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March 1, 2005
Re-inventing High School
Bill Gates is on a new crusade -- to re-invent high school. Unlike some reformers, Gates seems to understand that the problem is not that schools are failing, it is schools that are obsolete. As Gates says in a piece in today's LA Times:
Today, even when they work exactly as designed, our high schools cannot teach our kids what they need to know.I agree -- see my Feb. 2 posting "Don't reform education - redesign." I worry, however, that Gates is not going far enough. He conceives of the problem as a lack of tie into college:
The idea behind the old high school system was that you could train an adequate workforce by sending only a small fraction of students to college, and that the other kids either couldn't do college work or didn't need to.His solution:
Every politician and chief executive in the country should speak up for the belief that children need to take courses that prepare them for college.I'm not sure that sending everyone to college is the answer. I think this perpetuates the system of education as something you do in a building when you are young. I would rather see high school as the place where you create learners who will continue their education in multiple avenues -- rather than as a college-prep system for everyone.
As I highlighted in my earlier posting, I think the Partnership for 21st Century Skills is on the right track: bridge the gap between how student live and how they learn. If we make learning part of living, then everyone -- those going on to college and those taking an alternative route -- will be better off.
Posted by Ken Jarboe at March 1, 2005 9:04 AM
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