I was asked a really good question recently following a presentation on school change. I was asked to explain the paradox between two schools of thought regarding college educations. On one hand we read all the time the data that indicates how much more money you will earn in your lifetime as a college graduate, and on the other hand how overrated a college education can be.

I should’ve thought about this long before now but it appears to me that the answer is all about averages. When you consider the  high potential lifetime earning power of some college degrees and the very low potential of others, on average college graduates do very well.

But when you consider that  according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics over 317,000 waiters and waitresses have college degrees (over 8,000 of them have doctoral or professional degrees), along with over 80,000 bartenders, and over 18,000 parking lot attendants, you can see that these college degrees bring that average way down.

All told, some 17,000,000 Americans with college degrees are doing jobs that the BLS says require less than the skill levels associated with a bachelor’s degree.

Looking a little deeper, 4 of 10 of the most popular majors include, Social Sciences (ex. History and Political Science) Psychology, Communication, and English. The most popular careers of these majors include retail store managers, customer service representatives, and administrative assistants, none of which are high salary careers.

I don’t have any problem with an individual earning a college degree and choosing any career they choose. What I do object to is telling high school students and their parents that they absolutely must have a college degree in order to be successful in life, but failing to tell them that not all college degrees will earn them enough money to even pay off their college loans.

It is unconscionable to imply that every college degree has the same earning power. Students should be given all of the information before they choose from among their post secondary options. Yes, with the right college degree your chances of making a much better living are greatly enhanced. But if you choose the wrong college degree, and exacerbate the problem with excessive college loans, you will never approach the earning power you desire.

What’s even more frustrating is the erroneous message we give high school kids that our core curriculum is essential for them to obtain that college degree that leads to high salaries. Our core curriculum is much more closely associated with those college degrees that lead to low salaries.

I suspect that if students and parents had all the facts they would be much more inclined to support school change that changed our core curriculum to a more appropriate offering. – Steve Wyckoff

What magic elixir can KBOR possibly be feeding the rest of the education world? How else can you explain the hold that the universities have on K-12 education.

The perfect little world of colleges! How do you get a gig like this!

First of all universities get to dictate what and how high school kids learn. They establish standards for “qualified admissions” that have become the gospel for high schools across the state. Even more frustrating is the fact that they mandate that this content has to be taught in isolation, and in a theoretical rather than applied setting. in spite of the fact that the vast majority of students find the “qualified admissions” curriculum boring and irrelevant to their lives.

Then they get to select who they want to admit based on the student performance on the curriculum they mandated.

In spite of all this preparation, sorting and classifying, they fail the majority of their students.

Then when they fail they blame high schools for poorly preparing the students.

And even with the ones that succeed, about 20% settle for jobs that don’t require a college degree because they aren’t prepared to actually succeed in the real world. AND, according to one insider at the University of Kansas, less than one fourth of their graduates actually get a job requiring the degree they earned. I’m pretty sure the results are much different at the other regents universities.

And to top it all off they brag about their results.

All the while leaving over 70% of our kids in their wake with total disregard for their futures!

The saddest aspect is that they buffalo K-12 into drinking the Kool aid! You have to admire their influence, if not their results.

I think it’s about time we had a serious school change conversation about the relationship between K-12 schools and universities, and the curriculum that they mandate.

I’m pretty sure I’ll catch hell for this one, but I’m tired of conversations with principals, superintendents, and curriculum directors, who can’t do what they feel is best for kids because of the shackles of universities. It felt- Steve Wyckoff

As I talk with individuals about school change one of the issues that always arises is the sense that teachers get that they are being criticized for not being good teachers. I always try to point out when I talk about school change that teachers are doing the best job they’ve ever done, at what we’ve always done in education.

The issue is this, the needs of our kids after they graduate have changed dramatically. And therefore what we do in K-12 schools needs to change dramatically.

One of the fundamental changes that has occurred very subtly over the last several decades, is the need for our students to be able to do something with what they know, not just know something.

There are a couple of different aspects to this need. First of all, for decades and decades, it was sufficient to just know a lot of stuff. That’s what separated the educated from the uneducated. And that was okay because the uneducated could still go out, and if they were willing to show up every day and work hard, they could earn a good living.

