TECHNOS

July 27, 2008

TECHNOS QUARTERLY Spring 1997 Vol. 6 No. 1

Reform and Tomorrow's Schools

By Marvin Cetron

Technology—and some surprising common-sense measures—are necessary to reform American schools and to prepare students for the 21st century.

In the early 1980s, the landmark study A Nation at Risk taught us a horrifying lesson. By and large, American schools were not doing their job. Dropout rates averaged 12 percent nationally and reached more than one-third in some inner cities. The results of staying in school were still more disheartening. Not even 12 full years of public education guaranteed that a student could read, write, or perform simple arithmetic well enough to enter college or to begin a career.

Some 13 years later, the situation is marginally better. Dropout rates have fallen in some districts, while average scores on standardized tests have crept upward. Yet we still struggle with two key questions that confront public education: What must our children know and how can we best help them to learn it?

At Forecasting International (FI), we've been seeking these answers for 10 years. In one major study, we surveyed 300 school-improvement efforts throughout the country. In troubled inner-city neighborhoods, wealthy suburbs, and poor rural communities, we found that many innovative programs are keeping children in school and getting them to learn. Recently, the American Association of School Administrators invited us to join a panel of educators, business and government leaders, and social scientists. Our assignment, in Preparing Students for the 21st Century, was to identify the knowledge and behavioral skills that today's students need for the future. These and other experiences have shown us several reforms that American schools require. But they have also shown us that one proposed reform could easily cripple what is left of public education.

Technology Essential
One lesson we learned in our first survey of educational reform was the astonishing power of computerized teaching.

In many ways, computers are the ideal teacher. Unlike their human colleagues, computers are never too harried to answer a question, never too distracted to notice that a student is puzzled. They always proceed at each child's own pace, presenting information in a variety of ways until students show that they understand the material. The best computerized tutors can capture and hold a child's attention for hours.

In one district after another, even relatively simple educational software made dramatic improvements in student performance. Before adopting computers, one Chicago grammar school averaged only 4.2 months of reading improvement and 5.5 months' gain in math for each school year; a new computerized learning system quickly moved that to 8.4 months in reading and a full 10 months in math. In a poor, rural community in South Carolina, computers helped cut the dropout rate from 35 percent to less than one percent in just a few years. Granted, human teachers might have done even better—if schools could hire enough smart, motivated, patient educators for every two or three students. But in the real world, these benefits could not have been achieved in any other way.

Neither were they unusual, according to the longest-running study of computerized education yet conducted. In the Classrooms of Tomorrow project, researchers from 25 universities are tracking student performance in a dozen computerized K–12 classes in Nashville, TN; Cupertino, CA; and Columbus, OH. Findings from this decade-old program clearly show that children do better and are absent less often when computers, CD-ROMs, video cameras, and other technologies are routinely available.

The improvements are significant. At all levels, technology lifted scores on standardized tests by 10 to 15 percent. Children mastered basic skills in reading, vocabulary, and computation 30 percent faster. When technology came in, high school students stayed in school: dropout rates fell from an average of 8.4 percent to 4.7 percent. And in districts where only 15 percent of all students had pursued higher education, suddenly more than 90 percent went on to college.

There were other benefits, according to project head David Dwyer. Second- and third-graders could write only nine to 11 words per minute by hand, but typed at 25 to 30 words per minute. They also wrote more sophisticated essays than teachers had thought them capable of. Motor skills, not intellectual development, had been holding them back. Children also approached information in more sophisticated ways. In the third and fourth grades, students began an assignment by looking at the textbook's copyright date. Computers, aided by the Internet, had taught them that information, like food, is best when it's fresh. Although adults had feared that computers would turn their children into asocial nerds, just the opposite happened.

“Technology acted almost as a social magnet,” Dwyer reports. “Classrooms are active, collaborative environments that remind observers of adult work environments.”

These results are considerably better than the national average, partly because participating classes have ready access to state-of-the-art computers and equipment donated by Apple Computer. Yet U.S. schools in general have worked hard to adopt new technology. Most now have at least one computer per classroom, more than one-third have a CD-ROM reader, and nearly half are connected to the Internet, which is especially useful.

Recent studies have shown that children with Internet access learn more and faster than their Net-deprived peers. Within five years, most schools will be linked to the growing network of fiber-optic cables, which make data connections faster and cheaper. A year or two later, wireless communication links will bring high-speed service to even those schools far from major population centers. As a result, tomorrow's pupils will be better prepared for life in the new technology-dependent century than are students today.

Important progress, but it's nowhere near enough. All students must use computers daily and have Internet access when preparing reports and projects that require quick access to large volumes of information. Both computers and Net links should become so commonplace that children take them for granted. Only then will they be fully integrated into pupils' work, so that academic research becomes second nature.

The Information Appliance
New technology will make this possible. Within ten years, the so-called “Information Appliance” (IA) will arrive—with all the features of today's most advanced personal computers, and more. The IA will be a computer, a fax machine, and a copier. Its 20 by 30 inch flat color screen will be half multimedia display and half picturephone. Two buttons will set it to translate automatically among any of nine common languages, enabling users who don't speak the same language to communicate.

