There are bad ideas and there are ludicrous ideas. Last week we and the millions who watch ABC’s World News Tonight or read the New York Times were treated to a doozy. Both newssources ran pieces about an experiment in 8 states to end high school (for a self-selected group of students) after 10th grade. These students, whose goal (it appears assumed) is to enter the workplace quickly, can simply test out of the last two years of high school and go on their way. Of course, these students’ reason for leaving school could be anything, including a desire to drop out without appearing to do so. But advocates for this idea appear unconcerned about this or about any other of the many potentially harmful ramifications this idea could have. Those include reducing the college-going population to a richer and less diverse group of students, namely those who know as high school freshmen that they are going to college. And creating within high schools a very clearly defined two-tracked system (basically two schools in one) populated by two rather starkly separated classes of students. Also – and this, fundamentally, is what bothers us most – embracing the idea that people who go from high school into the workforce do not need to possess a rich base of knowledge in a range of subjects.
We are all citizens. And we are all learners. No matter what we become – professors, small business-owners, burger-flippers or “just” moms or dads – possessing knowledge will help us to do what we do well, to enjoy our lives, and to exercise the responsibilities of citizenship. To say, as states would be if they made 11th and 12th grade optional, that only the college-bound need to know anything beyond possessing basic reading and math skills is essentially to give up on the education of a huge portion of the population. Yes, this is a pilot program, and it is likely – like most dumb, faddish ideas – to fail. But we should recognize that the widespread adoption of anything resembling this program would be tantamount to giving up on providing many American children with anything beyond a bare-bones education. And we just can’t do that.
Lynne Munson
There are lots of things I don’t get about this. From the TV report it is not at all clear if this is more a matter of accelerating smart high achievers or of solving the dropout problem by simply defining it out of existence. (They’re not dropouts. Their “early leavers”.) The New York Times report implies, at least, that that the tests will have real meaning, that only students who actually are college ready would pass them. But if that is the case why would there be any talk at all about students using the tests as a short cut to a factory job? Surely it is a rare tenth grader who is really ready for college. And that rare tenth grader should go to college.
I don’t like the idea that students are just marking time in high school. Where does this idea come from? Obviously some students are unmotivated, but a blanket statement that all kids, or even most kids, are wasting their time is pretty strong. It’s an important question, worth checking out, but “everyone knows” is not a good foundation to base it on. If a lot of students really wasting time in high school, let’s hear the evidence.
What do we know about this “National Center On Education And The Economy”? To say that it is a “nonprofit” means nothing. A nonprofit organization can still be a very narrow special interest. Why would it cost a participating school “about $500 a student”? Why would a participating school need “to buy courses and tests and to train teachers.”? I can understand the tests, but what’s with this “new coursework”? And training teachers? Are we to assume that this nonprofit is offering to do that too? How nice of them! And to defray costs schools can tap into federal stimulus money.
Obviously there is much I don’t know about this idea. The print report seems to have a lot more substance than the TV report, but either might be leaving out some very important things. I hope the schools involved know what they’re doing.
As with many challenges with education, I am torn. I’ve been in the high school classroom, and there’s not much worse — for the teacher or the students — than to have other students there who wish to be somewhere else. In one way or another, they let you know it.
I do not adhere to the current conversation that all students should leave high school “college ready.” I find just as much value in musicians and artists and home repair people and burger flippers and builders and entrepreneurs who carve future lives either in tech classes or their own amazing spunk.
The last two years of high school are not where students go beyond “basic reading and math skills” — it’s far before that or there’s a major problem that those last two years simply can’t solve.
Now I still haven’t come up with a solution…