High Schools to Offer Plan to Graduate 2 Years Early.

[elleng]

Dozens of public high schools in eight states will introduce a program next year allowing 10th graders who pass a battery of tests to get a diploma two years early and immediately enroll in community college. . .

The new system of high school coursework with the accompanying board examinations is modeled largely on systems in high-performing nations including Denmark, England, Finland, France and Singapore.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/18/education/18educ.html?hpw

[dkf]

1. Hmm. My immediate reaction is disapproval but I'd be willing to see if this is a bettter

Route. I honestly have no idea.

[leftofcool]

3. Oddly enough, France has one of the best educational

systems in the world with Denmark right behind. I hope this helps us improve ours.

[dkf]

4. Does that only work if there is community college after it?

Are we giving high school diplomas for two years of high school?

[FBaggins]

11. I agree. It only works if they got to college.

I spent my senior year at a new "sci/tech" magnet school. Just a handful of us and a full class of freshmen and sophomores (no juniors). The senior program was a wonderful option that most students can't take advantage of (so I won't knock it)... but those younger kids? Some of them were really special. I had a couple of them in my AP Physics class... a couple in AP Chemistry (including some Westinghouse finalists) and even in post-AP (don't know what to call them) computer science and CAD/CAM classes.

In terms of educational achievement (social maturity/development is a different conversation) there's no question that many of them belonged in a university if the county didn't have this program available.

The problem is that I'm fairly certainly that college is already and option for kids like this. Here we're presumably talking about a much wider audience.

[noamnety]

17. College is an option for some of the students who are ready for it.

When I left HS two years early to go to college, the HS principal tried to bully me out of it. Unfortunately the ones trying to prevent kids from reaching their full potential often aren't neutral bystanders. They have a profit motive to keep kids in school to get that per pupil funding, even if it means holding the students back and putting them in classes that aren't challenging them in appropriate ways.

My daughter audited some community college classes one summer when she was in middle school. She didn't get credit for it, but she found she was able to keep up with the academics just fine - her study habits at that age were better than the study habits of many of the 18-19 year olds.

[tonysam]

19. This isn't about that at all. This is about upping the standards,

tracking students earlier, and making sure there is NO fucking upward mobility for the vast majority of students. This is about pushing kids out to attend "vocational training," while the elites will be allowed to have full high school diplomas and attend regular colleges and universities.

And of course, millions and millions of college students are NOT traditional age kids; they are people going to back after years of working in drudge jobs. They will cut off in assholes Gates' and Tucker's world.

[noamnety]

21. That's not what the linked article says.

It says even if students pass the test, they can still opt to stay in regular high school. They aren't being forced into colleges, it's just a choice for them. This article also doesn't talk about those eight states denying access to regular academic classes for those who don't pass the class, or forcing those students to take academic classes.

Maybe you've read some about other plans and have mixed those stories into this article? Maybe a number of issues were proposed, the states rejected half the ideas and retained the good ones? I'm just reading what is linked in the OP regarding the actual program that was approved in "dozens of high schools in 8 states" and it doesn't say what you claim it says.

[FBaggins]

23. Study habits?

What are those?

We don't have students who "study" any longer... they do homework. Loads and loads of worksheets.

[tonysam]

13. France isn't the United States. France, like most countries in Europe

and elsewhere, has had an aristocracy. The United States has not, at least not until recently.

This is about FUCKING TRACKING kids into working in substandard occupations, while the kids of the well-to-do get to graduate from high school and go to a traditional four-year college ala Japan.

It has NO basis in reality. Many people return to college after years in the labor force, but fuckers Gates, Tucker, and others want to cut off a traditional four-year education for everybody but the elites.

[tonysam]

22. Oh, bullshit.

This isn't what Gates is aiming for. Get fucking real.

This is about perverting the mission of public high schools to turn them into elite hoity-toity college prep academies, like what Gates and his ilk attended, instead of training students for vocational skills for the vast majority of jobs not requiring college, and force the "riff-raff" out altogether so they NEVER have ANY upward mobility.

