Joanne Jacobs reports on a plan to let students Test out of high school in 10th grade. For students which can prove they have mastered a core set of knowledge and skills they would be able skip 11th & 12th grade and go off to college. This is a great idea.
Why make teenagers mark time if they have already learned the course material?
I think it would be even better for teenagers who can pass the state exams to be allowed to go straight into the work force if they wanted. Our current foster care boy is two years old. He is very, very interested in cars. I could easily see him being a mechanic. Maybe when he is ten or twelve he'll start ripping apart cars and putting them back together. What value would a college be to him?
---------
Technorati tags: children, government schools, public school, public education, education
3 comments:
he might also want to race cars. or to design cars. or restore classic cars on the weekends to relieve stress from his job as an attorney. while it might or might not be a good idea for kids to test out of high school at 16, i don't think it's a good idea to look at a 2yo who likes to play with cars and call him a mechanic. that seems like such a small box to put him in at this young age. and i think that as his guardian, you may very well have a big influence over what he thinks of himself and what he will be capable of in the future. i'm not saying your conclusion is wrong; i'm just saying it's a bit early to say and that we need to be careful what ideas of their future that we project on our kids while they're young.
just my opinion.
Interesting idea. A homeschooler here recently made the news for starting university at something like 15 or 16--youngest person ever at that university.
springtreeroad: If we end up raising this foster care boy I'd be more worried that we'd push him into academics. Education is very important to Janine and I. We constantly talk with our daughters about when they'll go to college. I expect that this boy would probably also go to college, but we'll see. We've still got 15 years or so.
Post a Comment