With the spotlight turned on Georgia's failing students in failing schools, the question of how to enable students to move successfully through high school becomes a major concern. The stakeholders portray different pictures as to the reasons for failure.
Teachers report that motivating students to learn is one of their most difficult challenges.
Both students and their parents indicate that students leave high school with a lack of direction and with little awareness of career opportunities. Students do not understand how what they are asked to learn relates to their future. Schools rarely effectively present careers and work as the meaning or the purpose for students spending so much time there. The result is that students are perplexed, not understanding the relevance of school, unmotivated in their studies, frustrated in their decision-making, and possibly unhappy in their adult working life. A curriculum of studies and related activities developed to span career awareness from the early elementary grades, career studies in middle school, and better informed career decision-making in early high school would provide the missing link.