I am no expert on this. I do know in the early 1960’s we had a mandatory high school education for all males in VA. If you were not in the military at age 17, which required parental approval/signature, your fanny best be in class.I recall two 21 plus year olds in my senior class. One was a real disgrace to his father as his father was an Air Force O-6. Yet, at age 22 he graduated. I think mandatory graduation is the answer, as the military will not even take GED types now unless the person really scores high on the ASVAB. Good luck finding those critical MOS’s in this economy-” dropouts.” The Army does not want you. Neither do any of the other services.
Glen Beck reported last night that college students were told to get financial aid “food stamps.” Then we had the Obama education lady say all students should have free laptops and Internet. Surprising to this lady this has been tried. The result was the laptops were trashed, used by other family members,and; you tube videos were what the teens watched. Even the teachers failed to become PC literate. I am told each year to give more to our schools. They,the students and teachers do worse each year. The military would relieve any commander whose company or whatever failed. We must do the same with our teachers.
Now, I want to be positive despite the obvious negativity.I believe we-”YES WE” must demand that our federal, state, and local officials mandate that all must obtain a high school diploma as a minimum. No pass or fail. No multi language BS. No excuses. If you are 18 and have not graduated, you stay in high school until you do. If it takes wearing a “Dunce” hat-so be it.
“... mandate that all must obtain a high school diploma as a minimum..”
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And, as I am sure you mean: with OBJECTIVE, measureable, non-negotiable standards of achievement.
No rubberstamp “diplomas” ala the racist John Thompson’s “enviable” Georgetown University basketball team’s “graduation” rates.
Schools resemble prisons now. Why stop with mere school? Why not send all resistent teens to real government prison camps? /s
I have two questions.
1) Given the realities of the bell curve, what should be the reasonable percentage of people capable of graduating from high school? If everyone could graduate and do the work needed to graduate then the standards would be sooooo low that the diploma would have no value whatsoever.
For a high school diploma to have any value approximately 30 to 40% of the population should be utterly incapable of doing the work needed to acquire it. Perhaps this 30 to 40% of the population would be far better off leaving school at the age of 13 or 14 and going to work or moving into some sort of apprenticeship.
2) Why are you assuming that any education takes place in any institutional school? Where is the evidence? Where are the scientific studies that **prove** learning happens there? I have asked educators many times for links to these studies and no one has ever provided me with the studies.
I owned, and was the doctor in, a busy health clinic. Over my career I had the opportunity to know many parents and their kids. I observed that parents of academically successful homeschoolers and institutionally schooled children both reported **exactly the same** home study habits and home environments. So?...How much learning is happening in any institutional school? How much is **entirely** due to the efforts of the child ( on his own) and the parents in the **home**?
Where is the evidence that proves schools are doing little more (or less) than merely sending home a curriculum for the parents and child to follow in the home?
Before condemning thousands upon thousands of young adults to school prison, maybe we should **know** the answers to the above questions.
But...Even more important are the constitutional and human rights questions of sentencing young adults ( who have committed no crime) to government school prison.