In an engaging session, our panelists offered a snapshot of American School trends in the light of greater global competition.  On traditional measures of educational success, longitudinal NAEP evaluations suggest that our math and science achievement are tending down, especially when compared with other countries.  In addition, substantial disparities persist between the performance of students with special needs and those who do not.  The performance of economically disadvantaged students still trail those of others as well.  Susan Traiman of the Business Roundtable presented a statistic indicating that 17 year old African American student performeds on standardized tests about as well at 14 year old whites.

Beyond traditional, content oriented measures of success, our panelists (Charles Fadel of Cisco, Susan Traiman and Mary Ann Wolf from SETDA) outlined a set of emerging educational needs that require different measures of success.  Fadel outlined four kinds of skills that matter to students competing in an increasingly competitive and technologically advanced 21st century economy, specifically:

• Learning Innovation skills – critical thinking problem solving
• Information, Media adn Technology Skills
• Life and Career Skills
• Innovation and Creativity Skills

Progress in these areas depends upon changes in approach empowered by changed in technology.  Panelists suggest that schools must change to meet these new challenges.  Panelists emphasized a need for greater investment in resources like:

• Technology Tools
• Professional Development
• Collaboration, Project-based approaches

According to our panelists, one of the greatest identified barriers to improvement of the new educational outcomes, described above, is a lack of understanding about needed changes.  While many individuals recognize that we face a paradigm shift in education, could it be that the nature of the shift is not well enough understood outside the education community?

Despite the challenges of implementing 21st century educational approaches, there is cause for optimism.  In the words of Cisco’s Charles Fadel “When everyone is having the same problem and looking for solutions, we can be optimistic about finding a solution.”