NEW YORK -- Employers and college professors by large majorities nationwide say public high schools are graduating students with just fair or poor skills in writing, grammar and basic math, and most do not consider a high school degree as any guarantee a student has mastered the basics. But when it comes to computer skills, today's high school graduates shine, they say.

The results are contained in the fifth annual Reality Check study, a joint project by Public Agenda and Education Week to track the nation's progress in raising academic standards in the public schools. The study was funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts and the GE Fund and conducted by Public Agenda, a nonprofit organization dedicated to nonpartisan public opinion research.

Since the first Reality Check report in 1998, employers and college professors have gradually given public schools more credit in raising academic standards and overall performance. But for the fifth year in a row, they remain deeply disappointed with the students coming out of those schools.

Despite some glimmers of hope, the high level of dissatisfaction among employers and professors--who are in many ways the ultimate 'consumers' of K-12 education--is disheartening, said Deborah Wadsworth, Public Agenda's president. Equally troubling are the results of our recent national survey of high school teachers -- only 20 percent said the students in their schools learn to speak and write well.

Flatliners

For the fifth year in a row, employers who hire young people right out of school and college professors who teach freshmen and sophomores said the public high school graduates they encounter had just fair or poor skills in:

• Grammar and spelling (73 percent of employers and 74 percent of college professors);
• The ability to write clearly (73 percent of employers, 75 percent of professors); Basic math (63 percent of employers, 65 percent of professors)

Employers and college professors also were not impressed with the attitudes high school graduates bring to the job or the classroom.

• Young people were given fair or poor ratings for work habits, such as being organized and on time by 69 percent of employers and 74 percent of professors;
• Students also were given low marks for being motivated and conscientious by 72 percent of employers and 58 percent of professors. 

Just 16 percent of employers and 24 percent of professors said they have noticed an improvement in the quality of high school students coming to them over recent years, figures virtually unchanged since 1998. Only 39 percent of employers and 31 percent of professors say they regard a high school diploma as evidence a student has mastered the basics.

On the bright side, 70 percent of employers and 81 percent of college professors say high school graduates have good or excellent computer skills.

Schools--Heading in the Right Direction

In contrast to the relatively negative views towards recent graduates, employers and college professors credit their local schools with improving the quality of public education.

Since 1998, those who criticize public schools for expecting students to learn too little has dropped from 66 percent to 47 percent among professors, and from 55 percent to 48 percent among employers. Only 31 percent of both employers and professors in 1998 said schools were doing an excellent or good job; in 2002, the percentages edged up to 42 percent of employers and 39 percent of professors.

Education's New Frontier

Efforts to raise academic standards in public schools enjoy wide bipartisan support and led earlier this year to the enactment of President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act. In demanding greater accountability from schools and educators, the act provides stiff penalties for schools that fail to raise achievement, such as reorganization and replacement of staff.

According to public school teachers who were surveyed as part of Reality Check, the new accountability standards will be entering largely uncharted waters.

• Less than a quarter of teachers (24 percent) say their districts currently link pay to improvements in student achievement;
• Just one in 10 say their districts tie principal contracts to progress in the schools; and
• Only 10 percent report that a persistently failing school in their district has been overhauled and placed on monitoring.

In another measure of accountability, the requirement to pass an exam in order to get in or out of high school is virtually unchanged over the past several years. The number of students who said they had to pass an exit exam to graduate was 52 percent in 1999 and 49 percent for 2002. The number of middle school parents who said their children had to pass a basic skills exam to enter high school was 57 percent two years ago and 62 percent today.

But some measures are taking hold. The number of teachers who report social promotion in their schools (the practice of advancing students based on age rather than academic performance) has declined from 41 percent to 33 percent since1998. And over the past two years, the number of elementary school parents reporting that their children must pass basic skills tests to advance to middle school has grown from 48 percent to 58 percent.

Grading Tests

Reality Check 2002 found little evidence of a widespread public backlash to the standards movement or the use of tests to measure academic achievement. In addition to employers and college professors, teachers, parents and students were surveyed.

Fully 95 percent of students say they can handle the nerves or don't worry at all about taking standardized tests, and large majorities of students (78 percent) and teachers (73 percent) agree that test preparation is not detracting from classroom learning.

Large majorities of parents, teachers, employers and college professors who are aware that their local school districts are raising standards credit their districts with being careful and reasonable in the effort. But the groups surveyed also share some of the concerns raised by critics regarding the emphasis placed on testing.

Support for turning back the clock and stopping the standards movement in their local school district is virtually nonexistent among parents (2 percent), teachers (1 percent), employers (2 percent) and college professors (1 percent.) Virtually all others said their schools should either continue the effort or continue it with some modification.

Very large majorities among each group see the tests as a motivational tool, prompting students to work harder when they know they have to pass a test to graduate or progress with their education. Majorities of teachers (62 percent), employers (79 percent) and professors (78 percent) believe standardized-test scores are an effective tool to identify students in need of tutoring or summer school.

There clearly is a strong endorsement for testing, but by no means are the groups we surveyed willing to give their school districts a green light to use the tests whenever and however they please, said Wadsworth. All are cognizant of the downsides of too much testing and many share the concerns raised by critics. But it is also important to note that the testing policies people fear most, such as basing graduation on the results of one test, appear to occur only rarely in the schoolhouse.

Reality Check 2002 was prepared by Jean Johnson and Ann Duffett. Last month, Public Agenda released a related survey on the views of high school teachers, parents and students comparing the relative academic performance and social environment of large versus small high schools. Copies of the full text of both surveys can be accessed free of charge from Public Agenda's Web site (www.publicagenda.org). The site also includes a companion guide with statistics, charts and other information from Reality Check 2002.

Methodology: Reality Check 2002 was based on telephone interviews conducted Nov. 9 through Dec. 9, 2001 with national, randomly selected samples of:

• 600 K-12 public school teachers,
• 610 parents of public school students in grades K-12,
• 600 public school students in middle or high school,
• 251 employers who hire workers recently out of high school or college,
• 252 professors in two- and four-year colleges who teach freshmen and sophomores.

The margin of error for teachers, parents and students is plus or minus four percentage points; for employers and professors, plus or minus six percentage points.

Public Agenda, based in New York City, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to nonpartisan public policy research. Founded in 1975 by former U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and Daniel Yankelovich, the social scientist and author, Public Agenda is well respected for its influential public opinion polls and balanced citizen education materials. Its mission is to inform leaders about the public's views and to educate citizens about government policy.