Education Week - September 13, 2017 - 17

LETTERS to the EDITOR
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Parent Advocate Responds to Testing Critique

How Do We Prepare Students
For Jobs That May Soon Disappear?

By A.M. Hangan
've been a teacher for 20 years. On
day one of each new school year, the
first conversation I hold with my
students is about education. I start
by saying, "Education is important;
it will prepare you for a career." I
choose this topic to instill hope in my
students that all their work in school
will pay off.
American schools have cycled millions of
students through classrooms into the workforce. But more important, schools are a
doorway for opening up young minds to a
world of possibilities.
As companies increasingly introduce digital machines into production, workers must
hone new skills for the tools of industry.
While the speed of school systems to harmonize instruction to a changing economy is
often glacial, teachers and education leaders
have found creative ways to adjust. New programs that support science and math, computer science, and robot design are sprouting
up in innovative high schools and classrooms
across the country.
Although a drumbeat of criticism would
have you believe that high schools are "failing" to prepare students for the workplace,
graduates are finding jobs. According to the
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for high school graduates declined
from 11 percent in 2009 to 7.7 percent in January of this year. While this was still above
the national average of 4.8 percent in January, the downward trend gives a reason to be
optimistic about the ability of high schools
to prepare students to get a job in the 21stcentury economy.
Over the last year or so, there's been an acceleration in the stream of headlines in the
business press tracking the growing trend of
automation and robots doing tasks once carried out by people. The recent purchase of
Whole Foods by the mega-online retailer Amazon, renowned for its automated warehouses

and workerless grocery stores, has awakened
fresh concerns over the elimination of entire
job categories and a growing army of unemployable people.
Whether these concerns prove well-founded
remains to be seen, but the acquisition underscores the powerful headwinds workers will
face in the near future. According to a 2015
study from Citi Research and the Oxford Martin School in 2015, up to 47 percent of current
U.S. employment is at risk of being automated.

As companies increasingly
introduce digital machines
into production, workers
must hone new skills for
the tools of industry."
With that fact in mind, I struggled with
what I should tell my students as this new
school year began. While I am professionally
bound to encourage students to strive for a
career, I am ethically obligated to explain the
challenges they may face in being gainfully
employed.
On the first day of class, I had my annual
conversation with my students about the
importance of an education to reach their career goals. However, I am already anticipating what I will say if one of my new students
asks me, "Mr. Hangan, what's a good career I
should pursue?" As Amazon sets a new standard for the workplace by automating more
work in the future, I will just have to say,
"Hmmm, that's a great question." n

To the Editor:
As a parent and advocate, I want to get to the heart of Miriam
Kurtzig Freedman's recent Commentary ("Have SAT Accommodations
Gone Too Far?," Aug. 30, 2017): test validity. What are these tests
intended to measure? Many dyslexic students, including my own son,
lack the effective ability to decode words but not to comprehend when
given effective access to the text. My son only received the necessary
accommodation of having the test read aloud after a costly and lengthy
battle with the College Board.
Sadly, what Freedman fails to acknowledge is that when a student
with disabilities is given a test without accommodations, the test
results are filtered through the effects of a disability, not a lazy choice.
For many dyslexics, it would be like having to take the test in German
while everyone else takes it in English; knowing the subject better is
not enough!
Let me make this clear. When my son is tested on content knowledge
without the accommodations to which he is legally entitled, he
is effectively excluded from the same opportunity to display his
capabilities. Why don't you remove the wheelchair ramp and see how
many capable students with physical disabilities make it into the
building.
At Decoding Dyslexia, a grassroots parent-advocacy organization I
am a part of, we have fought for fair testing of students with disabilities
regardless of economic circumstances so that they can fairly show their
knowledge and intellectual potential. The College Board's new policy
will help less well-off families and the schools that serve them obtain
needed and justified accommodations for students with disabilities.
These tests were never normed or validated for students with
disabilities; without hard-won accommodations, they do not allow
students with disabilities the same chance to display their subject
knowledge. This new policy will open up better career paths for these
students-an outcome that should be welcome by all. We should be
focusing our efforts on welcoming these students into the college ranks,
where for too long they have been excluded.
Robbi Cooper
Texas Policy Parent Advocate
Decoding Dyslexia
Austin, Texas

COMMENTARY POLICY
Education Week takes no editorial positions, but publishes opinion
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WHAT DO
YOU THINK?
Write a letter
to the editor!

A.M. HANGAN is a high school teacher in Pomona,
Calif. He teaches government and economics.

SCHOOLS & THE FUTURE OF WORK: WILL OUR STUDENTS BE READY?
A Sept. 23 special report will launch Education Week's ongoing coverage of the nation's
changing workforce and the role of schools in preparing today's students for careers in
an increasingly automated economy.

Send to:
ewletter@epe.org
Letters should be as brief as possible,
with a maximum length of 300 words.

EDUCATION WEEK | September 13, 2017 | www.edweek.org | 17

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Education Week - September 13, 2017

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