Why do high schools require algebra?

What’s the point of diagramming a sentence?

Does anyone ever speak Latin outside the classroom?

How can physics help anyone find a job?

For students to really appreciate why they go to school they must see relevance in the instruction. Not every student does because not every school is able to draw a straight line between school and the real world.

For some students in Maine, that’s about to change.

The Mitchell Institute last week announced awards of $10 million from the Gates Foundation for its Great Maine Schools Project to help Maine educators make school more relevant, invigorating teachers and inspiring students to teach and learn what roles math, science, foreign language and grammar play in our lives.

The Fort Kent School District intends to use its $400,000 over the next five years to shift the high school calendar to nine-week blocks, with academic courses offered in the first eight weeks followed by mandatory one-week internships at local businesses and agencies. In Fort Kent, where internship opportunities are more scarce than in larger cities, community members and educators have worked together to place all 450 students in the internship program.

Over a typical 4-year high school career, these students will get as many as 16 weeks to explore career options, helping them sort out which careers are attractive and which are out of the question. It will make school relevant to earning power.

In Franklin County, Mt. Abram High School intends to become a true community high school. A lot of schools purport to do this, but Mt. Abram will do it. It will keep the building and its amenities open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. for community use. It will encourage adults to take classes if they want and allow them to take the school bus if personal transportation is a problem. School will become part of community life.

East Grand High School in Washington County intends to do away with the class structure altogether. It will establish personalized learning plans and work stations for each student, and teachers will become learning coaches. Student boredom will be stilled as students select their own lessons, relevant to their interests and their strengths.

The Great Maine Schools Project is more than just innovation in individual schools. It is a plan to connect schools and educators to each other, to give them opportunities to share successes and failures so that each school is not operating as an island.

For instance, East Grand only has 75 high school students so dissolving its class schedule is manageable because of its small size. However, if it works, the model can be adjusted upward in other schools.

While educators are excited about the potential for change, traditionalists will undoubtedly balk. When they do, educators must listen.

Nearly all adults have some high school experience, ranging from fantastic to downright awful. We all hold fast to learning models that are hard to toss away.

If the world were an unchanging place, that kind of resistance could be accepted. But the world evolves and educators, as much as other professionals, seek methods to improve the product they deliver to students.

If young people are our most valuable resource and we spend more on education than on any other government-run service, we must make schools functional and relevant. The Great Maine Schools Project is a terrific start.
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