News Herald – Juliann Talkington

Steve Jobs is the most well known innovator of the modern age. The products his company, Apple Computer, produces are accessible, useful, reliable and cool – the epitome of American innovation. Jobs followed a tradition of great innovators who inspired change and fueled the U.S. economy.

Some say U.S. leadership in innovation is waning. For years, the World Economic Forum routinely cited the US as having the most competitive economy on the planet. In recent years, the U.S. has been overtaken in this category.

According to a Newsweek, “Two studies that use government statistics and hard data to compare global innovation were released in 2009. One study was conducted by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and the other one was conducted by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF). Both studies suggest the United States has lost the lead in innovation, ranking eighth in the BCG study and sixth in the ITIF one.”

Part of the slippage is due to increased regulation, higher taxes and fees and a legal system that punishes people for taking risks.

In addition, the U.S. is falling behind in human capital. International test results suggest many U.S. kids do not have the basic math, science and language arts skills to handle the information age jobs available.

To make matters more challenging, many of our recent graduates do not have the creative energy or exposure that once put US workers in high demand.

Employers struggling to keep up with global competition are starting to speak with their hiring practices. In 2011, only slightly more than 50% of the college graduates in the U.S. had full times jobs.

Yet, many primary and secondary school are becoming more rigid. Worried about liability, schools have eliminated laboratory science classes and removed open-end problem solving from the curriculum. Even science fairs are now just halls of paper and poster board. Many subjects have become focused on material that can be tested with multiple-choice exams.

To succeed, American youth needs better basic skills and more exposure to creative problem solving. They need to learn the basics and then be allowed to once again blend smelly chemicals, play with sound using annoying musical instruments, cobble mechanisms together with scrap metal, stabilize structures using ice and dirt – yes, tinker with messy and unsavory things.

If we do these two things, school “work” will become more rewarding and fun and our kids will be well prepared for 21st century jobs.

The Eatonton Messenger – Lynn Hobbs

“Warner said she feels Americans don’t fully understand the importance of foreign language…”In addition to developing a lifelong ability to communicate with people from other countries and backgrounds, other benefits of learning a second language include improved overall school performance and superior problem-solving skills…”"(more)

News Herald – Juliann Talkington

The U.S. State Department offers intensive summer language institutes in what they advertise as the thirteen critical languages. Interestingly, mathematics is not one of them.

In the Information Age, one has to wonder if the policy makers need a reality check.

Mathematics is the only language shared by all humans regardless of culture, religion, or gender. No matter where you live, pi represents the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter and adding up the cost of a cart of food involves the same math process regardless of whether the total is expressed in dollars, pesos, or yuan.

However, very few people, if any, are literate in all the world’s tongues —English, Chinese, Spanish, etc.

Before the Information Revolution, countries were relatively isolated. Employers hired local people to fill jobs and data and information was stored in physical libraries. Many people were required to process, store and access this information. As a result, there were many jobs that did not require analytical skill.

Everything changed with the advent of the computer and the Internet. Information is now stored in computers and travels at the speed of light. We no longer need people to manually store or help us find information. Instead we need technically astute people who can use information to make our lives better and more enjoyable. Since information is electronic, stored as combinations of zeros and ones, an Information Age worker must have strong math skills.

Sadly, many schools are still educating students for 20th Century jobs – jobs that no longer exist. Kids are still placed into math and non-math tracks and many teachers do not have the background to use the language of math in their classrooms.

Travel around the world to Singapore – it only takes a second on the Internet. In that country, students are expected to learn to both English and the international language of math. Many of the K-12 graduates who choose social science careers have stronger math skills than our math track kids. To make matters worse, technology allows companies to hire talent anywhere in the world. No wonder unemployment in the U.S. is at an all time high.

For the U.S. to compete and our kids to have a reasonable standard of living, we must embrace the Information Age language – math. It is language of opportunity in the 21st Century!

News Herald – Juliann Talkington

WHAT DO RATINGS MEAN?

Many schools tout state testing results, school grades and graduation rates. In most cases, these ratings are not correlated to national standards or international testing levels. Florida has many “A” schools, yet U.S. Department of Education (DOE) data suggests only 1% of the Florida high school seniors are advanced in math and only about 4% are advanced in reading. Also, graduation rates are not correlated to proficiency. Bay County, Florida has a graduation rate of about 82%. However, based on the DOE data, only about 19% of Florida seniors have grade level math proficiency. To make matters more challenging, state testing results are manipulated. For example, last year the state adjusted the FCAT writing scores, because the performance was low.

ARE ADVANCED PROGRAMS ADVANCED?
With 1% of the Florida high school seniors advanced in math (approximately 17 Bay County students) and only about 4% advanced in reading (approximately 68 Bay County students) enrollment in advanced classes should be low. However, there are many more students in advanced programs in Bay County. As a result, most advanced classes must be advanced in name only.

ARE COLLEGE CLASSES COLLEGE LEVEL?
To handle the influx of students with skills deficiencies, many colleges have added remedial classes. These classes are not true college level courses, but classes that cover material that should have been mastered in middle or high school. As a general rule, dual enroll classes are really middle school or high school level courses given at a college or university.

STUDENT GRADES ARE DECEPTIVE
In recent years, there has been tremendous grade inflation. As a result, an “A” no longer means a student has mastered the material. Most top universities weigh SAT or ACT scores heavily, because grades no longer accurately reflect knowledge.

