Against that backdrop of unrelenting public criticism, media scrutiny and economic jeopardy, an essay contest might not seem like much of a counter-force. But for an educator who is feeling overworked, underappreciated and out of sorts, kind words of admiration and approval might be just what is needed.

On January 18^th, the grassroots education reform nonprofit StudentsFirst launched its “Six Word Essay Contest” on what it means to be a great teacher. The idea behind the contest was to present an opportunity to celebrate those teachers who had a significant impact on our lives, and “to remind our country of the value of a great teacher.” (And the winner will receive an iPad 2 and a $500 gift certificate to buy school supplies for the classroom of their choice.)

What’s especially fun and inspiring about these essays is that they are all only six words long. They’re quick to read and easy to share: a little lift of heartfelt, positive energy that many teachers and tutors would probably enjoy, as the end of another semester draws closer. Certainly they do an amazing job capturing the value and essence of great teaching, and the impact teachers can have on students.

StudentsFirst received over 28,000 of the six-word essays from over 25,000 of its members. After what must’ve been some frantic judging, on February 2 they announced the 30 finalists. Everyone is welcome to vote for his or her favorites. You can even check out what famous athletes, authors and entertainers say about the great teachers in their lives.

Here are a few of my favorites from among the 30 finalists:

Planting the seed of I can. — Sinora W., Illinois

Handing out keys to the world. – Ann Marie O., Michigan

She said I can be anything. – Yuji N., New Jersey

Watch them soar, then demand more. – Pancho S., Oregon

Point out the stars. Provide rockets. – Adam L., Illinois

Teaching is a vitally important profession that powers the core of our society. In fact, a recently published long-term study by economists at Harvard and Columbia shows the staggering economic and social impact of competent teachers. Looking at the lives of 2.5 million students over 20 years, the study found that students who had highly effective elementary and middle school teachers went on to have much better “outcomes in life” – higher earnings, nicer houses, fewer teen pregnancies, and so on – than students who had lower-performing teachers.

Obviously teachers and tutors need to be supported via public policy, not just honored with words. These little essays rise above the polarized policy debate to shine some light on what really matters: the value of our teachers and tutors.

Why do middle school students have a special need for high-quality summer learning? According to NSLA’s website, “Middle school is a time of great risk for children, especially those who are low-income. Summer learning loss contributes to dismal middle-school indicators, causing low-income students to lag as much as 2.5 years behind their higher-income peers by the end of fifth grade. Without summer learning experiences, the achievement gap in literacy between the youth who eventually drop out of high school and those who enter a four-year college widens to almost seven years by ninth grade, creating an unswimmable gulf.”

Smarter Summers is being delivered by four providers. All provide between 150 and 240 program hours (typically 6-hour days for five weeks), free meals for participants, and opportunities for physical activity as well as academics. The average daily attendance rate among participants ranged from 81.5% to an incredible 99.6%, with staff-to-participant ratios of 1:10 to 1:15. The areas served include Los Angeles, Sand Diego and Sacramento counties in California, Detroit, Boston, New York, Baltimore, Chicago, Indianapolis and Washington, DC.

Among the highlights of the results so far:

• Students in Building Educated Leaders for Life programs gained an average of 7.5 months of grade-level equivalency in literacy skills and 7.2 months in math skills.

• 65% of Higher Achievement Program’s participants increased their math grades or maintained an A or B average, while 59% did so for reading.

• Summer Advantage USA students gained an average of 2.1 months of grade-level equivalency in literacy and math skills.

• 87.5% of THINK Together sites demonstrated student growth in math vocabulary – a 25% increase for seventh graders across all sites.

Parents also responded very positively to the Smarter Summer experience. Based on over 2,000 responses, two out of three parents stated that Smarter Summers was the only affordable summer learning option for their children. 93% of parents would recommend the program to other parents. 82% felt the program helped them focus on their job, job search and/or school work.

