The Problem: The accelerating exodus of students from the traditional public elementary and and high schools in the United States (U.S.) is creating public ghost schools. The situation is becoming critical and threatens the very existence of traditional public education in the U.S. This exodus movement is generated by a large number of students and parents who are significantly dissatisfied with current teaching and learning and seek alternative learning endeavors such as charter schools, private schools, and home schooling. It is also reinforced by the negative perception of students who have finished the system and vowed to never return (stay-outs), and by the critical number of students who have just plain given up, walked away disgusted, and dropped out (drop-outs).
The Reality: The international ranking of the U.S. in education is commonly described as mediocre yet the U.S. is the world’s leader in manufacturing, military, food production, space, etc. The U.S. high school drop-out rate is extremely high and SAT test scores (college admissions) are inexplicably low. The current number of high school drop-outs, reported from multiple sources, appears to vary between 2.5 to 3 million per year while reported college drop-outs approximate 2 million per year. All together approximately 12,800 students drop-out of U.S. schools each day of the calendar year. Numbers in themselves appear insignificant until one realizes that in just 6 days (less than a week) the number of drop-outs from U.S. schools and colleges would fill the Astrodome stadium in Houston Texas–to over capacity. It appears logical that a public education system’s responsibility is student learning. Ineffective response to the lack of learning and the drop out dilemma is apparent as the student exodus is gaining momentum. Specifically related to this exodus movement is the observable fact that most U.S. public classrooms lack the pre-preparation necessary to teach using the world proven multiple ways people learn. The susbstitution for this lack of preparation is to learn by the way the teacher teaches–generally hearing and descriptive reading. Unfortunately, this specific way of learning is counterproductive to students who are more naturally focused to the other multiple ways people learn. The resultant conflict promotes esclating academic difficulty and results in student/parent dissatisfaction, stay-outs, and drop-outs. Students and parents are consumer aware and pro-active; they want improvement in teaching and learning and they see it is not occurring; so now that they have other alternatives–they leave. Time, money, and enrollments are running out–it is America’s Last Chance to Own Its Future.
This Book: As a world leader in almost all areas of national productivity, except education, the U.S. has an inherent obligation to prevent our system of public education from fragmenting into an array of alternative learning endeavors. To save public education the U.S.must create schools recognized by the public as schools of choice rather than places to exit. The questions most persistently asked are: What do we need? Why don’t we have it? How can we get it? Thus the prescriptive work–Saving Educaton; America’s Last Chance to Own Its Future.
George P. Waldheim, Ed.D.
