Pathetic, when you consider today’s high school diploma is the equivalent of an eighth grade education 25 years ago.
Pathetic, when you consider today’s high school diploma is the equivalent of an eighth grade education 25 years ago.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
And equivalent to a fourth grade education 100 years ago. I can testify that a lot of college graduates I meet couldn’t pass the final exams required to graduate public high school in South Carolina fifty years ago.
That’s why some kids are skipping it for good reasons! The GED is no longer stigmatized. Kids who want to get going on life are much more apt to “drop out” of HS these days and go on to college or their work life.
There was a very long thread on this a while ago on FR. It was one Freeper’s experience with dropping out of HS for just that reason.
My children are homeschooled and one of my son’s will absolutely be ready to finish HS by the time he’s 16. So he will likely enroll in community college and start some work/internships that support the career he wants to have.
Today's required courses are classes I was not required to take in the early 1970's such as Algebra. No Child Left Behind is a big mistake. It is trying to make all students college prep. High School needs to be changed drastically and let the students who are not college bound use that time for Voc/Tech training. There is nothing wrong with either direction in life as many persons in trades make good livings.
Allowing VOC/TECH students to devote most of their final four years to actual classes would also allow for much needed multiple field training. For example a HVAC student could also take an Industrial Electricity course. This somewhat lessens the chance of being trapped in a saturated job market in your trade.
Possibly the junior year of high school but definitely the senior year should allow 100% co-op OJT with the private sector. There is no sense in forcing students to sit through four years of English in high school that are not college bound. There is no sense in forcing students who will never understand Algebra to take the course either. It is a waste of the teachers time and robs students who do want to learn it of class room time. Count me among such and I consider my education which included 3 years post high school in Voc/Tech fields pretty extensive. I have secondary & post secondary school Commerical Refrigeration/HVAC training, Commerical/Industrial Electricity training, and I even have OTR truck driving training and have worked in all three fields. The first two mentioned gave me a great background for Building Maintenance. Not a bad position in a lot of places especially commercial buildings like hospitals etc.
As for college? I would encourage any student with the aptitude and desire by all means to go there. We need white collar professionals as much as we do blue collar. I would just like to see an end to the forcing of students notcollege bound into classes that will have little if any meaning to them the rest of their lives.