High school is a time when students look forward to the working world or college, but many education and business leaders say that secondary schools need retooling if they are truly to prepare students for life's next step. With dropout rates exceeding 50 percent in some inner-city schools and no shortage of disengaged students in suburban and rural systems, reformers have increased the drumbeat for an overhaul of the traditional high school.
As educators seek new frameworks for high school education, some researchers point to countries like Denmark or Singapore, where high standards and expectations are understood by students across grade levels and mesh with the expectations of university and business leaders. Others urge school administrators to look closer to home and listen to the comments of disaffected students. In both cases, reform groups encourage educators and policymakers to think outside the current high school box.
Coherent Systems
"The countries with the best education and training records have a ministry of education that has the legitimacy, funding, and technical support to create systems that work coherently together," says Marc Tucker, president of the National Center on Education and the Economy. In the United States, on the other hand, the system of education has a number of "disconnects" that can work against student achievement. Assessments often don't mesh with standards, the materials of commercial publishers don't always align with standards, and education schools don't always equip teachers to understand the subjects they will be expected to teach in high school, Tucker says.
In an age of global competition, how can the current U.S. "nonsystem" for secondary education be expected to compete with other countries' well-designed systems? Tucker laments.
When Tucker interviewed teachers in Singapore, he learned that schools routinely assign the best teachers to work with the lowest-performing students. "These teachers took enormous pride in that position," says Tucker. If a student needs further guidance, teachers schedule Saturday tutorials, because they have a strong belief that academic achievement is related to effort, he notes.
While plans to help underperformers can vary with each school, they usually include "working with parents to help their children, enrichment programs to provide meaning and motivation for pupils to excel, recognizing pupils' efforts through awards, and individual counseling by school staff," says Marion Tan, a former secondary school principal who evaluates school quality for Singapore's Ministry of Education.
Singapore's secondary system not only promotes high standards and clear expectations, Tan says, but also helps students strike a balance between studying the humanities and the sciences.
"The system is rigorous, and all students go through a common and fair mode of assessment at different stages of education. Their performance in these assessments determines the qualification for the next stage of education," Tan says.
Demanding Rigor
In Denmark, upper-secondary education rests upon a demanding national core curriculum that usually ends in 9th grade. Nearly all students take a voluntary qualifying exam to choose whether they enter a three-year college prep program, called the academic gymnasium, or one of two types of vocational schools, called technical gymnasiums and commercial gymnasiums. At vocational schools, students still take an academic curriculum that qualifies them for university, but they also take on project-based, hands-on work in a technical field, whether learning carpentry, designing textiles, or training as an air traffic controller, says Tucker.
The three- to four-year "sandwich" program in the vocational schools combines apprenticeships with academics focused on the chosen technical or commercial field.
During visits to Danish technical and commercial gymnasiums, "we were flabbergasted at the academic qualifications of the vocational students," says Tucker. Because typical vocational students know three languages, theoretical math, probability and statistics, and solid sciences, instructors can help them build advanced technical skills. As a result, "Danes are famous in northern Europe for their skills in the occupations," Tucker points out.
Knowing Students
Although other countries can provide intriguing models of high school reform, researchers are also beginning to listen to the students themselves. Christopher Unger, a researcher at Brown University's Education Alliance, has extensively interviewed high school students in Washington State, Connecticut, and New York. Based on this research, Unger has found that many schools fail to give students a vision of their own promise.
"High schools don't give students the sense that they can make their life what they want—if they pursue their dreams and interests—rather than have life happen to them," Unger says. "Kids in the inner cities, in rural areas, or from difficult socioeconomic backgrounds don't see the possibilities for themselves."
Unger asked a group of African American senior boys who were on the cusp of failing school in Seattle for their advice to educators: What would you tell teachers to do that would make a difference if you could start high school over again? Despite the boys' teenage posturing and cool reception to the query, one young man finally said that if teachers "cared or at least pretended to care" about him, his attitude toward school and studying would improve, Unger recalls.
When teachers help students after class, tell them to do their homework because they want them to finish school or go to college, or stop them in the hallway to ask how they're doing, their consistent concern builds trust day by day, Unger says.
Start with relationships as the basis for improving high schools, Unger says. Even the highly touted small learning communities won't work by starting with curriculum and instruction, he asserts. "If you have a small group of teachers working with students, let's start with the individual kids—Johnny, Ramon, Takesha. The change has to come from a real interest in kids. First change the relationship, then change the teaching and learning," Unger says. From an understanding of particular students, strong teacher leaders can raise the necessary core questions that critique current practices, he adds.
High schools also need to make the curriculum relevant, not merely in the limited sense of applying math to balance a checkbook, but helping students see that the totality of what they learn and do in high school will contribute to their success and happiness in life, Unger says.
The career academy approach at Gorton High School in Yonkers, N.Y., illustrates how this wider view of relevance works. Gorton is a career magnet school with academies in law and public service, health, and trades such as horticulture, electronics, and construction. When Unger interviewed Gorton students, they told him they could see the connections to future careers and to college academics as well, because they take courses with local university partners. Students really like the school programs because even in 9th and 10th grade they can see "where they are going" and that the school is providing the training to get them there, Unger says.
Asking Students
Even in high-performing suburban high schools, school administrators can find room for improvement. For example, a survey of students in Glenbard Township High School District in Illinois revealed that a significant number of students, especially minorities, were unhappy. Nearly a quarter of the 7,200 students surveyed said they "probably" or "definitely" would choose not to return to one of the district's four high schools if they had to do it over again.
"We were shocked at the number of kids who silently go through our schools and say they don't want to do it again," says Glenbard Superintendent Timothy Hyland. He introduced the High School Survey of Student Engagement last year as a way to improve "customer service" in the district. The survey, adapted from a similar one for college students that was developed by Indiana University's School of Education, will be given to 150 high schools nationwide this year.
In an attempt to build stronger connections between teachers and students, Glenbard schools set up an internal e-mail system to give students another outlet to reach teachers—from home or school—to discuss lessons, tests, and careers on an ongoing basis. "We found that students use it enormously," says Hyland.
In the future, the survey will rotate among the district's four high schools. Each school must then report to the Glenbard Township school board how it will address issues raised by the student responses.
When it comes to reforming high schools, Hyland observes, "typically, students are the customers that are rarely asked about what they think." As more schools discover the benefits of involving students in the high school reform process, the inclusion of their voices may prove to be a valuable catalyst for change.