76% of survey respondents also felt more involved in their child’s education. Across the programs administered by Summer Advantage USA, for example, 61% of parents participated in two or more program events, and 91% had one or more contacts with a teacher to discuss their child’s performance.

The report summarizes Smarter Summers’ first-year results as follows: “Instead of falling off track during the critical transitions to middle school and high school, these young people are gaining academic ground and invaluable exposure to colleges, careers, and a network of supportive adults.”

At a time when school districts and communities face financial resource constraints, Smarter Summers is providing an excellent option to reduce summer learning loss and guide vulnerable children towards greater academic success.

Do you have experience with summer program and their benefits for middle school kids? Please comment and share what you’ve experienced.

Our family is fortunate: my partner’s teenage daughter (she’s a freshman) goes to one of the top public high schools in our state, in terms of both academics and services. She’ll get solid support on college admissions from a well-trained counselor who has perhaps 150 -200 students to deal with.

But many students struggle with the college application and admissions process, and may turn to their teachers and tutors for advice. This is no surprise given the statistics on college admissions counseling the NACAC has recently released:

1. On average, the counselor to student ratio in US public schools (including K-12 schools) is 460 to 1. For secondary schools taken alone, the ratio including part-time staff is 272 to 1. That’s a huge caseload! Many guidance counselors simply don’t have time to advise each college-bound student on his or her applications, given their many other duties. Most also don’t have much, if any, training in the college admissions or financial aid processes.
2. Only 26% of US public schools have a counselor (full- or part-time) who works exclusively on college counseling. In contrast, 73% of private schools have a dedicated college counselor.
3. The average public high school counselor spends 23% of his or her time on college counseling – versus 55% for the average private school counselor. According to a 2005 study by the NACAC, the average public high school student got 38 minutes of college advising per year from his or her guidance counselor.
4. In a recent survey from Public Agenda, funded by the Gates Foundation, 67% of students surveyed gave their high school counselor a fair or poor rating for help in deciding which college to attend. 54% rated their counselors poor on help with the application process.
5. The percentage of high school graduates going directly to college varies widely by state – but it continues to rise even as the total number of high school graduates has peaked and is leveling off. In 2010, 68.1% of high school graduates enrolled directly in a college or university. In 2008 (love this graph), 77.4% of Mississippi grads went to college, versus 45.7% in Alaska. The national average that year was 63.3%.
6. The number of applications being submitted to colleges is insane! One out of four college-bound grads submitted seven or more college applications. Perhaps this is an indication of how difficult it has become to navigate the college admissions landscape.

In response to the great and growing need for admissions counseling, a number of independent college counselors offer a wide range of services via the Internet. These include “boutique” admissions consulting practices, like Bolger Strategic, for those targeting highly prestigious programs. College Admissions Partners has a “less aggressive” approach to helping students “improve their chances of admission to their first choice college.” Independent college admissions counselors work not only with US teens and their families, but also with clients from all over the world.

What’s the bottom line for tutors on this topic? Be aware that many kids aren’t getting much counseling. If possible, develop connections that enable you to make referrals to private/independent counselors if requested. Remember that kids are stressed by the applications process and be supportive. Here’s a helpful post that advises students on how to get the most out the admissions support they get from their high school guidance counselor.

Do you find yourself talking about college admissions with your students? How do you handle it? Please comment and share your impressions.

Featured image courtesy of Tawheed Manzoor.

One of the oldest and most powerful teaching techniques is simply to guide the learner by asking directed questions. This basic tutoring approach is sometimes referred to as the Socratic Method or the “inquiry method.”

The idea behind this approach is that providing answers upfront puts the learner in a passive role of receiving information. Whereas an interrogative approach inherently fosters a self-directed thought process, through which learners can arrive at their own conclusions and build knowledge, versus simply receiving information.

Of course, many times students – especially adults in my experience — would prefer that you simply give them the information. And certainly that’s appropriate at times. The benefit of the inquiry method is that it helps learners “train their brains” to develop the capacity and confidence to reason out solutions and make neural and cognitive connections that will help keep them moving forward.

