High Schools Stuck In The ‘50s Educators, Employers Say Curriculum Fails To Keep Pace With Changing Needs Of The Marketplace

The high school diploma, once a passport to the middle class, quickly is becoming a ticket to nowhere.

As an economic indicator, the sheepskin is one of the most outdated credentials in American society, its critics say: It no longer is enough to ensure a good job with a wage to sustain a family.

As an educational benchmark, a high school diploma has lost meaning. It is awarded to students ranging from the functionally illiterate to the academically gifted.

Students know this. Colleges know this. Businesses know this.

Students have learned they must have something more to get ahead, whether it be college credits earned in high school or technical-vocational diplomas that carry definitive weight.

Businesses have learned they must spend millions each year to teach or retrain future employees. This way, they can know exactly what kind of employees they will be getting.

The game has educators and business leaders alike moving in new directions to redefine the high school diploma to make it a viable milestone, not just a piece of paper to hang on the wall.

What will thousands of students and their families be marking over the coming weeks during the pomp and circumstance of high school graduation? Good attendance.

“What the diploma says is that they stayed in school for 12 years, that they showed up,” said June Wolfe, president of the South Florida Manufacturers Association, which is working with the Palm Beach County School District to increase curriculum standards to meet the demands of employers.

“It (the diploma) doesn’t tell you if they can read or at what level they can read at,” Wolfe said. “It doesn’t tell you if they can do basic math. Being able to speak. Employers want students who can speak in complete sentences.

“You might be thinking that I’m joking, but I’m not,” she said.

Coral Springs (Fla.) High School senior Tiffany Frankel knows it’s no joke. “It (the diploma) just shows that you’ve gone to high school for four years.

“Maybe it sort of symbolizes that you’re an adult, that you’ve got a bit more freedom to make choices. But most students know that they’re going to have to be in school a lot longer to get good jobs.”

In the last decade, the wages of workers who hold only a high school degree have plummeted.

Fifteen years ago, the average college graduate earned 50 percent more than a worker with just a high school diploma, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Now, college grads earn nearly 100 percent more.

In 1994, the average income of American workers with only a high school degree was $20,248, compared with $37,224 for workers with four years of college, according to the U.S. Census. In 1979, those same workers earned $10,624 and $16,514, respectively.

In one sense, the high school diploma is a victim of its own success. At the beginning of the century, only one in 10 children reached the equivalent of the fourth grade. By 1950, 36 percent of Americans were earning a diploma. Today, the national average is 75 percent.

Nearly two-thirds of those students now go on to spend some time in college, one of the largest proportions in the industrialized world.

“If you look at what high school seniors know and can do compared to seniors 20 years ago, there’s literally been no change,” said Kati Haycock, director of the Education Trust at the American Association for Higher Educations in Washington.

“It’s not that less is being learned, it’s just that the economy and society demands that you learn so much more.”

Businesses want good personal habits and the type of skills best learned on the job. Colleges want students who have solid foundations in the three R’s. Yet the diploma offers no clues as to how its holder fares in those areas.

A 1992 study of the Southern Regional Education Fund found states are spending anywhere from $2 million to $10 million annually on remedial education classes in state universities and community colleges.

U.S. businesses have spent millions on in-house programs to teach not only basic math and reading and writing, Wolfe said, but also etiquette.

“What you’re seeing now is that many are giving up and using temp (temporary employment) agencies to screen workers,” Wolfe said. “They rely on the temp firms to train the workers, teach them the basics, and then hire from there after they’ve seen them on the job. They can’t afford anymore to teach high school graduates how to read.”

For their part, colleges and universities are less interested in a diploma than a student’s test scores, grade point average and the types of courses they’ve taken.

A sure sign that students understand this: Over the last two decades, the number of high schoolers taking advanced placement tests for college credit has jumped 255 percent, from 90,000 to 481,000, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

Other students are opting for increasingly sophisticated vocational programs that provide training in fields like medical technology.

“I’ve got employers calling me all the time for workers,” said Anita Beaumont, who teaches a medical careers class at Coral Springs High School. “What I tell kids is that it’s not so early anymore for them to be thinking about their careers. They can get out in the working world now and start their training.”