This is one of Gov. Mitch Daniels' education initiatives that hasn't gotten the attention and discussion it deserves:
When the Indiana legislature passed the budget at the end of April, it also launched Daniels' plan, which allows high school students who complete their core requirements by the end of their junior year to skip senior year and go straight to college.
Money the state would have spent on senior year will become scholarship money -- $6,000 to $8,000 for most students, depending on their school district.
It's an idea that divides educators. Some think senior year is too often ill-spent and not so necessary. But others think the answer is to strengthen, not abandon, senior year.
"Just because the 12th grade may not be fully utilized to its potential by many students doesn't necessarily mean it should be done away with," said Phillip Lovell of the Alliance for Excellent Education, a Washington, D.C.-based education reform group. "It means it should be reconfigured to be more relevant."
I'm long out of high school, but I've been around them enough to know that in many schools senior year has become a busywork joke. But I think I'm more inclined to take the "reconfigure rather than abandon" view expressed above.
And it's not just about the schoolwork. There is an arc to becoming an adult that the high school education is an important part of. Students spend four years maturing from put-upon newbies to respected upperclassmen, which teaches them how to go through the same process in college, which prepares them for the work place, in which growing from rookie to a seasoned member of the team is an important skill. Somehow I think speeding up the process -- denying oneself the best year of revered status to become one of the youngest members of the next level of newbies -- can shortcircuit the learning curve.
And it sounds like a good idea to leave the decision up to students, but I have my doubts about that, too. Looking back from current wisdom, I might say that I would have elected to stay for the fourth year if given the choice. But back then, I likely would have jumped at the chance to escape early, and I don't think I would have been the better for it.
Comments
Practice makes perfect. Less practice, less perfection. I truly believe this is true. My wife who has an education degree taught in a school decades ago that based the students level based on a set of tests. Each test measured accomplishment/knowledge of the tested matter/skill. In math for example, four to five questions would be to determine if the student mastered addition. I do not believe having a student calculate the answer to five different addition problem as having mastered addition. It is more complex as I think most would remember when dealing with story problems.
I a a big believer that the majority of students are indeed average. Those who are not are in other schools. Having five children I have seen different traits in each; some read early, some have motor and problem skills very early, but have difficulty with math, English, etc. Others are very artistic and others are generally just study diligently.
However, in the end, what the school thinks is mastery of a subject matter and when the student is ready to tackle that subject is another story. Educators seem to dismiss the notion that not reading or knowing math at age 5 and 6 is bad. The think that knowing how to read and add in K is a must. However, I think that problem solving and creativity is a better skill/talent than being able to read early. In the end I have seen where all my children begin to have the same ability by 7th grade. Who is better off, the one that read at age 3 or the one who could figure out how to do things at age 3, but disliked math till 6th grade?
With each passing year, you absorb material. I look back now and think, why did I not see that in 1st grade? The reason was simple, I was off using my imagination, creativity to do things I liked instead of "learning" required things. In the end the need to know math, science was needed once I understood through experimentation (trial and error) that you could use these hundreds of years of recorded knowledge to build better things (not make the same errors).
Graduating early I believe is a mistake. I think they need to practice more and make sure they have a sound foundation before leaving high school. Your previous post shows that one educator finds students in college are ignorant of a lot of things. We need fewer types of economic courses (farm business, home) taught in school and one in general. We need one algebra class instead of beginning, standard and advance. We have divided our base course so finely that none cover the basics anymore.
In short, they need a lot more practice.