The subtitle of this article is:  Completely useless education may already be happening at a high school near you.

A couple of weeks ago a startling statistic came to my attention.  The statistic can be verified at several sources.  It's true.  Less than 25% of high school graduates are college ready.  Don't believe me?  Check out the Wall Street Journal or Complete College America.  Both have published the statistic.

As is often the case with statistics, this one doesn't quite tell the whole story. If you factor in that the accepted drop out rate from public secondary schools is 50%, divide that 25% by 2.  That number is 12.5%, or the real percent of high school graduates who are college ready at graduation.  Now do you feel ripped off?  If not, you really should!  

Why is this a giant cluster-fright?  Why should you be concerned? How does this affect you? Read on...

Think about it: Of the millions of children who pass through our K-12 system, less than 13 in 100 are able to do college level work.  Even more surprising is that the number has not changed since the mid-1980s, when such records began being kept.

In 2004, when I first began the research for What Color Is Your Parachute for Teens, the state departments of education in 49 out of the 50 states claimed that college acceptance was the goal for their high school graduates. Since then, four or five states have gotten real and have broadened out their end goals. 

Still, from President Obama to US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to completely sincere but misguided folk at many a foundation, such as that of Bill and Melissa Gates, the call is for high school graduates to go college.  And, when these folk say college, they aren't thinking community college.  Which is not just too bad, but in indication of how poorly informed some really smart people are about the realities of the current world of work.  Too many university graduates, currently 1 out of every 2, are not able to find work that uses their university degree. It's well established that university degrees are both costly and not always useable in the world of work. 

So, what is happening?  As Chris Shannon, Career and College Readiness guru, put it at a recent meeting, "There is a mismatch between high school curricula and higher education's expectations for high school graduates academic ability."  Nicely understated.

Translation:  Just because you graduated from high school, even with honors, don't expect you have what it takes to be a competent college student.  See WSJ article noted above.

How big is this mismatch?  Currently, 54% of high school graduates must take remedial classes. Taking just one remedial class greatly affects likelihood of eventual graduation; just 45% will.  For those who have to take 3 or more remedial classes, the college completion rate plummets to 18%.

Why? Because taking these classes adds to the time a student must spend getting their diploma, adds to the cost of their diplomas but remedial classes do not count towards any degree or certificate. About 80% of college students work an average of 30 hours a week.  Sometimes students have to work more than one job to finance their studies.  Students forced to take remedial classes are working to pay for knowledge and skills levels that should have been free, had their high school classes been adequate.  With each year that students are not engaged in course work of interest, the appeal of just dropping out grows.

Since learning that less than 13% of high school graduates are deemed academically ready for college, I've been quizzing both parents and high school grads. 

• Both students and parents totally expect that if they pass their high school's exit exam, they are college ready.  In the minds of both teens and their parents, passing an exit exam, having good grades and decent test scores equates to college readiness.  After all, that's what parents and students have been told by their local schools since little Anah or Adam started kindergarten.
• Both teens and parents are completely shocked to learn that high school graduation, even with AP classes in their portfolio, doesn't mean they will pass college placement exams for English, math or science.

In other words, we've all been snookered.  Every year, taxpayers bankroll their local 9-12 students expecting that their money is funding students who will launch successfully whether local high school grads are work bound or college bound.  You can find out what is spent per year on K-12 education in your own state or county.  For example, here are costs from two states, one on each coast. California spends an average of $7800 per student per year.  Connecticut spends an average of $10,230 per student per year. 

Please understand that my observations are not a slam against teachers.  I'm a teacher (CA Lifetime Secondary).  My family has been in education for four generations.  Teachers are in the difficult position of having to placate students, parents, administrators and school boards. Often without good back up from their own principals or superintendents. There is so much mandated material to cover in the ever shrinking school year.  That so many middle school and high school teachers sneak in career development is an awesome achievement.

However, that doesn't negate that the K-12 system of education in the United States doesn't deliver the goods it promises. Think about it. How many other businesses would be in business if they successfully served less than 13% of their customers?  None. 

In the 1980s, a report on K-12 education in the United States began with the quote, "If the current system of education had been thrust upon us by an outside entity, we would consider it an act of war."

In this, there has been little system-wide improvement in the last two decades.  Perversely, federal, state and local education systems and educational leadership (increasingly an oxymoron)  continue to wage war against their own. Sadly, the victims of this war are our youth.  The US K-12 system of education doesn't prepare students for college nor for the world of work. In other words, it's a complete rip off. For over 87% of their consumers, the K-12 school system just doesn't deliver.  Taxpayers fork over over $100,000 to educate each K-12 student. If we paid these costs based on student success in achieving the stated goal, school budgets would decrease by 87%.  That money could be used to fund secondary education that actually prepares students for the real world, not just to do university level studies.

One hundred thousand dollars isn't that much when you think that a university degree costs that or more.  The trouble is that with US incomes falling, tax revenues are too. In 2010, the US budget for defense and security is 715 billion dollars or 20% of the annual federal budget. By comparison, just 3%, or less than 110 billion dollars will be spent on education. It is completely unconscionable that our youth, the promise of tomorrow--as so many politicians glibly call the young of this society--are  so poorly prepared for their futures.

A good education prepares the young of a society to be successful adults in that society.  The US K-12 system is so focused on college admission (over half who are admitted either never show up or drop out along the way) that it has forgotten that education is a means to an end, not an end in itself.  The United States is becoming a third world county (based on income) because our narrow concept of education does not include teaching our young adults how to create lives they love, financed by work they enjoy.

Tomorrow: What you can do to get your money's worth from your, or your teen's, high school education.