To Create a More Effective Education System, We Must Do More Than Just Improve
Vince Bertram, Ed.D.
Professor of Management | Expert in Strategy, Growth & Scale | Two-Time NYT Bestselling Author
Last week, more than 400 legislative, business, and education leaders gathered in Salt Lake City for the Western Pathways Conference with a common goal – to explore how to create a better education system that will prepare all students for success. Leaders from Western Governors University, The League for Innovation in the Community College, and BYU-Pathways Worldwide joined me in a panel discussion about this topic, which I believe warrants more discussion.
The reality is that as much as the world of work has evolved, PreK-12 education in the U.S. has remained virtually unchanged. Students come to school with a natural curiosity, but too often we stifle it. We teach them how to do school - how to comply. That's part of the reason so many students leave school unprepared to make decisions about their future, unable to apply what they learned in school to real-world problems, and often unable to find meaningful and lucrative employment. In fact, Polling company Gallup found that 28 percent of U.S. adults aged twenty-four to thirty-four who live at home are college graduates. We also see this in the massive U.S. student loan debt crisis of nearly $1.6 trillion.
To turn this problem around, we must do more than make incremental improvements in teaching and learning. We must nurture students’ curiosity, equip them with in-demand knowledge and transportable skills, and inspire them to question what’s possible. We must revolutionize PreK-12 education.
An effective education system would make career readiness the focus. And we must start early - we can’t wait until high school or college to provide students opportunities to explore careers and develop the skills necessary to access them.
The responsibility of achieving this revolutionized PreK-12 education system doesn’t just rest with schools. The private sector must be vocal about what it needs from the education system, and educators must be ready to think differently about what a thriving classroom looks like.
The futures of our students and the future of our country depend on this, and we must act with urgency to achieve this vision.
Education Leadership Professional
6 年Yes yes!!!
Professor of Management | Expert in Strategy, Growth & Scale | Two-Time NYT Bestselling Author
6 年It’s all about transportable, in-demand skills that we must help our students develop. It’s not about training for specific jobs that will invariably change over time.
Training & Development Consultant | I help professionals unlock their potential through facilitation that inspires, critical thinking that challenges, and consulting that delivers results.
6 年Yes. We should be thinking about what jobs our youngest children are going to be faced with when it’s their time to enter the workforce. Unfortunately, none of us will be able to predict what exactly those jobs are going to look like. So, to try and design an educational system that prepares them for an uncertain future is, well, insurmountable. We need to think about the skills that are universal to all jobs, i.e. effective communication skills, creativity, problem solving, conflict resolution, etc. These universal (dare I say, soft) skills are what transcends industries.