Leaders for high school reform: school leaders must be involved in reforming our high schools so they can help all students become productive adults who are equipped with 21st century skills.

High School Reform is the current hot topic among politicians, business leaders and educational consultants. The focus has shifted from elementary schools to high schools with a strong sense of urgency. As educational leaders we have the opportunity now to lead the reform of high schools, or we can simply react to the dictates of politicians.

Gerald Tirozzi, executive director of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, said, "We must capitalize on the current sense of urgency surrounding the state of U.S. high schools, and make a concerted effort to take a leadership role in framing the conversation and subsequent action around how to successfully re-engineer our high schools" (Educational Leadership, March/April 2005).

The ACSA Secondary Education Council believes we need to lead the reform effort in California. It will not be an easy task, but it is an essential one.

The comprehensive high school is without a doubt an important American institution. The high school experience is ingrained in our culture and is unique to America. Surely other nations have equivalent schools that prepare students for college or vocations, but in no other country does high school play such an important role in the nation's culture.

Football in the fall, basketball in the winter, and track and baseball in the spring define our school year and help mark our seasons. Indeed, high school sports can be a major focus of interest for communities. Just attend a high school football game in Texas or a basketball game in Indiana or in many communities in California, for that matter.

It's not just in sports, either. The homecoming dance and the prom are common experiences for most of us, and understood even if we didn't attend.

Academically, we have common literature across the nation in English classes; biology and chemistry are the core of our science classes; and algebra, geometry and algebra 2 are taught to meet requirements in mathematics.

The daily structure of high schools is nearly universal. We generally hold school from around 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday, with distinct class periods. The high school structure we have today has remained unchanged for nearly 100 years. We recall our high school years and understand the experiences of our children today.

Recently, the call to change our high schools has been gaining momentum. But because high school is such an important and ingrained institution, reform will be difficult. The call for reform comes from several places, with business leaders, politicians and education groups leading the charge. President Bush recently outlined a $1.5 billion dollar high school initiative to help every high school graduate gain the skills necessary to succeed in college and be competitive in the work force.

California Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell has proposed reform of high schools in California to meet those same goals. National education groups have made suggestions for reform of America's high schools to better meet the needs of business, colleges and students.

The NASSP published "Breaking Ranks II: Strategies for Leading High School Reform" in 2004. ACSA is involved with and supports the document. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Change Leadership Group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the Coalition of Essential Schools, Ed Trust, the Stanford Redesign Network and others have called for reform in high schools.

Why the call for reform now? The impetus comes from the changing needs of workers in an increasingly technological society. Good paying jobs in industry that require few academic skills no longer exist. From the 1920s until the 1980s, jobs for high school graduates and even non-graduates were available. Students could leave high school and find jobs that paid a wage sufficient to support a family, buy a car, and save to buy a house. Our education system was designed to identify potential blue-collar workers and college-bound students. As long as blue-collar jobs were plentiful, the system worked well.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the job market changed. Technology and the globalization of industry have changed the needs of businesses for workers. As a result, the skills workers in the United States need and the skills students need in college are converging. Interestingly, these skills are not strictly academic.

A survey of college professors and employers on the skills most lacking in students and new employees were very similar (Education Week, Feb. 16, 2000). The six top skills in order needed and lacking were writing, work habits, motivation, basic math skills, curiosity and respect. The basic math skills on the list were described as an ability to understand statistics and probability and the ability to organize, analyze and understand data.

Richard Murnane of Harvard and Frank Levy of M.I.T. list the new basic skills needed for work in our changing society in their book, "Teaching the New Basic Skills" (1996). They indicate that employees still look for reliability, a positive attitude and a willingness to work hard, but they add these other skills:

* The ability to read and do math at the ninth-grade level or higher.

* The ability to solve semi-structured problems where hypotheses must be formed and tested.

* The ability to work in groups with persons of various backgrounds.

* The ability to communicate effectively, both orally and in writing.

* The ability to use personal computers to carry out simple tasks such as word processing.

Some of the skills on both of these lists are addressed in traditional high school courses, but many are not.

Hugh Price, president of the National Urban League and a leader of school improvement efforts, urges that the standards students are required to meet should reflect proficiencies students need to succeed in the real world (Price, 1999). They shouldn't be mirror images of the admissions standards for selective universities.

Six "clusters of competence"

Price proposed six "clusters of competence" that have been adopted by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Price says all high school graduates should be:

1. Literate: capable of demonstrating a working command of reading, writing and speaking English.

2. Mathematically competent: able to demonstrate a command of the basic computational skills required in the workplace and in everyday adult life.

3. Problem solvers: eager to seek out information, discover answers, and apply their skills in reasoning and critical thinking to solve problems.

4. Scientifically literate: capable of appreciating nature and the environment, familiar with the scientific method and the role of science in modern life, and cognizant of the uncertainties of the scientific method.

5. Good citizens: well grounded in the forces and values that have shaped this nation historically, culturally, demographically, politically and economically with an appreciation for the relationships of the United States to the rest of the world and this country's role in the world.

6. Technologically advanced: comfortable with technology and capable of using it in the normal course of everyday work and learning.

Preparing students to lead productive lives

It is apparent that educators, politicians and citizens need to take a serious look at high school reform. The reform effort is not to simply provide workers for businesses, but to prepare students to be able to live productive lives in the 21st century. As educators, we need to lead the effort to create schools that can do this.

