SMART TEACHING
www.SmartTeaching.org

28. High School Reform
©2006 Ron Fitzgerald, D. Ed.

A Report to Legislators and Educators

This report is intended to encourage more use of research on learning as both the Congress and state officials address another phase in educational reform - improving our high schools.  For the sake of our nation and its youngsters, everyone should work to ensure that research rather than uninformed opinion becomes the foundation for change in our secondary schools.  Experienced educators and educational researchers need to communicate effectively with legislators.  In turn, legislators need to use the information from practitioners rather than from ideology or even well intended media spokespersons to give students the best possible learning environment.

What follows is a listing of recommendations based on actual observations in many schools and on learning research.  Elaboration on many of the researched items (mission, learning styles, different talents, continuous improvement or total quality management, vocational education) can be found on the same web site as this report - - www.SmartTeaching.org.

Here are the recommendations:

  1. Define a model national mission and goals statement to facilitate more focus on research when considering reform or change in national policy on public education.  Two glaring weaknesses are apparent now on the national level:
    1. When a new President is elected, he or she and appointees often base annual budget and program proposals on ideology with no attention to any researched and published national mission statement.  This can lead to "lurching" and wasteful change in an area that needs long-term stability of direction more than many other areas of government service.
    2. Concurrently, Congress has no stable and researched mission and goals statement against which it can judge the potential value of executive branch proposals.

As an illustration of these weaknesses, the current administration has proposed abolishing long-standing Perkins funding for critically important vocational-technical education programs in order to use the funds elsewhere.  The "reasons" given for this proposal were superficial and erroneous and showed no sensitivity to what sudden elimination of dollars used for teachers and equipment modernization would do to the quality of vocational learning important to the economic health of our nation.  For a realistic look at vocational education, go to Topic #12 on the Smart Teaching website.  Fortunately, in this instance, leaders in the U.S. Congress with a better historical perspective protected the basic funding for vocational-technical learning.  So the legislative branch served the role of providing a prudent check on what would otherwise have been a destructive "lurch" in national policy.  However, this check and balance system is just that - - a check on superficial change.  It does not help the two branches to work together effectively on continuous improvement of educational service.

Two actions would improve this situation:

  1. Early establishment of a national, non-partisan commission with research funds to define a recommended national mission and goals statement for public schools.  The commission could for example be composed of respected public school administrators, college presidents, industry leaders, and a representative of the non-profit Educational Research Service.  Its product would be an advisory document for use by the executive and legislative branches and could be renewed once every five years.  For example, such a document if it existed now might contain a statement like this - - "The interests of the nation require the existence of strong vocational-technical education programs on the high school level with articulated pathways to post-secondary learning."  Such a statement would have encouraged the executive branch and legislative branch to work together on improvement or reform of vocational-technical direction.  The absence of a mission statement on any level enables "lurching."
  2. After producing a mission document, the Commission would be asked by Congress to evaluate any and all proposals for reform or change in national education policy or funding before Congress acted on same.  The Commission with its staff would be given a minimum of three months after receiving a full copy of any proposal to issue a researched public evaluation of the proposal in relation to support of the then existing mission statement.  The Commission would itself not propose specific reforms or legislation.  Its reports to Congress would be advisory in nature.

Any commission formed should include representatives of respected umbrella organizations of practitioners.  Examples would be the American Association of School Administrators (AASA), the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE), the National School Boards Association (NSBA), the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), and some experts with firsthand knowledge of strong education programs in other nations.

The non-partisan establishment of a stronger mission/research focus would provide a more effective context for subsequent reform actions on high schools and any other components of early childhood through grade 12 public education.  For a basic discussion on the importance of mission statements, refer to Topic #19 on the Smart Teaching web site.  Once a model mission statement exists more actions like those below could be considered in relation to that statement.

  1. Create and use real rather than mythical national comparison standards for basic communication, computation, and science-technology skills.  The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) program does not use national standards.  Each state establishes its own standards and tests, some too easy and some too difficult.  Some states test 15% of their standards; some test 75%!  There are no practical educational standards at all now, a fact not made clear to the American public.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with promoting good basic skill standards on the national level.  Every standard high school graduate should be able to read, write, and calculate effectively.  Every standard graduate should be able to demonstrate and use basic technical literacy skills.  Severely handicapped students could and should be given special diplomas documenting their special skills, talents, and accomplishments.  Do not assume that this recommendation is intended to support the rigid error of one written test and one pre-college-curriculum for all; read on!
  2. Design national standards and growth-focused testing which recognize that different students have different learning styles and rates and different talents.  Visit the Smart Teaching web site for details on different learning styles and talents.  The differences are real.  Current state testing under the NCLB program fails here.  Consider these contrasts:

Current State Testing Under NCLB

  1. Written state academic tests given to everyone at the same time regardless of differences in learning rates, styles, and talents.
  2. RESULTS:  With states taking the “easy” path of one classical written test for all, more and more students (often the experiential learners) are growing disenchanted.  Actual dropout rates (grade 9 on) are increasing in many states - - hardly a sign of effective reform.
  3. Federal and state governments are trying to “attach” makeshift alternatives (portfolios, growth documentation, etc.) to cope with inadequately recognized learning and talent differences.  However, straightforward attention has not been given to letting vocational-technical learners fulfill academic standards in their meaningful career performance tasks.

