Eskildson: SUSD pupils are not prepared for national, global competition

Data show declining SUSD high-school achievement since at least 2005, along with declining SUSD ratings by Newsweek and U.S. News/World Report.

SUSD graduates’ math skills also significantly lag those of a number of other states, and vs. leading nations by 3–4 academic years. SUSD’s reactions to-date have been to ignore, deny, offer weak, untested excuses and do nothing.

SUSD pupil achievement was recently estimated by Bush Education Institute software to be about equal the U.S. average, slightly below the world average.

The latest international comparison (PISA 2018) ranked U.S. math performance as No. 37 in the world. China’s coastal cities (184 million population) are our strongest economic competitor --- they led the world in math and 44.3% of their students scored in the top categories, vs. only 8.3% for the U.S.

Artificial Intelligence, sometimes combined with robots, has now brought us to the beginning of an economic revolution. The “good news” is this will significantly boost demand for those highly-skilled in math and critical thinking; the “bad news” is that A.I. is also forecast to eliminate or deskill nearly half of U.S. occupations.

The “really bad news” is that China, after turning our manufacturing sector into a “Rust Belt” now plans to achieve world supremacy in A.I. and other high-tech areas by 2030.

SUSD graduates will soon face a “Perfect Storm” --- American high-tech firms recruiting better prepared and lower-paid graduates from the Far East using more H1 visas, new/expanded R&D centers in the Far East, and the Internet to employ others remaining in Asia. Another problem --- China et al will assuredly take considerable market share from U.S. high-tech firms as part of their own economic development and growth goals.

China is now working on further improving overall achievement. It’s low socio-economic status pupils already outperform our average pupils. SUSD should stop using pupil poverty as an excuse for poor performance.

SUSD expenditures/pupil approximate those of Far East nations --- and greatly exceed their spending if building costs are included. SUSD also needs to stop using “insufficient funding” as an excuse for non-competitive performance.

SUSD graduates are now poorly prepared for success in this increasingly competitive world. It needs to set globally and nationally competitive pupil achievement goals, especially in math. It also needs to stop pretending that adding programs and paying personnel more automatically boosts pupil achievement.

Instead, SUSD must significantly reward staff who contribute real pupil achievement gains, taking pupil prior achievement and home factors into account, and stop wasting money on attributes proven to not boost pupil achievement --- eg. added teacher coursework, certification and degrees, teacher professional development, and added teacher experience beyond the first few years.

Programs not boosting pupil achievement should be eliminated.

Bottom-Line: SUSD must change from focusing on simply satisfying staff, ignoring competitors and spending ever more money to instead focusing on pupil achievement and their success.

Editor’s Note: Loyd Eskildson is a member of the Scottsdale Unified School District community and a Paradise Valley resident.