• The European Union and China graduate more scientists and engineers every year than the United States.
• In 1995, the United States was #1 in the world in college graduation rate. In 2005, it was 15th.
• U.S. students rank 25th in math and 21st in science out of 30 developed countries.

THE QUESTION: IN TODAY’S GLOBAL ECONOMY, ARE U.S. STUDENTS READY TO COMPETE WITH THOSE AROUND THE WORLD?

• American students are among the most tested in the world.
• State spending on standardized tests has almost tripled in the last six years to over a billion dollars.
• China, Singapore, and Finland and most European countries have national standards. The U.S. doesn’t.

THE QUESTION: IS ALL OF THIS TESTING DOING ANY GOOD?

BIN CHE
Chinese language teacher
Belpre, Ohio

“I really worry about…some students in our school…I think they need to work hard…They need to catch up with other generations in the world – like Asia.”

Hailing from a town of more than 3 million people outside Beijing, Chinese teacher Bin Che came to the United States on a foreign language teaching program. At first, he says Belpre, Ohio – a small town on the border of West Virginia – was not what he expected. Having watched many movies featuring American cities like New York and Las Vegas, Belpre – which sits on the banks of the Ohio River – seemed sleepy. But Bin says he made a lot of friends in his year teaching in Ohio, and learned a lot about American schools. Despite the energy of his students, Bin says he thinks they need to study harder to keep up with students in the rest of the world.

ROGER LEMLEY
Graduate of Belpre High School
Belpre, Ohio

“I’m hoping to be a Chinese interpreter… that’ll be kind of cool. And then I can work down in Washington with the Chinese Ambassadors, or I can go to China and be an American Ambassador. All kinds of stuff like that.”

A recent graduate of Belpre High School, Roger was a star student in Bin Che’s Chinese class. He loved the language so much, he says, that he hoped to study it in college. But even if he attended a state school, Roger says the cost was prohibitive. So, the 18-year-old decided to join the Marines. Just two weeks after graduation, he shipped off to boot camp in Paris Island, South Carolina. After that, he’ll attend the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, where he hopes to earn a degree in Chinese. Then what? Roger says he loves life in Belpre, and might return. But career opportunities in the town, which is feeling the pinch of globalization, are scarce. Even Roger’s mother, Lisa Fought, says her son would have a better chance at success elsewhere. “The way the economy is now – if you don’t have an education, you have nothing,” she says. “You have to have a high school diploma to even work at McDonald’s nowadays. And working at McDonald’s is not going to pay rent. It’s not going to pay your utilities.”

CHERESE CLARK
Principal, Pleasant Hill Academy
Cincinnati, Ohio

“Every child deserves the opportunity to come to school and learn, and to be in an environment where they can learn. And, I think that is my biggest role here as the administrator.”

It’s been nearly two decades since Cherese began her career in the Cincinnati public school system – first as a teacher, then as an academic coach, and – finally – as Principal. When she took over Pleasant Hill Academy two years ago, the school had been labeled as an “academic emergency.” In her short tenure, Cherese has helped the school climb to “academic watch,” and hopes for even more improvement in the years to come.

ANNE KUITTINEN
Finnish exchange student, junior year
Lewis Center, Ohio

“I’ve had pretty much straight A’s since I came here, except for the first quarter I had one B, a B+. But that was just because I was just getting used to the language and speaking it.”

How did Anne Kuittinen, a student from the small town of Espoo, Finland, end up in Ohio? Call it curiosity, and a desire to learn English – which the 16-year-old calls the “language of the world.” Although she already speaks some English – in addition to Spanish, Swedish and German – Kuittinen says she loves languages and hopes to use them in her career. Living in the United States, she says, proved to be a memorable experience. Anne became close with her host family, the Kiplingers, and continues to speak with them regularly. As for her school experience, Kuittinen says it was also an easy adjustment – perhaps a little too easy. Although she earned straight A’s at Olentangy High School, which is rated as excellent, Anne is now redoing her junior year at home in Finland. Why? Because the Finnish school system, which consistently ranks at the top of international tests of math and science, doesn’t accept credits from America.

