U.S. High School Graduation Rates 19th in World

On Sept 9, 2008, NBC Nightly News reported that the US rank 19th, just ahead of Mexico, in percentage of students graduating high school. In a well-cited article, Economist's View presents and elaborates on high school graduation and wage data, concluding that the gap between high school graduates and drop-outs is widening.

America is becoming a polarized society. Proportionately more American youth are going to college and graduating than ever before. At the same time, proportionately more are failing to complete high school.

Perhaps twenty years ago I read an article wherein the author prophesied the present dichotomy between the educated elite and “techno-peasants.” The author described techno-peasants as people who flip hamburgers all day and play computer games all night. I attempted to find the article in a Google search and discovered the term “techno-peasant” has entered English vocabulary, but I was unable to find the original article. Twenty years before the techno-peasant article, the Kerner Report foresaw the same situation with its famous and controversial conclusion:

Our nation is moving towards two societies — one white, one black — separate and unequal

With the educational polarization of America in place and squeezing of the middle class accelerating the economic polarization of America, we see another example of the tight connection between education and economics. The Center for Benefit-Cost Studies of Education (CBCSE) estimates that boosting high school graduation rates would save $45 billion per year. The Chronicle of Higher Education also laments the decline in graduation rates.

Employers continue to fill job vacancies with warm bodies. Students do not experience much encouragement to achieve academically. As one comment noted:

I believe the central culprit at the bottom of this is American popular culture and values. We as a society do not truly value educational attainment except as a ticket to money and status. We do not respect teachers, as is the case in many other developed and developing countries, and we have a range of derogatory names for children who excell in academics, e.g. geek, dweeb, dork and so forth. I am not surprised by these findings and if things don’t change in terms of fundamental values regarding education and intellectual achievement, this country will sink to a second-world level. I believe we are already sinking.
Christina Newhill Apr 1, (2008) 04:22 PM

I have long argued that American society needs to examine its fundamental assumptions and values about education. Right now America has the education system it wants. When America decides it wants something different, nothing will stand in its way.

World-Class Education A Moral Obligation

That's what Obama said and he is right. America's economy depends on it.

America, now is not the time for small plans. Now is the time to finally meet our moral obligation to provide every child a world-class education, because it will take nothing less to compete in the global economy.

Roy Romer of Strong American Schools said that providing a world-class education for all our children required “political will.” All Americans, whether they have children or not, need to invest in the education of ALL of America's children, if only for self-interested economic reasons. It seems that it should be common knowledge that education and economy are not just linked, but alloyed.


I wrote about Gov. Romer's roundtable discussion earlier this week.

{Gov. Romer} continued, “If we put as much into education as we do athletics, we would be first in the world.” I agree. It is not money. It is commitment. The money will follow commitment.

Moral Obligation. Political Will. Commitment. Surveys routinely report that Americans are committed to education. Americans need more than an intellectual commitment. We need a deep sense of moral obligation translated into political will. When America, the richest country in the world, decides it really wants a world-class system, nothing will stop America.


Senator Ted Kennedy recalled JFK's challenge to put a man on the moon.

We are told that Barack Obama believes too much in an America of high principle and bold endeavor, but when John Kennedy called of going to the moon, he didn't say it's too far to get there. We shouldn't even try.
Our people answered his call and rose to the challenge, and today an American flag still marks the surface of the moon.
Yes, we are all Americans. This is what we do. We reach the moon. We scale the heights. I know it. I've seen it. I've lived it. And we can do it again.

Maybe education for all children is not as sexy as the moon, but it is certainly a more important challenge. The moon challenge appealed to nationalistic pride. Somehow the education challenge needs to take hold in the American psyche. But as long as survey results continue to report self-satisfaction with schools at the local level, I fear that the chance of a world-class education for all will continue to play second fiddle to faddism.

The Folly of Self-Congratulation

Strong American Schools Chairman Roy Romer is trying to raise awareness. Gov. Romer wants America to “get a political will” even though, according to one roundtable participant, 78% of American households do not have children in school. All of us need to invest in all of our children's futures.

Gov. Romer believes America needs to benchmark our country's education performance and accountability globally by annually comparing ourselves to the ten best nations. In other words, we need to stop congratulating ourselves on our good schools (like my town recently did) when 52% tested proficient this year instead of 50%. A 2% gain is great when half are not proficient in the richest country on earth?! We need to get real about the data .

Gov. Romer says this nation is simply not conscious that our expectations are too low because we are lying to ourselves. He continued, “If we put as much into education as we do athletics, we would be first in the world.” I agree. It is not money. It is commitment. The money will follow commitment. If we put as much into education as we did into the war in Iraq, we would be first in the world. Furthermore, it would not be money down the drain; it would be an investment in the future. For those who are risk-adverse in their investments, this one is virtually guaranteed to reap benefits that really will “trickle” down.

