Students Find No Challenge

Why do U. S. high school students drag the bottom in global comparisons? Many work, yes. But large numbers of the brightest say they find school unchallenging. And their teachers agree that schools lack rigor and that students are unmotivated.

That is the consensus among top students polled over the last decade by Who’s Who Among American High School Students, which annually surveys 700,000 college-bound teenagers. “We certainly can’t blame our poor international showing on a few students at the bottom,” said Paul Krouse, the poll’s publisher.

* Each year since 1993, fewer than three in 10 (28%) top high school students said their schools were very academically rigorous. In 1997, a Who’s Who survey reported that only 27% of teachers thought that schools sufficiently challenged students.

* More than half (54%) of the teens polled since 1994 said they spend only an hour a day or less on homework. More than half of teachers (57%) said they have seen students become less studious.

* Even top students are dodging homework and using shortcuts. In the 1990s, the poll found, almost 80% of the top teenagers admitted cheating in school. Two-thirds of students and parents agreed with the statement that “cheating is not a big deal.”

* Almost half of teachers (44%) in 1997 said unmotivated, uninterested students are the biggest threat to schools.