The focus on students own interests and their connections to and relationships with adult mentors provides students with internal motivation to learn and a support structure for doing so. Students study and complete lessons, not to please the teacher or to avoid failing, but because they understand how the material will help them later in life. They see the connection between classroom lessons and careers. All of the courses and programs of study are designed to enable every student to meet the highest academic standards. At the end of high school, students can choose to enter the workplace or college, confident that they have the skills to succeed.
Many students just drift through school.
We never make the basic connection between learning, a paycheck, and some basic career goals. We need to reinvent the American high school to find a way to catch the attention of these young people and help them get a focus in their lives a little earlier.