NANCY JOHNSON
Fourth-grade language arts teacher, Pleasant Hill Academy
College Hill, Cincinnati

“Right now you’re up all night thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, what did I not cover?’ So the closer it gets to testing the pressure is tough.”

A teacher for 13 years in the Cincinnati Public School System, last year marked Johnson’s first at Pleasant Hill. Although the job is challenging at times, Johnson says she loves to teach and most nights, she goes home happy. The mother of one says she applied to Pleasant Hill because of its new teacher training program – called TAP – which allows her to spend 90 minutes a week with mentors reviewing lesson plans and strategizing. Last year, her hard work paid off – with nearly all her students passing the writing portion of Ohio’s standardized test, called the OAT.

GUADALUPE MEDINA
Second-year student, Metro High School
Columbus, Ohio

“(In) most schools you just sit down and read a book, but here you’re like actually hands-on, making videos, and actually doing like real-live stuff.”

She’s only 16 years old, and Lupe Medina is already taking college-level classes at Metro, a unique public school outside Columbus. The daughter of Mexican immigrants, Lupe hasn’t yet decided on a career path, but is considering biomedical engineering. Next year, she’ll be enrolled in courses at Ohio State University.

DeJANE DANIEL
First-year student, Metro High School
Columbus, Ohio

“It’s hard sometimes, though, because in a normal school you have a C, you can pass, but here you have to have an A. Sometimes that gets annoying, but at certain times, you know, you want to brag. You’re like, “I got an A in everything,” and you can literally say that because you have to.”

At Metro, she’s studying Chinese, American literature and algebra II/trigonometry. To get to and from Metro, she takes two public buses – a commute that consumes four hours of her day. DeJane says she’s not sure what career she will pursue, but that taking college classes before she finishes high school will help her to decide what’s right for her. And the earlier she decides, she says, the brighter her future looks.

SCHOOLS:

Pleasant Hill Academy
In the diverse College Hill area outside Cincinnati, Pleasant Hill Elementary is part of a federally funded pilot program to improve teacher quality, called TAP. At this high poverty school, each teacher spends 90 minutes a week with a “master teacher” to help improve his or her lesson plan. “I have seen some of my veteran teachers blossom,” says Principal Cherese Clark. Teachers are also eligible for a bonus for improving students’ outcomes. Part of the evaluation is based on test scores on the all-important yearly state test, the OAT, used for NCLB reporting. To help improve student success, Pleasant Hill also offers on-site mental health services through a program called Ready To Learn. Principal Clark says these services are important in low-income schools.

“A number of them are in foster care,” says Clark. “We have some children that are from homes where they’ve suffered abuse. There may be drug abuse going on in the home. They need assistance and guidance and support here at school.”

Belpre
Belpre High School sits in Ohio’s rural Appalachian region on the border of West Virginia. About 40 percent of the kids in the Belpre School District are economically disadvantaged, and only a quarter of its high school students go on to study at four-year colleges. Belpre has experienced the transition of globalization firsthand with factories closing and jobs moving overseas. The town faces serious financial strains because of a change in the tax structure. Remaining factories, such as two plastics manufacturers, were granted tax breaks by the state legislature, resulting in a serious shortfall for the school district. The district’s superintendent, Harry Fleming, applied for a state grant to bring in a Chinese language teacher to the school, hoping that he could give the students something that would help them get jobs. “Mandarin is the one of the most widely spoken languages in the world,” says Fleming. “We know the growing economy in China is probably going to play more and more of a role in our society. It seemed like a good thing to pursue.”

Metro
Metro High School is an alternative public high school focusing on STEM (science, technology, engineering and math). It was founded by the Ohio State University, a research and development company, Batelle, and several Columbus area school districts. Interested students apply and enter a lottery from 16 school districts. The school is diverse and about 40 percent of its students are low-income. There are no bells, lockers, or blackboards at the school, which started three years ago. Each grade has about 100 students. The curriculum favors hands-on learning in all disciplines. Each student is expected to master a subject before he or she moves on, allowing the student to take as long as is needed until he or she learns the material. Students can finish their requirements and begin taking college classes while still in high school. Principal Marcy Raymond says being different, flexible and fostering collaboration is imperative to helping students learn. “Every kid can learn,” says Raymond. “I don’t think there’s anyone here that can’t do that if given the right strategies and the right amount of time. We say we are a small school with a big footprint.”

