http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/education_futures/2015/08/10_reasons_the_us_education_system_is_failing.html?_ga=1.127480974.2017019900.1470268009
From 10 Reasons the U.S. Education System Is Failing b
80 percent of students are graduating high school…yet less than half of these students are ready for what’s next.
The U.S. Education Department reports that the high school graduation rate is at an all-time high at 80 percent. Four out of five students are successful in studies completion and graduate within four years. While these statistics sound like a reason for a standing ovation, they are overshadowed by the crisis that is sweeping the United States. While 80 percent of high school seniors receive a diploma, less than half of those are able to proficiently read or complete math problems.
The problem is that students are being passed on to the next grade when they should be held back, and then they are unable to complete grade-level work and keep up with their classmates.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the largest standardized test administered in the United States, reports that fewer than 40 percent of graduating seniors have mastered reading and math and are poorly equipped for college and real world life. These students who are passed to the next grade are at a serious disadvantage and have an increased chance of falling behind and dropping out of college.
The following is item # 8 on the list. I find the placement of # 8 to be funny. Above # 8, we have parent involvement, school crowding and lack of diversity in gifted education among others. Overcrowding is # 3 and gifted education is # 5. Ummm… odd order to this list. It’s like making a list of hazards in Jurassic Park and putting the T-Rex and raptors after food-borne pathogens in the potato salad.
But, whatever, it’s a good list and I wanted to put these numbers out. That group of more than half of high school graduates who cannot read well and complete math problems? They received a high school diploma for their efforts. They are done now. Very, very few of these students who cannot read proficiently by the age of 18 will manage to finish a university or even a community college program. As we graduate more of these students, we are also devaluing the high school diploma. When I received my diploma, an employer could be assured that my diploma combined with my high G.P.A. guaranteed basic literacy. Now, no such reassurance can be offered.
Eduhonesty: Some countries have exit tests set up at various grades. If you don’t pass the 3rd grade exit test, you don’t go on to 4th grade. Maybe the U.S. needs to consider these tests. If students cannot pass, they are not promoted. Schools should then provide intensive tutoring to help students pass their test, allowing retakes near summer’s end. I’d also allow kids to stay in school longer than the 20-year-old cut-off in most states. If a student drops out, that student should be able to get back on the bus if they realize their mistake quickly enough.
This business of passing kids along ,has to stop. Social advantages to being kept with students of your own age aside, what’s the good of a diploma that does not even guarantee that you can read, write and do basic math? Eventually that diploma will only be slightly more (less?) valuable than toilet paper to graduates. Many positions that used to require only a high school education now require some college or even a college degree. For an employer, college has become proof of literacy that a high school diploma can no longer provide.
Those kids who graduated unable to write a coherent paragraph or tally up their restaurant bill? At some stage, we had stopped teaching them and started babysitting them. I’m not blaming teachers here. When a sixteen-year-old boy takes his mind off the educational market, often a teacher can do little or nothing. I have called home on various “Freddies.” I have talked for hours to counselors, parents and truant officers, while Freddie went to his girlfriend’s house to smoke dope and then sometimes wandered in late with bloodshot eyes, no book, no pencil and a goofy smile.
I’d like to make an observation from time in the trenches: Some of our Freddies make it to high school graduation. They receive enough “D” grades in place of earned “F” grades to make credit totals.* Attempts to increase school graduation rates keep administrators from showing our Freddies to the door. In the end, though, our kindest move might be booting Freddie at sixteen so that he could go to work mowing lawns or serving burgers. We could then offer him a chance at night school so he can catch up, graduate high school and become the literate graduate we ought to be sending out into the world.
*Favorite quote from a past professional development: “A “D” is a coward’s “F.”