Georgia has something called the, Hope Scholarship. If a kid graduates with a, 3.0 or better, they get their tuition paid for, at state schools. The money comes from the lottery. Kid has to maintain a 3.0 or better to keep the money flowing. Well, at some point the bean counters realized that more money was going out than coming in. More kids getting into and going to college, right? Lots of smart kids coming out of Georgia high schools, right? Well, it would appear, not so much.
How many kids, with high GPAs and Hope Scholarship money were in, Remedial Math and English classes at their institutions of higher learning? Thousands. How many kids lost their Hope Scholarships or washed out their first year, because they couldn’t to the work or keep the GPA up? Thousands. Now some of that may be from drinking too much, sure. But, most of it was not being able to do the work.
It seems that high school teachers, in order to give kids a chance, were stroking them grades, knowing that they couldn’t solve: 2x=6, find x, and passed them off to the next level.
Add to that, the fact that they rely on Smartphones and tablets for everything and people wonder why they have trouble with the basics.
We have the same program here in Kentucky. Mainly, what it did was... Convince more students (and parents) to sign up for “Basic” classes, rather than Advanced classes.. to make SURE they got A’s and B’s and got their Keys Scholarship money.
Hell, my own wife wanted me to do that with my two sons. I refused. I told her, “I’d rather they make C’s in Algebra II than A’s his long division”. Of course, they ended up making A’s and B’s in advanced classes, and did just fine in college.
Meanwhile, their High School celebrated 20 “Valedictorians”... all with a 4.0 GPA... 100% from “Basic” level classes. It was disgusting. NOT ONE of the students who actually took hard classes was recognized for their outstanding academic achievement. Well, not overall anyway. Many received outside scholarships and individual awards from teachers.
We have the same program here in Kentucky. Mainly, what it did was... Convince more students (and parents) to sign up for “Basic” classes, rather than Advanced classes.. to make SURE they got A’s and B’s and got their Keys Scholarship money.
Hell, my own wife wanted me to do that with my two sons. I refused. I told her, “I’d rather they make C’s in Algebra II than A’s his long division”. Of course, they ended up making A’s and B’s in advanced classes, and did just fine in college.
Meanwhile, their High School celebrated 20 “Valedictorians”... all with a 4.0 GPA... 100% from “Basic” level classes. It was disgusting. NOT ONE of the students who actually took hard classes was recognized for their outstanding academic achievement. Well, not overall anyway. Many received outside scholarships and individual awards from teachers.