And Americans are known for their work ethic. So that worked well.

But gradually the need to be able to do something with what you know became paramount. In 1950 65% of jobs were unskilled. They required no post secondary education. Just show up and work hard and you could be successful.

Today those numbers have changed dramatically. In fact about the same percentage, 65% of jobs, require the individual to have acquired some type of technical skills in order to successfully do their work. The real kicker is those necessary skills are always changing. So the need to not only be able to do something is important, but the ability to learn new skills and apply them is now extremely important.

Howard Gardner in his latest book, Five Minds For The Future, does an outstanding job of describing the need for our students to not simply know about a subject, but to practice the discipline of that subject. It isn’t enough to know about biology. We must allow our students to practice the discipline of a biologist. That same logic can be applied to any subject area.

Obviously, it’s impractical to have every student practice the discipline of every field. There simply isn’t enough time. So we need to be figuring out how to allow students to sample the various disciplines and then begin to choose those fields that are most personally interesting to them.

This solves another major issue that we face in schools. By my estimation less than 5% of our kids are authentically engaged in the educational process in our schools. And according to Gallup’s research, 50% of our students are either going through the motions at school, or are actively undermining the teaching learning process.

There is ample evidence to show that students who are given the choice to choose fields that are interesting to them, and are allowed to learn by actually practicing the discipline of that field, are dramatically more engaged than the students who were not.

This means that schools must begin to analyze their entire curriculum, and learning experiences, and figure out ways to move to a learning by doing model.

So I’m not criticizing teachers’ effort or results when I say they need to change. But I am criticizing leaders for not “leading” their schools to models that are more beneficial to our students. That’s what I mean when I talk about school change.–Steve Wyckoff

Not all school change is good.  For example, the Kansas Board of Regents is considering adding an additional year of math in high school for students to meet qualified admissions for the regents universities. They think that having kids sit through another year of math class is somehow going to prepare them better to be productive members of society.

It may better prepare them to sit through another math class in college but there is little evidence that another math class will benefit more than a very small number of Kansas high school students. And the reality is it will cause more students to drop out, and probably lead to more students being disengaged from the educational process.

What the Kansas Board of Regents doesn’t get is that we don’t need to have students learn “more about” any subject. What we need to have Kansas kids learn is the discipline of particular fields.

Let me explain. I was in a conversation last week with four Kansas school districts who are collaborating on creating entrepreneurship programs in their schools. They were very clear, they don’t want kids to know more about entrepreneurship, they want kids to be entrepreneurs. They want them to learn and practice the discipline of being entrepreneurs.

Our kids don’t need another math class they need to understand the discipline of what it means to be a mathematician. You don’t get that by covering more math absent the context of the real world. That’s a major issue with our entire core curriculum. We have kids learn about the social sciences, and we have them learn about the language arts, and we have them learn about communication, and we have them learn about science, and we have them learn about math.

What they don’t learn is how to practice the discipline of being a social scientist, or the discipline of being a communicator, or the discipline of being a scientist … You get the picture.

Want an example? A young lady at Erie high school, the project-based learning school that I’ve talked about many times, developed her project around cloning cattle. She found a mentor in the area who is a world renowned bovine geneticist. She actually practiced the discipline of being a scientist. Specifically a geneticist. She may not have covered all the content that other kids covered in a traditional science class. But she has a far greater understanding of science, and what it means to be a scientist, than any student who has simply sat through a science class.

If the Kansas Board of Regents really wants to improve the education of our kids, and better prepare them for post secondary education, they should start a dialogue with K-12 education to dramatically change the educational experiences our students receive in K-12 education. And also change the expectations that they have for what students will know, do, and be like when they arrive on campus.

Unfortunately, I don’t see real school change happening if KBOR is involved. If anything they are more entrenched in a decades old system, perhaps centuries old system, then K-12 education. -  Steve Wyckoff

Is a great deal of discussion around school change is focusing on the dropout problem. In Kansas, the governor has formed a commission to study dropouts because it has become such an economic issue. As the demand for high skill workers increases dropouts are increasingly a burden on society.

