"Students Are Demanding Real-World Learning"

By Mary Welsh Schlueter

Op-Ed Guest Columnist, Cincinnati Enquirer - April 29, 2011 (reprint)

Mary Welsh Schlueter, PIE Founder and Chief Executive

Although William and Kate aren't corporate business leaders, events such as their Gen Y marriage are great tools to teach enterprise to American students. In this case, I encourage students to think beyond the British pomp and circumstance of today's royal wedding, and instead to uncover how history and enterprise shaped the United States. We discuss colonial history, religious tyranny and "taxation without representation" while we also conquer economics, profit-loss ratios and budgets.

I use Kate and William's nuptials as a critical thinking exercise, and I offer my students a chance to become future business royalty all on their own. Itemizing costs, weighing options and meeting deadlines are critical thinking tools some schools are trying to introduce in the classroom. Called "project-based" learning, kids are taught subjects using an interdisciplinary curriculum mimicking real world business frameworks.

Why would schools introduce business skills into their curriculum? Because today's high school students are demanding it. National public high school research indicates students rank "Prepare me for the future" as their No. 1 demand. With statistics indicating Americans are under-prepared for a competitive global job market, students + and state governments + are understandably worried.

Schools are now being called to integrate curriculums with the 4Cs + Collaboration, Communication, Creativity and Critical Thinking + touted as "21st-century skills." But such a directive requires aggressive overhauls of teacher education and school technology upgrades. Some states are helping: University of Virginia offers school administrator training sessions with its business school faculty, and the Ohio legislature mandated teaching financial literacy in public schools.

But it isn't enough. And business leaders know it.

Robert Sommers, director of the Ohio Governor's Office of 21st Century Education, suggested schools need an entirely different model where teacher performance, test results and costs are customized and tied directly to each student + with business partnerships offering incremental real-world opportunities.

Princeton High School Principal William Sprankles encourages student-centered business partnerships among his educators and staff. Sprankles noted "the irony of schools is that we are locked inside our classrooms while a community demands we be competitive outside. Teachers aren't working in the business arena. How can we teach what we don't know?"

U.S. education colleges aren't helping much. Education historians contend that technology has been making the 1950s production-line education model obsolete. However, universities offering education degrees continue to teach curriculums where data is "injected" into test-weary students and memorization is rewarded.

Despite significant education revenue investments, the Gates Foundation reports student performance has stagnated over the past 30 years, and a new framework must be explored.

I suggest we offer a project-based model within selective schools on a "teacher-ready" basis. Project-based learning (PBL) demands more up-front work, and recruiting tech-savvy and innovative teachers determines the model's success. Data suggests PBL offers a better-prepared workforce, as evidenced by New Tech Network's first public school in Napa, California where over 98 percent of all kids graduate against a 68 percent national norm.

Clearly, "business-ready" is becoming a viable student outcome.