Why I Don't Like 21st-Century Reports

I looked carefully, but it never explained how teachers are going to find the time to introduce all these skills to students who, at the moment, are still struggling with plain old reading, writing and math.

Maybe that will be the topic of the next report. Maybe I am not appreciating the importance of painting the big picture so everyone knows where we have to go. I showed a draft of this column to a spokesman for the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. He said many schools are already successfully incorporating the report's ideas into their lessons. He said the Catalina Foothills district in Tucson has "completely revamped their education system around 21st-century skills." Progress has also been made at schools in Lawrence Township, Ind., Manassas, Virginia Beach, Milwaukee and Darlington, Wis.

I welcome e-mails from anyone involved in those schools on what specific changes have been made. I will be keeping an eye on the introduction of 21st-century skills in Manassas, not far from where I sit. My Post colleague Jennifer Buske wrote in August of initial moves in this direction by Manassas Superintendent Gail Pope. The organizations involved in the 21st-century effort are staffed by good people. I am going to assume that we agree that we need to look closely at the details of teaching these skills, and in that spirit I want to make two suggestions.

First, please try to avoid the lethal disease that infects so many of these studies. I call it All-at-once-itis. That refers to the irresistible urge to insist that the changes have to be accomplished ALL AT ONCE, or we will fall short of our important objectives. In past columns, I noted the appearance of this ailment in otherwise admirable reports such as "Tough Choices or Tough Times" (2006) or " 'Restoring Value' to the High School Diploma" (2007). In this democracy we never make good changes all at once. The presidential campaign and economic crisis are proof of that. So please don't tell us we have to.

Second -- and this will wreak havoc with report deadlines -- why not wait to release your recommendations until you have tried them out on at least two or three schools with a few hundred students? I won't insist on proof of success. I just want to get a sense of how young human beings, and their teachers, react to all these new hoops they must jump through. (This will also help stifle my suspicion that you don't actually know how to do any of the things you are suggesting.)

No one is going to pay attention to what I want, of course. The report writers know I will keep reading their stuff, full of hope that I will eventually find some classroom reality among all the pie charts.

I am not saying the people who issue these pronouncements are wrong. Many of their ideas are excellent. But if we are going to make them happen, they have to show us what it is going to take, besides just more concerned citizens spending more money to produce more reports like this one.