When American society finally decides it wants a world-class education system, there will be no stopping us.

Algebra For All Eighth Graders

Here we go again. Another example of education reform by fiat . Another example of education reform without supporting infrastructure.

California 8th graders will be required to take Algebra 1 and be tested on it as part of the state’s accountability system, under a controversial decision made by the state board of education last week after last-minute pressure from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Why don't we just fail the kids right now and save some money?

Mr. O’Connell said in his own letter to the state board that requiring all 8th graders to take algebra would especially be hard on African-American and Hispanic students who, as demographic subgroups, are still not even scoring at the proficient level “on what amounts to 7th grade standards.”

...snip...

Education officials so far have offered no details about any budget impact from the move. But providing support to get teachers ready to teach algebra to all 8th graders could be difficult given a California budget deficit estimated at $17 billion at one point, which has forced cuts in all departments, including education.

Don't get me wrong. I am all for higher standards and greater expectations. It is not surprising that studies show “that taking algebra in middle school is linked to higher mathematics achievement in high school.” The problem is that students lack the “foundational skills” for algebra such as fractions and (believe it or not) place value.

The students who struggle the most with the abstract nature of algebra are those who tend to lack “understanding around the key big ideas” throughout elementary math, said Terry Vendlinkski, a senior researcher at the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Liping Ma has famously documented that American elementary math teachers lack “profound understanding of fundamental mathematics”. How are these teachers supposed to teach what they themselves do not know ?

James M. Rubillo, the executive director of the Reston, Va.-based National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, pretty much agrees.

”We’ve seen a lot of schools trying to mandate Algebra 1, and the failure rates are very high,” he said. “It doesn’t necessarily take into account the readiness of the students or the capability of the teaching force.

Gifted Smifted

TAG (Talented and Gifted, or GAT, Gifted and Talented, or GATE, or just GT, depending on the school) teacher, Tamara Fisher, corrects common misunderstandings in her lengthy and detailed description of what “gifted” is and is not. I have a ton of experience with the gifted issue so I am interested in her take. I can tell you right off the bat that I got sick and tired of the Salem witch trials. Our family moved around a lot and it seemed every GT program was inordinately fond of the Salem witch trials. All told, my own children covered four topics in their years of GT participation: Salem witch trials, bridges, French, and Russian.

GT is NOT a reward for kids who behave well in class and turn in perfect work. Rather it IS an academic necessity for children who learn differently….
GT is NOT a program for kids with exceptional grades...
GT is NOT fun for fun's sake…
GT is NOT extra work to fill extra time…
GT is NOT for kids who are "better" or "more special” than other kids…
GT is NOT about fun and games...
GT is NOT a program only for good kids…
GT is NOT a test of what the kid does know…
GT is NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT a privilege!!!!! Rather, it IS an essential need for children whose pace of learning dramatically out-steps other kids …
GT is NOT a self-esteem booster for children who seem to need one. Rather, it IS a sincere validation of ability(bold added)...
GT is NOT about preparing kids to “save the world” someday..
GT is NOT a “club” to belong to. Rather, it IS a peer group where gifted kids can feel like they actually belong…
GT does NOT address only academic needs. Rather, it ALSO addresses social and emotional needs and validates gifts and talents. (bold added)…
GT is NOT about pressure to fit a label or stereotype…
GT should NOT be an experimental group led by whoever is available….
GT should NOT be an optional offering, if convenient. Rather, it SHOULD BE a high priority because there are kids who need it (bold added)..
GT is NOT an easy A…

I bolded several of the statements because they allude to a very specific issue of academic achievement in our schools. Regardless of all our fine talk about academic achievement, society does not value academic achievement. Students perceive the hypocrisy every day at school. In predominately black schools, classmates often accuse the high achievers of acting white. In some schools, students hide their achievements and engage in theatrical misbehavior in order to protect “street cred.” I have been known to participate in these little conspiracies with some students.

Every state has laws that mandate the education of every child according to the child’s needs. Practically speaking, what really happens is that only children who have been labeled into a specifically funded program get that extra attention. Normally, these special programs are for students who have been deemed “deficient” in some respect.

In my state, where both state law and state accreditation standards mandate that schools identify and provide services for gifted students, only about 40% of schools claim they actually do so. There is no consequence for the schools that do not meet that portion of the accreditation standards. The only consequence falls onto the shoulders of the gifted students who are at the mercy of luck that they will get a teacher who recognizes their learning needs and does something on her own to try to reach them. Educating kids should not be an optional convenience. It should be a high priority. We SAY it is a priority. But when it comes to our nation’s gifted students, are we really educating them if research shows that they already know, on average, about half the year’s material before the school year even begins?

