What's Become Clear

Last week at the the Kansas Education Commission meeting one of the participants commented about “the classic liberal arts education” as if it were given how important, and appropriate, the classic liberal arts education is. As I’ve written before, the most difficult thing to do in school change is to decide what not to do any longer.

I think that it’s time to take a critical look at the “classic liberal arts education” and make some tough decisions about the assumptions we have made for over 100 years, and decide what parts of that education should be abandoned. I know that opinion will rankle more than a few feathers, especially among higher education people, and those who teach in the K-12 core curriculum.

But with the ever changing face of our society it’s imperative that we begin to abandon the least worthy pieces of our traditional education system. I make light of the fact that we seem to think there’s nothing more important than reading the works of dead white European male authors. While I may say it lightheartedly, I am dead serious with my question. What is so important about dead white European male authors that they must be studied by every student.

Not only do I believe that much of what we teach in the classic liberal arts education is no longer appropriate, but I believe it’s the part of our curriculum that students find most boring and irrelevant. At the very least we have to figure out how to make our core curriculum relevant and interesting to our students. In the best possible world we should figure out what to do instead of much of what we do in our core curriculum.

I know this will be hard to swallow for many educators, but at some point we have to begin to abandon something, and somebody’s sacred cow is going to get gored. When we talk about school change we mean exactly that, change! You can’t keep doing everything you’ve always done and pretend that you’re changing. – Steve Wyckoff

When we talk about school change there is always a discussion about preparing students for college. There is no doubt that in the 21st century those people who are the most successful tend to be those with the highest level of education. But not all college degrees are highly correlated with being successful in the 21st century.

I’ve been giving this a lot of thought and in fact later this week I’m going to be visiting with my friend Dr. Jackie Vietti, at Butler Community College to help me make sense of the whole question of college ready. You see, I can give you a whole pile of evidence that we are doing poorly when it comes to preparing kids for college, and that even many of those who make it through college, don’t get jobs that are high paying enough to pay off their college loans. So I am suffering from cognitive dissonance on this issue.

So I’ll tell you what I think I believe up to this point. I’m looking at college degrees from two perspectives. One, is the degree in high demand in society today; and two, is it a high skill degree? I’m still compiling a list of college degrees that I believe are high demand and high skill degrees. In this category I would put engineering degrees, many health science related degrees such as nursing, and some IT degrees. But I also put many two year technical degree, and even some industry certification programs. I’m sure there are others, so if you have some examples send them to me.

So that begs the question, are there some high skill low demand degrees? I think that some degrees in the sciences may fit this category; physics, biology, and chemistry. But I’m not completely sure of this.

And as I was thinking further about these categories I started to wonder if there are high demand and low skill degrees. I think there used to be, but I don’t think there are anymore. I think that liberal arts degrees used to be high demand and low skill. I think now liberal arts degrees are low skill and low demand.

when I graduated from college almost 40 years ago a liberal arts degree, like all college degrees, was the ticket to a good job. Today, that just isn’t true. Graduates with liberal arts degrees are perfectly prepared to go on to graduate school, but the jobs available for most of these degrees are for the most part low skill and sadly, low pay.

And therein lies one of our big problems. All of our K-12 core curriculum, and all of our gen ed courses in post secondary institutions are liberal arts courses. Which means we are spending huge amounts of our time, our most precious educational resource, preparing kids in low skill low demand areas, which the students see as boring and irrelevant. Perhaps it’s time as we talk about school change to begin to deal with the sacred cow of education … the liberal arts degree. – Steve Wyckoff

I’ve written many times about our obsession in K-12 schools with preparing every student to attend a four-year liberal arts college. The data are clear, we need less than 25% of all of our students to have a four year college degree. In fact only about 23% of all jobs require a four-year degree. In the workplace about 65% of all jobs require post secondary education, but not necessarily a four year degree. These high skill jobs are also high wage jobs.

One of the hidden unintended consequences of our attitude in K-12 schools is that we are preparing our very best kids to leave our communities, especially rural communities, and never returning. So in many cases our very best kids leave our communities, get a four year degree, often in the field with little or no job demand, and end up in a job that they would’ve never chosen given all the information. And these jobs are not in our rural communities where many of our kids would like to live.

So while our rural communities are engaged in a life-and-death struggle to maintain viability they are shooting themselves in the foot by having schools that aren’t focused on preparing each individual student for the future of their choice, which in many cases would be in that rural community  if the student had all the information.

It is imperative that our schools began immediately to help every individual student develop an individual plan for their future. But just having the plan isn’t enough if they’re only course choices are the traditional curriculum that only lead to one thing, leave home and go to a four-year college, and earn a degree.

