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IMHO, we need to redesign how we do education in this country. The notion that everyone should go to college is destructive and ridiculous. It would make more sense to train people in a 1:1 ratio of people trained in a field to jobs in a field.
How would you force people into a field they don't want to go into?
Why not also drop English, history, foreign languages and science in high school? Lots of people find those subjects difficult as well.
Many schools do not require foreign languages to graduate. Certainly many also don't require 4 years of science and they give the students choices. I think we simply need to figure out what a high school education means.
Over the years, graduation requirements have taken many forms. Requirements that states set for graduation can range from Carnegie unit requirements (a certain number of class credits earned in specific areas) to the successful passing of minimum competency tests, high school exit exams, or a series of benchmark exams (Guy et al., 1999; Thurlow, Ysseldyke, & Anderson, 1995). States also vary in their use and application of these requirements for graduation.
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Across the United States, state and local district graduation policies continue to evolve, with a concerted move toward increasing requirements for graduation. State legislatures have also continued to experiment with state standards policies, graduation requirements, and the use of exit exams as a requirement for receiving a diploma. Revisions and modifications of graduation requirements across states are commonplace. With the advent of the No Child Left Behind Act, states must test all students annually in grades 3-8 in reading and math, and must test students at least once in high school; science testing also soon comes into force, with that content area tested one time in each school level (elementary, middle, and high). This means that all states must have high school tests, although they need not be a "high-stakes" exit exam tied to graduation. This legislation, however, will continue to influence the discussions of states and local districts about the use of tests in relation to monitoring student progress, graduation, and other forms of accountability. It will also affect discussions about what it means to graduate due to its definition of graduation as earning a standard high school diploma in four years.
For more than a century, American educators and education policymakers have chosen sides in a great debate about the nature and function of American high schools. The origins of this long-running argument can be traced to 1893, when the influential Committee of Ten, a blue-chip panel of educators, issued a report proposing that all public high-school students receive a strong, liberal-arts education. Ever since then we have been fighting about whether our high schools should be college prep for the masses or, as another blue-ribbon panel would put it 90 years later, a “cafeteria-style curriculum in which the appetizers and desserts can easily be mistaken for the main course.”
Note that enrollments were very low - high school was originally for the elite, not for the masses. Look also at how few students actually graduated from high school. Anti-intellectual peer-groups were also on the rise. Between 1961 and 1973, graduation credits were being granted for *easy* math courses, like consumer math.
I don't know if we *can* educate all students in a rigorous college preparatory curriculum. It's a nice idea, but might be very much pie in the sky.
I don't think the curriculum needs to change. There is NOTHING wrong with requiring kids to take these classes. There is plenty of room in schedules to take electives outside of the required courses by the time kids are in high school. What needs to change is the thought that if you aren't getting an A in these classes you are failing. Some kids are going to take these classes and get C's, so what? Not everyone is an A student. Exposure to the material is what is important, not that you have a 4.0. People also need to realize that you don't NEED a 4.0 to get into college, and yes, EVERY student should have some post-secondary education I feel. You just can't bet by any longer with just a high school diploma. And don't come here and say my Dad's brother did just fine, I'm talking kids graduating from high school NOW.
I don't think the curriculum needs to change. There is NOTHING wrong with requiring kids to take these classes. There is plenty of room in schedules to take electives outside of the required courses by the time kids are in high school. What needs to change is the thought that if you aren't getting an A in these classes you are failing. Some kids are going to take these classes and get C's, so what? Not everyone is an A student. Exposure to the material is what is important, not that you have a 4.0. People also need to realize that you don't NEED a 4.0 to get into college, and yes, EVERY student should have some post-secondary education I feel. You just can't bet by any longer with just a high school diploma. And don't come here and say my Dad's brother did just fine, I'm talking kids graduating from high school NOW.
It's not that they are getting C's though.
It's that they are failing, not once or twice but more than that.
And then schools don't look so good anymore.
Some are barely making it through Algebra 1 for the 2nd or 3rd time and literally don't have enough years to complete 3 years of Math.
Formula sheets, calculators and there are still 15 year olds drawing bubbles in the margins of their papers.
What is the point of forcing students that cannot do this level of Math to take the class ?
