High school graduation rates; incremental growth is unsustainable.

The public schools are engaged in an endeavor at which are about 70% successful.  Seven out of 10 children who enroll in a public high school leave with a diploma.

Never mind that the many of them can't read.

Never mind that most of them will require remedial education before they can begin college.

Never mind that most of them haven't a skill set that will help them find a good job.

Improvement in any endeavor can be incremental or cataclysmic.

The growth we are seeing in public school education is incremental.  Basically, we picking a few leftover low hanging fruit. There is only so much low hanging fruit.  There are not enough low hanging fruit to continue to get better by two percent every for the next twelve years.  There are children in kindergarten today, who will drop out of school before incremental reform would be complete even if it were possible.  It isn't possible.

There is no magic.  Nothing can remedy the fundamentally flawed group learn model for public school education.  It cannot be redeemed.

The only hope for public education and 30% of students is cataclysmic change.

A cataclysmic change by definition could raise graduation rates overnight.

Perish the thought, but if all the schools burned down and all the teachers disappeared, how long do you think it would take for people to figure out that they can learn pretty much everything they
will ever need to know, sitting at a computer connected to the "internet"?

The modern mission of public school education is to create independent lifelong learners.  The primary objective is to create independent lifelong learners at the earliest opportunity.

When learning becomes independent, we can insist upon mastery level learning.  Students will master material and move to the next at their own speed and with the fundamentals they need to master it as well.

When students learn how to learn independently, teachers will no longer be charged with making 30 individuals learn in unison.

Trust me, it will free up a lot of their time.  It will give teachers real time to pay attention to individual students and their individual needs.

Graduation rates will skyrocket, overnight.




photo Mark Bralley