High School Reform: It's Time to Turn Public Opinion into Public Action
Bob Wise, President, Alliance for Excellent Education

There are few who would argue that many of our country's schools, particularly its high schools, are not facing great challenges. With only 70 percent of entering 9th graders graduating on time - a number that falls to 50 percent in many urban districts - we are in the midst of a national crisis. If our schools are to become the vibrant centers of teaching and learning that our students deserve and our country requires, we need strong leadership.

There are bright spots. Some schools are overcoming major problems, and even their students who were most at-risk of failure are graduating from high school prepared for college and the demands of the 21st century workplace. But these schools, with their strong principals, well-qualified and enthusiastic teachers, and supportive superintendents and administrators, are still far too rare.

To make good secondary schools the rule, instead of the exception, we need to ensure that all have the resources they need to succeed. And providing those resources means, in most cases, that policies need to be developed and implemented that encourage effective reform; others must be changed or eliminated to remove roadblocks to creative redesign.

At the Alliance for Excellent Education, we strongly believe that achieving the kind of policy changes that are needed, at all levels, will require strong support from the American public. Elected officials - and having been both a U.S. Congressman and Governor of West Virginia, I can speak from personal experience - tend to focus on problems and work hard to resolve them only when constituents make it clear that they expect action.

That's why the Alliance recently commissioned a national poll that focuses almost exclusively on high schools and how the public feels about them. It was the first comprehensive poll on public opinion about high schools conducted since the President and the nation's governors began talking about the need to improve high schools earlier this year. And it shows that public opinion is beginning to shift significantly in support of making effective high school reform a national priority.

Our nation's public officials need to pay attention to the findings. Through their responses, this representative sampling of Americans makes it clear that they expect their governors, Congress, and the President to play an active and significant leadership role in improving our high schools and the education they are providing to our students.

Since January 2005, we have seen unprecedented activity at the highest policy levels in support of reforming high schools. The President urged action in his State of the Union message, and put forth new initiatives in his budget proposal. The nation's governors held a National Education Summit in February that began a process that has put high school reform at the top of many state agendas.

The Alliance applauds this interest and the actions being taken by these leaders. But if their support for high school improvement is to remain strong, particularly as other matters begin to vie for their attention, they need to know that the public and their constituents believe that this issue is a critical priority.

Among the most compelling poll findings are:

• For the first time, the American public says that high schools more urgently need to be improved than any other category of schools, even over elementary schools.
• Three out of four Americans believe Congress and the President should be paying more attention to high schools and playing a significant role in improving them.
• Sixty-five percent say that a high school diploma alone does not prepare students to get a good paying job; half don't believe it prepares students for college; over 90 percent believe the high drop out rate affects our nation's economy; and over 80 percent express strong concern about the high dropout rate.
• With 70 percent of 8th graders not able to read at grade level, 87 percent of poll respondents say that improving high school students' ability to read and comprehend is the single most important strategy for increasing the graduation rate.
• By large percentages, the public supports aggressive interventions to improve student performance that include:
  • improving high school reading and writing skills,
  • a rigorous core curriculum,
  • an individualized graduation plan for every student,
  • teachers certified in the subjects they teach, and
  • opportunities for students to take college-level courses.