When I was two years old, in 1955, my family moved to Euclid, Ohio. Euclid was an all white, working class neighborhood about 5 miles outside of Cleveland. There were approximately 65,000 people living in Euclid. There were many thriving companies based in Euclid: Chase Brass Copper, Addressograph Multigraph, Lincoln Electric, the Euclid Truck Co., Reliance Electric and Thompson Products (TRW). With so many companies in our town, Euclid residents had the lowest property taxes in all of Ohio. Our house cost $12,000 in 1955. I loved living in Euclid. We knew all of our neighbors. There were plenty of kids to play with and there were ball fields everywhere. My mother stayed home and raised us... Dad worked. Jobs were plentiful.
In 2012, Euclid is a far different community. The population has dropped to 48,000 people. All of the companies mentioned above closed or left town. The Euclid Square Mall opened in 1977 and is now empty. There are no major employers in Euclid. The town's demographics have changed, the community is mixed race with an equal split between White and African-American and a relatively small Hispanic population. My elementary school is gone. Obviously much has changed.
My schooling, in both Euclid and Lyndhurst, Ohio was typical for public schools at the time. It was aligned with a time when jobs were plentiful. Entry level jobs required basic skills in reading and arithmetic. A high school diploma suggested that you had acquired those skills. Most jobs in the companies mentioned above consisted of completing repetitive tasks often in short time periods. Many of the tasks to be performed were in isolation, meaning you worked on an assembly line. Following directions was key. And maintaining quality work over many repetitions was the goal. This was not only true on the factory floor, but in the administrative office as well.
Think about middle and high school as an assembly line. School went for 180 days. There were 7 periods a day, 45 minute periods with a 5 minute break between periods. You had a different teacher every period and new teachers every year. Learning consisted of sitting in a desk, listening to the teacher talk, doing some classwork, doing some homework, taking a quiz or a test and never really questioning the process. It was called rote learning. Since schools were modeled after factories, they became big and impersonal like factories. I graduated from a high school that had 2400 students grades 10-12. Imagine, 780 students in my graduating class. Some of the graduates worked in the factories, some went into business, some went into the military and some went to college. Everyone had a chance at a middle class life.
Switch to 2014. So much has changed since I was in school.
I would suggest our nation's factory model of education is out of alignment with our current employment and sociological context. Here are four key aspects of our society that force a rethinking of education delivery systems.
The first is population mobility. Since World War II, we have had the most powerful public school choice movement implemented in our history. The growth of our highway system and financial prosperity led to the exponential growth of our suburbs. Families chose their schools based on where they bought their homes or rented their apartments. Everyone, except the poor, choose where they go to school. In the first 18 years of my life, my parents moved twice, each time farther out of Cleveland into the suburbs, and each time to get their children a better education. School choice has always been a consideration if you could afford to move. The suburbs are proof that many people did choose to move.
The second is the new information economy. Let me use Pittsburgh as an example. I was born in 1953. The steel mills were going strong, jobs were plentiful and most people made a living wage. The vast majority of our workers were employed in the steel, energy (coal, oil, gas) or related industries. Engineers, chemists, laborers, miners, machinists… everyone worked. And a high school diploma was not necessary for many entry level jobs. Only a small percentage of students took college prep courses and continued their education after high school. Everything changed in the late 1970’s. The mills closed, many labor intensive industries became automated and we began a technology based revolution with the advent of personal computers. It became apparent in The Nation at Risk report in 1984, that a middle class existence could only be had by doing well in school and attending some post high school training program… or college. We went from an economy based in manufacturing to one rooted in information. We went from an economy based in hard physical labor to one based in hard intellectual labor. From an education perspective this first became apparent in 1989 when the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics declared, that for the first time in the history of our country, everyone was expected to take Algebra!
The third is that recent research in cognition and education have demonstrated that individuals learn in different ways. One size does not fit all. Some learners need pictures, others need to listen to instruction, others do best by reading content and others need to get out of their seat and learn by doing. The factory model of education with 45 minute classes, listening to a teacher talk and doing some practice problems is not the way most people learn. Research suggests that today's teachers must accommodate for a variety of intelligence's, learning styles and cultural differences. The factory model limits many learners. The differentiated model empowers learners.
The fourth is simply the effect of technology. Whether we like it or not, for $12 you can buy a calculator that will do all the calculations you learned in math from Kindergarten thru 8th grade. And for $90 you can get a calculator that takes you through calculus. You can use a computer that will check your spelling and grammar. And you can get on the Internet and find the answer to most any question, along with an easy method for copying research papers (i.e. plagiarizing.) And with a smartphone (or now a watch), you can get this access free at a coffee shop. This is not suggesting that we should not learn basic skills, it just makes the task of teaching more complex.
Not since the Industrial Revolution, and our change from an agrarian to manufacturing economy, have we had to so radically reconsider our methods of providing public education. It is time to realize the obvious, education is the only means for achieving a living wage. Education needs to be a pump, not a filter. Unfortunately, the current education dialogue is about old news (test scores, teacher pay), pits old rivals against each other (unions and school boards), and uses old arguments (the problem is with the kids and their parents). It is time to consider a new set of questions and concerns that address the real issues at hand.
These are both exciting and scary times. Never in the history of the world has an education meant so much.
In 2012, Euclid is a far different community. The population has dropped to 48,000 people. All of the companies mentioned above closed or left town. The Euclid Square Mall opened in 1977 and is now empty. There are no major employers in Euclid. The town's demographics have changed, the community is mixed race with an equal split between White and African-American and a relatively small Hispanic population. My elementary school is gone. Obviously much has changed.
