Although the United States spends more on education than many other countries, the nation has failed to achieve the same positive outcomes than have been accomplished elsewhere, even in countries where per student spending is far less. Because education is widely regarded as the key to personal and professional success, it is important to identify current problems and potential opportunities for improvement in the nation’s approach to educational funding and delivery. Moreover, the arcane manner in which public schools are funded in different parts of the country, indeed within each state, combined with changing expectations concerning what curricular offerings are best suited for the 21st century marketplace has called into question the fundamental purpose of American schools today. The purpose of this paper is to consider what it means to be an educated person in America and the roles our high schools do, should, can play in American society and how current curricular offerings are failing to provide public high school students with the education they will need to succeed in an increasingly globalized and competitive marketplace. PRIMARY MISSION OF THE NATION’S PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS
Given the enormous amounts of taxpayer resources that are used for the nation’s public high schools, it is important to evaluate their effectiveness in terms of achieving their primary mission (Cornman, Zhou and Howell 2017). In the past, this mission has focused on promoting education in the so-called “three Rs,” but innovations in technology and ubiquitous computing have made many of the former curricular offerings obsolete or irrelevant today. Indeed, an entirely new skill set is needed to compete in the 21st century marketplace, but some of the fundamental elements of public high schools’ mission remain unchanged, including the need to develop good citizens who can contribute to American society in meaningful ways.
Notwithstanding the educational funding that is routinely provided the states by the federal government, though, the primary mission of the nation’s public high schools is determined by each of the 50 state governments (except for the District of Columbia which is overseen by the U.S. Congress) (Parker 2016). Despite the introduction of Common Core standards that are being used by many states and the use of standardized testing regimens, the fact that the primary mission of the nation’s public high schools is decided on a state by state basis means that the type of education that is received by students in the Bronx may differ widely from that received by students in Fairbanks, Alaska, for example.
Furthermore, there are also significant within-state differences in the views about the primary mission of public high schools, making any across-the-board evaluation of their effectiveness difficult if not impossible. In this regard, Parker, a policy analyst at Education Commission of the States, emphasizes that, “State constitutions vary on whether they include language about public school funding, religious restrictions, the education of disabled students, the age of students, the duration of the school year and the establishment of state higher education systems” (1) Nevertheless, in an educational context, in order to improve anything it must first be measured and it has become increasingly evident that this mish-mash of state-level legal frameworks and differing priorities has contributed to ineffective educational systems that are not engaging high school students and causing far too many to drop out before they complete their secondary education as discussed below.
CURRENT DROPOUT RATES IN THE NATION’S PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS
While each of the 50 states has its own constitutional language and mission for its public schools, it is reasonable to posit that these missions are unachievable when students leave the school systems altogether before they complete their studies. According to researchers with the National Center for Education Statistics, millions of young people are dropping out of American high schools and far too many fail to secure their general educational equivalency credential, dooming them to a lifetime of suboptimal employment opportunities (McFarland & Cui, 2018). For instance, according to McFarland and Cui (2018), “During the period from October 2013 and October 2014, more than 567,000 15- to 24-year-old students dropped out of school without achieving their high school credential. These event dropouts accounted for 5.2 percent of the 10.9 million 15- to 24-year-olds enrolled in grades 10 through 12” (p. 3).
There were some income-based differences in the dropout rates across the country as well, with students from higher income families experiencing a far lower dropout rate compared to their less advantaged counterparts. For example, McFarland and Cui (2018) add that, “The event dropout rate for individuals from high-income families in 2014 was 2.6 percent, while the rates for individuals from middle- and low-income families were 5.4 and 9.4 percent, respectively” (p. 3). There were also some modest differences with respect to the sex of high school students and whether they had disabilities or not as depicted in Figure 1 below.
Figure 1. Percentage of grade 10-12 dropouts among persons aged 15 through 24 years by selected characteristics (2014)
Source: McFarland & Cui, 2018
Furthermore, despite sustained increased funding for the nation’s public high schools, the dropout problem has only worsened in recent years. In this regard, McFarland and Cui (2018) conclude that, “Over the past 40 years, event dropout rates trended downward, decreasing from 6.7 percent in...
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