Fort Wayne Community Schools New Philosophy

Today's Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette published an article about the new focus of Fort Wayne Community School's (FWCS) high schools. Each high school will be focused on a specific area of study such as engineering, international business or college prep. They have taking this model off of a school in Napa, CA called New Tech High School. Both of these programs seem to miss the point of education, especially in high school.

I will write about FWCS first.

Fort Wayne Community Schools officials are aiming to change the culture of their high schools and feel they’ve developed a plan that will prepare students to be successful in a global economy.

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The belief is that by teaching high school differently, graduation and attendance rates will rise, more students will graduate with prestigious diplomas, more students will take advantage of internship opportunities and failure rates will decrease.

“Our goal is that all students will graduate with 21st-century skills,” said Debra Faye Williams-Robbins, high school area administrator.

First of all, to help student prepare for a global economy should be the province of colleges and trade schools, not high school. High schools should prepare students to enter and succeed in college. This is not achieved by changing the curricula of the school but teaching it differently. Why do students at R. Nelson Snider High School need biotechnology and medical classes. My understanding of college is you do not start medical training until medical school, which is post-graduate (baccalaureate). How can students be prepared for university courses when they know medicine by not biology, micro-biology or math? How can many of these students increase their understanding of a foreign language if they do not have a basic grasp of English?

When I was an undergraduate at Indiana University Bloomington, I was appalled and disheartened to be required to take calculus as a required course. I had not taken calculus in high school, but only advanced to pre-calculus. There were also remedial classes available starting at algebra. I took one of the remedial courses in algebra II for my major and was amazed to see people in my class struggle with basic algebra. Yet, FWCS seems to think their students will not succeed in a global economy because they don't understand engineering. This doesn't even account for the struggles students have with basic english.

Therefore, my overall view of high school education is it should be exclusively college prep. If a student want to major in engineering, at Purdue or Rose-Hulman, stong math skills are needed. Engineering principals will be learned later. Want to become a doctor? You will need strong math, science (biology) and english skills. My point is, college is not the place to start learning math, science or english basics. There is a reason college prep is named that way. Taking core classes of math, science and english prepares a student for anything in college, unless it is a specialty like music.

My second problem with this idea is the notion of a prestigious high school diploma. In a job environment where a master's degree is quickly becoming the minimum education, a diploma is meaningless. Meaningless might be a little harsh, but its only purpose is to get into college. Prestigious diplomas are only thought of as such by either the family, son going to Exeter Academy, or by a university music program, students at Interlochen Arts Academy. This might seem as a contradiction in my argument, but the points is a prestigious high school denotes either pedigree or a highly specialized curricula for a highly specialized college major. Grades and courses taken get people into college, not the high school name.

Finally, what are "21st century skills?" Is proper english grammar no longer considered a required skill? It seems math is quickly becoming obsolete since cash-registers tell the employee how many of each coin is required to make change. But when the point of an education is only to get a job, why worry about details like math and reading comprehension. Anthis Career Center was developed to allow students who will not be attending college to learn skills for work after high school. This new skills language sounds as if students should be able to successfully enter the high tech job market right out of high school.

Now for New Tech High School.

Fort Wayne Community Schools based this new model on a high school in Napa, CA called New Tech. To compare or even model our school system off of one school is absurd. The median income of Napa County is almost $30,000 higher than Fort Wayne (wikipedia). New Tech has graduated around 700 since 1996 (New Tech - How it all began) One high school in FWCS graduates that number every two years. One graduating class is about the size of a typical classroom in FWCS.

The one thing New Tech has going for it is size. Their core curriculum is nothing to shout from the mountain tops. The highest level math offered is geometry, two levels of spanish and I was not sure what the english class was besides a writing workshop. I did notice that very few courses were offered, which is not a terrible idea. High school is about college preparation, which makes the university the place to bounce between educational interests. But, this level of education is supposed to be the wave of the future? From the description of their courses they school kills two birds with one stone.

The American Studies program is an integrated course taught by both a Social Studies teacher and a Language Arts teacher. The class meets each day in a two hour block with approximately 50 students. Students are usually working on a single project-based unit that incorporates American History and American Literature subjects and themes. Projects contain a mixture of thematic and chronological elements, but the curriculum for each project is always tied to California ’ s (sic) content standards for Grade Eleven Language Arts and Grade Eleven Social Studies.

Compare this to:

This is an introductory survey course on contemporary biology which fulfills the college entrance laboratory science requirements for the University of California. Through the investigation of the chemical basis of life, the examination of basic structural characteristics of cells, (sic) and cellular constituents, as well as the study of living organisms, student will be able to recognize, discuss and correctly apply fundamental biological principles influencing his or her personal relationship with other living things. Furthermore, students will be able to apply their knowledge of basic biological principles to the problems humans face in a modern technological society. Laboratory work is an integral and required part of this course.

The first course hybridizes english and social studies while the biology course is solely focused on biology. Either this style will give students a firm grasp of both english and history or it illustrates the continued devaluation of the humanities. So we could possible have brilliant scientists without a clue of U.S. history, literature or the ability to actively participate in government. This model works great for the global economy though. If we need to prepare students to work, than why are the humanities needed? The New Tech philosophy of coming up with powerpoints and websites instead of essays does a disservice to the students. In college students don't create websites to present their research; they write papers. The American studies course should have writings as part of it, not because the school needs to fulfill a requirement, but because of the nature of studying and understanding history.

The final problem with comparing FWCS to New Tech, is to get into New Tech one must apply, while a student at FWCS must be accepted. Now FWCS could have a program like New Tech, but not every student will be able to participate. I would be interested in how students without a basic grasp of English or Math would perform at a school like New Tech. It might be a brilliant model, but only creating workers - not thinkers.

My solutions for FWCS would be scrap much of their course offerings and teach a core curriculum while using the project based model of New Tech. Hands on learning can help students learn, but the ability to write and analyze in the humanities should not lose emphasis. In fact, the humanities need to be emphasized more, if today's students are going to compete in a global economy. The other solution I would offer is to break up the high schools into schools no larger than 1,000 students. New Tech is small, a major reason it works. High school education is meant to prepare students to succeed in college, not the business world.

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