Summary: Currently, the push toward incorporating 21st-century skills into curriculum has encountered resistance from advocates for a focus on content, who argue that skills like critical thinking and problem solving can't be taught in isolation. However, despite this debate, most agree that our current curriculum needs to be updated and improved to create students that are globally-competitive and better prepared to handle the demands of the 21st century. Much of the evidence to support the addition of 21st century skills to Ohio's curriculum come from international comparisons and the work of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills.
Partnership for 21st Century Skills identifies the skills necessary for success today as:
1. The core subjects and 21st century themes of:
- global awareness,
- financial, economic, business and entrepreneurial literacy,
- civic literacy, and
- health literacy
2. Learning and Innovation Skills
- Creativity and Innovation
- Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
- Communication and Collaboration
3. Information and Media Skills
- Information Literacy
- Media Literacy
- ITC (Information and Communication Technology) Literacy
Research shows that the United States schooling system falls behind many of the industrialized countries on the number of key measures - core tests, high school graduation rates and college graduates. The Programme for International Assessment (PISA) tested 15 year-olds in 57 of the world's industrialized countries. In 2007 American students rank 33rd in math literacy and 27th in science. America is also below average on graduation rates and has the highest college dropout rate of any of the industrialized countries.
Video and web resources:
Shift Happens video illustrates the rapid increase in innovation and technology that has hit our society and the implications of this across the world.
Strong American Schools is a campaign that calls for more time for learning and quality teachers in every classroom (as well as uniform standards) based on specific facts about the status of American education.
This CBS News report highlights the report "Tough Choices Tough Times: Report on the Skills of the American Workforce" (executive summary) that was released in 2007 and has acted as a wake-up call to many in the education field about how we approach teaching and learning.
Time magazine's December 2006 issue "How to Build a Student for the 21st Century"