The challenge of this conference is to align our educational aspirations in Arizona with the new global agenda. For Arizona, I believe that alignment requires two key elements: aligning Arizona student performance standards with national and global standards; and creating a fully competitive next generation middle class for Arizona.
I. Aligning Arizona Student Performance Standards with National and Global Standards
The economic environment continues to evolve at a rapid pace, with countries like China and India bringing substantial numbers of highly educated, high skilled, low cost people into the marketplace. If we, in Arizona and America, do not educate our students to world standards, we will not be competitive. Setting our goals short of global standards will result in a false victory.
The academic performance imperatives of No Child Left Behind have established a measured mile for every school in America. Yet, widely varying state standards allow states to fall well short of global standards. The National Assessment of Educational Progress, the closest thing we have in America to a national standard, establishes three levels of performance: basic, proficient and advanced. A recently published report by the U.S. Department of Education, using an analysis that translates individual state standards into NAEP scores, finds that no single state has set its reading standards at the level of �proficient� on the NAEP standards. Furthermore, an 8th grader in Missouri would need the equivalent of 311 on the NAEP scale to be judged proficient on that state�s standard, whereas a Tennessee student would need only 230. Similarly, a Massachusetts 4th grader would need the equivalent of a 234 on the NAEP scale, itself below the proficient level on the NAEP test, whereas a Mississippi student can meet their state standard with a 161. Such score differences represent a gap of several grade levels.
These dramatic differences in state standards should be unacceptable to all Americans. They do not require our students to meet national standards, much less world standards.
Similarly, on the TIMMS test, an international test of math and science proficiency, American students regularly score lower than students from a number of other nations. American students, in the most recent test in 2003, ranked 12th among all nations on 4th grade math scores, and 15th on 8th grade math scores. As well, American students ranked 6th on 4th grade science scores, and 9th on 8th grade science scores.
To make Arizona students truly competitive on a global level, the Arizona P-20 Council has recommended that all students complete 4 years of math in order to graduate from high school. Mindful of the shortage of math teachers, a recent National Academies report entitled
The Gathering Storm has recommended a bold national program for increasing significantly the numbers of math and science teachers in America.
To place Arizona students on a national and global scale, I recommend the following:
1. That we align Arizona student performance standards with the National Assessment of Educational Performance (NAEP) standards with a goal of Arizona student achievement reaching the NAEP standard of �proficient� in all fields by 2020 and the NAEP standard of �advanced� by 2030;
2. That we align Arizona student performance standards with the TIMMS standards in science and math with a goal of Arizona student achievement reaching scores comparable to the top 5 nations by 2020;
3. That we support the adoption of the P-20 Council recommendation of 4 years of math for Arizona�s high school graduates, and that we support the adoption of the National Academies� report calling for a major increase in math and science teachers.
II. Creating a Fully Competitive Next Generation Middle Class for Arizona
There is an interesting phenomenon going on in the developed world wherein natural fertility rates are not maintaining a stable population in developed nations. A fertility rate of 2.1 per woman is required for a stable population. Japan�s fertility rate of 1.2 in recent years has led to an unprecedented imbalance in the proportion of its working age population to its elderly population, with significant negative consequences for its economy. With Japan�s age 65 and older population growing to 20% of its total population, there simply are not enough working, tax paying, home buying members of the age 25 to 64 population to support the higher costs of the post 65 generation.
America, with our post 65 population at 12%, has a better balance in our ratio of working age to elderly population. That is about to change, however, as the significant and unprecedented bulge of baby boomers reach retirement age over the next 20 years: by 2020, the percentage of our population over 65 will rise to 16%, and by 2030 to 20%, the same challenging ratio of older to working age population as is currently the case in Japan.
In his very evocative book
Boomers and Immigrants, USC demographer Dowell Myers offers a poignant example of the impact of the maturing of the baby boomer generation. Says Myers, 9.7 million members of California�s working age population currently are between the ages of 40 to 49. They constitute 51% of the prime working population of California. By 2020, just 13 years from now, this group will be between age 55 to 74, with most of them leaving the work force.
Who will replace them, not only in California, but in Arizona and elsewhere?
They will not be replaced by our traditional populations, for America�s natural fertility rates are below the stable reproductive rate of 2.1 children per woman. The preponderant evidence is that the most significant proportion of our next generation work force will come from a combination of immigrants, some of whom will be highly educated and highly skilled; most will come from the 2nd and 3rd generation of our larger immigrant population. Thus a very significant part of next generation�s middle class are the very youngsters currently in, or soon to be in, our elementary and secondary schools. The current and near future generation of students, more than ever in our history, will be a very significant segment of the next generation�s middle class. If we do not educate them to global standards, and, in so doing, prepare them to be fully competitive in the global economy, there will be significant negative ramifications for the U.S. economy. Currently, only about half of Arizona�s Latino students are graduating from high school, with an even smaller number going on to college, evidence that we must make significant improvements if Arizona is to have a strong and competitive work force in the future.
To ensure that we are preparing Arizona�s next generation to be fully competitive in the global economy, I recommend the following:
1. Active support of the �12 by 12� program, an initiative to raise Arizona�s high school graduation rate 12% by the state�s Centennial in 2012; and, in addition, support of the �Top 10 by 20� goal, the second phase of the high school graduation initiative designed to place Arizona�s high school graduation rate in the top 10 states by 2020.
2. Support the initiative of the Center for the Future of Arizona to reconfigure student options beyond the 10th grade to enable Arizona students to blend high school completion with post-secondary education by making available to them multiple pathways ranging from early college entry to industry certified career education.
3. Create a clear and complete profile of the next generation middle class we wish to create for Arizona, noting the educational and work force characteristics it must have if Arizona is to be globally competitive, and defining the steps Arizona must take to ensure the next generation will have those characteristics.
