accreditation. Accreditation is a voluntary process of evaluation concerned with quality and assuring the public that members of accredited institutions meet established standards. The SACS school improvement process embraces the concepts of shared governance and the school improvement process. According to the bylaws of SACS, accreditation involves three phases: planning, peer review, and implementation for continuous improvement (Bruner & Brantly, 2004).
Even though the process for improvement outlined by SACS has components similar to effective schools research which has a significant research base, not all research on SACS accreditation for public schools demonstrates significant improvement from using the process. Brantly and Bruner’s (2004) research on SACS accreditation’s impact on elementary student performance found that there were no significant differences between SACS accredited and non-SACS accredited elementary schools as measured by standardized achievement tests in reading and mathematics on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS). One explanation why non-SACS accredited schools and SACS accredited schools performed the same on standardized tests is that in the past few years, states have been legislating planning processes whereby schools develop school improvement plans that will assist them in accomplishing the outcomes established by their respective state boards of education. Research conducted by Brantly and Bruner(2004) through their survey of school principals reinforces that both SACS and non-SACS accredited elementary schools implemented shared governance and both had developed shared vision, mission, and belief statements that guided improvement efforts. The increased demand for accountability for student achievement by the states has provoked non-SACS accredited schools to examine their strengths and weakness and to make plans for improvement as is required of SACS accredited schools. A review of the improvement process of SACS and states that require school improvement plans reveal similarities in the elements of the process and products produced by the schools.
Bruner, D. Y. & Brantley, L. L. (2004, July 22). Southern Association of Colleges and Schools accreditation: Impact on elementary student performance, Education Policy Analysis Archives, 12(34). Retrieved [date] from http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v12n34/.
DeAtley, J. (2010). The next era of reform: senate bill 1, standards and success. Proceedings of the Bridging the Gaps: Connecting Standards to Success, http://cpe.ky.gov/news/presentations.htm
Leithwood, K, Harris, A, & Strauss, T. (2010). Leading school turnaround: how successful leaders transform low-performing schools. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Wagner, T. (2010). The global achievement gap: why even our best schools don’t teach the new survival skills our children need–and what we can do about it. New York, NY: Basic Books.
The Prepared Student 