The ones going to college will take it.
Maybe some good will come from this. Maybe we won't have college dropouts with student loan debt to pay off because they won't be pushed into college now.
I don't think the curriculum needs to change. There is NOTHING wrong with requiring kids to take these classes. There is plenty of room in schedules to take electives outside of the required courses by the time kids are in high school. What needs to change is the thought that if you aren't getting an A in these classes you are failing. Some kids are going to take these classes and get C's, so what? Not everyone is an A student. Exposure to the material is what is important, not that you have a 4.0. People also need to realize that you don't NEED a 4.0 to get into college, and yes, EVERY student should have some post-secondary education I feel. You just can't bet by any longer with just a high school diploma. And don't come here and say my Dad's brother did just fine, I'm talking kids graduating from high school NOW.
Are you saying that every student who can't pass Algebra II before age 21 should drop out? That's what happened in our district before the decision to drop it for the general education diploma.
It's not that they are getting C's though.
It's that they are failing, not once or twice but more than that.
And then schools don't look so good anymore.
Some are barely making it through Algebra 1 for the 2nd or 3rd time and literally don't have enough years to complete 3 years of Math.
Formula sheets, calculators and there are still 15 year olds drawing bubbles in the margins of their papers.
What is the point of forcing students that cannot do this level of Math to take the class ?
The ones going to college will take it.
Maybe some good will come from this. Maybe we won't have college dropouts with student loan debt to pay off because they won't be pushed into college now.
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Originally Posted by lhpartridge
Are you saying that every student who can't pass Algebra II before age 21 should drop out? That's what happened in our district before the decision to drop it for the general education diploma.
No, like I said earlier, what needs to change is what happens before they get to Algebra II.
I am just mystified at the people that support the dumbing down of schools vs addressing the issues as to why kids can't pass a math class that really is NOT that hard if they had had a reasonable education up to that point and Happy Texan, weren't you the one that was just telling me how wonderful the schools in Texas are compared to the rest of the country and now you are telling me you have all these kids that can't make it through 8th grade math??
No, like I said earlier, what needs to change is what happens before they get to Algebra II.
I am just mystified at the people that support the dumbing down of schools vs addressing the issues as to why kids can't pass a math class that really is NOT that hard if they had had a reasonable education up to that point and Happy Texan, weren't you the one that was just telling me how wonderful the schools in Texas are compared to the rest of the country and now you are telling me you have all these kids that can't make it through 8th grade math??
It may not be difficult for YOU, but it may be difficult for others.
However, I've never heard of anyone taking Algebra II in the 8th grade; everyone I know took it in the 11th or 12th grade or in college.
No, like I said earlier, what needs to change is what happens before they get to Algebra II.
I am just mystified at the people that support the dumbing down of schools vs addressing the issues as to why kids can't pass a math class that really is NOT that hard if they had had a reasonable education up to that point and Happy Texan, weren't you the one that was just telling me how wonderful the schools in Texas are compared to the rest of the country and now you are telling me you have all these kids that can't make it through 8th grade math??
I don't believe so. I'm definitely not happy with current teaching methods.
I'm the one with the attitude of "trying to teach them math in spite of the system".
I'm the one saying PISA shows our decline when others say we can't compare countries.
I'm the one saying that we lowered the bar so that "No Child is left behind" and we're now using a ditch witch for that bar.
I bite my tongue when I hear a Math teacher say that every child should have a calculator staring in first grade.
I bite my tongue when I see ELA teachers use audio books in class to make it easier on the kids.
I'm over my shock and awe at how much education has changed since I was in school.
Education wasn't my career so I didn't partake of the incremental changes that happened over the past several decades.
And it was worse than I suspected during the time my son was in the K-12 system.
It may not be difficult for YOU, but it may be difficult for others.
However, I've never heard of anyone taking Algebra II in the 8th grade; everyone I know took it in the 11th or 12th grade or in college.
I was replying to someone that was talking about Algebra I which is very commonly taught in 8th grade..Algebra II in our area is generally taught in 10th grade for advanced students and 11th grade for those not as advanced.
I am NOT a math person...never said it was easy but it wasn't so hard that it should be dropped as a requirement....
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