Last month, the California State Senate approved a bill to develop a Creativity and Innovation Education Index, to use as a tool to measure how schools are fostering creativity among their students. California is just one of several states to implement a law like this, Massachusetts being the first, according to Education Week.

The California Alliance for Arts Education describes the index:

A creativity and innovation index would provide a way for schools to rate their progress in teaching, encouraging and fostering creativity in students. Index scores would be voluntarily compiled by school and district staff from a survey of curricula and teacher reports. It would quantify the opportunities in each school as measured by the availability of classes and before and after-school programs offered by and through school districts that nurture creativity and innovation in students. Examples might include visual and performing arts education classes, debate clubs, science fairs, theatre and dance performances, music concerts, film-making, creative writing, and independent research.

To many people in education, it might seem like a shock that California is concerned with measuring creativity opportunities when the budget for arts classes and music programs has been cut in school districts all over the state in recent years. However, employers and business owners are saying that new applicants to the workforce are not equipped with the creativity and critical-thinking skills required to get hired.

We spoke with Mary Wright, Associate Director for The Conference Board, a business membership and research association, who specializes in the intersection of business and education. She was a leader on a report called, “Are They Really Ready To Work?” in 2006, which identified key skill sets that employers thought were important for their employees to have, and creativity / innovation were among the top five.

We spoke with Wright about the concept of a Creativity Index and how she thinks it could affect the workforce readiness of young people today.

Youth Radio: Explain in a nutshell, the findings of your workforce readiness research with regards to the need for non-academic skills.

Wright: We wanted to understand what business really meant by--new entrants are not workforce ready. We looked at both basic skills, which we took from No Child Left Behind-- the reading, writing, and arithmetic skills, and also asked about the applied skills, like 21st century skills. The applied skills are things around critical thinking, information technology application, teamwork and collaboration, and creativity and innovation. There are about 13 or 14 skill sets we looked at.

It was clear to us that the applied skills were the ones that were considered most important. Certainly, people would argue that math and science develop significantly critical thinking skills. They give you tools to figure out problems. But if you can’t communicate what you just learned or what you just did, you’re not as valuable in the workplace.

It was interesting given the emphasis that people have on STEM [science, mathematics, technology and engineering] skills, and yet, what employers were saying, it wasn’t the math skill that was important, it was the critical thinking skill. That would be true regardless of whether someone was in a STEM career or a retail career.

President Barack Obama gave education a fair share of attention during the State of the Union address last night.

The talking points:

- Require all students to stay in high school until they are 18

- Extend the tuition tax credit

- States should make higher education a priority in their budgets

- Reward good teachers and keep them on the job

- Give schools flexibility so they do not have to teach to the test

Mr. Obama has said in the past that he hopes the United States will be number one in the world when it comes to having the highest percentage of college graduates. “Higher education can’t be a luxury -– it is an economic imperative that every family in America should be able to afford.” But “college for all” is a hot topic right now.

Some educators argue that not everyone wants to go to college, or will necessarily succeed in college, and policy makers need to define success more broadly beyond academic achievement tests and AP tests and include valuing job-ready skills in students. Instead of making vocational education and career and technical education an option in high schools, Obama wants to address job training by creating partnerships between community colleges and businesses to train Americans with specific skills that lead directly to jobs. As of now, Mr. Obama believes business leaders can’t find American workers with the right skills to hire.

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Professor Diane Ravitch is a big voice in education policy and a huge critic of No Child Left Behind. But here's the interesting part -- as former Assistant Secretary of Education under President George H. W. Bush, she helped promote the same policies she's now criticizing.

Ravitch's latest book is called, The Death and Life of the Great American School System. In the book, she details why she drastically reversed her position on school reform. While she used to push for testing, charters and privatization, now she's worried these efforts are making things worse and hurting students.

As an education reform veteran, Ravitch can tell you change isn't easy, and it isn't kind. Here are her thoughts on what's wrong with school reform today.

