Center for the Future of Arizona | Pathways Project

Pathways to Postsecondary



	Sybil Francis, Ph.D.		Lattie F. Coor, Ph.D.

Viewpoints
Arizona Republic
September 14, 2008

A Seamless Education

By Sybil Francis, Ph.D., Executive Director and Lattie F. Coor, Ph.D., Chairman and CEO Center for the Future of Arizona

The system of public education in America has been marked by continuous and significant innovation. One hundred years ago just 5 percent of our young people were high school graduates. The influx of students into high schools from 1910 to 1940 resulted in 50 percent of school-age individuals graduating from high school by 1940. The GI bill, credited with democratizing higher education, drove millions to college after World War II.

The central responsibility of public education is to prepare every individual, as fully as they are able and willing, for creative and occupational success over their working lives. A high school diploma once promised a lifetime of gainful employment and the completion of high school was a socially acceptable educational terminal point for many. But today, 90 percent of well-paying jobs require postsecondary education or training, according to U.S Department of Labor statistics. In this world, a high school diploma serves as a jumping-off point, not an end point.

Our educational system in Arizona — and the nation — is not keeping up. Too many students — about 30 percent — are not completing high school while many who do are not adequately prepared for work or further study. The reasons for this are complex, but the lack of fundamental innovation in education since the 1970s, when high school graduation rates stalled nationally at about 70 percent, is part of the problem. System-wide transformation has to be part of the solution.

The hard and fast boundaries between high school and postsecondary education pose significant obstacles. For students to pursue their education beyond high school they must first imagine that they can, then make the correct educational choices, often with little guidance, and finally, muster the financial wherewithal to do so. In traversing this complex path, students encounter significant obstacles in overcoming the divide between their high school and postsecondary education. Today, the transition between eighth grade and high school is virtually seamless, but it was not always so, when eighth grade was the highest education attainment level for most. We ask you to imagine a future in which the transition between high school and postsecondary education is just as seamless.

A national study of the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce entitled Tough Choices or Tough Times challenges us to rethink preK-12 and postsecondary education models along these lines. We believe Arizona is well positioned to rise to this challenge and be a national leader in education because we can build on what we already have.

What would a reengineered education system look like?

Students would expect to move beyond high school as financial and academic barriers to doing so would be eliminated.

Starting as early as middle school, multiple educational options would put all students — not just some — on one or more pathways to postsecondary education based on their interests, skills and academic attainment. All pathways would be rigorous and equally meritorious.

Pathways would be flexible, allowing students to change course as desired.

Examples of how to do this include creating:

High schools linked with postsecondary institutions offering seamless, multiple pathways;

High schools or educational programs which prepare students to enter college or university at the sophomore or junior level;

Five-year programs that confer both a high school diploma and a technical or vocational certificate or associate degree. These could be offered through special charter schools created through collaborations between high schools and postsecondary institutions.

Research and experience tell us that students drop out of school not primarily because they are poor academic performers but because they do not understand the relevance of high school to their lives. Embedding postsecondary preparation into their experience and connecting them to educational pathways beyond high school can create relevance and establish real accomplishments on which to build. For these reasons, this approach would not only benefit high achieving students, but could in fact be of most benefit to students at greatest risk of failure.

While pieces of such a system exist today, too many obstacles still exist.

Next steps

A concerted effort must be made to:

Fund system-wide innovation to create a seamless educational pipeline;

Engage students in middle school to begin thinking carefully about their life’s educational and career goals;

Identify, develop and pilot differentiated high value educational pathways between high school and postsecondary institutions, including in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) areas;

Support and build on dual enrollment/early college options; and,

Support better alignment of career and technical education with college and career readiness.

We are pleased to report that the Helios Education Foundation announced earlier this week it will partner with the center and fund a startup grant to advance this concept and support the center's new Pathways to Post-secondary Project. We will engage key stakeholders such as the ones in the accompanying articles to identify promising approaches.

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