JOB PREPARATION?
Employers complain that K-12 education is not providing workplace skills – strong math and science skills and communication abilities, creativity, curiosity and proficiency in top foreign languages. Few students leave high school with more than exposure to a foreign language and creativity has been culled from the school environment due to legal worries and standardized test preparation. To make matters worse, only about 1% of our high school students leave school with the necessary math and communication skills.

WHAT IS NEEDED
Given the dismal employment statistics for US high school and university graduates, parents need clear, concise information on 12th grade student performance based on DOE standards and international testing levels.

Arizona Central – Jaime Molera

“As Gov. Jan Brewer moves forward with her Arizona Ready Education Council’s plan to create a school-finance system that is embedded with a strong performance-based funding formula, Common Core will provide a higher degree of confidence that as our students graduate from our K-12 system, they will possess career- and college-ready skills needed for success.”(more)

BBC – Dan Harrison

“Teachers will no longer receive increases based on length of service – but instead there will be a stronger link to performance, says the profession’s pay review body.”(more)

News Herald – Juliann Talkington

What is wrong with the U.S. education system?

The U.S. has one of the highest per student spending rates in the world, yet the U.S. continues to perform poorly in international academic comparisons. In the recent Trends in International Math and Science Study (TIMSS) math comparison, U.S. twelfth-grade students ranked 19th out of 21 countries. Many of the countries that outperformed the U.S. are third world nations.

Then according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation almost 70% of fourth graders are reading below grade level. And according to an April 2009 Education Week report, the average math and reading scores for 17-year-olds have remained the same since the 1970s. And according to The Journal, fourth- and eighth-grade reading scores have shown no real improvement despite increased government regulation aimed at improving performance.

To make matters worse, US college graduates are having difficulty finding jobs. According to a recent Rutgers University study, only about 50% of the 2011 college graduates have jobs and only about thirty percent of those that have jobs have jobs that require a college degree.

Colleges and universities complain students are unprepared for the rigors of college works and that they are having to “dumb-down” course material to address basic skills deficiencies.

Where are U.S. children educated?

Today most US children are educated in the public education system. About 50 million children attend public primary and secondary schools in the United States – nine out of every ten students in grades kindergarten through 12 (K-12). According the to the National Center for Education Statistics there are about 3.3 million full time equivalent teachers in the public primary and secondary school system.

Perhaps the US public education system is too big and bureaucratic.

It is well known that monopolies create market inefficiencies and social challenges – the reason the U.S. has anti-trust regulation. Normally private sector companies are subject to mandatory anti-trust review when the percentage of market share is above 50%. With public schools controlling 90% of K-12 education market, there must be significant economic and social inefficiencies. Sadly, those impacted by the monopoly are the future of our country.

Maybe it is time that we demand that the public school system in the US follow the same anti-trust regulations that apply to private companies. This would encourage innovation and assure our children receive the education they need to succeed in the 21st Century and that the US can remain a world leader.

News Herald – Juliann Talkington

Steve Jobs is the most well known innovator of the modern age. The products his company, Apple Computer, produces are accessible, useful, reliable and cool – the epitome of American innovation. Jobs followed a tradition of great innovators who inspired change and fueled the U.S. economy.

Some say U.S. leadership in innovation is waning. For years, the World Economic Forum routinely cited the US as having the most competitive economy on the planet. In recent years, the U.S. has been overtaken in this category.

According to a Newsweek, “Two studies that use government statistics and hard data to compare global innovation were released in 2009. One study was conducted by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and the other one was conducted by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF). Both studies suggest the United States has lost the lead in innovation, ranking eighth in the BCG study and sixth in the ITIF one.”

Part of the slippage is due to increased regulation, higher taxes and fees and a legal system that punishes people for taking risks.

In addition, the U.S. is falling behind in human capital. International test results suggest many U.S. kids do not have the basic math, science and language arts skills to handle the information age jobs available.

To make matters more challenging, many of our recent graduates do not have the creative energy or exposure that once put US workers in high demand.

Employers struggling to keep up with global competition are starting to speak with their hiring practices. In 2011, only slightly more than 50% of the college graduates in the U.S. had full times jobs.

Yet, many primary and secondary school are becoming more rigid. Worried about liability, schools have eliminated laboratory science classes and removed open-end problem solving from the curriculum. Even science fairs are now just halls of paper and poster board. Many subjects have become focused on material that can be tested with multiple-choice exams.

To succeed, American youth needs better basic skills and more exposure to creative problem solving. They need to learn the basics and then be allowed to once again blend smelly chemicals, play with sound using annoying musical instruments, cobble mechanisms together with scrap metal, stabilize structures using ice and dirt – yes, tinker with messy and unsavory things.

If we do these two things, school “work” will become more rewarding and fun and our kids will be well prepared for 21st century jobs.

Hindustan Times – Zehra Kazmi

“When Soma Gupta moved to Noida in 1991 with her family, you could count the number of good schools on your fingers…Today, the scenario is starkly different. Noida seems to be in the midst of a second wave of schools…”(more)

Hechinger Ed – Liz Willen

“What would help the children of Mississippi, which has test scores that are consistently among the nation’s worst? The Hechinger Report and Time magazine have partnered to take a long look at the state’s performance…”(more)