THE GLOBAL ACHIEVEMENT GAPBY TONY WAGNER

EDCI700 Dr. KingSusan MilesAaron Slutsky

The Global Achievement Gap the gap between what even our best

suburban, urban, and rural public schools are teaching and testing

vs.

what all students will need to succeed as learners, workers, and citizens in today’s global knowledge economy.

Seven Survival Skills

1. Critical Thinking and Problem Solving2. Collaboration Across Networks and

Leading by Influence3. Agility and Adaptability4. Initiative and Entrepreneurialism 5. Effective Oral and Written

Communication6. Accessing and Analyzing Information7. Curiosity and Imagination

Only 70% are graduating today from high school.

Boredom continues to be a leading cause of our high school dropout rate.

“I have observed that the longer our children are in school, the less curious they become” (location 323).

Indictment on the System . . .

College Ready???

Only about a third of U.S. high school students graduate ready for college today, and the rates are much lower for poor and minority students.

Forty percent of all students who enter college must take remedial courses.

College-Ready???

“More time on writing”

“Research skills”

“Time management”

“Learning to work with other students in study groups”

Work Ready?

Professionalism and work ethic

Oral and written communication

Critical thinking and problem-solving

Teamwork and leadership

Reading comprehension

Ethics and social responsibility

All came ahead of knowledge of both science and math.

Rise of Collaboration, Cross-Functional Teams, & Self-Regulation as well as the Demise of Managers

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Twenty-five years ago, management was 16 percent of the labor force . . . Today management is 5 percent . . . . In 1991 . . . employees reported to work, and supervisors told them what to do. But since then, layers of management have been taken out.”

Employers’ Complaints:

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Not so much on spelling and punctuation as on fuzzy thinking and inability to write with voice!

Citizenship Ready?: Thomas Jefferson first declared literacy to be the key to citizenship.

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Do US History classes help students understand the roots of some of the issues we face as a country, while also developing the analytic skills students need to come to their own conclusions about the important questions of our time?

“More and more countries are graduating increasing numbers of young people who not only have basic computational and analytic skills but also are hungry for the middle-class lifestyle we have” (location 223).

Our competition is ready!

21st Century Skills Framework critical thinking and problem solving to

understand and address global issues learn from and work collaboratively with

individuals representing diverse cultures, religions and lifestyles in a spirit of mutual respect and open dialogue in personal, work and community contexts

understand other nations and cultures, including the use of non-English languages

The Old World of School

Learning Walks in “high performing” schools

Found nothing special Quality of teachers’ preparation,

continuing professional development, and supervision is very low in our nation’s schools.

State tests are computer-scored, multiple-choice assessments of factual recall.

The Old World of School

Most teacher evaluation systems are checklists of teachers’ techniques, which must be filled out periodically by school administrators.

MIT Grads

Overwhelming majority reported using nothing more than arithmetic, statistics, and probability.

Enter Advanced Placement

Designed in the 1950’s In 2006, 2 million AP exams were

taken (2 million x $83 = $166 million)

2006 USA Today article, growing number of colleges no longer offer credit for AP courses.

WE DON’T NEED MORE MATH AND SCIENCE COURSES.

WE NEED MORE ENGAGING AND RELEVANT MATH AND SCIENCE COURSES.

Data Driven

Principals are trained to use the results from standardized tests to determine which teachers are teaching the required content.

The more content, the better the test scores are.

The better test scores, the more effective principal must be.

The Aftermath of NCLB

Curriculum limitation only to what’s being tested.

Increased time for tested subjects since 2002

Reduced time for other subjects

Greater emphasis on tested content and skills

There is only one curriculum: test-prep.

Testing, 123

To what extent do these state tests assess the skills that matter most for work, citizenship, and college?

What is the impact of teaching to these tests on student’s motivation to learn and to stay in school?

Testing, 123

Student Motivation: Test are boring, and memorization is boring.

Collegiate Learning Assessment: Open ended performance assessment, tests reasoning, problem solving, and writing skills.

Politics and Financing

Old World Rigor

Taking more academic courses, covering more academic content was the widely accepted definition of rigor.

21st Century Rigor:

Demonstrated mastery of the core competencies for work, citizenship, and life-long learning.

Content is the means of developing competencies, instead of being the goal.

21st Century Thinking . . . Asking good questions, critical thinking,

and problem solving go hand in hand. Nearly eight out of ten employers

surveyed said that, in five years, the single most important skill high school graduates would need was critical thinking/problem solving.

Almost 70 percent of the employers in this study ranked the high school graduates they hired as deficient in this area.

Employers are looking for less linear thinking and for people who can conceptualize as well as synthesize a lot of data.

21st Century Access to Info:

Employees today have to manage an astronomical amount of information flowing into their work lives on a daily basis.

Internships that last years with mentor teachers

More daily planning time (Japanese plan together one half of every day.)

Higher pay to demand more outstanding work

Suggestions:

One path . . . NBCT

Students of NBCTs scored 7-15 percentage points higher on year-end tests than students of non-NBCTs.

NBCTs were particularly effective with minority students. •

In 48 comparisons (four grades, four years of data, and three measures of academic performance), students of NBCTs surpassed students of non-NBCTs.

Another path . . . NBCP??A principal’s collection of work might include . . .

a written School Improvement Plan (i.e., a spelled-out strategy for continuous improvement of teaching and learning), which includes an analysis of student achievement data

samples of agendas for faculty meetings and samples of communications to staff and parents, such as newsletters

an example of one week of the principal’s schedule a videotape excerpt of a faculty meeting, along with

commentary a videotape excerpt of a supervision conference with a

teacher, along with commentary a principal’s written self-assessment and analysis of

the portfolio elements

Reference

Wagner, Tony. (2008). The Global Achievement Gap. New York:

Basic Books.