Failing Highschools

The New York Times:

While the problems of low achievement and poor high-school graduation rates are clear, however, their solutions are not. The reformist governors, for example, want to require all students to take a college-preparatory curriculum and to meet more rigorous standards for graduation. These steps will very likely increase the dropout rate, not reduce it. To understand why, you have to consider what the high schools are dealing with. When American students arrive as freshmen, nearly 70 percent are reading below grade level. Equally large numbers are ill prepared in mathematics, science and history. It is hardly fair to blame high schools for the poor skills of their entering students. If students start high school without the basic skills needed to read, write and solve mathematics problems, then the governors should focus on strengthening the standards of their states' junior high schools. And that first year of high school is often the most important one - many students who eventually drop out do so after becoming discouraged when they can't earn the credits to advance beyond ninth grade. Ninth grade is often referred to by educators as a 'parking lot.' This is because social promotion - the endemic practice of moving students up to the next grade whether they have earned it or not - comes to a crashing halt in high school.

Social promotion always was a huge mistake. The rest of the article is good as well and deserves reading. I believe though, that our mistakes with education are more fundamental than that. Before I go into my preferred system though, I'd like to direct you to this post by The Anchoress and this related post of her 15 yo son's opinions as well as this post by Joseph Marshall. They discuss in what highschools should be teaching, what are the minimums we feel our students, as future members of society need to know. Some of what they say I agree with, and some of what they say I don't but these posts serve very well to illustrate my main point. My belief is that we have failed kids primarily by trying to build one size fits all schools. Different kids learn stuff in different ways and failing to realize that is, in my opinion, a huge mistake. I would envision lots of smaller private schools for both primary and secondary education that have the ability to create custom environments for different learning styles as well as different focuses. Competition based on results (rather than beurocratic manuevering) would weed out failing schools. This entire program would be funded by a voucher system with additional contributions from parents if desired. I would demand, as a tax payer, some basic guidlines that any school would have to meet to be eligible for the vouchers. And yes, these would have to be administered through standardized tests. But they would be very basic. Probably just literacy and core math skills (yes the old 3 R's.) For the rest, the parents, students and schools can determine what is important to them, and what method is most appropriate to achieve those goals.