Engagement goes to school

[Craig Althof]

No need to go into huge personal detail, but one of my personal objectives is to make an impact in young peoples’ lives, by working in the education system / school to career stuff. Some time ago I did a little teaching at the local high school, and worked with the local school administrators on some very good school-to-career initiatives that didn’t have a chance to go beyond the concept phase.


It took a couple of years, but I finally came to admit that the education system has more built-in administrivia and roadblocks to innovation than even a poorly run company. That, and the fact that teachers make lousy pay compared to work in business and industry, finally chased me away from the education side of my grand strategy. But the avocation to make a difference in education still burns within me.


The symptoms: the US education system is in trouble. Students in the US are scoring lower than much of the developed work in standard test scores. Attainment levels (graduating) are falling, and more kids are dropping out of high school. The issues continue into higher education: with rising costs of education and the need for many young people to get right to the real world of earning a paycheck, both college enrollment and degree attainment are falling. No Child Left Behind focuses on bringing substandard performance up to an acceptable level. There is little emphasis on providing a higher order of learning and achievement for those who may want it.

The key stakeholders — those who have a vested interest in the outputs of the education system — are society and business and industry. B&I has complained for years that our education system does not produce qualified, prepared workers. Education counters that B&I won’t actively engage in the education system as partners, so education can better meet their needs. I’ve worked both sides of the fence, and both parties are correct.

High school kids are disengaged in both their education and in thinking about their future. This is well-founded: try Googling “National Survey of Student Engagement” and reading up on the relevant news releases. Unfortunately, the study itself appears to be proprietary information, accessible only to registered folks in the academic community.

For many students, education is perceived to be irrelevant to their future. The underlying issue: students are not engaged in any kind of “future thinking” to even know what is, and isn’t relevant to them.

An even deeper issue…teachers, and parents too, are also disengaged. Just wanted to throw that in to cause trouble. And it IS a generalization, there are exceptions. So please don’t beat me up too much.


The solution that most of us believers take as truth: the express lane to engagement is for individuals to connect with their values, then for the individual’s values and those of “the organization” to be aligned. In his case, “the organization” is school, and later, society and business and industry.


Does the possibility even exist for kids to connect with their values and truly engage in their education and their future? Society would be all the better in years to come, and I'd feel better about my possiblity of retiring sometime.


Discussion starters just to get things going:

What are your thoughts on the level of engagement in secondary (high school) academics?
Your thoughts on the legendary adolescent fixation on short term gratification….is it truly insurmountable? Can teens consider their future beyond the next weekend? What will drive them to expand their mental timeline?
Is it as bad in other coutnries as it appears to be here in the US?
Generally, how can engagement fit into the academic environment?

[Ben Simonton]

Great subject, Craig. You have nailed the problem, but to me you have not nailed the cause.

Our current k-12 system is one that responds only to the hierarchy of regulators and those who provide the money. The hierarchy has no dog in the hunt, no skin in the game and thus no need to create a great education, only a need to maintain control.

Until we provide the money to the parents in the form of vouchers and allow them to take these vouchers anywhere they desire, we will be stuck with what we have. Even the private schools suffer since there is so little effective competition.

As presently managed, there is no way to foster engagement. Those who try are ostracized by the teacher's unions.

Best regards, Ben

[Craig Althof]

OW, nasty issue I'd like to add to Ben. "Control" is based on the wrong parameters, and controlled by the wrong stakeholders.

Whatever happened to "customer requirements" driving goals and defining the resulting controls? In this case, business and industry, and society, are key customers of the education system. Why can't this apply to the education system? Oh, I forgot...that would require customer / supplier partnerships. The other players need to get directly involved in, and more deeply supportive of, education. And the academic world is a bit leery of outside tampering in their ball game.

Solid, Ben-thanks!

[Ben Simonton]

The customer is being served in this case, the customer being the one with the money.

And the academic world is not only leery but arrogantly offended by any outsider who deems to advise these "experts".

The same occurs in companies wherein those from the "engineering department" look down on their true customers, line managers responsible for production, since the customers don't control the "gold". When line managers control the "gold", they are well served by engineers.

It is all a matter of human nature. You can either take advantage of the way God made us, or become a victim of it.

Best regards, Ben

[Craig Althof]

Human nature, indeed. "Arrogantly offended" ups the ante a bit, but maybe correct. We have several fine people on the network who are working on dissertations. I'd like to see some attention to developing a working model of collaboration, betw academic and private sector.

I found the same is true in health care. One institution (nameless) is suffering from significant cultural / people issues (my ball park). They have contracted with a health care expert to conduct an operational assessment, and are basically self-prescribing penicillin to treat their cancer.

Terminal.

Ben, thanks for the screen saver-worthy quote...You can either take advantage of the way God made us, or become a victim of it.

[Rob Fox]

I think you are very right. The issue in western education is that the 19th century systems it has are outmoded for 21st cetury students and their learning needs.

We need free broadband across the world, and a computer for every child.

I would prefer this to spending tax money saving dinosaur industries and proping up deeply ineffective intra-national quangos.

Further, we need to get Philosophy back on the main stream curriculum and get students to recognise that the promise of transient consumerist fufillment is a poor substitute and surrogate for the search for enduring individual meaning.

Education means to pull out not to push in: it needs to help inspire citizens and not corporate clones.

[Craig Althof]

More on education issues...this is pretty interesting stuff. The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America's Schools, a new report from McKinsey & Company, predicts that the U.S. GDP would be $1.3-2.3 trillion higher if the achievement gap between the United States and its international peers were closed in 1998.
Check out the McKinsey report. $$$ is based on overall impact...

"Avoidable shortfalls in academic achievement impose heavy and often tragic consequences, via lower earnings, poorer health, and higher rates of incarceration."

[Craig Althof]

Getting late, forgot to include my point in posting the McKinsey information.

If there is even a small degree of merit to McKinsey's findings, this would indicate that key stakeholders of the education system, business and industry, stand to gain a good deal from pitching in to help right the academic ship. All politics and territorialism aside, and I agree those issues are not insignificant.

Engagement is part of the equation.