One of the problems with this public school system is that it no longer serves its original purpose. The U.S. public school system was intended to prepare students for entry level jobs with good long term career potential. Our modern school system fails horribly in this, and it really does not even do a good job of preparing students for college. It does teach some useful skills, but they are too general and U.S. schools rarely teach application enough for the skills to be immediately applicable to real life. That is beginning to change, with linked learning.
Linked learning teaches through application. Students learn by applying their skills in real life situations. Not only does this teach real life work skills (including communication skills), it also happens to be about the most effective way of learning and remembering what was learned.
An article I recently read discusses the experience of a California high school using linked learning. Students choose a general field to train in. They choose from engineering, business, science and technology, and digital media. These programs focus on applications in the chosen field, but the education is still general enough to be useful regardless of what careers the students eventually choose. Also, despite the focus in a single field, these students tend to do better in college in all fields.
One of the best things about linked learning is that it can easily be done in a way that allows students to apply all of their classes to their projects. Science and math classes can help for the mathematical parts of the project, even if they are limited to accounting and scheduling. Language classes teach research and written communication skills that are essential to most decent jobs. Biology can be useful in many aspects, including the impact a project might have on people or animals. And, classes aside, these group projects also help students develop face-to-face communications and teamwork skills.
Further, most projects at this particular school are regularly reviewed by people working in the field the project falls within. Students are given the opportunity to get advice from experts in their chosen field. Besides the obvious learning opportunities, this also gives students a feel for what working in that field is like.
If this is the future of U.S. education, and given the government funding going into it, it might be, we are looking at a much better future than I ever would have predicted. This does not fix our post-secondary education system, but linked learning has made a big impact on students, who are much more enthusiastic about learning than a vast majority of students have been in all of U.S. history. If linked learning is the future of U.S. education, it might not matter if universities can fix their problems, because if they don't, they will probably be left in the dust, without much impact on education at all.
