This month millions of American students will graduate from college and high school eager to face the next chapter in their lives.  Over three million students are expected to receive a high school diploma this Spring and 70 percent of those graduates will most likely enroll in college.  In 2010, college enrollment was at an all-time high with 19.1 million students attending two and four year higher education institutions.  In 2011, approximately 2.4 million students will receive an associate or bachelor’s degree.  It is predicted that these college graduates will earn considerably more than those students with only a high school degree or equivalent or with no high school degree at all.  In fact, the National Center of Education Statistics estimates that students with a college degree will earn 53 percent more than those with a high school degree and 96 percent more than those with no high school degree at all.    Graduation marks a major accomplishment for students, bringing hopes, dreams and high expectations.  These students are ready to tackle the challenges that await them, hopeful in the knowledge that they have been well prepared for the next phase of their lives.  But are our students really prepared for the workforce or college?   Have we given them the skills they need to embark upon this next journey?

According to our Nation’s Report Card in 2009, only 38 percent of 12^th graders were proficient in reading, 26 percent were proficient in math and 21 percent were proficient in science.  In 2007, 24 percent of 12^th graders scored at the proficient or above level in writing.  Is it any wonder that 57 percent of first-time students seeking bachelor’s degrees at four year universities graduate?  And those who do receive a degree are under-prepared to meet the demands of the high-skilled, competitive workforce seeking to employ them.   This week, a Pew Research survey, Is College Worth It?, found that  57 percent of Americans believe U.S. colleges and universities provide good value for the money spent and only five percent believe a college education provides an excellent value for the cost.  Additionally, four in ten college presidents think the U.S. higher education system is headed in the wrong direction.

Many college graduates lack verbal communication and writing skills as well as the ability to think critically and solve basic problems.  This lack of skills is clearly apparent to an employer reading a resume and cover letter.   In my own experience, I have received resumes with improper grammar, misspellings and email-jargon (“r” for are and “u” for you).    Sometimes, I have wondered if the English language is experiencing a massive shift as it did in Shakespeare’s time when Olde English was replaced with the English we speak today.  Are email abbreviations becoming the Franglais nightmare for our language?  Franglais uses English words to replace their French equivalents and the French have been fighting and losing this trend for decades.  While I understand new words are added every day to our English dictionary, I am not sure we are ready to accept email shorthand as a replacement for the written English word.  Even on some college campuses, a percentage of a graduate student’s grade is based on the use of proper English as well as content and research skills!  Have colleges neglected to teach students how to write and verbally communicate unless they are an English or Journalism major?

Additionally, employers and policy makers have complained for years that the U.S. lags far behind internationally in producing math and science graduates forcing employers to outsource to foreign-born workers for jobs in engineering and biotechnology.  While this may be changing in some subjects, graduates still need to know how to communicate, compute and write in order to compete in today’s global economy.  What is the value of an expensive college degree if the graduate cannot write a coherent sentence or think analytically?

College professors and administrators blame our K-12 education system for not providing students with the basic educational skills they will need to attend college.  I do not disagree.  College freshman and sophomores spend too much time in remedial educational classes because they did not receive the academic preparation required in high school.  But that is not an excuse for college graduates.   A college degree should mean something.  It should mean a graduate can communicate both verbally and through the written word, that he can compute and calculate, that he has developed critical thinking skills which will enable him to analyze and resolve complex problems, and that he has mastered the subject area of his major.   Students and parents expect their college investment to result in a high quality education that will lead to a well-paying job preferably in a field the graduate was trained.  And in today’s downward economy, employers demand it.

However, there is no comprehensive way to determine if these skills have been mastered other than receipt of the diploma.    The majority of colleges and universities do not test college students prior to graduation to determine if they have mastered these skills and such a suggestion has caused a vociferous uproar in the higher education academic community.   Just like elementary and secondary educators, they fear such accountability will reveal  that students have not mastered the higher level educational skills needed to succeed and parents, employers and taxpayers will demand better academic results for the cost of achieving a college degree.   Perhaps it is time for a serious national debate about accountability measures for student academic performance in our higher education system because a majority of U.S. students are woefully unprepared for the workforce.

Americans, especially parents and employers, should be outraged about these dismal results.  Tea Party activists should protest the failure of our education system to produce highly educated graduates as loudly as they do about Obamacare.  All of us should demand answers to how the billions of Federal, State and local funds are spent throughout our entire educational system with such miserable results.  Unfortunately, there is a deafening silence from Americans when it comes to the U.S. educational system.

That is why I was pleased to see the strong position recently taken by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce regarding the need to strengthen accountability provisions, not weaken them, during consideration of the No Child Left Behind Act this year.  Representing over three million U.S. businesses, the Chamber understands the need for students to be well-educated in order to compete in today’s economy.   Too often, though, employers find that they have to provide basic remedial education to their employees who have just received a college or high school diploma.

Yet policy makers in Congress and the Administration are calling for less accountability in our elementary and secondary schools rather than more.  The debate is centered on providing more flexibility to States with less accountability focusing on the worse performing schools when the evidence from our Nation’s Report card shows that students are struggling in the majority of schools across the country.   Colleges continue to issue diplomas to graduates who do not have higher order thinking skills or, in more and more cases, basic writing and computing skills.  Nevertheless, no one is asking colleges to be held accountable for student academic performance.

Why is the U.S. Chamber a seemingly lone voice in calling for more accountability in our n
ation’s schools?  Why do conservatives continually denounce accountability in education but insist upon it in other areas such as healthcare?  Shouldn’t conservatives agree with the Chamber and strongly support holding all of our schools accountable for the academic results of all of our children not to mention how the dollars are spent?  And if Republicans do not support more accountability for academic results and spending, why send the dollars at all?

The answer is not to return to the policies of the past where funds flowed freely with no accountability for academic performance.   Dollars will continue to be spent on education regardless of attempts by conservatives to eliminate them because the majority of Americans strongly support it.  Policy makers must find a balance between holding schools and students accountable while providing more flexibility and less bureaucracy.  Colleges also need to be held accountable for academic and financial results just as elementary and secondary schools are today.  Students, parents, employers and taxpayers need to know that obtaining a college degree ensures graduates have the analytical, reasoning and knowledge skills necessary to compete in today’s global economic market as well as pursue higher educational opportunities.

It is not an easy task and many have tried with minimal success.  However, the introduction of accountability measures in our nation’s schools has changed the entire educational debate in this country allowing parents to see how well their child and school is doing compared to others and demand changes from their schools to increase student academic achievement.   This must continue.  If Americans do not demand strong accountability measures now for all students at all educational levels, then our country will cease to be a world economic leader in the future.