When I talk to community members and parents about the upcoming levy and bond measures for our school district, I often get questions about why we need to change how we are educating students and why it costs so much. After all, many of us went to school when there were no computers, no interactive whiteboards, no multimedia, and no internet. And we turned out fine, right?
But times have changed dramatically since most of us were in school. What worked 30, 20 or even ten years ago in education is not adequate to prepare today’s students. Today’s students face challenges we have never seen and their education will need to prepare them to manage those challenges.
The pace of change in our country technologically and economically is staggering. But more importantly, our students are now competing with a global workforce that is connected, ambitious, and educated. As a result, students today need more education, better skills, and need to quickly adapt to change. I often say that the “game has changed” and we need to re-tool our school system so that our students can play successfully in the new game. Students today are expected to know more and need to be able to do more. All of this change requires adequate funding for new systems of support and 21st century tools to support a new kind of learning and contemporary expectations. A 20th century education is no longer adequate to prepare our students for the future.
A major challenge that faces students now is that many good jobs used to be open to those with a high school diploma and little or no additional training. Today, almost every student will need some type of post high school education. In addition, those students must be technologically capable, able to solve complex problems and able to communicate effectively. Even those careers that traditionally haven’t required much advanced education now require a technical college certificate at a minimum. This consideration is important as we think about the best way to educate our students.
Only a few years ago, the Internet was just emerging as a tool. At the turn of the century just ten years ago, Facebook and Myspace didn’t exist, music was distributed primarily by CD, cell phones were just becoming common, GPS was unavailable to the public and very little banking was done online. Twenty years ago, fax machines were a current technology, HTML coding for the Web had just been introduced, and movies were distributed by videotape. My how times have changed!
These changes impact the kinds of tools that we need for today’s students. To stay competitive, we need to make sure we are using technology tools that will help them learn the core subjects, give them experiences with complex problems, help them communicate with others across the globe, and give them technology experiences that will ensure their success. If we fail to do these things, our students are at a disadvantage in the job market and in college. Our students will become “at risk.” Both local businesses and employers across the country are looking for graduates with new capabilities that weren’t taught when we were in school. And they need them now.
The ability of businesses to outsource jobs globally or bring in outside talent has changed the marketplace dramatically. Today’s students must compete for jobs globally and that competition is fierce. They need to leave high school not only with a command of the basics and fluent in current technologies but they must also work collaboratively, solve very complex problems, and think critically and creatively. Schools that simply help students memorize facts, like much of what I received in school, aren’t preparing our students for what they will face. Today, students can quickly look up facts online. Students then need to put those facts together to come to reasonable conclusions, use this information to advance a position and determine what this information may mean in different contexts. This is a different kind of work.
Teaching 21st century skills means today’s teachers have to learn new skills themselves, which takes time, energy, commitment, and money. Lake Washington teachers are working very hard to educate more students than ever before, with higher expectations and more diverse needs, while learning new skills to address the changing marketplace, in an environment of dwindling resources. In addition to changed expectations about how we educate students, schools are also expected to meet higher standards for safety, emergency preparedness, healthy and accessible environments, accountability and more. Federal and state requirements are burgeoning and overwhelming. Working in public education today is challenging work.
But Lake Washington School District is up to the challenge. We squeeze every ounce of value out of every penny we receive. Funded at 263rd out of 295 districts in the state, we have to. In our community, we understand that an effective school system is the building block on which our values, our economy, and our future is built. And we understand that today it is more important than ever.
Public education has changed since I was in school. It has to. And more change is needed to respond to the changing economy and changing needs of our country. It is for this reason that even when the economy is difficult, we are asking our voters to consider renewing two expiring levies and a new bond measure for Lake Washington Schools on February 9. These are challenging economic times and we take the responsibility as stewards of public dollars very seriously. We also take seriously the responsibility we have to ensure that our students are prepared for the future. Our students, families and community depend on it.
Dr. Chip Kimball is the superintendent for the Lake Washington School District.
