10th graders graduating???

Should Kids Be Able to Graduate After 10th Grade?
By KATHLEEN KINGSBURY Kathleen Kingsbury Fri Nov 7, 4:45 am ET
High school sophomores should be ready for college by age 16. That's the message from New Hampshire education officials, who announced plans Oct. 30 for a new rigorous state board of exams to be given to 10th graders. Students who pass will be prepared to move on to the state's community or technical colleges, skipping the last two years of high school. (See pictures of teens and how they would vote.)


Once implemented, the new battery of tests is expected to guarantee higher competency in core school subjects, lower dropout rates and free up millions of education dollars. Students may take the exams - which are modeled on existing AP or International Baccalaureate tests - as many times as they need to pass. Or those who want to go to a prestigious university may stay and finish the final two years, taking a second, more difficult set of exams senior year. "We want students who are ready to be able to move on to their higher education," says Lyonel Tracy, New Hampshire's Commissioner for Education. "And then we can focus even more attention on those kids who need more help to get there."


But can less schooling really lead to better-prepared students at an earlier age? Outside of the U.S., it's actually a far less radical notion than it sounds. Dozens of industrialized countries expect students to be college-ready by age 16, and those teenagers consistently outperform their American peers on international standardized tests. (See pictures of the college dorm room's evolution.)


With its new assessment system, New Hampshire is adopting a key recommendation of a blue-ribbon panel called the New Commission on Skills of the American Workforce. In 2006, the group issued a report called Tough Choices or Tough Times , a blueprint for how it believes the U.S. must dramatically overhaul education policies in order to maintain a globally competitive economy. "Forty years ago, the United States had the best educated workforce in the world," says William Brock, one of the commission's chairs and a former U.S. Secretary of Labor. "Now we're No. 10 and falling."


As more and more jobs head overseas, Brock and others on the commission can't stress enough how dire the need is for educational reform. "The nation is running out of time," he says.


New Hampshire's announcement comes as Utah and Massachusetts declared that they, too, plan to enact some of the commission's other proposals, such as universal Pre-K and better teacher pay and training. Still more states are expected to sign on in December. And the largest teacher union in the U.S., the National Education Association, is encouraging its affiliates to support such efforts.


Some reform advocates would like to see the report's testing proposals replace current No Child Left Behind legislation. "It makes accountability much more meaningful by stressing critical thinking and true mastery," says Tracy.


No date has been set for when New Hampshire will start administering the new set of exams, which have yet to be developed. But to achieve the goal of sending kids to college at 16, Tracy and his colleagues recognize preparation will have to start early. Nearly four years ago, New Hampshire began an initiative called Follow the Child. Starting practically from birth, educators are expected to chart children's educational progress year to year. In the future, this effort will be bolstered by formalized curricula that specify exactly what kids should know by the end of each grade level.


That should help minimize the need for review year to year. It will also bring New Hampshire's education framework much closer to what occurs in many high-performing European and Asian nations. "It's about defining what lessons students should master and then teaching to those points," says Marc Tucker, co-chair of the commission and president of the National Center for Education and the Economy in Washington. "Kids at every level will be taking tough courses and working hard."


Right now, Tucker argues, most American teenagers slide through high school, viewing it as a mandatory pit stop to hang out and socialize. Of those who do go to college, half attend community college. So Tucker's thinking is why not let them get started earlier? If that happened nationwide, he estimates the cost savings would add up to $60 billion a year. "All money that can be spent either on early childhood education or elsewhere," he says.


Critics of cutting high school short, however, worry that proposals such as New Hampshire's could exacerbate existing socioeconomic gaps. One key concern is whether test results, at age 16, are really valid enough to indicate if a child should go to university or instead head to a technical school - with the latter almost certainly guaranteeing lower future earning potential. "You know that the kids sent in that direction are going to be from low-income, less-educated families while wealthy parents won't permit it," says Iris Rotberg, a George Washington University education policy professor, who notes similar results in Europe and Asia. She predicts, in turn, that disparity will mean "an even more polarized higher education structure - and ultimately society - than we already have."


It's a charge that Tracy denies. "We're simply telling students it's okay to go at their own pace," he says. Especially if that pace is a little quicker than the status quo.

Well I dont know if you are aware Aaron but HS kids are already allowed to take college classes.

Sometimes even having 1 or 2 whole semesters completed by the time they graduate.

Yes Sherman, I'm aware of that. That is not what this article is about. Perhaps you should read the entire artricle and them comment.

Aaron,

I've had a really long, busy day and I didn't really read the entire post. I read the first couple of paragraphs and skimmed the rest. I'm posting so that a) I don't forget about the thread and b) to give you something to research if you're so inclined until I can actually get back to it.

Back in the 90's there was a huge push for something called a "Certificate of Initial Mastery". The "CIM" would be granted after completing the 10th grade and successfully passing a serious of tests. Parents were outraged, and rightfully so.

It's been a while but I seem to recall that after receiving a CIM, only students who intended to go on to college would remain for a high school diploma. Everyone else would either join the military, go on to a trade school of some sort, or just enter the work force. Those touting CIM carried on how benficial it would be for students who wanted to be hair dressers and carpenters not to have to do an additional two years of high school that isn't beneficial to their career path.

Bullshit.

It is an elitist system designed to weed out the under achievers and bad apples. Only the best and the brightest would receive a full high school education. It sounds to me like this is the exact same thing only they are trying to put a new spin on it.

My daughter will complete high school in 3 years. She will have enough credits to graduate and taken all the required courses. She just will do it in 3 years instead of 4. As a matter of fact, she entered her third year with enough credits to be considered a senior. That isn't what this is about at all.

This is about consigning untold numbers of youngsters to a life of substandard wages and preventing them from reaching their full potential. It's disgusting to me that these people want to write off such a large portion of our population as not suitable for higher education at such a very young age.

Shame on them.

Well Steph at the risk of getting chastised again maybe she can pick up college level classes while in HS so long as she completes her HS graduation requirements.

That way she could graduate college in 3 yrs., which is a lot cheaper than 4.

Goodness no.

The sooner she is out of there the better off she'll be.

Putnam County would not give her any credit for anything she did as a homeschooler....so although she had done Algebra I and Spanish I and Civics etc with me (ok, hubs did Algebra I suck at math) she had to take them at BHS. It helped her GPA...she got A's in everything but Algebra I & PE her first year. This is a deal they made with us so she could graduate with her class. She took a class online (well actually she took two) in order to have enough credits to graduate.

If she were to stay at BHS another year there would be little for her to take. She will have taken every science class the school offers, with the exception of the lowest level classes. She will have taken 12th grade English. So she'd have to take what little they offer that she could get college credit for. She'd also be 18 years old and forbidden from taking Tylenol to school! It would be foolish.

Kate has applied to and been accepted to 4 colleges and all but the public one has offered her significant scholarships already. Also, she is taking AP Biology and AP Chemistry this year and she will get college credit for those classes if she scores high enough on the AP exams. There is nothing to be gained by her staying in high school another year, other than we would have the pleasure of her company little longer. But that also means putting up with another year of public school bullshit. None of us are up for it.

Stephanie,

I don't have time to do much research but I think this will make an interesting conversation down the road. I'll do some research once I get the plant shut down and have some much needed down time.