I think one of the positive things that could be addressed is the core curriculum in K-12, and the gen ed curriculum in higher ed. Both of these curricula are at least 115 years old dating back to the Committee of 10, and are primarily focused on the liberal arts.

There was a time in our history when the liberal arts meant well educated. In fact, when I graduated from college in 1972 a liberal arts degree was the ticket to a good job. That’s no longer the case. In fact if you look at two aspects of a college degree, the skill level that the degree instills in graduate, and the demand for the degree in society, the liberal arts degree today is both low skill and low demand. In days past the liberal arts degree was low skill, but very much in high demand.

The second piece of the liberal arts education has to do with our students. The vast majority of our students feel that our core curriculum in K-12, and gen ed curriculum in higher ed, are boring and irrelevant. Boring and irrelevant are not good conditions under which learning can occur.

When you couple all of these issues is obvious to me that our core curriculum and the gen ed curriculum in higher Ed serve no purpose today. They are a relic of education past. We can make major strides to increase the engagement and the relevance of our curriculum for all students by redesigning the primary focus of our system.

What might that new focus be? I’m not sure I have an opinion yet, I need to think about it more. But it may include a focus on globalization, who knows. But if we really want school change, real school change, and to reduce the number of students who leave our system uneducated, then we should take a critical look at the core curriculum in K-12, and the gen ed curriculum in higher Ed. – Steve Wyckoff

I believe it was George Bernard Shaw who said, “all great ideas began as blasphemy.” Well, here’s some blasphemy for you, when it comes to school change our universities are the tail wagging the dog. We spend at the least 80% of our time in K-12 education preparing kids for a four-year liberal arts degree. Well I say enough is enough!

It’s time for those of us in K-12 education to ignore the universities. Even better, tell them to stick it where the sun don’t shine! We need to focus on what’s best for our kids and, in spite of the rhetoric from politicians, going to a four-year college is not best for all kids.

Yet we continue to kowtow to universities as they tell us what we must teach, how we must teach it, and even how we must organize to teach it. Our universities are as out of date as our K-12 schools, and in many ways, the cause of our obsolescence.

Don’t get me wrong a university degree is extremely important for about 25% of our population. And most universities do a wonderful job with some of their students. But it has become nothing more than a sorting process where we prepare every student to go to colleges and then they systematically weed out all but the best performers.

That used to be an appropriate and effective because those students who are simply sloughed off of the system could still go out and find good, high-paying jobs. That’s no longer the case. Which means we can no longer allow our universities the luxury of running a process of survival of the fittest.

Real school change will focus on the needs of our students not the wishes of our universities. – 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

I used to be surprised, I’m not anymore. It used to be noteworthy when I would read a book and the author would give some advice to help individuals overcome the effects of public education. Today I’m more surprised if I read a book and they don’t give advice to help individuals overcome the effects of public education.

Just recently I have read Linchpin by Seth Godin, Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port, Drive by Daniel Pink, and Inbound Marketing by Brian Halligan. In each of these books there is significant advice for the reader about how they might overcome the learning that they experienced in public school. And these are just a few of the recent examples.

One of the reasons I’m sure I see this a lot is because I read so many books that deal with how to be successful in the 21st century. And our schools have nothing to do with being successful in the 21st century. Our core curriculum has nothing to do with preparing students to be successful as adults. While there is some movement in our high schools to try to do a better job it’s the side dish, not the entrée. Their focus is much more on improving standardized test scores, and preparing kids to go to college. And even in those subjects that don’t do standardized testing, raising test scores is still their excuse for not changing education.

Our two-year post secondary education institutions, community colleges and technical colleges, are doing an excellent job of preparing their students for the real world. Unfortunately we lack emphasis in K-12 schools to prepare our kids to attend those post secondary institutions that prepare students for industry-standard certifications and associate degrees, that lead to high-paying, highly satisfying careers.

