Harold O. Levy, New York City schools chancellor from 2000 to 2002, has some advice on how to improve the educational system. Levy, who has served as trustee to several colleges, states that the battle is being lost for several reasons.
- Losing advertising wars to for-profit colleges.
- Losing control over the admissions process due to ranking systems.
- Losing to foreign institutions.
Raise the Age of Compulsory Education
Presently, most states have a mandatory age of 16 for attending high school. Many students are bored with school and drop out having no skills to be successful in the adult world. Levy recommends that the compulsory age be changed to 19.
President Obama is asking students to complete one year of education after high school. "I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training." [1]
If the federal government is willing to pay for the last year of education, that could mean a scholarship toward college. For the states that spend $5,500 per year for high school, the student would receive that amount for college. For states like New York that spend nearly $15,000, it would go much farther.
Curb Truancy
Truant officers could be more assertive in getting students to stay in school. One-third of New York City students are absent a month a year. Truants often become dropouts. Pressure parents into demanding children attend school.
- Repeated home visits
- Early morning phone calls
- Written commitments
- Oral commitments with witnesses
Advertise to Encourage College Enrollment
Colleges are doing a great job recruiting high school juniors and seniors. Colleges are not doing a very good job of recruiting older students who passed on college several years ago. 70% of the population lacks a post-secondary degree. These individuals should be the targets of an aggressive marketing campaign to attend a college and gain skills.
Unseal College Accreditation Reports
Colleges rank each other academically but the accreditation reports are rarely made public. Therefore, parents and students do not know all they should know about selecting a college. Instead, they have to turn to
- Private counselors charging thousands of dollars
- U.S. News & World Report rankings which are often more political than accurate
- Aggressive ad campaigns from colleges
- Word of mouth from individuals without solid information
Produce Students Capable of College Studies
Half of the freshmen at community colleges and one-third of four-year college students are short one or more subjects in high school to produce college level work. Since they do not have the knowledge to succeed in college, less than 60% of college students actually graduate from college. We need to raise the bar on what qualifies a student to successfully graduate from high school.
Parents need to take more responsibility for the educational process. President Obama stated, "As fathers and parents, we’ve got to spend more time with them, and help them with their homework, and replace the video game or the remote control with a book once in a while." [1]
The United States needs to set education as a priority, have better teachers, offer smaller class sizes, and build more modern schools.
Related articles: Obama's Changes in Education, Newsweek's Best High Schools
[1] Harold O. Levy, "Five Ways to Fix America’s Schools," The New York Times, June 8, 2009.
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