Many recent surveys are telling us that not much has changed in the preparation of high school graduates for life after graduation. The newest feedback from high schoolers is the same that it has been for over a decade. Fewer than 30% of the students feel their education has prepared them for work or college.
A new study released in June by Gallup, the Walton Family Foundation and Jobs for the Future underscores a growing disconnect between students’ aspirations and their preparation for life after graduation. This sense of lacking preparation for the future extends to students regardless of whether their goal is post-secondary education or entrance into the workforce.
The results of the survey should not be news to us. We have been hearing this refrain for a long time. The result of Gallup polling in 2010 and the feedback in a Pew Research Center study in 2017 show the long-standing nature of this complaint.
In 2018 Gallup results showed that only one in four Americans believed that students are prepared for college or a career after graduation from secondary school. Now we hear that fewer than 30% of our youth leaving their K-12 school experience feel “very prepared” for the future. That means 70% do not.
This does not mean that there are not many dedicated individuals in our school systems working hard to arm students with the skills necessary for success in whatever pathway they take after graduation. It does suggest that something is wrong with the way we are approaching our task.
Part of the problem lies with the fact that our education system is geared toward preparing students for more education. The sense that guides much student preparation is that the superior pathway after high school is college. Occupationally focused education is often seen as an inferior path to the future.
Yet even here, with the goal of college for all, we are faced with evidence of our flawed thinking. Study after study shows that the college success rate for those who chose that path after high school is way too low. On average 60% of those who pursue a college degree gain one six years after enrollment. That is a 40% failure rate that often leaves students with debt, time lost and little additional preparation for life beyond what they had coming out of high school.
On the job front the picture is not much better. A May study had more than half of hiring managers saying that recent high school and even college graduates are unprepared for the workforce.
These results raise some disturbing questions. If we think we are preparing students for more education, why is the success rate in gaining a degree so abysmal? If we know many students are going to enter the workforce instead, why do we not better prepare them for what employers need and want? If our education system is not about a rigorous focus on preparation for a successful future, what is its goal?
Student outcomes must become a more significant focus of educational effort. The student who graduates is the product of our educational system. If that student is less than desirable in the workplace and only has a marginally better than 60% chance of success in college, where has the system left him or her?
Skill-based programs, some of which will require post-secondary education and others aimed at transition from high school, are necessary areas of investment. We need to dispel the notion that college is the only desirable pathway and that other options are somehow inferior. It is a misconception many believe is deeply imbedded in our secondary schools. We need to prepare students for the hard and soft skills needed for success in the workplace. In short, we need to focus on outcomes.
We will undoubtedly hear from educators that they are already doing this. Yet results show that we are not terribly successful at it.
We need a defined and measurable program for preparing students for success after graduation in career paths as well as further education. Outcomes must be the measure of our success.
