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I say that teenagers should be forced to stay in school until 18 beacuase they need to learn how to succeed in the future.They need to learn how to be prepared for any economic problems,also it would suck dropping out of school since you will recieve less money than those who did graduate.But you dont always have to wait until your 18,if you try your best on having a good GPA then you could always get a head start at any college and graduate when your 16 or 17. You dont have to wait all 4 years i think thats a waste of your time...well i hope this helped you guys and with all my love..
The "one size fits all" for high school students is not working. Believe me, I've been in the system for 32 years, and it's not working for the 25% who have no clue, no direction, no ambition, no economic means for continuing education, limited support or guidance from home, or unrealistic goals.
We need to do a better job (it seems that schools in Europe have a talent for this) of placing kids in high level skills programs and tying the academics needed to those skill sets. There are many occupations requiring technical training (aka~hands on, intern/externships, apprenticeships) that go unfilled each year because we continue to channel our students towards college preparatory classes.
I've taught in schools that boast 75-80% of their graduates going on to higher education, but there is no follow up study of those who go back their sophomore year, or actually finish and find a job in the field. Is this the fault of the high schools? Not always~part of it is society, some of it is the college educated teacher, counselor or administrator. Some of it is the expectations of family, the first to go to college, my child will have a better opportunity than I did mentality. If teachers are your children's role models and advisors, they are going to promote college because that's how they achieved success in their chosen occupations.
Keep students in school until they are 18 or graduate? At 15 or 16, if they aren't cutting the college prep curriculum, funnel them to the excellent vocational programs or set up partnerships with industries for long term job shadowing or internships, or cooperative learning arrangements with technical training schools. Mandate part of a semester to job shadowing or intense career exploration based on apititudes, attitudes and abilities.
For the student who is accelerated and on track, offer college in the classroom or dual enrollment or even AP classes during their sophomore or junior year.
Remember though~these are teenagers, a good portion of their day and school for is the socialization with their peers, providing them with an identity, leadership opportunities, participation in athletics, music programs or other creative endeavors. Many teenagers need this balance in their lives as well.
I have noticed a few States are making an effort to require that kids stay in school until they are 18. It sounds like an interesting idea but I wonder if it will really improve things. I teach at a local community college and have many years experience in education. I teach many students who have no interest in the subject being taught and basically just drag the whole class down by their lack of interest and terrible attitude. Why they or their parents spend money on college is a real good question. Maybe keeping unmotivated kids in high school past age 16 will not help anyone. They will just stop trying and just put in their time.
Age 16 they should be allowed to quit. The countries farmers need field hands.
If more people were to understand the college myth/scam, mainly that it furthers education, and prepares a student for life, when in most cases it does neither, then they would be far less inclined to have kids stay in hs in order to attend college. Unis are doing a **** poor job of doing anything close to what they claim they're doing, you probably have a better chance of learning material in hs where you have to attend and at least have a real teacher try to teach. But if the student has no interest in learning, for whatever reason, then they should have the option of leaving. After spending much of my time with many students whose main motivation was to socialize all through the time they're in class, they should be shown the door and told that they can do that anywhere else. Of course then the whole edifice of administration and overhead would need to be adjusted downward, so that won't happen.
In Texas they are supposed to stay in school until 18 or graduation. If a kid can graduate at age 15 more power to him. But I still see plenty of kids dropping out early with no penalty and the school washes its hands of them. It works like this:
Kid and his parents walk into the school office and announce that he is going to drop out. The school counselor says "You can't legally drop out until age 18, did you mean to say that you were going to withdraw for home schooling? Because you can legally do that" The kid or his parents say "yeah, that's what we meant. Johnny is going to be withdrawn for home schooling"
A week later I see the kid working at the local jiffy lube and ask him how the home schooling is going. And he tells me..."Well, not so much. I gotta keep my hours up right now so I can make my truck payments and help out my mom with the rent"
The kid is happy because he got around the age 18 rule. The mom is happy because the rent is getting paid. And the school is happy because he shows up in the records as a transfer to another school rather than a dropout or failure to graduate which would affect their state accountability rating. And it will take the kid until age 23 or 24 to figure out how stupid he was to have dropped out when he starts looking for better employment and no one wants to hire a HS dropout.
What actually happens in Texas more than dropouts are kids who just fail to graduate despite attending school through their senior year. A lot of kids are frankly to lazy too even drop out. They just slack off and fail too many classes to the point that despite attending school through their senior year they just don't graduate and walk away with nothing. And trust me, the typical American HS is not that tough to graduate from with the slightest bit of effort.
I feel sorry that some of you didn't take charge of your educations enough for high school to be "babysitting". That certainly wasn't my experience. I was polishing up my skills in two foreign languages and philosophy in my public high school senior year... and I wasn't exactly a special case.
In any case... there's a serious entitlement problem with a lot of kids. Even if you stuck the poor performing ones in vocational classes, that's not going to make much of a difference for many. I DO think we need a lot more vocational options in high school, but that's not going to change attitudes. The students who bring everyone in a class down are going to do it if they're in college prep or if they're in vocational classes- it's a problem with the attitude.
That's great if you have those options. I went to four high schools in three different districts. Not one school had any sort of Philosophy class, and not one school allowed more than one foreign language.
[quote=Good_Teacher;3390484]I have noticed a few States are making an effort to require that kids stay in school until they are 18. It sounds like an interesting idea but I wonder if it will really improve things. I teach at a local community college and have many years experience in education. I teach many students who have no interest in the subject being taught and basically just drag the whole class down by their lack of interest and terrible attitude. Why they or their parents spend money on college is a real good question. Maybe keeping unmotivated kids in high school past age 16 will not help anyone. They will just stop trying and just put in their time.[/quote]
Yes, I agree 100%. The disruptive people can pull the whole class down.
Problem is the trades now are a lot more technical than they used to be, many require some formal schooling. So these dummies would not be suited for the trades either.
These people should be doing the jobs the illegals are doing, such as janitor or landscaping.
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