With the advances in technology it is possible today to engage in many more careers than were possible in the past in rural communities. But our kids will only choose those career options if they are given the guidance necessary to develop individual future plans, and educational experience commensurate with that plan. –  Steve Wyckoff

Why can’t schools change? It’s an interesting question. If you ask many educators they would say that schools have changed dramatically. I disagree. I think what goes on inside some classrooms has changed dramatically, but not schools. We do use more technology in classrooms; projectors, computers, smart boards, etc. But what we’re doing inside those walls is basically the same thing we’ve done for over 100 years. And sadly, with pretty much the same curriculum. Oh there have been some changes, but mostly tinkering inside the old format.

Some people believe that we need to change the rules so that schools look different. But then I can show you examples of schools that look dramatically different than traditional schools and are functioning within the same rules, regulations, and policies. So the rules must not be what is impeding our ability to change.

Other people think that a tradition that is over 100 years old is keeping us from changing. That we’ve done school the same way for so long that the belief system, and the culture around schools is too entrenched to change. These people often see parents as the biggest reason we can’t change. That parents demand that schools look like they did when they were students.

Still more people believe that the arcane rules for admission into college keep us from changing. That the emphasis on preparing every student to go to college forces schools to behave exactly as they always have. They believe that the Carnegie unit, Departmentalization, focus on standardized test, etc. are the fault of universities.

A cause that is never considered among educators is that perhaps we lack the leadership to make changes. School administrators are of the opinion that they are no longer managers, but rather leaders. I’m not sure I see any difference in their behaviors from when they were managers. I don’t think that continuous improvement of traditional processes constitutes leadership when there is a need for real systemic change.

There is also a school of thought that educators are risk-averse by nature, and that has a whole, are very, very reluctant to change. But when I talk to business people they feel the same way about themselves. Being resistant to change seems to be, to a large degree, human nature, and not reserved for educators.

And last, but certainly not least, there seems to be an non-articulated argument about the purpose of schools. There seems to be a “venn diagram” of purposes for schools. Prepare kids to go to college, prepare kids for the workplace, to give them a broad liberal education, to indoctrinate them for society, etc. The conflicting camps all want schools to change in a different way, therefore causing gridlock.

I think, in my humble opinion, that each of these is a characteristic of a centrally controlled bureaucracy. And there is no bigger centrally controlled bureaucracy than public education. Bureaucracies were designed to guarantee compliance, and stability in systems and processes. There is no system with more stable systems and processes nor more compliant than public education.

So what do I think the chances of real systemic change are? Zero. Nadda. None. In fact I think the bureaucracy has moved from the state level to the federal level with a corresponding increase in stability and compliance. I chuckle at the federal government’s insistence that they are encouraging real systemic change in schools. My observation is that they are causing exactly the opposite effect. Our schools have become test preparation Academy, whose sole purpose is to prepare kids to increase their scores on standardized test.

So what’s the solution? I believe the solution is “mission impossible.” The elimination of the educational bureaucracy at a time when our country is moving in the opposite direction seems hopeless. I keep looking for that ray of hope, but every time I see one, the results never seem to pan out. I don’t think there is a rule that America has to stay the best. Time will tell.- Steve Wyckoff

I’ve been preparing for a presentation that I’m going to do for the school board of one of the largest districts in the state. They are involved in strategic planning, and to their credit they are looking at all aspects of their school district with the intent to improve. My presentation is built around my belief about the biggest issues we face in education. I’ve given this presentation several times, each time modifying it as I clarify the issues in my mind.

I put about 1000 miles on my car this week which has given me a lot of time to clarify exactly what I want to say. But I wanted to put it in writing here because it always seems different when I put my thoughts into writing, or present them to an audience for the first time. So with that in mind…

The issue that I’m dealing with is the conflict between what academia considers to be a well-educated person, and what the greater society that we live in considers to be a well-educated person. The first, academia, is made up of our universities. The second mostly centers around the workplace.

I’ve often ranted that our core curriculum is over 115 years old and was designed by the Committee of 10 which was made up of individuals from the world of academia. In this world individuals who are considered to be “well-educated” have been exposed to the classics in literature, theoretical mathematics and science, and have studied the social sciences through abstractions. Being “well-educated” in academia is measured by what you know.

Individuals who are considered to be “well-educated” in the workplace are knowledgeable about the issues related to the work they do, but in addition their knowledge is concrete and can be applied to real problems in the workplace, adding value to the work being done. Being “well-educated” in the workplace is measured by what an individual knows AND can do.

I know that both of these definitions are oversimplifications, but I think I can provide proof of their accuracy. If you want to get into college the measure is standardized tests, the ACT and SAT. Furthermore, in Kansas and many other states, your high school curriculum cannot have been taken in “applied” classes. Your classes must have been taken in a setting where the content was studied in an abstract manner absent the context of the real world.

