"Helping Kids Who Hate High School" (Jay Mathews)

[tokenadult]

<p>[Helping</a> Kids Who Hate High School](<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/01/AR2008090100078_pf.html]Helping”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/01/AR2008090100078_pf.html) </p>

<p>Interesting proposal.</p>

[cangel]

<p>Mr. Peters argument is the same one my DH (now ex-high school science teacher) has been making for years - college and college prep is not for everyone, and trying to make it for everyone does a disservice to the college bound and the non-college bound. It is the last part of his discussion that is so true, the larger long term effects of college for everyone, when what a lot of kids need and want is career exploration, training and basic education.</p>

[somemom]

<p>It’s a real shame there are not as many schools with a voc-ed track like there used to be, heck I took woodshop & metal ship in grade 7 and i know our high school had an auto shop. Based on any car repair bills, that is quite a decent job and requires a genuine aptitude, same with being any sort of contractor, all good professions for people with that talent</p>

[owlice]

<p>Mr. Mathews is a nice guy, but doesn’t seem to have much of a head for figures, alas, as he has ample demonstrated over the years.</p>

<p>

MATHEWS: … Also, 405,475 members of the class of 2000 took at least one AP exam. By 2006 that number was 666,067. We never came close to those numbers in the 1960s, when I was in high school.

</p>

<p>Took an AP exam, but did they pass it? One of the reasons for the increase in the number of students who take AP exams is because schools want to do better on Mathews’ “Challenge Index,” which doesn’t take results on those exams into consideration.</p>

<p>Also, how many more high schoolers did the country have in 2006 over 2000? I haven’t checked the numbers, but am under the impression that the number of high schoolers increased during that time period, so some of the increase is, I suspect, due to the increase of students.</p>

<p>

PETERS: … Don’t we have some obligation to prepare kids for the lives they will actually lead rather than the ones we wish they would lead?

</p>

<p>Yes.</p>

<p>Interesting proposal. I quibble with parts of it – it certainly doesn’t take some kids two years of high school to get through the first two years of high school classes. Some kids can easily meet some or all of that requirement in middle school or by the end of freshman year. So, don’t delay the start of college-prep classes for such students.</p>

<p>Also, parts of step three are not possible to do with any consistency. </p>

<p>

PETERS: …Create a simple report card to evaluate the instructional effectiveness of individual high schools that everyone could understand. It would consist of five simple ¿ and largely unfudgeable - measures of the school’s success: its pass rate on the two-year exit exams; its rate of graduate enrollment in four-year colleges (either right out of high school or as community college transfer); its AP/IB test-taking rate; its rate of students earning vocational certifications within four years of completing the exit exams; and its rate of graduates earning bachelor’s degrees within six years of completing the college preparatory program.

</p>

<p>Pass rate on the two-year exams – sure.
Rate of enrollment in four-year colleges – sure. Rate after spending time in community college? Good luck getting that info.
AP/IB test-taking rate – sure.
Rate of students earning vocational certifications within four years of completing exit exams and rate of graduates earning bachelor’s degrees within six years of completing college prep program? That info would be even more difficult to track than who goes to a four-year college after community college.</p>