'21st-Century Skills' Focus Shifts W.Va. Teachers' Role

Charleston, W.Va.

Groups of students hunch over laptop computers, each tuned to an Excel budget spreadsheet. They are surrounded by models and blueprints of their building, Horace Mann Middle School, here in downtown Charleston.

It is Donna Landin’s math laboratory, and the students are creating formal plans to renovate the front grounds of the school for its 70th anniversary.

In completing their project, the 6th, 7th, and 8th graders will draw on their math skills to calculate areas and revise their budgets. They will gather information about the school and about landscaping from business officials, relatives, school alumni, and online research—from all available sources, it seems,...