News Herald – Juliann Talkington
According to Education Week, the US graduation rate is less than 70% and the Florida graduation rate is only about 57%. With this type of graduation data it is not surprising that policy makers are desperate to find ways to encourage more children to finish high school.
Over the past 30 years, many concepts have been tried. One tactic has been to encourage early specialization. There are magnet schools for elementary school children and highly specialized high school programs that prepare kids for certain fields. The thought is that more children could be encouraged to stay in school and graduate if they are studying something they enjoy.
In magnet schools, for example, parents can now choose performing arts, science, athletics and other specialized areas. Although courses in other subjects are offered, the majority of the focus is on the specialization.
Early specialization is common in Latin America, Europe and in some parts of Asia. By ninth grade, children in many countries are put into a track — science and math, business, social sciences or trade.
At first glance, this approach seems like the perfect way to solve many problems with US education. However, there are challenges. By the time young people are 18, many have limited career choices based on decisions made before or shortly after they entered high school.
At 13, 14 and 15, children are still developing and changing. As a result, this is a bad time to ask a young person to make a decision that will impact the rest of his/her life. For example, someone who is passionate about art at 14 may decide at 18 he or she wants to become an architect. This area of study requires not only artistic abilities, but also strong math and science skills. It is equally tragic for a person who loves science and math to fail to develop the artistic part of his/her brain. The best engineers and scientists are those who can find creative ways to solve problems and can communicate in eloquent, visual ways.
If children are to reach their dreams, career decisions should be delayed until they are old enough to make good choices. As a result, it is critical that policy makers and educators find ways to engage young people so they can develop strong science, math, language arts, creativity and history skills. This will mean happier young people and a better-educated, more productive society.