Report Calls for Overhaul of California High Schools : Education: The goal is a tougher, more work-relevant curriculum, but cost makes full implementation unlikely.

Acknowledging that too many adolescents are allowed to drift aimlessly through classes that are irrelevant and too easy, state education officials are calling for a massive overhauling of California’s 800 comprehensive public high schools.

The statewide High School Task Force’s preliminary report, to be released today, urges that students be required to pick a specialized area of studies after their sophomore year and that courses be made tougher and more relevant to skills required in the workplace, college and beyond.

The report also prescribes more team teaching, better methods of student assessment and faculty development and accountability, plus a system in which each student is closely monitored and nurtured throughout his or her high school years.

Many of the recommendations are costly and therefore unlikely to be widely implemented as long as the state, which provides most of the funding for local schools, continues to feel the effects of a stubborn economic recession. But Bill Honig, California superintendent of public instruction, said some of the ideas can be put into practice by better use of existing resources.

And he hailed the report, a two-year effort by about 70 educators, community activists and business and professional leaders, as a “blueprint for change in the ‘90s.”

“What’s wrong in many high schools is that the average youngster does not do very well, is not very challenged and makes a low effort,” Honig said. “The kids who want to do well are successful, but what we have needed is a way to make school focused, engaging and demanding for all kids.”

The report, “Second to None: A Vision of the New California High School,” is a synthesis of theories and techniques already successfully in practice in some form at scores of schools across the nation. Task force members also drew on ideas culled from 17 regional public hearings held in the state in the fall of 1990 and examined research on secondary education.

In the last several years, California education officials have beefed up curricula through new state guidelines, encouraged greater numbers of students to take courses required for admission to a four-year college and chipped away at the dropout rate. About 20% of the class of 1990 failed to complete high school--an improvement from the 25% for the class of 1986 but still well short of the state’s goal of reducing the dropout rate to less than 10% by the end of the decade.

But the authors of the report concluded that these efforts are not enough and called for “radically changing the way (high schools) do business.”

Among the most radical of the recommendations is a proposal to require all students to take the same academic program in ninth and 10th grades--language arts, mathematics, history and science, along with courses in the arts, health, physical education, vocational education and foreign languages. At the beginning of the 11th grade, each student would choose a specialized program of studies, similar to a college major. It could be based on career aspirations, such as health sciences, or subject interest, such as the humanities.

The courses would be designed to emphasize writing, reading, thinking and problem-solving skills. Vocational courses, in particular, would be tied to industry skill standards.

Each student, with the help of faculty, parents or even business community advisers, would develop a customized educational plan, which could be fine-tuned to reflect the student’s changing needs and goals.

On its surface, the proposal sounds similar to a controversial program approved last summer in Oregon, in which 10th-graders soon will be required to decide whether to prepare for college or pursue vocational training. Critics have denounced the program as a return to the discredited practice of “tracking,” by forcing students to make early decisions that will affect their whole lives.

But Honig said the California task force’s proposal is very different from Oregon’s plan in that it allows students to mix vocational, technical and college preparatory courses, and it calls for a more rigorous curriculum for all students. He noted that currently only those students planning to attend four-year colleges have a detailed course of study with specific goals and requirements.

Too many other students are allowed to haphazardly pick among general education courses and unrelated electives that leave them ill equipped for life after high school.

David D. Marsh, a USC education professor and one of the authors of the report, acknowledged that it will be difficult to implement the recommendations, and not just because of the state’s budget crunch.

“This calls for schools, and everyone in them, to work very differently, especially in how they connect with other institutions,” Marsh said. The state plans a series of workshops next month to help school districts digest the recommendations and find ways to “reinvent themselves.”

He noted that education officials used a similar method a few years ago to launch a statewide overhauling of junior high schools, currently being remade into “middle schools” of sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders.

Marsh also cited reform efforts under way at Pasadena High School, which he said is among the leaders in Southern California in embracing many of the concepts set out in the report. Honig chose the school, along with another in Sacramento, as the site of news conferences today to discuss the task force report.

At Pasadena High, students can choose to join the school’s Graphic Arts Academy. It was developed in partnership with the Printing Industry Assn., which provided $200,000 in equipment and has guaranteed jobs for students who want to go to work upon graduation. But Marsh said many of the students in the academy want to further their schooling and are taking college preparatory courses as well. The program links academic subjects, such as chemistry and history, with such applied-arts courses as printing technology. All students undertake a paid internship arranged by the association.

“This is a whole lot more than ‘Adopt a School,’ ” said Marsh, referring to popular programs in which businesses assist a school by providing money for extras but rarely participate in ongoing reform.