Why Ford PAS?

• The traditional high school experience works for an increasingly small group of students.
• Disadvantaged students are being left farther and farther behind.
• Critical employability skills continue to be left out of most high school and college curricula.
• There is little meaningful connection between the post-secondary and secondary systems.
• Employers are increasingly unable to hire the skilled, diverse workforce they need to compete in a global 21st century economy.
• The “pipeline” is leaking at both the secondary and post-secondary levels, in terms of dropout, remediation, retention, and completion rates.

For the last several years, priority in education reform has been shifting from the elementary level to the high school level. Numerous national conferences-- where participants included educators, academics, business, & policymakers--were held to confront the realities represented by these statistics and called for a rethinking of the American high school experience. Most recently, at the National Governors’ High School Summit at the end of February, Bill Gates declared that the American high school, as currently operated, is obsolete.

While Ford PAS does not constitute a recipe for comprehensive high school reform, it does address a number of the key recommendations that have emerged from these national conferences:

• Rigorous academic curriculum.

According to a 1999 U.S. Department of Education report, rigorous course-taking is a greater predictor of college success than measures such as GPA and SAT scores. Even more striking is that differences for race and class disappear when advanced course-taking is considered.

• Skills necessary for college and work.

One of the points in the discussions of high school reform is that schools are not teaching, and many current academic standards do not address, skills that are variously referred to as employability skills, life skills, or 21 st Century Skills. By whatever name, these include skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, teamwork, and communication.

• Real-world applications.

These applications are meaningful to students; so that students can see how what they are learning in academic subjects in fact leads to interesting, engaging work.One of the major reasons why many students do not take advanced courses, particularly in math and science, is that they perceive the content of these courses as irrelevant to them and their futures.

• Extension of learning beyond the classroom
• Vision of college as a possibility

Taking these last two together, research on successful high schools shows that beyond what happens in the classroom, networks of people in the school and community provide students with information and resources critical for obtaining valuable workplace experiences and achieving college acceptance. When learning is extended beyond the classroom, students have opportunities to get to know adults who can offer both broader vision of their future and concrete assistance in achieving that future.