Schools 2.0

A few days ago I was interviewed by Steve Hargadon for his audioblog on "K-12 Educational Techology, Collaborative Web Technologies, Free and Open Software, E-Learning, and School 2.0" it turned into a fascinating conversation about the "new" in "new media" and the "old" and "tired" in American public education today. (For Steve's website, see http://www.stevehargadon.com/). As usual, I trotted out the figure that cannot be repeated enough: over 30% of students who begin high school in America drop out before receiving a diploma. That figure puts us 17th in the world in the educational attainment of our population. To be the most powerful nation in the world, contributing over 25% to the total world GNP, and rank 17th in educational attainment is appalling, especially since, in fact, we spend more than lots of those top sixteen nations do on education. We know that educational attainment correlates with a host of other social factors including lifelong income and even longevity. We also know that educational failure correlates highly with poverty which, in turn, correlates with crime. So it is especially tragic that in some states (California is one) the same exact pot of money goes to fund public education and prisons. The prison union is currently America's strongest union----this is a union of those who work in and build prisons, not a union of prisoners. They lobby for great things like mandatory sentencing ("three strikes you're out--or, more accurately, in jail-- no matter the strike") and for increasing amounts of public funding to be diverted (yes, taken away from) public education and put into building more prisons to hold those failed students who turn to crime. It's disgusting.

Steve and I also talked about boredom and the new phenomenon of increasing drop out rates among all social classes and across all regions. This is hitting boys especially hard which is one reason why (for about a decade now) test scores for colleges have been especially waited (affirmative action anyone?) toward areas where boys tend to excel in order to have anything close to gender parity for entering college classes. There are still substantially more women than men in college now, even with this leg-up. Some people are wondering how much this is because of boredom and how much the huge disparity between creative online game socializing, play, and learning contrasts with the dull-as-dust national educational policy of "Leave No Child Behind." That policy, in many states, requires teachers to teach to tests, penalizes schools where the test scores are too low, actually takes money away from the school. Are we surprised that kids are bored and drop out? Are we surprised that teachers are demoralized and quit? (As I said to Steve, I personally think the "teacher drop out rate" is even more of a national crisis than the student drop out rate . . how do you keep the best young people willing to teach under these brain-numbing conditions and for terrible wages?)

One solution, of course, is to home school and Steve noted that his oldest daughter (now a sophomore in college) was homeschooled. When she asked to learn at home, Steve said many of his friends were appalled. Now, almost a decade later, many more people are thinking the way to educate their kids best is by keeping them out of school. That is appalling. Not that homeschooling is bad but that the schools are. What are those dull multiple-choice tests preparing our students for? What future would require such training? Certainly not the online, collaborative, digital future that looms ahead. We are educating our kids for failure---even the kids who survive Leave No Child Behind with high honors. It is their fortitude, not the educational system, that deserves our honor.