Metro has run into opposition from officials in surrounding districts who argue it should be considered a charter school, and that students who want to attend it should pay tuition. This conflict is an example of just how tough it is to innovate within the existing school system.

Olentangy
Olentangy is the fastest growing school district in the fastest growing region in the state of Ohio. It is an affluent school district whose schools are consistently rated excellent. Olentangy High School offers 15 Advanced Placement classes and many electives. More than 90 percent of its students go on to higher education. And the district has just opened a new high school, it’s third. Principal Mindy Farry is proud of the school and its students’ success. “We’ve got just a bevy of academic courses, as well as other things students can dabble in, whether it’s fine arts or performing arts, or industrial technology,” says Farry. “We have mentorship programs. We also have a special needs department and intervention specialists working with some of our special needs students. There’s a little bit of a spot for everyone here, so they can get whatever they need to get them prepared for college.”

As goes Ohio, so goes the nation.

It’s a political truism – one with evidence in more than half a century of Presidential contests. Since 1960, every elected President has won the state. But Ohio’s political history is not why we chose it as the main location for “WHERE WE STAND.” Instead, we chose it because – as much as one state can – it seemed to best represent the American educational experience. Ohio is the most densely populated state in the Midwest, and its geographic diversity – which ranges from the more affluent suburbs of Columbus to the rural, economically-strained swathes of Appalachia – makes for an extremely varied school system.

In addition, Ohio’s political and educational leaders are putting a major emphasis on improving that system. Specifically, they want to prepare Ohio’s students to compete in a global economy.

According to the Ohio Board of Education, “The future of Ohio’s economy depends on the ability to develop a world-class work force and changes are needed within the (K-12) education system to be successful in this endeavor.”

It’s an aggressive approach to education – but one that’s producing results. In the past 20 years, the state’s schools have risen from a ranking in the middle of the nation, to 7th. Student test scores have improved by 25 percent, and the number of fourth-graders who passed the state reading test has almost doubled to 80 percent.

OHIO – Quick Facts:
It has one of the highest rates of unemployment in the country: 7.2%, compared to the national average 5.7% (July 2008)
Number of local school districts: 614
Number of schools: 4,012
Number of students: 1,839,683
Number of charter schools: 316

It was exactly 25 years ago that President Ronald Reagan’s National Commission on Excellence in Education released a report that shattered any notion that America’s schools were performing well.

The report – Nation at Risk: The Imperative For Educational Reform – came to a disturbing conclusion: our education system was falling behind the rest of the world.

“Our Nation is at risk,” the report stated. “The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people.”

The 18 members of the Commission made 38 recommendations for reform, divided across 5 major categories: Content, Standards and Expectations, Time, Teaching, Leadership and Fiscal Support. These recommendations set off a series of efforts on a local, state and federal level.

It was not the first time, of course, that America’s schools had come under such scrutiny. In 1957 when the Soviets launched Sputnik – the first space satellite – it set off a wave of paranoia. That wave resulted in a major push to improve our schools, and a dozen years later one of our greatest accomplishments as a nation: sending a man to the moon.

How have our schools fared since these wake-up calls? And are we still a nation at risk?

Some of the facts about education in America today, many of which are presented in WHERE WE STAND, argue that in many ways, we are. While the U.S. still leads the world as an economic power and innovator, other countries are fast catching up. And when it comes to education, many of them have already surpassed us. America once had the best high school graduation rate, but it has now fallen below 15th among industrialized nations. Our 15-year-olds perform below average in math, science, and problem-solving.

Earlier this year, Education Week published its annual Report Card, which included a portion titled: “A Stagnant Nation: Why American Students are Still at Risk.” Its conclusion? The obstacle to reforms in our schools is political, and ‘vigorous national leadership’ is needed to improve education.

Today, education experts say, it’s not the race to space that threatens the status of our schools. Instead, it’s the ever-changing, increasingly competitive global marketplace.