This new one-box-does-all data center will handle all our information and communication needs. Radio, 500 television channels (many designed for the classroom), e-mail, Web access, and all forms of personal computing will come through the IA. Aimed at consumers, its controls will simple enough for small children to use. And because it will contain more raw computing power than today's top-of-the-line PCs, it will run educational software as sophisticated as any now available for multi-user classroom systems.

The IA should be available around 2005 at a cost of about $2,500. Since it will be small and cheap, most school systems will find the IA affordable. Less affluent districts and poor families will receive government aid, which will probably be funded by a dedicated tax on those large corporations that are increasingly desperate for well-educated employees. By 2010, the IA should be on the desks of most American students.

Next Generation of Teachers
In many schools today, computers sit idle because too-busy or fearful teachers have never learned to use them. But by 2005, many educators will have retired and been replaced by the first generation of teachers to grow up with PCs. Those remaining will need special training.

Computers will free educators to adopt much more sophisticated, effective, and rewarding styles of teaching. Future teachers will be facilitators, monitors, and catalysts, rather than lecturers and taskmasters. Computers will determine each pupil's needs, so that teachers can meet students at their own levels. In this way, the IA could effect the single most influential change in education since Dick met Jane—but only if teachers already have the necessary subject skills.

Teacher skills are at the heart of another necessary, but controversial, reform. In other fields, management routinely identifies and rewards the most productive workers, while weeding out the least effective. In this way, industry creates sound products at fair prices. But in education, teachers are paid for time served and courses taken, not for students successfully taught. At the same time, our children remain ignorant, and per-pupil costs rise much faster than inflation. Is this a coincidence?

Unfortunately, the notion that teachers should be held accountable for performance, that they should be rewarded for success and penalized for failure, is not endorsed by teachers themselves. The National Education Association fought merit pay for years, and local teacher unions hate it still. They find it useful to pretend that union membership guarantees competence.

However, comparing teachers according to almost any standard makes it clear that some are far more effective than others. School districts are coming to accept this truth. Many of the most successful districts now pay their best teachers for performance. They turn out well-educated students in part because of merit pay—not in spite of it.

Merit Pay and Performance
The hardest part of merit pay is deciding which teachers deserve it. The obvious way is to test their students, adjusting results for local conditions. Teachers whose pupils learn the most from a given course are the best by definition. Unfortunately, many districts simply give teachers a multiple-choice test of general knowledge and familiarity with pedagogical methods. Others have colleagues observe and evaluate the teacher's classroom management and lecture style. Another technique is the teacher portfolio, a comprehensive profile that may include lesson plans, samples of students' work, and even videos of classroom performance. Each method has its problems. Multiple-choice tests accomplish little, while classroom observations and portfolios are subjective and may be influenced by the evaluator's relationship with the teacher.

Evaluating the teacher's performance is necessary, not only for merit pay programs, but to ensure that students get the education they need and deserve. Rather than fighting teacher testing, the NEA should welcome it as an opportunity to prove that it really is a professional organization, dedicated to the needs of students just as medical associations are dedicated to patient needs. Until the NEA accepts this challenge, it will look remarkably like a garden-variety labor union.

We will fight this battle for the next 20 years, but merit pay will not go away. Eventually, our schools will be the better for it.

More Time in School
Once schools have the needed equipment and trained teachers, a third problem becomes obvious. The more time students spend learning, the more they are likely to learn. This is another area in which U.S. schools don't measure up to the competition.

The American school year, one of the shortest in the industrialized world, averages 180 days, each about 6.5 hours long—which includes recess, study halls, and electives. Homework adds only 20 minutes to the school day. (We found one district in Texas where parents voted down a reform plan that had proved successful elsewhere when they discovered that the football team would not be allowed to practice during class time.)

Japan, the most glaring example, has 240 school days annually, each lasting eight full hours, with an additional two hours of homework. The legendary cram schools, attended by all students whose parents are set on their success, add the equivalent of another full day of school each week. This effort pays off, both academically and in later life. Japanese students average two to three years ahead of American students on standardized achievement tests. And Japanese manufacturers routinely train high-school graduates in complex statistical quality-control procedures. By contrast, their own U.S. factories are forced to hire American workers with master's degrees in mathematics to perform the same work.

While we are unlikely to ever adopt the Japanese schedule, longer school days and years are inevitable. A reasonable compromise would be 210 days of seven hours each; and we at FI believe that American schools will slowly move toward that goal. The trend has already begun.

Women in Technology
Girls make up 51 percent of the school-age population. Women have won the Nobel Prize in biology and medicine, physics, and chemistry—all three of the sciences in which the awards are given. Astronaut Shannon Lucid has logged more time in space than any other American. Despite clear proof that women are every bit as suited to the technical disciplines as men, only 13 percent of all college students in science and engineering programs are female.