The ability to connect what we know to what we are trying to figure out is especially helpful with math and writing problems, such as on standardized tests. Beyond the realm of solving specific problems, the inquiry method helps learners engage with, and develop genuine interest in, the bigger picture that surrounds the specifics. I really like this professional tutor’s explanation of how and why the inquiry method works.

I often lead trips and walks for kids and adults who are new to birdwatching. In that context I enjoy taking the role of a “mentor” asking questions versus “the expert” dispensing facts. For example, when we’re observing herons and egrets in the local salt marsh, I love to ask, “Why do you think Snowy Egrets have yellow feet?” Kids get right into this but it usually drives adults crazy! But as they guess and ponder, with the help of a few additional questions everyone quickly realizes the amazing answer: the birds use their feet as fishing lures. We can even observe them doing this! What does that say about avian intelligence, or about evolution? The difference between an answer and a question is the difference between “uh-huh” and the natural world opening up…

Now here’s a question: is the inquiry method and the Socratic Method really the same thing? Or are there many different styles of inquiry oriented tutoring that end up being called the “Socratic Method” by default? Max Maxwell offers an historically grounded, in-depth explication of what defines the Socratic Method as Socrates, Plato and their lineage of students applied it. Wikipedia also offers a broad and engaging discourse on the topic. This author refers to the generic approach of the “inquiry method” as “Socratic questioning.”

And then there’s the “dreaded Socratic Method” as an instructional style in law school classrooms. Also called the “case method” or “Socratic instruction,” it entails direct questioning and limited lecturing. The idea is that students must prepare in advance not to regurgitate the facts of a case, but to reason beyond the presenting issues to the broader implications. Again, the goal is to build critical reasoning skills and the confidence to apply them under pressure – whether in a courtroom or on a standardized test.

In researching this topic I also appreciated the viewpoint of this Air Force officer, who applies a highly goal-oriented Socratic approach to improve performance and leadership skills among military personnel. While this context may not constitute tutoring per se, the article offers experiential insights of value to educators who want to take their own inquiry methods to a higher level.

For many tutors, it probably isn’t essential or optimal to adhere to a strict application of an “inquiry method.” Rather, the mode of asking questions in response to questions might ideally be viewed as a way to keep learning light and fun, and learners engaged and open. Where you want to take it in your tutoring practice is up to you.

Are you using a Socratic approach in your tutoring practice? How did you learn it and how do you advise others to build these useful interrogative skills? Please comment and share your experiences and advice.

Featured image courtesy of Brújulo.

SAT vs ACT: Choosing the Right Test [NEW EBOOK]

Download this free 20-Page Ebook for Tutors Now!

Our free 20-page ebook is a step-by-step guide on how to select the right test for your student. Learn everything you need to know about using the PLAN and PSAT to improve student scores, how to leverage learning analytics to select one test over the other, and other tips on how to take the guesswork out of selecting the ACT vs the SAT.

First impressions might be quick to form, but they’re slow – if not impossible – to change. Thus, the time we spend connecting with someone when we first meet him or her is important. This is especially true for tutors because your tutees’ first impressions can positively or negatively influence their subsequent learning performance.

The goal is to make your first meeting with a tutee a positive experience! You want to establish a genuine, open rapport. You can find basic “make a great first impression” tips (be on time, be courteous, etc.) in dozens of places online. Here are some tutoring-specific tips on first impressions gleaned from these simple-but-effective online tutor training materials offered by the Learning Assistance Center of City College of San Francisco.

Tip 1: Listen effectively

Start by greeting your tutee and giving them your undivided attention. One of the most important ways to create a good rapport with learners is to listen patiently to what they have to say, ask open questions, and be open and nonjudgmental about what they’re saying. Listen with your body by facing the speaker squarely, smiling and nodding your head.