The reform effort is not just about increased academic rigor. To simply impose an academic solution--increased rigor--on all students is to ignore the real needs of students in today's world and perpetuate the system currently in place.

Certainly, more students should meet A-G requirements for entrance into the University of California and would benefit from doing so. Our focus, however, should be on more than the completion of courses. It should also be focused on the acquisition of necessary skills.

As noted, these skills are not just academic. High school reform requires a collaborative effort at each school site. Any reform efforts from Sacramento or Washington should provide leadership and support for this collaborative effort.

What the Secondary Ed Council believes

The ACSA Secondary Education Council believes reform efforts should meet the following expectations:

1. Serve all students--Any reform movement should address the needs of all students, not just the university-bound. Particular attention should be paid to the needs of English language learners, special education students and minority students. Closing the achievement gap should be a priority.

The reform effort should also address the needs of kinesthetic learners. Many students are left out in reform efforts that just focus on academic rigor, because we tend to focus on visual and auditory learners at the expense of kinesthetic learners. Kinesthetic learners need hands-on classes to understand concepts. Often these are classes found in school-to-career programs. Our goal must be that all students must succeed. One-size-fits-all solutions will not work.

2. Expand the range of opportunities for students--Any reform movement should not reduce the opportunities that students have or narrow choices after high school. Rather, it should expand the choices that students have and lead to better preparation for entering the work force after high school, technical school or college.

3. Prepare all students for life--Any reform movement should include a strong school-to-career component for all students. Career education should be an integral part of a strong academic program, not a separate path as part of a two-path system. All students will enter the workforce either after high school or after a postsecondary school. Each high school student should be prepared for work, for citizenship and postsecondary education when they leave high school.

4. Support students--Support structures must be in place to help close the achievement gap in test scores that we see for some students. These support structures should not be at the expense of career education opportunities for students.

5. Support principals--Principals need to be supported in efforts to change cultures in schools. This will require greater community and parent involvement. It will require collaborative, inclusive leadership, and strategic use of data. It will require creating and sustaining communities of practice among principals and staff.

6. Support teachers--We need to develop the culture of teachers working together in professional learning communities. We need to find ways for teachers to work together to create activities, assessments and evaluation of assessments in order to improve learning for all students. The culture should be one of collaboration, support, experimentation, evaluation and commitment to become better.

Reform movements should also address rigor, relevance and relationships.

Rigor: Prepared to take the next step

The academic program in high schools should develop students who meet the standards students need to function in today's society. Each student, at graduation, should be prepared to take the next step toward his or her career and academic goals. Focusing only on the completion of classes does not address other skills needed for success, including citizenship, technology use, ability to function on teams and get along with diverse people, communication, and other soft skills needed today. These need to be addressed in the curriculum.

A standards-based approach is preferable and better meets all students' needs. Schools should be held accountable for aligning the standards with what is taught in classrooms and with assessments. Students should be showing growth in the attainment of necessary skills. Accountability for schools should be structured so that over time, schools are showing improvement in the numbers of students reaching proficiency.

A continuous improvement model is preferable to the current AYP model. In addition, traditional mathematics courses required for college and university (algebra 1, geometry, algebra 2 and trigonometry) do not address the mathematics skills of statistical and data analysis. Acquisition of probability, statistical and data analysis skills by students needs to be included in the curriculum.

Relevance: Making learning meaningful

The curriculum needs to be meaningful and useful to all students. All students are headed to a career, but not all are headed to traditional four-year colleges after high school. Most students in California enter community colleges after high school and would benefit from the focus offered by school-to-career programs. A comprehensive school-to-career program can benefit all students, including college-bound students.

According to the report of the National Assessment of Vocational Education Independent Advisory Panel (2004), high school graduates with some vocational/applied learning experiences in school, ranging from community service work to internships, attained higher grade-point averages in their freshman year in college than students with no career experience in school. School-to-career programs need to be imbedded in the high school curriculum and need to be considered when making curriculum decisions.

Relationships: Feeling recognized

Students need to feel that they are recognized, respected and listened to at school. They need to have a productive and meaningful relationship with an adult at school who cares about them. Smaller learning communities, block scheduling, active club participation, career paths and interdisciplinary teams are some ways that relationships can be fostered.

Relationships also need to be fostered with parents and community members by providing mechanisms for their input into curricular decisions and inclusion issues.

The business community plays a very important role as well, providing input on skills students will need to be productive adults, providing job shadowing and internship experiences, and by providing guidance on career paths and making career decisions.

Driving the reform effort

We know that legislative timelines are often too short and that bureaucratic timelines too long. Because of this impatience, the impetus to induce change grows. While high school reform needs broad input, there is a clear sense of urgency; thus there is a need for a call to action. We are losing students. The discussion of the need to reform and what should happen to reform high schools is critical to driving the reform itself.

As leaders, we need to begin and continue discussions with parents, community leaders, business leaders and staff. The needs of our students are too important to just let change happen. We need to reform our schools to best help all students become adults who are productive and equipped with 21st century skills.

References

Price, Hugh. (Oct. 12, 1999). "The Aim of Urban School Reform." Unpublished paper. New York, NY: National Urban League.

Murnane, Richard and Levy, Frank. (1996). Teaching the New Basic Skills. New York, NY: The Free Press.

Paul A. Priesz is president of ACSA's Secondary Education Council, state coordinator of the National Association of Secondary School Principals and principal of Valencia High School in the William S. Hart Union High School District.