Book suggest ways that schools can help students to meet demands of new economic environment

By Bunmi Fatoye-Matory

Special to the Gazette

In 1979, a 30-year-old man with a high school diploma earned a yearly average of $27,000 (in 1993 dollars) but by 1993 that same man with the same diploma earned $20,000. This decline in wages becomes even more significant when you learn that in 1993 half of all 30-year-old men had not gone beyond high school. These are dire statistics.

The problem is not that the quality of American schools is declining, according to Richard Murnane, education professor at the Graduate School of Education, and Frank Levy, professor of urban economics at M.I.T., authors of the new book, Teaching the New Basic Skills: Principles for Educating Children to Thrive in a Changing Economy. In fact, popular perceptions notwithstanding, test scores are as high today as they were in 1980. Instead, as Murnane and Levy see it, the problem is that schools have failed to adjust to the radical changes in the kinds of skills required to succeed in today's economy. Half of recent graduates, the authors contend, to have an education that no longer meets the demands of our new economic environment.

The New Basic Skills

What then are the abilities needed to meet both the demands of an altered global market and the typically American aspiration of upward mobility? To answer this question, Murnane and Levy conducted extensive studies of successful businesses such as Ford Motor Co., Honda of America Manufacturing, Northwestern Mutual Life, and Diamond-Star Motors. They looked at the hiring practices of these companies as well as their evaluation procedures vis-a-vis the skills of workers. Consistently in all the companies, the authors found that the following basic skills are required by high-wage employers:

* The "hard skills" -- these include basic mathematics and problem-solving abilities at levels much higher than many high school graduates now attain;

* The "soft skills" -- the ability to work in groups and to make effective oral and written presentations, skills that many high schools do not teach; and

* the ability to use personal computers to carry out simple tasks like word processing.

How To Teach These Skills

Unfortunately, many American high schools do not teach these skills and when they do, it is not at a level that makes high school graduates competitive. Schools need to face these challenges by reforming both what is being taught and how it is taught. Using concrete examples, the authors demonstrate that even though it is a daunting task, it is possible. Citing cases like that of the Zavala Elementary School in East Austin, Texas, where an average family makes $12,000 per year and the Audubon Elementary School in Cabot, Mass., where the average family makes $90,000 per year, Murnane and Levy review the tortuous routes taken to effectively institute reforms within the school system. In these different contexts, reform was accomplished through adherence to what Murnane and Levy dub the Five Principles. These same principles are at the heart of the management strategies of the companies that succeed in today's economy by continually improving the quality of the goods and services they produce. The Five Principles (as the authors apply them to educational strategies) are as follows:

* Teachers, students, and parents have to understand that skill requirements for good jobs are changing very fast and schools have failed to keep up with these changes.

* Students have to be made to see the connection between what they are learning in school and their future job prospects. Teachers must be given the opportunities and incentives to learn about the changing job market and to change their teaching methods so they reflect the New Basic Skills.

* Professional development for teachers has to go beyond one-day workshops or graduate courses at colleges and universities. Direct teacher participation in the planning stages of professional development programs is necessary.

* Currently, student achievement is measured through tests that emphasize the so-called memorization of facts. Such tests are not comprehensive enough to measure many of the New Basic Skills, which, in addition to the ability to structure problems and to test solutions, include facility in writing clear English and the ability to work constructively in groups. So, new forms of testing are necessary.

* Finally, school reform is only possible with perseverance and learning from mistakes. The changes that are needed cannot be brought about by "magic bullets."

Through concrete examples, Murnane and Levy methodically map the direct relationship between the world of work and that of school. The result is a timely book for parents, teachers, administrators and, yes, politicians. The reader is left with the familiar but often forgotten truism that patience is the key for all who are genuinely interested in school reform. Ideas need to tried and tested. Sometimes they work and other times they fail. Still, as the authors demonstrate, a tenacity of purpose will eventually yield desirable results.

Teaching the New Basic Skills is an instructive and inspiring book for those interested in seeing high school education produce a competitive citizenry for an ever-expanding global market. And, the authors believe, a high school education will resume its formal critical role of allowing people to gain access to the middle class without the expense of a college education.