Kissing "are" year goodbye

                I bet you favored your senior year of high school over every other. Everyone gets some pleasure out of homecoming, Prom, pranks, your last year to participate in sports and academics and the beloved Senioritis – whether that pleasure stems from being the star of the football team, winning homecoming Queen or laughing at the pair of them as they trip because her heels are too high is dependent on where you fit in your high school.

                Now, imagine that those moments never happened.

If, instead, your spent your last year of high school (Junior year) preparing to take a standardized test so you can pass, graduate and move on to college, trade school, the work force or your parents’ basement.

                Linus Wright, a former Dallas ISD superintendent and the undersecretary of education in the Reagan administration, suggests this measure to reform Texas’ education system in “Restructuring Public Education for the 21^st Century.” His fifth recommendation (out of 13) says:  

5. Eliminate 12^th grade from high school, using those funds for full-day schooling for 3 and 4-year-olds. The 12^th grade is the least productive and most expensive. Texas added the 12^th grade requirement in 1940 at the end of the depression, not for educational purposes but to solve an unemployment problem of young people on the streets with nothing to occupy them.

                

               Last week we discussed the pros and cons of public education starting with 3 year olds (feel free to check out those thoughts if you haven’t yet.) I didn’t conclude that argument, though, because I wanted to discuss funding such a program in more detail. That’s what the purpose of today’s blog is.

                In theory, Wright’s proposal to eliminate 12^th grade has a lot of merit. From experience, and listening to others, I can tell that most seniors learn little in 12^th grade. By the end of their Junior year, they know if they have passed the standardized testing needed to graduate. Senior year becomes a time to show up to enough classes to walk. Even for the students who don’t let Senioritis get them down too much, they spend a lot more time filling out scholarship and college applications than mastering new skills. Homework itself is often easier, as some teachers see seniors as group that has earned their degree and too distracted to put much effort into school work. Many students are engaged in duel credit from poorly structured community colleges classes, where they learn virtually nothing. Seniors anticipate senior skip days, and have, as mentioned above, a flurry of social functions to distract them, as well. The last few weeks of school, more than any other, are about putting in your time than learning. It’s easy to see seniors are not a highly productive group.

                At the same time, imagine how much money a school spends on its seniors. We’ve already mentioned all of the social functions the school hosts for them. Graduation is an expensive program. Teachers’ salaries are paid whether seniors learn anything or not.

                The National Center for Policy Analysis, where Wright is a senior fellow, suggests that the senior year is the most expensive and least productive – a bad combination at best. You can see how there is merit for this argument. If you keep in mind that many students drop out before their senior year as it is, the combination goes from bad to worse.

                If you take into account Wright’s argument that Texas created senior year in 1941 to keep students from entering a market of high unemployment, you can see how this is unnecessary (once our present-day unemployment rate drops), especially with the affordability of trade schools, community colleges and even some four-year universities. The 1941 decision served its purpose, but why keep an antiquated system when its use is run dry?

                Despite Wright’s logical conclusion that eliminating senior year rids of our most expensive and least productive reminder of the Great Depression and opens funds for early childhood education, I see a serious flaw in his ideas.

                Most seniors aren’t truly ready to graduate at 18. A surprising amount of 18 year olds drop out because they aren’t mature enough to handle freedom and responsibility or they don’t have proper study skills and the ability to find information for themselves (some students also drop out for lack of funding). This number is pegged at 27 percent at four-year colleges and nearly half (44 percent) at two-year colleges by the McGraw-Hill Research Foundation. Jay P. Greene and Greg Forster found that only 32 percent of students who graduated high school in 2001 were ready to succeed at a four-year university, in their study “Public High School Graduation and College Readiness Rates in the United States.” To understand the impact of those numbers, you have to keep in mind that about 30 percent of high school students don’t graduate high school, Greene and Forster found. That means only about 25 percent of all 18 and 17 year olds (those who should graduate high school) in any given year are prepared for college.

              Now, I’m not saying that everyone should want to go to college. I am saying that if about 25 percent of the population is ready for college each year, than it stands to reason that about 75 percent of high school graduates or students who should have graduated in any given year are missing important skills that are needed in the work force, in raising a family and in everyday life. Do we, then, believe that 17 and 16 year olds are better prepared to graduate after their Junior year?

                No, before we consider eliminating 12^th grade, we need to first consider how to give more than 14 percent of our population the skills they need to succeed upon graduation. What would those measures be? I’m curious to hear your thoughts.

                In all fairness, Wright addresses that issue in “Restructuring ….” After all, we only covered one point today. He wants to eliminate 12^th grade to fund early childhood education, which could give students some of the needed skills to succeed. His arguments also include making requirements to become a teacher more rigorous and selective, restructuring all grade levels so parents can be more involved and teaching core values. But, I would like to see specifics on how curriculum and teacher selectivity can change to better prepare students to graduate. Once specifics are laid out, then talks of eliminating 12^th grade can commence, if the specifics help solve the problem enough.

                I haven’t decided which of his 13 points I’ll cover next week. I named a few in the previous paragraph, and if there’s one in particular you’d like for me to cover, please, let me know. Thanks for reading.