The Need
We know from research that our students need every advantage during their educational opportunities in order to compete with their international peers in the global economy. Recent studies show that American students are not keeping up with their international peers. For both the 2019 & 2020 SAT college-entrance exam, which is taken by about 2.2 million students, showed that national average scores show only 43 percent of test takers scored high enough to indicate they were ready to succeed in college and the workplace. According to the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 rankings, which provides a comparative international assessment of education across 79 countries, the United States ranks 36th for Math, 18th for Science, and 13th for Reading, which is not much change from 2000 results. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test of U.S. fourth and eighth graders every two years, continues to show similar results over the past decade, with low-performing students stagnant for the past 30 years.
That's right, despite decades of investment of numerous kinds in public education systems across America, there is little progress toward improving overall outcomes, let alone creating a system that progressively adds to America's competitive advantage globally.
The descension of the COVID-19 pandemic has shaken our nation's educational infrastructure, challenging the status quo, and providing parents unparalleled insight into their child's daily school life as learning transitioned online, in many places for the better part of a year. Weaknesses in the current factory-model system of education has been exposed and parents are looking for change.
FELAE is harnessing the moment. Now is the time to incentivize radical, impactful change in the vision, structure, and delivery of American education through embracing and push for more personalized environments where students are motivated, empowered, and supported to develop a vision for their own future, and to explore, absorb, and create learning opportunities to get them there.
