Smart & Good High Schools - The Flippen Group

CHAPTER 1: The Call to Charactercharacter is necessary not only to avoid problems, but alsoto achieve one’s full human potential—to be prepared tolead a flourishing life. As one psychologist put it, “Toflourish means, in part, not to engage in risk behavior, butproblem-free is not fully prepared.” Our report’s conceptof performance character and moral character is definedin terms of eight strengths of character that, we think, dofully prepare young people to flourish over a lifetime.Our purpose, then, in presenting “the good news” and“bad news” about youth trends is to offer a balanced pictureof today’s youth and the challenges facing them.Considering these indicators, one school head commented:“These data give reason for both concern and optimism.So many character education books and articlesfocus on the lack of character in our schools and families.When we see the evidence of good behavior, we arereminded of the larger purpose of character education—not just to inhibit the negative, but also to develop thepositive.”Critical Challenges Facing High SchoolsIn helping young people become the best personsthey can be, high schools face many other challengesbesides those represented by youth trends.For example, they face formidable institutional challenges.They must find ways to establish the schoolwideconditions that support the implementation of a holisticvision of education that helps students realize their potentialfor excellence. Such conditions include strong leadership,optimal school size, time for staff planning and reflection,supportive scheduling, manageable teaching loads, asafe and orderly environment, trusting and respectful relationships,and adequate budgets. To implement best practice,schools also need a way of dealing with the mountingpressures regarding test scores.Schools must create the conditionsthat support a holistic vision.Individual practitioners, for their part, need to maintaintheir idealism, energy, and commitment to maximizingtheir positive impact on students even when school conditionsare less than optimal. Working in schools they experienceas non-supportive, many diligent teachers, coaches,and other staff have nevertheless touched students’ livesin transformative ways.In the box on page 6, two veterans of the school reformmovement offer their thoughts about how high schoolscan meet the myriad challenges they face. In later sectionsof the report, especially in Chapter 4 on practicesfor developing a Professional Ethical Learning Community,we will return to these vital questions of how to createa school context that is friendly to change.In the rest of this chapter, keeping in mind the school’sdual mission to foster excellence and ethics, we wish tozero in on two critical challenges facing high schools inthe performance domain and two critical challenges inthe moral domain. The order in which we treat these isnot meant to convey that one is more important thananother; nor is our selection of these challenges meant tominimize other critical challenges that arguably could justas well have been chosen. (In subsequent chapters, weaddress a wider range of issues.)Critical Challenges Facing High Schoolsin the Performance DomainOne Performance Challenge:High schools and employersaren’t working together to meetthe needs of students who enterthe workforce after graduation.James Rosenbaum, a professor of sociology, education,and social policy at Northwestern University, argues in hisbook Beyond College for All: Career Paths for the ForgottenHalf, that the country has a large and growing problem:Many high school graduates cannot find decent jobs in alabor market that offers fewer opportunities for youth; atthe same time, many employers complain that highschool graduates, because of poor work habits and pooracademic skills, cannot handle even the entry-level jobsthat are available. Rosenbaum writes:A crisis is emerging in the American labor market. Youngpeople who do not get college degrees have been called “theforgotten half ” because society offers them no way to enteradult roles. They either experience enormous difficulty get-Happiness is the reward of virtue.—ARISTOTLE5Smart & Good High Schools