Nonverbal messages are oftentimes the most potent form of communication. If you’re unsure about how your communication style and skills might be affecting your interactions with others, try taking an interpersonal communication skills test. This one with 34 questions from Queendom.com (the Land of Tests is recommended.

Good listening is a vital skill for tutors – yet many tutors probably spend too much time talking, rather than facilitating learning by discussion. Here is some great guidance on effective listening.

Tip 2: Make sure you know why the learner wants your help

You need to know why someone wants your help so that you can better plan subsequent tutoring sessions. Some students know exactly why they need or want tutoring, while others are only aware of general trouble spots. Others can only say that they’re confused. Others may have had failures in the subject area in the past and are fearful or under-confident, and in need of emotional as well as academic support. Still others may have been directed to tutoring for a required subject, but have no real interest in it.

A good place to start is just to ask where the learner is having problems or wants to improve performance. Alternatively, you can start by reviewing the course outline and related materials like texts or assignments. Ask questions that support the learner to say what he or she understands or finds confusing about the material.

Tip 3: Ask the right questions

Good question-asking techniques are vital to successful tutoring. Even your choice of words is important. Try asking positive, open questions like: “What do you understand?” versus “What don’t you understand?” – the latter is much tougher to answer!

Another key to questioning is to wait respectfully for an answer. Don’t be too quick to answer your own questions. Instead, let your tutee reflect if they need to – even if the conversational silence seems awkward.

Keep in mind also that “leading questions” that leave lots of space for a range of responses are often more effective than yes/no questions. Leading questions are often more appropriate when asking a student to demonstrate understanding, for instance.

Similarly, “what-if” questions are great for expanding possibilities for learning. The Socratic Method – teaching through inquiry – is among the most powerful teaching techniques. What better way to learn than to figure things out for yourself?

Tip 4: Show you care

We all know that caring makes a great first impression. How does a student know you care about them? You greet them by name and pronounce their name correctly. You’re able to laugh with them. You commend their accomplishments. And if they test you with misbehavior, you don’t ignore it.

Featured photo courtesy of glennoi.

Why is World Teacher’s Day important? As education becomes increasingly important to economic advancement and success in both developed and developing countries around the world, the importance of teachers in all our lives is growing. Teachers are shaping our global future not only by facilitating subject matter learning, but also by instilling vital cultural and social values such as gender equality and religious tolerance.

But despite their critical role, in many areas of the world they are poorly paid, lack basic teaching resources and are even targets of intimidation and attack. And all too often, communities expect teachers to provide a high quality education with little support. Teachers need to be empowered by systems that enable them to achieve excellence, such as proper training, a safe classroom environment and sufficient educational resources.

Is awareness enough to initiate change? According to Education International, (the global union federation that represents education professionals worldwide): yes. They believe that World Teachers’ Day should be recognized and celebrated around the world. Education International also believes that the principles of the 1966 and 1997 Recommendations should be considered for implementation in all nations. Ongoing public awareness campaigns highlight the contributions of the teaching profession.

The theme of World Teacher’s Day 2011 is “Teachers for gender equality.” Many teachers are women, but inequality with their male counterparts remains an issue globally. This is just one example of the many challenges teachers face. This Harvard University EdCast by UNESCO assistant director-general for education Qian Tang, discusses the importance of World Teacher’s Day around the world.

To commemorate World Teachers’ Day 2011, UNICEF’s podcast moderator Femi Oke spoke with Jamila Marofi, a high school teacher from Afghanistan, Gorma Minnie, a school administrator from Liberia and Professor Fernando Reimers from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Here’s a link to the podcast.

Dr. Reimers concluded the podcast by inviting everyone to celebrate the World Teachers’ Day by publicly recognizing their favorite teacher: “Shed light on the people who are doing good work and make it your task to let other people know the work of teachers.” That’s just what the US nonprofit Students First chose to do. It’s also a big part of what the StoryCorps National Teachers Initiative is all about. And here’s a website where you can send an e-card to a teacher you want to thank.