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In last week’s State of the Union address, President Obama proposed something radical, that dropping out of high school no longer be allowed. But that might be complicated. Every school district has tried numerous solutions to the dropout dilemma without success. The problem prompted Russell Rumberger to write a book called Dropping Out: Why Students Drop Out of High School and What Can Be Done About It.

Rumberger is director of the California Dropout Research Project, and he currently serves as provost in the Office of the President at the University of California. He recently talked about his theory that high schools need to promote alternatives to college – and that some people might be better served not getting a higher education at all. KALW's Ben Trefny sat down with Youth Radio’s Robyn Gee to discuss this idea of education.

This story was produced by Youth Radio with support from the New Options Project and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

This piece was originally published on L.A. Youth.

A new program called the Diploma Project is trying to reduce dropout rates at Los Angeles Unified School District schools. The Diploma Project, which is funded by the federal government, has dropout prevention counselors in six middle schools and six high schools.

The high school counselors find students who have dropped out and work with them to get them back in school. They can either re-enroll at their high school or in a program where they can make up their credits, like adult school, continuation school or independent study.

We talked to students from Fremont and Gardena, two high schools that are part of the Diploma Project, about why they dropped out and what helped them return. They were all thankful for the Diploma Project for helping them get back on track to graduate.

Editor Mike Fricano: Why did you drop out?

Maycoll Arata, 20, Gardena Adult School graduate: I was too busy partying, clubbing, going out and having fun instead of studying and doing homework.

Cindy Ávalos, 18, Alternative Education Work Center (AEWC), an independent study program on the Gardena High campus: When I was in ninth grade I didn’t know it was that important to graduate. I didn’t go to class, I didn’t pay attention at all. In 11th grade I realized it was important and I noticed I wasn’t going to be able to graduate.

Mayra Frias, 19, Gardena HS: For me it was a personal problem … Me and my mom would fight every day. That’s when I decided to drop out, which I did when I was in 11th grade for two months. I started looking for a job and I never found one. Then I decided to come back.

Rosario Franco, 18, Gardena AEWC: Since ninth grade I started ditching and I guess it becomes a habit … Every year I would be like, “I’m going to do better next year” but then the next year I’ll go some days but then I’ll miss school other days and I’ll be like “When I miss out, it’s better.” So I started falling back. My senior year I went for three weeks. I was like, “I’m behind credits, I know I’m not going to graduate. Why go and waste my time?”

Curtis Hess, 19, Gardena Adult School: I dropped out of school because I was kicking it with the wrong crowd, gang bangers.

Abigael Perez-Rodriguez, 18, Gardena AEWC: When I entered ninth grade I started hanging out with the wrong people. I was getting high, drunk. I started ditching more and more. We used to hop on Metro and go to downtown, Hollywood, do whatever we want, drink a couple 40s, have fun. I stopped going to school my senior year.

Brigitte Olguin, 16, Fremont HS: In ninth grade my dad was sick. He was almost dying so all that depression got to me and I missed school. I went with friends to try to feel better. It stopped at 11th [grade] because I got caught. They told me, “Why are you missing school? You have a future to go to.” I don’t want to be a low-life. I want to have a good car, a home. If I do good in school I’ll be the first one to graduate in my family. That motivates me to go to school.

Robyn Gee, Turnstyle News

Russell Rumberger is an expert on high school dropouts. He recently published a book called, Dropping Out: Why Students Drop Out of High School and What Can be Done About It, and he currently serves as provost in the Office of the President at the University of California. Rumberger is also director of the California Dropout Research Project. According to Rumberger, roughly 25 percent of U.S. high school students do not graduate.  And he says that our country is only making the problem worse by trying to prepare everyone for college.

Turnstyle spoke with Rumberger about how to re-define success in high school by creating multiple pathways for students to find success inside and outside of school.

Turnstyle: In a nutshell, tell us about your argument that when academia focuses solely on getting kids to college, it can lead to more high school dropouts?

