This is not the only way
school can be...
These are photos of high schools in Southern California, but they could be anywhere in the country, our standard view of what high school looks like now. However, small, personalized, and approachable schools are possible, even in high school. For a better idea of what school can be, all of our public schools, all over the country, read this FREE REPORT --
"EXPLODING THE PARADIGM:
Five Ways Schools Must Change
to Rescue the American Dream"
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Researcher Calls High Schools ‘Drop-Out Factories’
When a respected university, Johns Hopkins in this case, releases a research report, people across the country listen. Thanks to their work, America has a new way to see high schools, as “drop-out factories.” That image tells a lot about how our public education system is organized--to deal with masses of students as if they were products in a factory, “manufactured” citizens. That might have done the job in the mid-twentieth century, when America was at the height of its industrial development, but life has moved forward at warp speed since then, and the structure of our public education system has not. The current high school reality of assigning every teacher 150 students to meet with each day is part of this outmoded model. High schools of 3,000 or 4,000 students are not uncommon, and those high numbers are not unheard of even in middle schools. The sheer size and anonymity of such institutions don’t give anyone much of a chance at an |
engaging encounter with learning--students or teachers--and are a source of continual frustration to parents and members of the community. The 21st century explosion of knowledge through the internet and other technologies demands smarter people who can connect, understand, and manipulate information. This key difference requires a downsizing of the public education system, and a change from delivering facts to helping students think about and work with ideas. In smaller environments, with personal attention and hands-on support, all of our students would be capable of absorbing and utilizing knowledge so they could compete in a faster and more intelligent world. While perhaps the top 25% of all students may be well-served by the current system, America is wasting human potential every day in schools that are structured for “mass production.” |
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Below are a few of the places where Schools of the Future have been created. Take a good look at what they have in common, and you will see the importance of personal support and student-teacher face time as factors that can inspire and empower every student to learn: |
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Read Angel Park for the inside story of what’s holding public education back. |
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Discover a new perspective on the school changes you want to make. |