But awareness at some point needs to translate into policy decisions. This article by an educator from the Phillipines makes several references to an article by US Education Secretary Arne Duncan in The American Educator. Duncan also encourages us to remember our favorite teachers, even decades later, because “they light a lifelong curiosity, teaching students to solve problems like a scientist, write like a novelist, listen like a poet, see like an artist, observe like a journalist.”

This article like so many others also points out that teachers are still not treated on a par with other highly skilled professions. The author again quotes Duncan, who says: “Students cannot afford to wait another decade, while adults tinker with issues of teacher quality. It is time to stop tweaking the system. It’s time, once and for all, to make teaching the revered profession it should be.”

Treating teachers with reverence, according them higher social status and compensation, and supporting them to be all they can be in the classroom – that sounds like a good way to thank them, as well as a good way to drive educational reform.

How do you – educators, parents, students – feel about this issue and how to address it? Please comment and let us know.

Featured image courtesy of 5oct.org.

Today iPhones and iPads are ushering in dynamic, collaborative educational techniques, and even replacing books and saving money in classrooms. Indeed, the iPad may be Jobs’ biggest legacy of all. In the third quarter of 2011, educational sales of iPads were greater than all of Apple’s educational Mac desktop and laptop sales combined. Teachers and tutors love its portability and long battery life. And it’s intuitively easy for even young children and kids with learning disabilities to use.

Apple also offers iTunes U, an innovative, iPhone accessible distribution channel for educational content “from lectures to language lessons, films to labs, audiobooks to tours…” More than 800 universities – as well as institutions like the New York Public Library, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and numerous PBS stations — have active ITunes U sites, and many organizations distribute their content publically on the iTunes store. Besides offering countless podcasts, iTunes U supports both the PDF and ePub file formats. The latter can be read on iPads, iPhones and the iPod Touch, as well as any compatible e-reader.

According to an interview with Daniel Morrow, executive director of the ComputerWorld Smithsonian Awards Program, Jobs pointed out that teachers and tutors are key to fueling curiosity and make learning possible. Jobs said, “You need a person. Especially with computers the way they are now. Computers are very reactive but they’re not proactive; they are not agents, if you will. They are very reactive. What children need is something more proactive. They need a guide. They don’t need an assistant.”

Undoubtedly Jobs was an inspiration to countless students from grade school through grad school. He was also an ardent supporter of the innovative use of technology in schools. I resonated with the observations of the StateImpact Florida blog, which pointed out that “the corporate cultural differences between computing giants Microsoft and Apple have also served as a proxy in the debate about changing the US higher education system.”

The blog astutely points out that Microsoft founder and massive education donor Bill Gates wants US higher education institutions to focus more on subjects that correlate directly to jobs. Whereas Steve Jobs said at the unveiling of the iPad 2 in March, “It’s in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough — it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our heart sing and nowhere is that more true than in these post-PC devices.”

I also greatly appreciated the frank insights offered in the Edudemic blog on how Jobs “legacy of fearlessness and innovation” can serve as guidance for educational reform. Among many good points made in this blog post, the author (recent college grad Jesse L) reminds us that NeXT Computer, while a financial dud, was the inspiration for the first web server and laid the foundation for the web browser. The writer’s point is that we often focus too hard on outcomes, and thus miss the bigger picture that frames innovation.

Long live the educational legacy of Steve Jobs.

SAT vs ACT: Choosing the Right Test [NEW EBOOK]

Enter the badge, “… a validated indicator of accomplishment, skill, quality or interest…” that can be earned in almost any learning environment. Badges can motivate and support ongoing learning, validate skills and education, help build reputation and confirm knowledge acquisition. What badges to issue and what they will signify will be up to the issuer. Learners and users will decide what badges to accept and share.