FEW jobs require ANY education beyond high school. Kids should not be forced to go to community colleges if they don't want it. They should also not be forced out of high school in the ninth or tenth grade.

Bill Gates is one evil bastard.

[FBaggins]

24. So what you're saying is...

...despite the fact that the OP is about testing students to let the advanced ones go to college early... what they REALLY mean is that the ones who are on their way to college are the ones who STAY... and the rest aren't REALLY passing a HS equivalency test, they're failing it.

Is that it?

No lack of cynicism there. Goodness.

[tonysam]

12. No, it isn't. This is about creating a two-tiered class in this country

There is another thread in the education forum about this.

[noamnety]

26. The alternative to multiple tiers is one rigid standard for all.

The ideal education is one that appropriately challenges students at the right level for them.

If a student is ready for college level work, how does it benefit them to retain them in classes that aren't challenging enough for them?

I wouldn't want my kid to be held back in a class beneath her grade level - for several years no less - "because it would insult the kids working at grade level to let her move ahead." Do kids have a moral obligation to waste several years of their lives being unproductive so that their peers' egos won't get hurt?

Maybe all your high school classes were challenging for you and you felt they were paced right for you. That's not true for all students, though. I think this is an attempt to acknowledge and address what we already know - that a number of students who are more than capable drop out because they aren't being challenged, and have already mastered what's required of them in their local high school classes.

[my2sense]

2. Interesting n/t

[exboyfil]

5. Most college prep kids probably could graduate after the

Sophomore year. The final two years are a mix of taking extra science beyond graduation requirements, college credit (either dual enroll or AP), and getting four years of foreign language (which probably brings you up to college Sophomore level). The final two years also allow additional extracurricular activities (sports, speech, music, art etc).

This could also be a cynical way to reduce costs by kicking the kids out early (you have to pay for community college tuition). In Iowa you can dual enroll and have the state pay for the college credit.

[tonysam]

15. This isn't about that. This is about pushing them out early.

They are destined to servants of the elites whose kids will be allowed high school diplomas and then college.

This doesn't explain the fact millions upon millions of people return to college after years in the labor force. They would in effect be cut off from it.

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. Let's lower military enlistment age to 16 while we're at it

:eyes:

Big picture, people.

[FBaggins]

7. I could support something like this... with a few big IFs

IF it doesn't replace current compulsory education rules. IOW... you have to go on to two years of community college. If you use it to "test out" of the last two years of HS, then it should be little different from a dropout and GED. You have a "HS equivalency" - not a "HS diploma" - You might even grant both the HS diploma and Associates degree at the same time.

IF the test is actually a valid measure of a HS education (with some caveats). You can't just score above a certain level on the SATs and say "that's good enough". This is a BIG "if"... that's not an easy test to design. Particularly because:

. . (Sub-bullet) It should not result in a national HS curriculum. And any cost-effective way to design a decent assessment would be difficult without one.

IF the community college program is coordinated with the HS curriculum. Didn't take Civics/Government because you weren't there for that grade? It needs to be taken in the CC.

[rurallib]

8. Got a feeling that down the road this will get used to push kids out

to save school districts $$$$$.
After all, what does a kid need to know beyond how to sign their name and some simple ciphering?

[FBaggins]

9. Don't see how it saves much money

The county still pays for the two years of CC.

Regardless... I don't see how the NEA backs something like this if they thought that's where it was headed.

[noamnety]

25. I don't know if it should be about saving money. (nt)

[FBaggins]

27. It shouldn't be.

But I was replying to a post that said that it would become so.

[noamnety]

28. Ah, I see.

I misread it as a critique because it wouldn't save much money.