One of my main themes is that US society does not really want a world-class education system. If we did, nothing would stop us. It may be a trivial example, but is there anyone in the US who DOES NOT KNOW that their analog TVs will not work in six months? The point is when we want people to learn something, we make sure they do.

GT is NOT a surplus offering for kids who have surplus knowledge. Rather, it IS an academic intervention...

“Some States Said to Share 'Core' Standards”

So concluded an analysis by Achieve(Aug 13, 2008), an organization dedicated to raising “academic standards and achievement so that all students graduate ready for college, careers, and citizenship.”

The academic standards for secondary English/language arts and math were analyzed for Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and the math standards for Arizona, Minnesota, New Mexico, and Texas.

Achieve found that independently-formulated state standards tend to be more similar than different.

There is a clearly identifiable common core across the states. It’s not that they have identical standards, but there’s a high degree of commonality,” said Michael Cohen, the president of Achieve…

I am not surprised. My undergraduate curriculum students found the same thing five years ago when I assigned them the project of investigating the state standards of at least ten states for one subject in one grade of their choice. Among them all, they managed to cover most of the states, most of the grades and most of the subjects. It was eye-opening for them to realize that no matter how strongly states insist that their standards are somehow better than the standards of other states, overall it simply was not true. The various state standards are more alike than different.
My students guessed at why this might be true. Their hypothesis closely matched that of the president of Achieve:

“The common core reflects the reality of the world—that there is fundamental knowledge in English and mathematics that all graduates must know to succeed…

Such a finding has several implications:
1. A national curriculum is very feasible. In fact, a sort of de facto national curriculum already exists by way of nationally adopted textbooks. Regardless of published standards, the scope and sequence for any particular content area is mostly predetermined by the textbook.

2. States wasted a ton of money hiring high-priced educational consultants to reinvent the standards wheel one state as a time. This money could have been used, for, I don’t know, hiring the proven, competent teaching veterans who are a bit more expensive than the novices schools hire instead.

3. State teacher subject-area tests are another waste of money. The National Teacher Exam (NTE) will suffice for all states. I was surprised when I found out that many states require teachers to take the state’s own tests even if they have scores from the NTE or other state tests. Teachers have to pay for these tests out of their own pocket.

4. States waste a ton of money separately creating high-stakes tests. I remember when many states used the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. Now every state thinks they have to have their own test.

5. Probably there is plenty of money for school budgets if special interest, politically-motivated, and, in fact, all expenditures were carefully and impartially scrutinized.

Another Educational Fad Bites the Dust

Funds to continue the once popular “Reading First” are shriveling up.

Timothy Shanahan, a reading researcher at the University of Illinois at Chicago who has worked as a consultant to the Reading First program in several states, called the program “politically toxic.”

“Reading First is dead,” he writes on his blog, www.shanahanonliteracy.com. “It could have withstood the corruption described in the inspector general’s report or the interim impact study—but not both!”

So what went wrong?

Reading First “has been plagued with mismanagement, conflicts of interest, and cronyism, as documented by the inspector general,” Rep. Obey said, referring to a series of reports released by the Department of Education’s inspector general in 2006 and 2007 that suggested some federal officials and contractors involved in implementing the program had conflicts of interest and appeared to favor some commercial products over others.

“Moreover, a scientifically rigorous study released by the Department of Education found that the program has no discernible impact on student reading performance,” Rep. Obey, who is also the chairman of the Appropriations subcommittee that handles education funding, said in a reference to the evaluation released May 1 by the Institute of Education Sciences, an arm of the department. ("‘Reading First’ Research Offers No Definitive Answers," June 4, 2008.)

Reading First went the way of most fads. What usually happens is something that may have started as a good idea when first implemented by enthusiastic early adopters gets watered down by mediocre professional development training by independent contractors hired to digest and then spit out the training. I know how this works; I have sometimes been one of the independent contractors hired to present someone else’s ideas. I do not do well at this. I usually cannot refrain from incorporating my own ideas, normally because the canned presentations do not respect the intelligence and feelings of the intended audience. Once the special interests get involved, it is generally all over. Besides, later implementations have difficulty replicating the results of the enthusiastic early adopters.

What the most skillful teachers usually do is incorporate the best, or at least the most workable, ideas from any fad into their eclectic bag of tricks. Even without special funding, some aspects of every fad usually survive in some form in the teaching repertoire of some teachers where it becomes impossible to isolate from everything else the most effective teachers do.