School improvement or schooling improvement?
I have many opportunities to speak to school groups, policymakers, educational leaders, and educators at all levels. On many occasions after speaking to these groups or individuals, I am sought out to have conversations about improving education. So I have given a great deal of thought to the issues surrounding school improvement.
In many cases I believe we are and asking, or answering, the wrong questions. One of those issues is the idea of school improvement. It is my opinion that we are not trying to improve schools but rather we are trying to improve schooling.
Let me explain what I mean. I think that we are working very, very hard to get better at what we’ve always done in schools. The question, I think, we should be asking and answering is, what should we be doing in schools instead of what we’re doing, to better prepare kids for their future.
I would estimate that we spend at least 80% of a child’s K-12 educational experience preparing them to be successful in a liberal arts college. Our entire core curriculum is built around the expectations of liberal arts universities. This is a holdover from the days, even decades, when K-12 schools thought it appropriate to prepare kids who were going to attend college, and all other kids would enter the workplace and be successful simply by working hard.
But those days are over. Kids simply can’t leave high school expecting never to have post secondary training, and being successful in life. Furthermore, kids who do go to universities and obtain a liberal arts degree, are no better prepared to be successful in their life than students with no post secondary education.
If you analyze the data, about 23% of all Americans hold a baccalaureate degree. And about the same percentage of jobs require a bachelors degree. On the other hand, more than 65% of all jobs require skills typically obtained in certification programs, and or associate degree programs at community and technical colleges.
I recently had a Dean of a prestigious four-year college tell me that as they analyze their data, about one in five, or 2%, of their graduates actually enter a career requiring the degree that they obtained.
So when we talk about school improvement we need to consider that it is no longer appropriate to prepare 100% of our kids to enter four-year institutions knowing that over 75% of them will not be successful. Improving K-12 schools means changing our practices so that we prepare all of the kids for their postsecondary education experience, and the life they are going to lead.