Because of my past experiences, I am suspicious that some of the teachers who oppose letting kids go to college early are prioritizing fears about their job security over the real best interests of their students. I understand that fear from the perspective of a teacher - count day is our bread and butter. But from the perspective of someone who did go to college early, I also don't believe it was my job to take up space in a desk for two years for the purpose of bringing that per pupil funding to the school when it wasn't in my own best academic interest. If you start thinking that way, the teachers aren't serving the students, they are exploiting them.

Anyway, apologies for misreading your post.

[tonysam]

14. Bingo. This is about pushing out kids who don't drop out first.

Let's quit being enamored with education systems in other parts of the world and think it would work here--especially when those pushing it are NOT interested in real reform but want to DESTROY American education.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

10. Will students in grades 11 & 12 be a new underclass?

I envision parents with flash cards (or the iPad equivalent) driving the kids toward mastery of the test, and to hell with normal development. An elitist form of child abuse for parental bragging rights. "You mean your little Johnnie is still in high school? Grade 11? So sad. I drive my little Suzie to Wobegon Community College every morning, she's above average don'cha know?"

I suppose it could be done right, but I have my doubts.

:hi:

If the kids can drink and drive two years early, well THAT's motivation!

[tonysam]

16. No. It is the opposite. It's the kids who are forced out early

who will be in the underclass.

[tonysam]

18. People need to think twice before thinking this is a good idea

This topic has been posted on another thread about "Tuckerism."

This is from the Schools Matter blog, which describes this "innovative" program as nothing more than reserving high school ONLY for the elites. Everybody else will be pushed out or drop out:

In 2006 dweeb oligarch, Bill Gates, funded the writing of a plan to undercut American public high schools and to create an outlet for working class students to test out of high school and into a voc ed after 9th or 10th grade. The plan was called "Tougher Choices for Tougher Times," and it offered a vision of high school as contract charter schools that are funded at the state level without local input or oversight. Here is a review of Tuckerism by EPI, and here is part of a post from last year on how the plan was moving forward, all the help of the prostitutes who run the NEA:
_____

Did I say something about union sellouts earlier today? Bracey just posted at ARN the Ed Week link below that announces the NEA, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the National Association of Manufacturers have split the spoils from the corporate charter school blitzkrieg that is now being unleashed against public education. They have agreed to support the Tucker Plan (Tough Choices or Tough Times) that was pumped out of the sludge tanks in 2006. See here and here and here for reviews of the plan. Here is the beginning of the evaluation by Miller and Gerson:

The "Tough Choices or Tough Times" report of the National Commission on Skills in the Workplace, funded in large part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and signed by a bipartisan collection of prominent politicians, businesspeople, and urban school superintendents, called for a series of measures including:

(a) replacing public schools with what the report called "contract schools", which would be charter schools writ large;

(b) eliminating nearly all the powers of local school boards - their role would be to write and sign the authorizing agreements for the "contract schools;

(c) eliminating teacher pensions and slashing health benefits; and
(d) forcing all 10th graders to take a high school exit examination based on 12th grade skills, and terminating the education of those who failed (i.e., throwing millions of students out into the streets as they turn 16). . . . .

More

Spare me the apologetics about how "great" European education is and Japanese education, both of which have highly stratified societies.

Do we really want a true aristoracy in this country?

[tonysam]

20. In sum, a four-year high school education will be ONLY for those

who are college bound. Those kids who can't "cut" it taking a tenth grade exam designed for high school 12th grade will inevitably be forced to drop out when they are unable to handle college-prep courses designed for students planning to attend college.

Or "pushed out," as this rotten scheme proposes.

High schools need to do MORE VOCATIONAL TRAINING FOR STUDENTS, NOT LESS, and LESS college prep. Community colleges should NOT be abused in this fashion, with ALL kids be forced to go to college or drop out of high school.

Part of the MISSION of high schools is to TRAIN students for jobs, the vast majority of jobs, which do NOT require ANY education beyond high school. This is NOT the job of community colleges.

Gates and company have it precisely backasswards.

[noamnety]

29. "ALL kids (will) be forced to go to college or drop out of high school."

You sound like you might be off on a rant that is not supported by reality.