“We’re acting like our jobs are not going to leave, and that we’re going to be able to compete in a global market with a second class education in America – and that day is over,” says Geoffrey Canada, President and Founder of the Harlem Children’s Zone. “We’ve allowed the rest of the world to get ahead of us.”

Finland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe – the majority of it covered with forests and lakes. It boasts great natural beauty, world-renowned saunas, and is home to the phone giant Nokia.

But none of these attributes are what inspires delegations from more than 50 countries to travel there annually. Instead, these international visitors head to Finland for a first-hand look at one of the things the country does best: education.

The Finns call these delegates “educational pilgrims.” Their mission? To find out the secret to the Finn’s success. Finland has always boasted first-rate schools, but the country has made headlines over the past decade for consistently performing at the top of an international test known as PISA (The Programme for International Student Assessment). Sponsored by the Organization for Economic Development (OECD), the test in reading, science and math is administered triennially to 15-year-olds in 57 developed countries, which together account for nearly 90 percent of the world’s GDP.

Of those countries, Finland placed first overall on the 2006 tests, which focused on science, compared with the U.S.’s position in the middle of the pack. Finland has maintained this lead since the test was first administered in 2000, ranking first in that year’s reading assessment. In addition, Finland has a high-school dropout rate of less than 1 percent – compared with roughly 25 percent in the U.S. And in tertiary education, the World Economic Forum ranks Finland first in the world in enrollment and quality.

When asked about their ranking, Finnish educators and experts consistently cite the country’s teachers. In Finland, they say, teaching is considered one of the most highly esteemed professions – hardly a surprise, considering the fact that all of the country’s teachers must hold master’s degrees, and the profession is highly competitive. Even though the salaries of Finnish teachers are comparable to those in the U.S., a job opening in a Finnish classroom typically attracts more than 40 applicants.

The job’s popularity can be partly attributed to the country’s liberal approach to its curriculum. In Finland, teachers are allowed to choose their own textbooks and customize their lesson plans. They aren’t required to administer standardized tests, and assign little homework.

“Teachers are very independent, and there is little cooperation between teachers,” says Maria Lisa Wahlfors, a teacher at the Tapiola School outside of Helsinki. “I think having this freedom is much better because I can choose the material I want to teach, and it can match my personality.”

In addition, the Finn’s success is due in large part to the country’s demographics. Unlike the United States, where great disparities in income and an extremely diverse population present obstacles to education, Finland enjoys one of the highest standards of living in the world, is largely homogeneous, and has a strong national culture.

Ohio’s Appalachian region was once highly dependent on heavy industry, agriculture and mining. Like other states previously reliant on manufacturing and industry, the majority of jobs today are in health care, retail and service industries. Poverty remains high. While some communities have improved over the years, many are still adjusting to disappearing sectors and lack of basic infrastructure, such as water and sewer systems. Surrounding metropolitan areas have seen increases in employment opportunities with better pay and technological skills. But those jobs haven’t made it into these rural counties.

Education remains a challenge, as well. High school completion rate is around 68 percent. And those that do leave high school are often unprepared for skilled labor jobs or even community college. Rural schools are less likely than those in non-rural schools to offer programs that prepare students for current and anticipated jobs. The offerings typically reflect the differences in labor markets. Jobs that are available are usually in the nearest city, which could be up to an hour’s drive or more. Next to joining the military, vocational or technical schools can sometimes be another option for students in rural areas to advance skills and learning.

Jobs in the Appalachian area of Ohio are starting to demand a technically trained workforce in math and science-related fields, including electrical maintenance and computerized numerical control occupations. Tamra Pace, Director of Communications at Zane Sate College, sees a rise in corporate responsibility. To help accelerate an incoming workforce, companies are requiring an Associate’s degree for jobs that previously required a Bachelor’s degree. “This results in increased levels of responsibility and mobility within a corporation,” said Pace. “American Electric Power, one of the biggest corporations in the area, is hiring our graduates with a degree in Electrical Engineering Technologies to fill technical jobs previously filled with personnel with Bachelor’s degrees. And with the aging population, health-related occupations are in great demand.”