Research-Based Testing
That Should Be Pursued

  1. Basic national academic skill tests given when a student is judged ready. Alternatives of performance testing and portfolio products allowed in district/school procedures approved by each state.  Example:  vocational-technical students being allowed to demonstrate academic proficiency by applying integrated academic skills successfully in their selected major areas.
  2. More complex but realistic flexibility less apt to demotivate many learners.

NOTE:  Many outstanding vocational-technical programs have already worked with employers to integrate academic skill development into vocational learning programs in a way that is more powerful than depending only on separate and often more abstract academic classes.  The subsequent college and workplace success of graduates of these programs is simply not yet properly recognized by the rigid assessment system initially established under NCLB.

Hundreds of research studies document the value of observing such basic learning principles as readiness (giving a test when the student is ready for it rather than when the student reaches the age for 10th grade) and relevance (allowing a collision repair technician to demonstrate mathematics proficiency with tasks like calculating an accurate repair estimate for major repair of a vehicle rather than with more abstract or artificial examples).  Current testing demotivates and discourages many learners by in effect “pretending” that everyone learns at the same rate and should be required to demonstrate learning in exactly the same way regardless of different interests or talents.  Experiential learners, those who learn and demonstrate academic skills best by using them in real-life or career-related tasks are placed at a disadvantage by this pretense.  American public education needs to and can do better than this so that we encourage higher achievement and cause fewer dropouts.

To discover more about different learners and experiential learning, go to the website www.SmartTeaching.org and explore Topic #5, Topic #6, Topic #7, and Topic #12.  Meanwhile, national and state planners should resolve now to use learning research and the newly emerging assessment "experiments" that the U.S. Department of Education is approving to make high school reform and related assessment more productive for all learners.

  1. Define a national expectation that all secondary schools initiate a continuous improvement SYSTEM.  A real rather than mythical national assessment system would be one component of this.  However, these added national standards should be required and evaluated by each state department of education and each regional accrediting agency:
    1. Each school should have a clear mission statement including but not limited to focus on national curriculum standards.
    2. Each high school and its primary feeder middle schools (part of secondary level reform) should have clear articulation procedures to provide students with efficient transition paths.
    3. Each high school should have a school board approved strategic improvement plan updated at least once every five years and including:
      1. Stated benchmarks for student achievement
      2. Activities proposed to improve achievement
      3. Evaluation procedures for tracking changes in achievement
      4. Staff training activities related to the mission and strategic plan and ensuring familiarity with achievement standards, use of classroom and school data to guide improvement efforts, and use of research on learning and teaching techniques.
    1. The context of the strategic plan should be a focus on continuous improvement for both individual students and overall school achievement, not on fixed or absolute numbers.  NOTE:  Refer to Topic #17 on the Smart Teaching website for more information on this context evolved from the world class work of W. Edwards Deming.  Topic #24 and Topic #26 provide examples of using data to facilitate improvement.
    2. Each school should have clearly defined staff evaluation procedures that form the basis for assistance and personnel actions designed to promote continuous improvement in student achievement.
    3. Each high school should have articulation agreements with a significant number of post-secondary learning programs (community colleges, 4-year colleges, business/industry training programs).  Specifically every state-approved vocational-technical program should have one or more such articulation agreements.
  1. Define a national standard requiring that any college or university receiving any federal funds will have its faculty members define and implement and maintain strong, supportive articulation agreements with high schools and vocational-technical programs.  These agreements should be evaluated by boards of higher education and appropriate accrediting associations to ensure:
    1. Strong focus on creating supportive career pathways from high school to college
    2. Coordinated curricula that offer the opportunity for advance credit to specific vocational-technical programs
    3. Extensive service to a significant number of high schools.

The old habit of college educators criticizing high schools, high school educators criticizing middle and elementary schools is a waste of time.  We now have some great models of educators at these different levels working together to help students.  It is time for this to become a national standard expected of every college and high school.

In summary, if recommendations like the above were implemented, these realities could evolve:

  1. A dynamic model mission statement would help the executive and legislative branches to work together rather than separately on changes focused on researched goals.
  2. Real national standards would replace the current myth of national standards.
  3. More flexible assessment would give proper attention to the researched realities of students having different learning styles, learning rates, and talents.
  4. The power of continuous improvement under Deming’s profound management principles would replace the artificial annual yearly progress (AYP) numbers that do not work as new and different students move through schools and districts.
  5. Colleges and high schools would provide more articulated career-path options for students without the false and destructive assumption that a classical pre-college high school curricula is the only proper route to post-secondary learning.  The talents of experimental learners would be recognized and rewarded.
  6. The model mission and goals statement would support subsequent attention to all public school levels in a coordinated context.

This comprehensive, research-based approach would move our schools and nation ahead in world competition far better than any more narrow approach based on ideology.