My schooling, in both Euclid and Lyndhurst, Ohio was typical for public schools at the time. It was aligned with a time when jobs were plentiful. Entry level jobs required basic skills in reading and arithmetic. A high school diploma suggested that you had acquired those skills. Most jobs in the companies mentioned above consisted of completing repetitive tasks often in short time periods. Many of the tasks to be performed were in isolation, meaning you worked on an assembly line. Following directions was key. And maintaining quality work over many repetitions was the goal. This was not only true on the factory floor, but in the administrative office as well.
Think about middle and high school as an assembly line. School went for 180 days. There were 7 periods a day, 45 minute periods with a 5 minute break between periods. You had a different teacher every period and new teachers every year. Learning consisted of sitting in a desk, listening to the teacher talk, doing some classwork, doing some homework, taking a quiz or a test and never really questioning the process. It was called rote learning. Since schools were modeled after factories, they became big and impersonal like factories. I graduated from a high school that had 2400 students grades 10-12. Imagine, 780 students in my graduating class. Some of the graduates worked in the factories, some went into business, some went into the military and some went to college. Everyone had a chance at a middle class life.
Switch to 2014. So much has changed since I was in school.
- We live in a mixed race country. Our population has increased by 50% and is much more diverse - many new citizens are Asian or Hispanic.
- Job intensive industries (i.e. manufacturing automobiles, making steel, manufacturing office machines) have been either automated or exported.
- We live in a global marketplace where the food we consume, clothes we wear and technology we use is often produced on the other side of the world.
- New technologies have revolutionized our lives. Just imagine everything from microwaves to smartphones to portable computers are all innovations that occurred after I left college. The down side is that technology (i.e. think robotics, ATM machines, EasyPass, Self Check Out at the Giant Eagle) has decreased the number of available jobs.
- Innovations in medical science, genetics, and nutrition have increased our life span by 10 years;
- We can get places faster and more efficiently than ever before. I own a car that gets 55 miles per gallon.
- Cable TV and the Internet provide us with immediate access to information, people and data.
- Laws and attitudes have changed regarding race, gender, and sexual equality.
- The traditional family unit has changed regarding spouses, partners, roles, parenting, responsibilities and divorce.
I would suggest our nation's factory model of education is out of alignment with our current employment and sociological context. Here are four key aspects of our society that force a rethinking of education delivery systems.
The first is population mobility. Since World War II, we have had the most powerful public school choice movement implemented in our history. The growth of our highway system and financial prosperity led to the exponential growth of our suburbs. Families chose their schools based on where they bought their homes or rented their apartments. Everyone, except the poor, choose where they go to school. In the first 18 years of my life, my parents moved twice, each time farther out of Cleveland into the suburbs, and each time to get their children a better education. School choice has always been a consideration if you could afford to move. The suburbs are proof that many people did choose to move.
The second is the new information economy. Let me use Pittsburgh as an example. I was born in 1953. The steel mills were going strong, jobs were plentiful and most people made a living wage. The vast majority of our workers were employed in the steel, energy (coal, oil, gas) or related industries. Engineers, chemists, laborers, miners, machinists… everyone worked. And a high school diploma was not necessary for many entry level jobs. Only a small percentage of students took college prep courses and continued their education after high school. Everything changed in the late 1970’s. The mills closed, many labor intensive industries became automated and we began a technology based revolution with the advent of personal computers. It became apparent in The Nation at Risk report in 1984, that a middle class existence could only be had by doing well in school and attending some post high school training program… or college. We went from an economy based in manufacturing to one rooted in information. We went from an economy based in hard physical labor to one based in hard intellectual labor. From an education perspective this first became apparent in 1989 when the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics declared, that for the first time in the history of our country, everyone was expected to take Algebra!
The third is that recent research in cognition and education have demonstrated that individuals learn in different ways. One size does not fit all. Some learners need pictures, others need to listen to instruction, others do best by reading content and others need to get out of their seat and learn by doing. The factory model of education with 45 minute classes, listening to a teacher talk and doing some practice problems is not the way most people learn. Research suggests that today's teachers must accommodate for a variety of intelligence's, learning styles and cultural differences. The factory model limits many learners. The differentiated model empowers learners.
The fourth is simply the effect of technology. Whether we like it or not, for $12 you can buy a calculator that will do all the calculations you learned in math from Kindergarten thru 8th grade. And for $90 you can get a calculator that takes you through calculus. You can use a computer that will check your spelling and grammar. And you can get on the Internet and find the answer to most any question, along with an easy method for copying research papers (i.e. plagiarizing.) And with a smartphone (or now a watch), you can get this access free at a coffee shop. This is not suggesting that we should not learn basic skills, it just makes the task of teaching more complex.
Not since the Industrial Revolution, and our change from an agrarian to manufacturing economy, have we had to so radically reconsider our methods of providing public education. It is time to realize the obvious, education is the only means for achieving a living wage. Education needs to be a pump, not a filter. Unfortunately, the current education dialogue is about old news (test scores, teacher pay), pits old rivals against each other (unions and school boards), and uses old arguments (the problem is with the kids and their parents). It is time to consider a new set of questions and concerns that address the real issues at hand.
- How do we create schools that meets the needs of all students?
- When will we align our curriculum with the current job market?
- What support mechanisms need to be in place for students who live in single parent families, or with neither parent, or who are homeless, or who live in poverty?
- How long a day and how long a school year is optimum to prepare students for our new economy?
- How should a teacher teach to help all students succeed in the new economy?
- How can we incorporate technology into schools, while teaching the skills necessary to be successful in a modern world?
These are both exciting and scary times. Never in the history of the world has an education meant so much.
