When those of us of a certain age lament the loss of public education's good old days, we forget—or perhaps never knew—that when we were in school, there were large numbers of youngsters who dropped out and went to work. We didn't think of them as dropouts. They had no trouble finding jobs: there was plenty of work for semiskilled, even unskilled, workers. Today, however, as those jobs have been exported to other countries and as the U.S. knowledge economy produces proportionally less employment for those who lack a sound education, students who leave school without skills have meager prospects. Unlike in the past, today we have to educate virtually everyone for higher education or for the modern workplace. And because the demands we place on our school system are greater than in the past, the challenge of improving public education is more acute than ever before, too.
Urban schools, in particular, seem trapped in a spiral of poor educational performance. They have 24 percent of all U.S. public school students, 35 percent of all students who are poor, and 43 percent of minority students. A massive survey of urban education released last year by the respected publication, Education Week, concluded that "most fourth-graders who live in U.S. cities can't read and understand a simple children's book, and most eighth-graders can't use arithmetic to solve a practical problem." Slightly more than half of big-city students are unable to complete high school in the customary four years, and many of those who do eventually graduate are ill prepared for either higher education or the workplace.
Public Agenda, a nonpartisan research organization, recently surveyed 450 employers in New York City for the New York City Partnership and Chamber of Commerce and found massive dissatisfaction with the poor preparation of students. Fully 86 percent of the bosses reported their belief that a city high school diploma is "no guarantee that the typical student has learned the basics." Only 7 percent believe that students coming from the city's public schools have the skills they need to succeed in the world of work. Employers especially fretted over students' lack of the most basic skills, citing their poor grammar, spelling, and math, their inability to write clearly or speak English well, and their poor work habits, including disorganization and lateness. Most employers think that the school system does a poor job of managing its resources, and nearly 90 percent agree that the system suffers from "too much bureaucracy." Some 95 percent believe that the system needs fundamental change, and one-third go so far as to say that it needs to be "completely rebuilt." Employers stand ready to help the schools; but in return they want higher standards, reduced bureaucracy, and accountability from them.
The glaring need for remedial education on college campuses is another sign that students are graduating from high school with weak skills. At some branches of the City University of New York, as is notorious, a majority of first-year students fail to pass all three placement tests in reading, writing, and mathematics. But this is not just a New York City problem or even just a big-city problem. Nationally, about 30 percent of all first-time freshmen have to take a remedial course in basic academic skills.
Clearly, some students—recent immigrants or adults who have been out of school for several years and have returned—will need extra help to participate in higher education. But it is also clear that many young people are completing high school without getting a high school education. For everyone involved, it would be far better to g
Given the ever more crucial need for a strong public school system, along with the mounting evidence of the education system's failure to respond, the clamor to change education to make it more effective for all students is intensifying. The changes needed—and some of them already are starting to happen—are of two kinds, and they complement and reinforce each other.
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