The School Cliff: Student Engagement Drops With Each School Year

I love this stuff. Gallup has actually found a way to measure student engagement (they call it their Gallup Student Poll Engagement Index) by how strongly students agree with the following five statements:

• I have a best friend at school.
• I feel safe in this school.
• My teachers make me feel my schoolwork is important.
• At this school, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.
• In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good schoolwork.

Gallup polls hundreds of thousands of public school students from grades 5 through 12 and has found that for this population engagement declines for every year you stay in school. I wonder how independent schools compare? 

Interestingly enough, we deliver a Student Culture Survey each year that measures student engagement and more and while we haven't used the exact phrasing, we have collected three years worth of data that can be organized to measure our student's engagement. 

The whole goal of implementing 21st century education is to engage our students. It's fundamental. First, mission appropriate - we are a whole child school. It's why we do things like CSI and MDGs. It's why we do experiential education in our 7th and 8th grade leadership classes. It drives our electives program. It was the impetus for our Portfolio Program, Innovator's Challenge, STEM research, the iPad Pilot Program, and more. 

I would say this is a good quick read. Enjoy. 

The School Cliff: Student Engagement Drops With Each School Year