When I speak to the business community and I ask them if it makes sense that students should learn math in the context of real-world problems so that the math can be applied in a concrete way, they completely agree. When I tell them that a student who takes a math class in an applied setting does not meet the criteria set by the Board of Regents for entry into the regents universities, they are appalled.

If you look at the regents required curriculum for high schools in Kansas it’s the same curriculum that was designed by the Committee of 10. Sure, there have been modifications to the content over time, but the emphasis on the instructional style and the expectations of the student are still aligned with the curriculum that that committee designed all those years ago.

Making every student take this curriculum really wasn’t an issue in the industrial age. Students who did well in the traditional curriculum went on to college in numbers that were appropriate for the times. But gradually as it became more important to be “well-educated” in the workplace more and more students were encouraged to go to “college.” The problem that arose in the workplace with students who were coming to the workplace with college degrees was that they did not have the knowledge relevant to the workplace, nor the ability to apply the knowledge to real situations. This is a growing problem. Businesses report regularly that students are not for prepared for the work environment they are entering in the 21st century.

You’ve heard it before, somebody describing a college graduate as “book smart” with no common sense. I’m not sure whether or not the student had common sense, but I’m pretty sure they did not possess the appropriate knowledge nor were they skilled at applying the knowledge they had to real situations.

Up to this point the academics have won the argument, or possibly they have just been able to keep the tradition alive. But the reality is we believe that our kids will be “well-educated” if we continue in K-12 to expose them to a curriculum that is abstract in nature, unrelated to the real world, taught in isolation, and measured strictly by what the student knows.

I believe that K-12 schools should be about learning experiences where the students apply the knowledge and skills necessary to solve real-world problems. They should learn to use 21st-century technologies in conjunction with up-to-date knowledge to solve today’s problems.

An unintended consequence of this conflict is the outrageous emphasis on standardized test scores. Standardized test scores have been the traditional measure of whether or not a student is “well-educated.” As students have graduated from college and gone to the workplace there has been an increasing dissatisfaction with our incoming workers. The natural response has been we have to educate them better, schools need to do a better job.

The response of policymakers was to mandate practices designed to improve test scores, thinking that improved test scores would equate to improved workers. It hasn’t worked. I believe the problem could be solved if we could agree which kind of “well-educated” student we want to produce.

It’s funny how we carry definitions around in our head and we assume that other people have those same definitions. When we have discussions about school reform, school redesign, and change, we often times think that we are talking about the same thing as other people but in reality we have very different perspectives.

So I want to take this opportunity to clarify how I see these issues. When I think of school reform and school redesign I do it from the perspective of real systemic change. I know many educators consider the continuous improvement of what we’ve always done has reform, redesigned, and change. I don’t. This has been the main source of my disagreement with educators about whether or not schools are changing.

If I have a criticism of educators who take this view it’s that this perspective places all the responsibility for change on the individual classroom teacher. It assumes that ultimately if we do what we’ve always done except that we do it much more effectively and efficiently we have changed education. I approach this from a little different angle. I like to ask the question, “If magically all of our kids were proficient on standardized tests, and we had no dropouts, would society be satisfied with our product?” I think the answer is no, and the vast majority of people I’ve asked this question of agree with me.

It is my belief that if we are going to satisfy the needs of the 21st century society we must look at dramatically changing  4 major areas in education, what we teach, how we teach, how we organize to teach, and how we assess what we’ve taught.  And we cannot deal with each of these in isolation, the four must be dealt with simultaneously.

We have two major problems with what we teach, one is our core curriculum, the classes that we make students take were defined more than 115 years ago by the Committee of 10. Secondly, the content within those classes fundamentally was defined  115 years ago also, and  any updates to the content was done by content area experts whose primary goal was to align their curriculum with content necessary for a four-year liberal arts degree. Little of what we teach today prepares students to be successful in a 21st-century society.

The roots of our instructional model is also several hundred years old, and it focuses on what individuals know, not on what they know how to do with what they know. In an era of ubiquitous information focusing students on memorizing material, absent a context for using what they know, is ludicrous. We must move to an instructional model that incorporates learning by doing.

As long as we are organized by department and separate the day into segregated parts we will never achieve the integration necessary for kids to understand how what they are learning fits into the real world. We must eliminate departmentalization and moved to to an organizational structure that more closely resembles how the real world works.

I’ve saved the best for last. Standardized tests have become the focus of what we do in schools. And yet few educators believe that a standardized test score accurately represents what the student is capable of doing or what kind of a job the teacher did. They are analogous to passing the written part of the driving test and declaring the student to be a good driver.

So when I talk about school reform, school redesign, and change, I’m talking about the real systemic issues that we face not simply getting better at what we’ve always done.

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.