"Work in Progress" -Education Is Key
Wednesday, May 17, 2006SUSIE GHARIB: As America`s baby boomers get ready to retire, a new generation is getting ready to take over the world`s most productive economy. Minorities will make up a larger percentage of this new workforce, but the new generation will be one of the most unequally educated of the last 60 years. Tonight, as we continue our "Work in Progress" series, we look at one California high school trying to better the odds. Here`s Washington bureau chief Darren Gersh.
DARREN GERSH, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: For Freddy Garcia, the day begins with a 40-minute bus ride to Hillsdale High School. When he arrives, it`s an accomplishment. At Freddy`s old school, he didn`t always show up and he often felt lost. He was pegged as a wannabe gang member, often sent to the office and told to pick up trash.
FREDDY GARCIA, FRESHMAN, HILLSDALE HIGH SCHOOL: So, I called myself, like, a janitor. So, yeah, really didn`t think about the future. I didn`t think about going to college.
GERSH: Most American high schools are not designed to catch a student like Freddy and keep him on track to graduation, let alone college. Freddy came into Hillsdale High School a "C" and "D" student. Early on, he was caught selling drugs. Yvonne Shiu is Hillsdale High School`s lead principal.
YVONNE SHIU, LEAD PRINCIPAL, HILLSDALE HIGH SCHOOL: I think here, with the structure that we have and having an advisor that recognized the potential in him and is nurturing that, has been instrumental in his turnaround and his outlook on school.
GERSH: Now, Freddy has a 3.7 GPA.
GARCIA: What changed was that my mom told me and my uncle told me high school is what matters, and it`s right there where your decision says are you going to have a future or not. So I decided to have one.
GERSH: At a traditional high school, teachers may have seven periods with 150 students a day. At Hillsdale, the school is broken up into what educators call small learning communities -- three houses, each with 300 students. And there`s an advisory period to discuss everything from study skills to problems at home. Kids here are known. I`ll bet a lot of teenagers kind of like to hide in high school. Can they hide in a small learning community?
SHIU: No. One of the things that happens is, at first, I think there`s a lot of reluctance for students to have an adviser, just because the adviser gets to know them very well. And for teenagers, they don`t like people knowing their business.
GERSH: The curriculum is also different. Hillsdale focuses on project- based learning. Students build up research skills. Juniors like Monica Castaneda spend months studying a pressing social issue. It`s all preparation for a year-long senior project.
MONICA CASTANEDA, JUNIOR, HILLSDALE HIGH SCHOOL: The projects just teach you how to think in a deeper sense. When you start doing projects like this, you think, if this isn`t being solved, what can I do to solve it in the future?
GERSH: Working in groups, researching problems, exploring solutions, presenting results, project-based learning is good preparation for the knowledge economy. Unfortunately, it is still rare.
LINDA DARLING-HAMMOND, PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION, STANFORD UNIVERSITY: You can get all the way through high school in this country and never have written an intensive research paper, never have had to go out and find and access resources and materials and solve problems and learn how to do difficult work with other people in a way that mirrors what you would do in the workplace and what you would do in college.
GERSH: The economic stakes in high school reform are high. Decades ago, experts had predicted 75 percent of high school graduates would go on to college. Instead, today, only 60 percent of graduates enter a two- or four- year college and just 40 percent make it through. It`s a disappointing performance considering the returns to higher education have doubled over the last 25 years.
DAVID CARD, PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS, UC BERKELEY: It is a bit of a puzzle why more people don`t take that fully into account in planning their careers and think, if I can somehow get myself through college, I will probably be in much better shape.
GERSH: With encouragement from his teacher, Freddy now wants to become the first in his family to go to college.
GARCIA: Right now, we`re not living good. We don`t have enough sometimes, enough food, enough money for food. So I want to get an education and try to help my mom out for all the things she done for me.
GERSH: After college, he`s thinking about law school. Darren Gersh, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, San Mateo.
