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There are private schools that partner with universities or private colleges, and combine HS with college in a way that allows them to do HS and college in a total of 6 years.
Homeschooling! That is how to ensure kids get a better education but they can usually finish high school much earlier too. Most parents if they care about their kids can handle homeschooling - they just may not realize it yet.
Governments (and I know a lot of parents approve and/or want the extra babysitting services) keep extending the early years - wanting kids to go earlier and earlier - and for most kids, I don't think that makes much if any difference and may be a big drawback.
I hope you're not insinuating that because some parents feel that their children would benefit better from going to a public rather than be home schooled that we don't care about our children?
I grew up with a vocational tech school available to kids in HS and there's an excellent one where I live in another state. I think what needs to change is our societies perception of kids that attend the tech schools. The tech school associated with our HS is excellent but kids that attend it are STILL thought to be somehow not good enough for college. When we as a society respect people that work with their hands as much as we do people that work "white collar" jobs, that's when the tech schools will take off like they should.
I know of no school district that has a policy that "everyone should go to college" or however you want to state it. The latest buzzphrase seems to be "college and career ready". My district has exactly what TabulaRasa's has re: vocational education. I suggest you look at what your district has to offer before thinking they don't have any such thing.
It may not be a "policy" but it is a result of how school is managed. Our district has very minimal vo-tech type courses to offer. The ones they do offer are primarily the white collar side of vocational work (CAD/CAM, and IT related courses). But nothing like auto mechanics, carpentry, and other trades. The old shop area has been converted to classrooms and second gym. This is unlike when I was in school when there was a distinct vo-tech track in the high school and even a specific vo-tech high school for those who were really focused on a trade career.
"To paraphrase the failed Bush education reform policy, which worsened the problem by emphasizing rote memorization, nearly every American child is being left behind."
Just because they're left behind doesn't mean the policies failed. More likely the schools failed to competently adopt the policies and make them work.
If some children should be left behind, that should be an explicit tenet of the policies, not an evaded issue becoming the "elephant in the room."
If rote memorization is the problem, that problem should be explained in better terms than that someone doesn't like it.
I think the premise of this thread is flawed. American students score worse on standardized exams compared to students in other countries as they grow older. That much we know. It's simplistic, however, to automatically assume that the main factor here is differences in educational systems.
We need our education system to adapt to our society. A society in which way too many parents don't care much about their children's education. We need to motivate students to work hard, even when their parents are lazy bums, or the opposite, have too many jobs, trying to stay afloat, to have time for their children. We don't put enough thought, and enough effort, into how to accomplish such motivation.
The reason why we need to give students lots of rote work is because our teachers don't really have the competence for anything more sophisticated. If we don't give them rote work, we don't educate them at all. People with a lot of rote work, who do it successfully, tend to educate themselves, when their teachers neglect it. The rote work, done successfully, motivates them to go beyond it.
Bill Gates is seeing kids in countries where they generally put you in tracks by the time you get to high school so the only high school kids he sees doing academic work are the ones they have been allowed to continue to do so.
If you want to try that system here, I think you will end up shortchanging a lot of people who are smart enough to do the academic track but may be uninspired by the current system.
Then again, kids might not take the schooling for granted if they know they have to earn their way into college or even into a decent high school program.
Tracking has cycled in and out of vogue at different times in the U.S. as well.
There have also always been students who have the capability of performing academically at the college level, but lack the interest/motivation to pursue that route.
We need our education system to adapt to our society. A society in which way too many parents don't care much about their children's education. We need to motivate students to work hard, even when their parents are lazy bums, or the opposite, have too many jobs, trying to stay afloat, to have time for their children. We don't put enough thought, and enough effort, into how to accomplish such motivation.
Who is "we?"
Educators have a student for a year, generally, and it's unrealistic to assume that they'll have as profound an influence as family members. "We" can only do what's realistically in our scope of influence, and parental influence, for better AND for worse, dwarfs that. We have an impact, yes, b UT obviously not nearly the impact family has. It's also unrealistic to expect educators to successfully pseudo-parent literally 100+ students who may cross their path in a given academic year, and ensure the motivation that's not being fostered in the home.
Quote:
The reason why we need to give students lots of rote work is because our teachers don't really have the competence for anything more sophisticated.
I all but "slept" through a Catholic parochial high school, getting very low grades, hardly passing. I even dropped out, at one point, in the 10th grade, but returned, forced into it by my parents.
Then? I somehow made it into a 2-year college, and I surprised all those that deemed me a failure, by getting my first A's and B's, and getting a scholarship. I found it all to be much more stimulating, perhaps due to the Professors I had.
My parents only had 8th grade educations, and they did quite well for themselves.
I think we all recognize, in some way, things need to change!
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