I was especially struck by Dan Pink’s description in Drive of the two kinds of work that exist today, the algorithmic and heuristic. Our schools focus almost entirely on preparing students to do algorithmic work, and almost completely ignore preparation for heuristic work. This, in spite of the fact that estimated 70% of all the new jobs being created involve heuristic work. So perhaps the advice that the authors give to overcome the effects of public schools is important and valuable. – Steve Wyckoff

I read this phrase the other day and I thought it applied to education perfectly. Best in execution but worst in strategy. It is my observation that we are doing the best job in education we have ever done, doing what we’ve always done. Our execution is excellent. State assessment scores are on the rise. Dropout numbers are in decline. Each time the state or federal bureaucrats give us a new task to accomplish with our students we commit ourselves to accomplishing it, regardless of how little sense it makes.

On the other hand our students are less well prepared for the world they are going to live in than they have ever been. We have the wrong strategy. We are still preparing our kids as if a small percentage are going to go on to college and earn four-year degrees and the rest, at some point, are going to drop out of the system and go to a factory where they will do mindless work exactly as management tells them to.

Want some supporting evidence? Our core curriculum was designed over 115 years ago. It is still the core of what we teach our kids. It was designed to prepare the small percentage of high school students who were going on to college in 1892 to be successful. It was deemed to be such a good curriculum that every high school student should have it. And it was okay, because those kids who didn’t do well in the curriculum could still go into the workplace, show up every day, do what they were told, and make a good living.

More evidence: in 1950 over 60% of the jobs in America required unskilled workers. Today less than 15% of the jobs in America require unskilled workers. Only about 23% of all the jobs in America require a four-year college degree. The remaining 60% to 65% of the jobs require some type of technical skills.

But we are still preparing every student to go to college in the hopes that they will earn a four year college degree. And we are ignoring the vast numbers of students who need a different kind of preparation to be productive members of society in the 21st century.

Our strategy is all wrong …  but our execution is flawless. – Steve Wyckoff

For the 34th and 35th time I had the opportunity this week to speak to students in the College of Education at the University Kansas. Twice each semester for the last nine years I’ve had the opportunity to speak to students in Dr. Mike Neill’s class. These are students who hope to become teachers. Usually there are 80 to 100 students in each class. That means that over the last nine years I’ve had the pleasure to interact with between 2,800 and  3,500 students. Okay, so if you do the math it should have had the 35th and 36th time right? Well they missed one day a couple of years ago because school was dismissed because they won some basketball game. You may remember

Anyway, these are always some of my favorite days. I have the opportunity to interact with students who are pretty much fresh out of high school, but also are committed to becoming educators. In many ways it’s refreshing and uplifting. In other ways it’s depressing.

Let me explain. I always love their enthusiasm and their commitment. They possess a passion for what they think they’re going to face. They are bright, engaged, and ready to take on the world.

The depressing part, I always visit with them about authentic engagement. The flow that learners are in when they are so engaged they lose track of time. I tell them it is my opinion that the most important thing they can do is to create learning experiences that are so engaging that their students are regularly authentically engaged. But then I ask them how many of them were authentically engaged on a regular basis in high school.

Yesterday was most one of the most depressing days when I asked this question. Not one hand was raised. Think about it, these are young adults who want to spend the rest of their life in school, and yet none of them were regularly authentically engaged in high school.  Normally, there are only five or six students in the entire class who were regularly authentically engaged in high school, but still to have no students raise their hand was a little bit shocking.

Through our dialogue it was clear that they understand what being authentically engaged is. They even talked about their school experiences that were authentically engaging. They listed them, year book, drama, athletics, and other experiences that were almost all outside of the core curriculum.

When we talk about the core curriculum students in this class through the years have rarely, if ever, identified them as authentically engaging. Interestingly enough  when students did find a class in the core curriculum that was authentically engaging to them, that is typically the subject they are preparing to teach. I hope they don’t model their teaching after the teachers they had simply because it was authentically engaging to them.

The other thing that I’m always aware of when speaking to the students is how pervasive the thinking is that the way our system operates is the only possible way the system can operate. I wish that we had more time to talk about how the system could be modified in order to engage students and yet still learn the things that we want students to learn, that usual in education time limited how much we can accomplish.

Other interesting topics we cover: standardized tests, which always realize a conversation; the need for individualizing instruction; innovation; and our system is pervasively focused on preparing kids to go to four years college rather than preparing them for their life. – Steve Wyckoff