Commission Says U.S. K-12 Education Needs Sweeping Changes to Maintain National Competitiveness

The New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, a bipartisan group of academic, industry and government leaders, is calling for a massive overhaul of the U.S. education system. In its new report, Tough Choices, Tough Times, the panel of business leaders, scholars, education officials, and former governors and cabinet secretaries argue that the country’s current system of K-12 education is outdated and must be restructured to enable American students to thrive in the global economy.

 

While most students once required only a rudimentary education to participate in the workforce, technological changes and globalization now demand skilled workers who have been trained in high-quality schools. The commission maintains that the current U.S. system is ill-suited to meeting these needs at any level of funding. Instead, it proposes a new structure that would begin educating children earlier and increase the number of students that enter the workforce with the necessary skills.

 

The primary component of the commission’s plan is a restructuring of the transition from high school to college. At the age of 16, students would be required to take a state board exam that would evaluate whether or not they are prepared for university-level academics. The commission predicts that if its recommendations are instituted, 95 percent of students would be able to pass the qualifying exam. Those who pass would be eligible to transition directly into a regional vocation school or community college. Students with higher scores would be eligible for an upper secondary academic program similar to current advance placement or international baccalaureate programs. After two years, both upper secondary and community college students could take a second set of exams to qualify for a four-year university.

 

The report also calls for a change in the governance of local school districts. Current districts would be replaced by independent contractors, mostly limited liability corporations owned and run by teachers. The role of school central offices would be to write performance contracts with the operators of each school and to collect and report data  to inform school funding. The contracted schools would be public and funded directly by the state based on a new formula that would provide additional funding for high-need communities. Schools serving low-income families and other disadvantaged students would receive substantially more state funding.

 

States would be encouraged to create regional competitiveness authorities, involving key local leaders to design educational initiatives tailored to the economic development needs of the community. These authorities would identify the skills needed by local employers and ensure such skills are taught in regional schools.

 

Other recommendations include:

• Recruiting teachers from the top third of high school students going to college by improving teacher benefits, increasing starting salaries, and creating additional income opportunities for teachers willing to work more hours and work with disadvantaged students;
• Designing a pupil-weighing formula that takes into account the unique challenges of urban, remote and lower-income communities to determine state funding for schools;
• Establishing personal competitiveness accounts that make continuing education opportunities available to all U.S. citizens; and,
• Using the savings from other changes to reinvest in high-quality teacher recruitment and training, universal early education opportunities for three- and four-year-olds, and initiatives to assist disadvantaged students.

Commission members include former U.S. senator and Reagan Labor secretary William Brock; former Michigan governor and National Association of Manufacturers President John Engler; New York City Public Schools Chancellor Joel Klein; National Urban League President and CEO Mac Morial; and former George W. Bush Education Secretary Roderick Paige.



Tough Choices, Tough Times is available for purchase at http://www.skillscommission.org/.



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