The goal of Mozilla’s Open Badges project is to work towards a solution to that problem, by “making it easy to issue, earn and display badges across the web” to help today’s learners expand their career and educational opportunities. Using the Open Badges infrastructure, any organization or community can issue badges backed by their own “seal of approval.”

Learners can then acquire and display badges via the web: on their resume, website, Facebook profile, and so on. Besides making accomplishments visible to employers, teachers and peers, acquiring a sequence of badges can be a challenging motivator towards gaining new competencies, encouraging perseverance and offering reward.

To stimulate creation of “a robust badge ecosystem,” the Digital Media and Learning Competition recently kicked off its Digital Media Learning Competition 4: Badges for Lifelong Learning. Featuring awards from $10,000 to $200,000 with support from the MacArthur Foundation, the Competition is actually two related competitions: a design competition on Badges for Lifelong Learning, and a research competition on Badges, Trophies and Achievements.

The design competition will encourage organizations, learning and assessment specialists, designers and technologists to “create and test working badge systems in the wild.” Collaborators include organizations from NASA to Intel to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, all of which are exploring the potential of badges in their own environments. Badge designers and technologists have an opportunity to work collaboratively with these innovative organizations, or to focus on their own projects. Winners will be announced in January 2012.

The research competition calls for proposals by November 28, 2011 on the topic “Badges, Trophies, and Achievements: Recognition and Accreditation for Informal and Interest-Driven Learning.” More and more learning is taking place in informal and non-institutional contexts like networked knowledge communities, online tutorials and other digital resources. What are the emerging systems, techniques and practices for managing reputation and recognizing learning in these milieus? How do “displays of achievement” in the digital realm look and feel? Both grants and prizes are available.

The Badges for Lifelong Learning blog has a terrific explanation of what badges can represent and how they might function. Blogger Sheryl Grant likes badges to degrees, diplomas, grades, or currency, as well as signaling less quantifiable things like membership, identity and identification, or even love and virtue.

Meanwhile, the blog Planet OpenBadges reports that CBS Moneywatch just called digital badges for learning “a thrilling and much-needed development that could shake up the monopolistic higher-ed world.” If socially recognized as valid, digital badges could undercut colleges by signifying skills and knowledge to employers and others, regardless of whether the holder possesses a college degree.

Whether you’re all for badges or concerned about some of the ramifications, now is the time to join the conversation – if not the competition. Comment and share your impressions, pro and con. Meanwhile, stay tuned for more on badges and their evolving role in education, tutoring and testing. This idea clearly has legs and potential.

Featured image courtesy of Bitcoin.

More than 35,000 conversations have been archived so far, many in the context of various “initiatives.” For example, StoryCorps is recording one story for every life lost on September 11, 2001, to “honor the lost voices of 9/11.”

On September 19, StoryCorps launched its National Teachers Initiative at the White House. The Initiative celebrates the contributions of America’s public school teachers. “By recording, sharing, and preserving their stories, we hope to  call public attention to the invaluable contributions teachers have made to this nation, honor those who have embraced the profession as their calling, encourage teaching as a career choice, and unify the country behind its teachers – helping us all recognize that there is no more important or noble work than that of educating our nation’s children,” the StoryCorps website explains.

The Initiative will place special emphasis on the work of teachers striving to increase the number of students who graduate prepared for college and careers. With major funding provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the effort is part of American Graduate, a public media initiative supported by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to help local communities across America address the dropout crisis.

Both my parents were public school teachers, and my sister was a substitute teacher for many years. I can appreciate that teaching is emotionally, intellectually and physically demanding – even more so now than when my parents were working. There’s scant pay or prestige in the profession these days, and the rewards are often intangible.

Renee Thorton, a teacher in New York, NY put it this way: “Even though you plant a seed and you don’t see it flourish or bloom, it’s there, and it grows.”

That’s why it’s great to hear StoryCorps founder Dave Isay say, “I think there is no higher calling than being a public school teacher in this country. Teachers are feeling under attack and underappreciated. We want to do our part over the next year to turn that around.”

