Group items tagged

Creating a 21st century education system that prepares students, workers and citizens to triumph in the global skills race is the central economic competitiveness issue currently facing the United States, according to a new report released by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills.

Sponsored by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, Ford Motor Company Fund, KnowledgeWorks Foundation and the National Education Association, the report notes that the country’s economic output has changed dramatically over the past 30 years and there is no sign this trend will stop.

As the world continues to shift from an industrial economy to a service economy driven by information, knowledge and innovation, cultivating 21st century skills is vital to economic success.

"It's important that they understand that they may bring a lot of technical expertise, but that they have a lot to learn from the [other] teachers in schools in terms of pedagogy and content," she says. Thompson also concedes that higher ed has been guilty of paying too much attention to the devices themselves. "We all did at first: 'If we just teach teachers how to use technology, they'll figure out how to teach with it.' Although it was an understandable approach, it really wasn't the approach we should be taking."

"In the state of Michigan, every high school student must have at least one online class experience for graduation," Brady says. "What I say to my students is, 'How can we have that as a high school requirement if we've never walked in their shoes?' We have to take an online class to be in a better position to train our students so they'll be ready for that online experience."

The latest version of Keystone Exams calls for the state to provide 10 end-of-course exams, beginning with English literature, Algebra 1 and biology in 2010-11, with other subjects being phased in through 2016-17. The state would ask the federal government to permit the first three to be used to satisfy the No Child Left Behind Act beginning in 2012-13, thus enabling the state to discontinue the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment exams in 11th grade.

For graduation purposes, school districts would need to count the exams for at least one-third of a student's final grade or districts could use validated local assessments or Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate exams instead.

In teaching, the implications are even more profound. They suggest that we shouldn’t be raising standards. We should be lowering them, because there is no point in raising standards if standards don’t track with what we care about. Teaching should be open to anyone with a pulse and a college degree—and teachers should be judged after they have started their jobs, not before.

While the attendance rate for the district is very good, Stockman said, 26.6 percent of the Top 50 students in the district’s seven high schools have missed between 10 and 19 days of school and 6.3 percent missed 20 days or more.

“We have students who miss 50 days of school and graduate in the Top 50 of their class. And we know the reasons. A lot of them are working on Florida Virtual School to get (Advanced Placement) and honors credits.”

students who have accrued 10 or more absences in a semester to the intervention team to be considered for denial of credit. Credit denial results in an “L” being placed next tot he semester grade on the student’s report card and in the student’s grade history. The grade will not be figured into the student’s grade point average.