This one is sure to generate some controversy! Please weigh in with your comments!
“College- and career-ready” is a phrase we hear often, in connection with student standards, curricula and new assessments. But should it be College- and/OR Career-Ready? The Pathways to Prosperity Project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education has released a new report that argues our national strategy for education is too narrowly focused on an academic, classroom-based approach.
According to the report, this strategy has produced only incremental gains in achievement, even as other nations outpace the United States. The report therefore advocates a broader vision of school reform that embraces multiple pathways for young people to successfully transition from adolescence to adulthood. Though the country currently emphasizes a single pathway to success — attending and graduating from a four-year college — only 30 percent of students attain this goal. At the same time, the country is expected to create 47 million jobs in the 10-year period ending in 2018, only a third of which will require a bachelor’s or higher degree.
Given these realities, the report argues for far more emphasis on career counseling and high-quality career education, as well as apprenticeship programs and community colleges. The report also argues that employers should play a greatly expanded role in helping young adults participate in work-based learning and in jobs related to their actual programs of study. Finally, the report recommends a new social compact, which promises that by his or her mid-20s, every young American will be equipped with the education and experience to lead a successful life as an adult, not necessarily the education and experience to succeed in college.
To see an incensed response to this report, see: http://dropoutnation.net/2011/02/02/harvard-graduate-school-education-poor-minority-kids-deserve-college-prep-education/
