A Bold New Approach to Education: Aspiration-Based Learning (ABL)

Many of our leaders today seem perplexed by the number of young people that are totally 'checked out' of the traditional educational system and learning model in the U.S. Unfortunately, it makes perfect sense to me.

We are simply not 'speaking' to young people.

The results of not effectively 'speaking' to your customer base hits some groups stronger than others. Gallup and the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index published a report last week that showed a significantly lower level of overall 'well-being' for young Black men (ages 18-35) than young men of all other races.

Going from bad to worse, it seems that young black man have really checked out. And for the sake of America's future, we need for them and everyone else, to check back in again. American prosperity depends on it.

It’s time for a radically new approach to education in America.

This is what I told the attendees of the national conference of the National Association of Secondary School Principals. An inspiring group of educational leaders not afraid to challenge their own thinking.

I believe that our kids are dropping out of high school at a stunning 30-70% rate because we have failed to connect education with aspiration, plain and simple.

Introducing Aspiration-Based Learning (ABL).

K-12 public education has not had a significant 'software upgrade' for a very long time.

In many ways, it is still based on the agricultural system it was created around. The changes we have seen, oddly enough have been tied to aspiration. But the system called education itself, never changed to reflect aspiration’s power and influence.

If you want to find the next engineer, we have a system for that. It’s called grades.

If you want to find out who the next musical genius or artist will be, we have (or had) a system for that. It’s called band and art classes.

If you want to find out who the next professional athlete is going to be, we have a system for that. We can tell you who they will be in middle school and high school. It’s called the football, basketball, baseball and track teams.

In Canada, they can tell you by elementary school who the star players in the National Hockey League (NHL) are going to be. They farm club young stars from a very early age in Canada. They have a system for that.

Now, if you want to identify the next generation of small business owners, entrepreneurs and business builders - we have no system for that.

The largest economy in the world is driven by you and me, or 70% by consumer spending (so says the Federal Reserve System), and 92% of all jobs in the United States are private sector jobs. Yet, for the task that matters most in our economy -- economic achievement and shared prosperity -- we are just winging it.

We have absolutely no system for our K-12 public schools, not to mention our colleges and universities, or even a recognized national plan -- to raise the next generation of responsible business builders and job creators.

We are now playing the greatest global commercial success story, essentially by ear. In the words of my friend Jim Clifton, Chairman and CEO of Gallup, global board member for Operation HOPE, and author of THE COMING JOBS WAR, "...many of our leaders are digging in the wrong holes."

A dear friend said it best below:

"Poor education actually starts in high schools… Apparently high school curriculum was developed in the late 1800’s by none other than the President of Harvard. He wanted to develop a school curriculum that would allow poor students to get the same education as rich, smart kids who got to go to Harvard. So… whatever they were teaching at the time… is what he said should be taught in high schools. Hence why we have calculus, algebra, chemistry, biology… you get the point. And how many of those do people use today? Nothing about personal finance… nothing about medicine… and nothing about law… all things that young adults actually could use upon immediately graduating. Think about it… you learn chemistry, yet you can’t balance a check book, how does that make sense?

Education reform needs to start with high schools first because we are ‘un’-preparing kids in high school – and then further ‘un’-prepare them in college. All setting us back in the jobs' war against China."

The team at Gallup recently reported this.