The Waterbury Summit on Secondary Education has taken place.
If you missed it, you still have another opportunity listen to the renowned scholars and educators who gave presentations. After June 29, 2007, you can access the speakers' PowerPoint presentations and MP3 recordings of the sessions by using the links at the left.
How can high schools prepare students to be competitive in the changing global economy, encourage them to become engaged citizens, and motivate them to care deeply about learning? While measures such as small schools, national standards and testing, and increased math and science requirements have been proposed to improve America's high schools, the pathway to reform remains cloudy.
Penn State's Waterbury Summit on Secondary Education will bring together eminent scholars and leading professionals at the forefront of educational reform. Researchers, policy makers, and practitioners alike will participate in plenary and breakout sessions in this important discussion on re-visioning the American high school. The conference will lead to a book and special report on solutions for improving our high schools. We cordially invite you to join us for this important event!
Rationale for the Conference and Issues Addressed
Our nation, which has prevailed in conflict after conflict over several centuries, now faces a stark and sudden choice: adapt or perish. I'm not referring to the war against terrorism but to a war of skills-one that America is at a risk of losing to India, China, and other emerging economies. And we're not at risk of losing it on factory floors or lab benches. It's happening every day, all across the country, in our public schools. Unless we transform those schools and do it now . . . it will soon be too late.
-Louis Gerstner, former chairman, IBM; chairman, The Teaching Commission
As part of the American Competitiveness Initiative, students must be encouraged to take more math and science courses, and such courses must be "rigorous enough to compete with other nations."
(Education Week, 2/8/06)
A Raytheon Corporation survey of 1,000 11-to-13-year-olds released last month found that 84 percent said they would "rather clean their room, eat their vegetables, go to the dentist, or take out the garbage than learn math or science."
(USA Today, 2/9/06)
The quotations above capture much of the huge challenge facing American high schools-a challenge that is the focus of Penn State's Waterbury Summit on Secondary Education.
Globalization, the Internet, outsourcing, and automation are radically transforming the world economy. All nations are now engaged in economic competition in a "flat world" in which the quality and effectiveness of their education systems are crucial for a skilled workforce and the maintenance or improvement of their standard of living.Thomas L. Friedman. 2005. The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. As articulated at the National Education Summit on High Schools in 2005, business leaders are viewing America's high schools as "the front line in the battle for our economic future." National Education Summit on High Schools. 2005. "America's High Schools: The Front Line in the Battle for Our Economic Future." http://www.high-point.net/workforce/Appendix_B.pdf. Also available in booklet at http://www.achieve.org/files/Achievebriefingbook2005.pdf. Yet the view accepted by most observers is that we are losing this battle.
Our high school graduation rate is one of the lowest among the industrialized nations. Only 68 percent of those who enter high school will graduate in four years with a diploma. Worse, the high school dropout rate for our growing population of minority and at-risk students is huge. Students from historically disadvantaged minority groups-American Indian, Hispanic, and black-have little more than a fifty-fifty chance of finishing high school with a diploma. The rates for students who attend school in high poverty, racially segregated, and urban school districts lag from 15 to 18 percent behind their peers. Education in the Age of Accountability: A Research Focus of the Urban Institute. Further, our students don't rank highly in international comparisons of student achievement. National Education Summit on High Schools. (2005). "America's High Schools: The Front Line in the Battle for Our Economic Future." Also available in booklet at http://www.achieve.org/files/Achievebriefingbook2005.pdf And, unlike the students of our Asian competitors, most of our students are not seriously engaged with learning, especially in the critical areas of math and science that are crucial for progress and innovation in an increasingly technological world and economy.
In 1990 the National Center on Education and the Economy released its report America's Choice: High Skills or Low Wages! National Center on Education and the Economy. June 1990. America's Choice: High Skills or Low Wages! Report of the Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce. http://www.skillscommission.org/previous.htm In December 2006 the National Center released a sobering new report, Tough Choices or Tough Times, revising their earlier position. National Center on Education and the Economy. December 2006. Tough Choices or Tough Times. Report of the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce. http://www.skillscommission.org/ Now they report that even highly skilled American workers are likely to face lower wages. The problem, in an age of globalization and outsourcing, springs from this question, "Why should any employer anywhere in the world pay Americans to do highly skilled work if other people, just as skilled, are available in less-developed nations for half our wages?"
The answer given in Tough Choices or Tough Times is that we now must prepare American workers to be not only highly skilled, but also creative problem solvers, innovators, entrepreneurs, and effective team players, so that they can provide qualities in their work difficult to obtain elsewhere. If so, this raises several questions: To what extent can these skills or attributes be taught and by what methods? Realistically, what proportion of the population can actually gain these attributes? How best could instruction for these objectives be woven into the high school curriculum? And how will time be found for it as long as the curriculum is constrained and driven by the pressures of the narrowly focused tests and "Adequate Yearly Progress" requirements of the federal "No Child Left Behind" law? A further demand on the curriculum comes from national and business leaders who agree with the recommendations of the Committee for Economic Development's report Education for Global Leadership: The Importance of International Studies and Foreign Language Education for U.S. Economic and National Security. Committee for Economic Development. 2006. Education for Global Leadership: The Importance of International Studies and Foreign Language Education for U.S. Economic and National Security.http://www.ced.org/docs/report/report_foreignlanguages.pdf
Of course, there are other important dimensions to the challenges facing American high schools. Our students are, and will be, more than just "workers" or "consumers." High schools need to address the whole person and prepare engaged, good citizens who make worthy use of their leisure time and are concerned about the common good. Indeed, by our title, "Re-visioning the American High School for an Engaged Citizenry," we mean that the Waterbury Summit will address the issue of engaging students broadly, in effective learning and personal development not just in the academic sphere, but also in the civic, social, and moral/ethical spheres. Socio-emotional intelligence is clearly as important as academic intelligence and is vital for a successful life and career. Knowledge and commitment to the arts and humanities are needed to balance and place into perspective work, careers, citizenship, family life, and science, and technology.
Among the topics that will be covered are:
- Student Engagement and Reducing Dropout Rates
- Expectations for Student Achievement and Curricular and Pedagogical Reform
- Initiatives to Promote Learning in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM)
- Assessment, Standardized Testing, and Accountability
- Civic Engagement and Student Voice
- Issues in the Organization and Structuring of High Schools to Promote "Personalization," Small Schools, and "Schools within Schools"
- Successful Transition from School to Work or Postsecondary Education
- Workforce Skills Requirements and Careers
