According to a
recent Gallup Student Poll, there’s a decline in student engagement as students progress from elementary school to middle school to high school. The findings from this survey, posted in a blog titled, “
The School Cliff: Student Engagement Drops With Each Grade,” include that: “A majority of elementary school students—almost eight in 10—qualify as engaged, the poll found. By middle school, however, that number drops to six in 10 students. And when students enter high school, it drops to four in 10.”
The blog suggests a combination of factors may contribute to this decline in engagement, ranging from “overzealous focus on standardized testing and curricula to our lack of experiential and project-based learning pathways for students.”
Supporting entrepreneurial pursuits is one way the blog suggests schools can encourage students. According to the blog, students with high entrepreneurial talent are among those whose engagement declined. “Forty-five percent of students surveyed by Gallup say they plan to start their own business someday … yet a mere 5% have spent more than one hour in the last week working, interning, or exposed to real business.”
Do you think the reasons proposed in this article account for disengaged students? Or do you attribute the findings of this survey to something else?
Check out
CTD’s Summer Program offerings, including our new Partnership Courses focusing student entrepreneurship, such as the Starter League: an innovative training ground for programmers and web designers located in Chicago.