Hocking Community College is taking a different approach. The school has designed programs in order to attract businesses. Green companies and fuel cell application companies are growing in the Canton and Athens areas of Ohio. Lynn Hull, Director of Enrollment, says Hocking is taking advantage of advancing technological fields. “Hocking is trying to be on the front end of what we hope is the future of the state of Ohio,” said Hull. “We’re trying to increase the green collar job workforce, so when it happens, these young people will be the best and brightest and ready.”

But getting those young people to the starting line has proven difficult. Hocking is not alone in seeing a noticeable increase in remedial classes for students in reading and math. “These students are educationally disenfranchised from an early age and it gets worse over time,” said Hull. “Teaching to the test methods are unproductive. All learners are different, and more kids lack basic skills at an early age in impoverished areas. We need to make knowledge relevant to real world skills.” Hull’s recommendation to make reading and math seem relevant to students by making learning a hands-on experience fits the model of other successful alternative schools. “We feel hands-on training, in-field training, sensory training technical schools are what students need more of,” said Hull. “It is in these environments where students truly excel in learning.”

Ohio has also been experimenting with a number of innovative educational reforms and programs. Of these, one of the state’s biggest pushes is an initiative called STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

A partnership between the state and private corporations, the goal of the Ohio STEM Learning Network is to connect 100,000 students over the next 10 years to high-tech careers that will help fuel the economy. The STEM schools (including Metro, which we feature in “WHERE WE STAND”) serve middle and high school students from low-income and minority communities. The Ohio STEM initiative also includes $100 million for college scholarships.

Ohio is not alone in the STEM initiative. Many other states are engaged in similar efforts, some of them supported by the federal government under The America Competes Act, signed into law last August by President Bush. According to Congressional estimates, the law authorized more than $800 million in new STEM-related spending for K-12 schools and college undergraduate programs in fiscal 2008 – much of that funding, however, has not yet been approved.

For most of the 20th century the United States had the most educated workforce in the world. However, over the past 30 years other countries have surpassed us. In 1975 the U.S. had 30 percent of the world’s population of college students. Today the country can claim only 14 percent. Across the globe other countries’ younger generations are attaining a higher level of education than prior generations. And U.S. students’ scores on international assessments of math and reading continue to decline and are unprepared for the changing global economy and competition. Because of a more leveled global workforce, American workers are in direct competition with workers from other countries, and many times those workers are better skilled and at lower cost.

In a study done by the National Center on Education and the Economy, employers reported a lack of mathematics, computer and problem-solving skills as the job applicants’ most common deficiencies.

Batelle, the world’s largest independent research and development firm focusing on science and technology, is one of the leading businesses of the Ohio STEM Learning Network and partner of Metro High School. Carl Kohrt, CEO, thinks education has an important impact on economic development. “I think of education as a tool in economic development. It’s what has made this country great in terms of innovation, in terms of creativity and ability to execute very complex problems that other parts of the world now benefit from,” said Kohrt. “We don’t do that with an uneducated populous.”

Kohrt thinks integrating STEM types of education are imperative to increase student learning, achievement and success. “STEM agendas are not just for those who think they are going to be engineers and scientists like me, but for those that are technically literate and can apply that process of how to think across many different disciplines that are needed in everyday life and work.”

At a recent Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco, Intel Board Chair Craig Barret reiterated the need for the U.S. to achieve global education reform with STEM agendas. “The future is dependent on the education of the workforce,” said Barrett, “but we don’t spend enough time investing in education. Our government refuses to acknowledge that investing in R&D for the future is important.”

Teaching STEM involves not just the students, but also teachers and administrators. With high teacher attrition rates, pressure from NCLB assessments, and low percentages of expertise in the fields teachers are instructing, introducing an intensive focus on such subjects can be daunting. To help reduce high attrition rates among science teachers and promote quality teaching, the National Science Teachers Association created a year-long professional development program called the New Science Teacher Academy. The Academy was designed to enhance teacher confidence and classroom excellence, and improve teacher content knowledge for science educators.

On U.S. students and their lack of knowledge about certain parts of the world.

On the TAP program and how it improves teacher development.

On the impact of No Child Left Behind.