Rumberger: I do believe everybody who wants to go to college, has the inclination to go to college, should be able to. Even if they may not have the initial ability, they should still be encouraged and supported to go. It may be harder for them, it may take them longer to finish, but that’s okay. But for students who don’t want to [go to college], they should have an option as well; the opportunity to develop skills that are valued in the job market and take that pathway. What would serve students better in the long run is if we had a broader definition of success in high school to include more things that people can master that we know are important.  Some of those things can be best acquired in the classroom, but many can be acquired outside the classroom.

Underlying my assertion is that we want to try to make every kid successful in something. If we define success narrowly by saying how well can you do on an AP test, or a math test, or some other kind of academic test, and that’s the only way we judge success, then the students that have the ability to work with others, the ones that can design things, the ones that know how to cook or fix cars, none of those skills are valued. But if we say, everyone should have something that they can master, and demonstrate mastery of, then there’s this notion that students will develop a sense of competence.

Sayre Quevedo, Turnstyle News

Kwame Brown, Chairman of Washington DC’s City Council, is the youngest chairman in the history of the city. As a result, Brown says he’s constantly surrounded by young people. And it shows. Brown has spearheaded the development of multiple vocational high schools in D.C. and even leads college tours for young people. But this last week, Brown proposed a law that has the power to make him either wildly popular or unpopular among that same crowd. The College Preparatory Plan Act would require public high school seniors in Wash., D.C. to take the SAT or ACT and apply to at least one post-secondary school.

The following originally aired on KQED-FM.

By: Sayre Quevedo

Around this time last year I was busy applying to college. Clicking that ‘submit’ button on my online applications, I imagined myself in New York City, going to poetry readings and cramming for various exams. I listened to Patti Smith and Lou Reed over and over in anticipation of receiving acceptance letters. But my acceptance letters were followed by even more important pieces of mail, my federal financial aid statements, or FAFSA.

The minute I saw the amount of financial aid I qualified for, I knew that the price tag of my dream was way out of my budget. My mom is still paying off her college loans, and I had already spent more than I could afford paying for official transcripts, applications, and the ACT test. Tuition at my top school was 30,000 dollars a year and I was going to be on the hook for 2/3 of it.

Thanks to a grant by the Department of Labor’s Green Jobs Innovation Fund, the Finishing Trades Institute of the Mid-Atlantic Regions (FTI) is pushing more people toward green construction jobs with their new training program. The Tri-Green Pre-Apprenticeship Program, which was awarded $5.6 million dollars this month, provides participants with not only 10 units of college credit but the hard skills necessary to enter the field. By the time participants finish the one month program they hold knowledge of green construction practices and health and safety knowledge needed on a job site, as well as the industry-recognized certificates to back them. The program will prepare trainees for jobs in construction painting, drywall finishing and glazing. Read more...

One in three young people in the United States are arrested by age 23, finds a study published this week in the journal, Pediatrics. Researchers analyzed data collected by The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ National Longitudinal Survey, which tracked approximately nine thousand youth 12-16 years old beginning in 1997. The number is up nearly eight percent from the 1960’s when roughly 1 in 5 young people reported being arrested.

According to a Reuters piece on the study, “Those arrests are for everything from underage drinking and petty theft to violent crime, researchers said. They added that the increase might not necessarily reflect more criminal behavior in youth, but rather a police force that's more apt to arrest young people than in the past.”

While many of the young people will likely never see the back of a squad car again, a story in the The Daily Mail underscores that even a small criminal record can present major challenges. "In days gone by fines and citations might have been deemed acceptable. Now many will find their employment prospects damaged by an arrest on their record - even for a minor offence."

From the NYTimes: “The researchers found that the probability of a first arrest accelerated in late adolescence and early adulthood — at 18, 15.9 percent of the participants reported having been arrested — and then began to flatten out as the youths entered their 20s.” Below chart illustrates the pattern.