Teachers and parents share the blame for this. Kindergarten girls still are led to play with dolls instead of blocks. After continued discouragement, they too often lose whatever interest might have led them to careers in science and technology. In this way, the U.S. has chosen to forfeit the intelligence and creativity of half its potential scientists. In the fierce competition of global economy, this is a luxury we can no longer afford. Students need the freedom and support to develop all their talents, not just those that fit traditional gender roles. Unfortunately, teachers will still be trying to change their ways well into the next century. Parents are unlikely to even make the attempt.

High-Tech Vocations
With all the demands on our nation's school system, one pressing need is still largely overlooked. High school graduates have only begun to learn. Slightly more than half go on to college; the rest need training for the many technical fields that require skilled workers. America faces shortages of computer programmers, medical technicians, hazardous waste workers, and other specialists. The answer is high-tech vocational training of a kind that few school districts can currently provide.

This will require more than a change of attitude or a reallocation of funds from traditional college preparatory programs to career training. We must commit new resources to build and equip schools, recruit and train teachers, and plan courses for a working environment that technology now transforms almost yearly. While none of this will be easy in the cash-strapped nineties and early twenty-first century, we must meet this challenge if our schools are to give students the education they need.

Community Partners
Schools everywhere are looking for help. Most of them are getting it from parts of the community not formerly involved in education. In some areas, retirees volunteer as tutors. In others, local universities offer remedial classes for slow learners and college-level courses for advanced students. According to one estimate, schools have already formed more than 250,000 “education partnerships” within their communities.

Some of the most eager and effective help has come from corporations who someday must hire today's students. In Massachusetts, Polaroid paid up to ten company employees each year to become teachers; while in training, the teachers-to-be received their full salary, tuition, books, and other expenses. In one blighted Chicago neighborhood, a coalition of some sixty major companies sponsored a new and innovative community school for children from ages two to eight. Other companies regularly give executives time off to become mentors for children who need help. Many of these efforts—resources that even wealthy districts could not buy—have dramatically cut student dropout rates and improved learning performances.

Recruit Parents Nothing is more important to a child's education than parental involvement. Some of the most successful school-improvement programs we found brought parents into the classroom. In some cases, parents help to manage the class. In others, parental dropouts go back to school so they can read and write as well as their children and even help with homework. Almost any program works if it brings parents into the process. When parents get involved in schooling, student performance averages one grade higher. This is true at all grade levels and in all communities.

Some years ago, then-Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas signed into law a bill that fines parents for skipping parent-teacher meetings. Unfortunately, so far as we know, no other state has followed this lead. If this is the only way to involve parents in their child's education, then fines are justified. The one fact that no one doubts—not teachers, not administrators, not even politicians—is that parents, more than anyone else, govern how well their children learn.

We need both public and private schools, it is true. But we do not need public funding of private schools. Not in any form.

When they work properly, public schools prepare students either to begin higher education or to enter the workforce, while exposing them to all the religious, ethnic, and cultural variety of their community. Thus, public schools help turn children into responsible, productive citizens, which is why this system was established in the first place.

Private schools have a different purpose: to offer specialized educational and cultural experiences that shape students into the kind of adults their parents want them to become. While their goals are valid, none deserves public funding. Generally, private schools perform their tasks much more successfully than public schools. Parents voluntarily support them and participate in their programs, while public education depends on increasingly scarce tax dollars.

Voucher programs that support students in private schools would add no money to the education budget, but would divert funds from public institutions and further degrade public education. This is one “reform” we simply cannot afford.

Other Reforms
Educators and social scientists have offered dozens of other reforms, many of them clearly worthwhile.

One obvious way to get better teachers is to pay them well enough to attract and keep the bright, eager young people who today enter other professions. Connecticut and other regions that have raised teacher salaries have found school performance rising also. But today many students enter teaching because their own school records have left them few better-paid options. Those who do well leave teaching for other careers as soon as they have enough work experience.

Another good idea is to recruit new teachers from industry, where they have already mastered their fields. Engineers and scientists who take a few courses in pedagogy have proved to be better teachers of subjects such as mathematics than professional educators who can manage a class but who never quite mastered algebra.

Mortimer Adler's ground-breaking Paideia Project, which deserves a much broader trial, would replace the standard curriculum with a rigorous return to the classics. It regularly turns average students into some of the brightest thinkers and best educated young people in America, leaving almost none behind.

None of these reforms, on its own, will cure all of what ails American education. None will be accomplished simply or overnight. But many already are proving their value, and our children are reaping the benefits. New technology, along with a few common-sense measures, will go a long way toward repairing our schools.

Illustration by Frank Morris.

Marvin Cetron is founder and president of Forecasting International, Ltd., one of the world's most respected forecasting organizations in the fields of business, politics, technology, and lifestyles. He was identified by U.S. News and World Report as one of the nation's foremost futurists. Cetron, who holds a Ph.D. in Research and Development Management from American University, developed many of the scientific forecasting methods now used by other futurists. Cetron's most recent book, Educational Renaissance: Our Schools at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century (St. Martin's Press) examines the existing crises in our schools and suggests attainable reforms for the year 2000.