StoryCorps itself also has an educational component. For a start, teachers and tutors have used StoryCorps stories and interview methods in their classrooms since the project’s inception in 2003. These powerful stories can be used to teach history, while the interview methods teach the value of simply listening. A school in Illinois has likewise adopted the StoryCorps model, complete with musical backgrounds, as a way to teach English.

There’s also StoryCorpsU, an interactive, standards-based college readiness program that teaches students the power of their voice and enforces the message that every voice counts and every story matters equally. The program uses StoryCorps content and interviewing techniques to enhance students’ skills around speaking, listening, writing and critical thinking – while also supporting greater self-awareness and social awareness.

During the 2011-2012 school year, StoryCorpsU is being implemented in twenty classrooms through partnerships in New York City, St. Louis and Washington, DC. The plan is to expand the reach of the program to more schools across the country over time.

One of the teachers who spoke at the White House at the initiative’s launch last week said he’d quit studying medicine to become a teacher when he realized that was his calling. “Whatever job they’re going to have in their future lives – they couldn’t have it without me,” he said.

That’s the value of teaching and tutoring.

Please comment and share your thoughts.

Featured image courtesy of StoryCorps.

Entitled “One Year Out: Findings from a National Survey Among Members of the High School Graduating Class of 2010,” the findings explore how recent high school graduates view their high school experience and its role in preparing them for college, work, or whatever “their next step in life” was. Over 1,500 respondents from the Class of 2010 were interviewed, either by phone or online.

An overwhelming 90% of respondents agree with the statement “In today’s world, high school is not enough, and nearly everybody needs to complete some kind of education or training after high school.” Almost three-quarters of respondents had sought further education beyond high school: 45% of respondents had enrolled in a four-year college after high school, 25% had enrolled in a two-year college, and 6% had enrolled in a trade or training school program.

Among the students surveyed who had just completed their freshman year of college, nearly 25% had been required to take non-credit remedial courses during their freshman year. And 54% reported that their university coursework was “more difficult than expected in terms of what students needed to know and what was required to get good grades.”

According to Liz Dwyer’s analysis of the study in Good Education, these results may reflect too-low expectations for high school graduation. Most high school students only need to take four years of English and two years each of math and science to graduate. Dwyer points out that kids can graduate high school having taken math only in 9^th and 10^th grades, or having taken no English classes that emphasized writing.

Reflecting the validity of this issue, 44% of students surveyed wished they’d taken “more math, science and writing-intensive courses” to prepare them for life beyond high school. Respondents who went on to college, especially those who felt they were struggling or who needed remedial classes, voiced these regrets most often.

Dwyer questions why states don’t require more math, writing and science – as well as more social studies and foreign language classes. “Why isn’t there a class dedicated to teaching the fundamentals of writing?” she rightly asks. Fully 69% of survey respondents (including those who didn’t go to college) felt high school graduation requirements were “very” or “pretty” easy, with 37% saying it should be more challenging to earn a high school diploma.

Of course, not all high school students go to college, and public high schools need to meet the needs of a wide range of learners besides those that are college-bound. Perhaps part of the problem is simply a mismatch between reality and expectations. Close to half the students surveyed also report that, given what they now know, they wish they’d been more motivated in high school. Many who went on to college no doubt believed it would be easier than it turned out to be.

Surely teachers and tutors can help students prepare mentally for the higher level of effort that college requires. Likewise, educators can guide college-focused high school students toward a higher academic standard than what it takes to graduate, including advanced placement classes. Some kids may even have the opportunity to take community college or college courses while still in high school, perhaps with the support of a tutor.

You can read a synopsis of the survey and/or download a PDF of the complete survey here.

Please comment and share how you feel about these results. Are they surprising to you? And how relevant do you feel they are to the raging debate on high school curriculum?

Featured photo courtesy of Jessica.Tam.