The whole idea of basing education on age is ridiculous to begin with.
Kids should be able to advance once they demonstrate they have the knowledge to advance. Each level should have an optional test that allows one to advance to the next level, and that test should be available whenever the pupil wants to take it. Combine their performance on the test with observations from teachers of class performance and move the pupil up accordingly.
If this results in some precocious seven year-old graduating, more power to her.
Being 16 doesn't mean you have a 10th grade level of knowledge any more than being 40 means you are responsible. Everyone is different.
The same problems can be found in undergrad education. Degrees are earned by putting in four years. Why are all degrees four years long? Do all fields have exactly four years worth of knowledge to impart? Degrees should be based on demonstrable knowledge of the subject, however long (or short) that takes.
You can also view it as a proof that imparting knowledge is not the purpose of the schools that presently exist, contrary to how they're advertised. Because if they had anything to do with education, they would look like what Xichekolas postulates.
Our education system is horribly out of date, any option which allows them to exit the system or progress to the next stage quicker is great in my book.
I'll save a rant on the current public education system in America for another time, but the Internet has changed everything and the school system needs to adapt and change quickly or it's going to begin doing more harm than good.
I left school at age 16 and have been self employed since age 17. If I'd had to stay until 18 (as they are now doing here in the UK) I doubt I'd have been involved in the startup scene and had as much success as I have, because I would have gone on to become a lawyer or a member of some other "profession."
Locking up free spirits for another couple of years might not look like a bad thing, but at that age you're very impressionable, and if you're always being told that getting a degree and a "career" is the best thing, those two years could be the death of your creativity.
Whenever you get involved, there's always something new under the sun. There was in 96, there was in 98, there was in 2004 and there will be time and time again :)
Yes they should be allowed to. I always wanted to be free from studying general subjects common to all and wanted to specialize into my own interests as soon as possible. But the education system (as in India) doesn't allow to start doing that unless I have completed 12 years of schooling. Over that, to get into good institutions we have to compete on Physics, Chemistry & Maths, and not in the areas we are interested and have developed great skills at early ages. This system of education is really missing on students who tend to develop interests in particular field at early ages. And leaves such students (as in India) to third grade institutions with lack of infrastructure. Such students have learnt and played with things on their own eversince they got interest in their field. But this style of separation by competition in India won't help it in any ways. I find people in IITs who realize that they weren't meant to be there and they don't like computer science... after 2 years of college. And on other hand we got people in low ranking colleges with good skills but restricted due to their college's capabilities and lack of opportunities around their college. I think its clear from my loosely planned thoughts that in India money doesn't exist equally among people... same is the case with education. Apart from a few good universities and colleges, the rest of the majority still lies in gloominess of poor quality.
The goal should be education for everyone and not just for the ones who rank high in competition. Education for those who deserve and not for those who could change morph themselves into high scoring machines... not for those who cleared exams because of familial pressures... for those who like doing what is done in engineering.
I went to a public high school in New Hampshire and graduated two years ago, and find these tests intriguing.
So much of what was taught in my school was a waste of time, so I'm really happy to see the education officials actively trying to solve that problem.
However, I'm skeptical about how useful these tests will actually be. The article says: "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." If students who do well on the test still have to stick around for two years more years, what was the point in taking the tests?
To me it seems like the tests are a way to give diplomas to capable students who otherwise would have dropped out. That might work out really well -- all of my friends who dropped out of high school were perfectly capable of graduating, but they wouldn't have learned anything more and they didn't feel like putting up with the education system any longer.
Please. I'm currently a junior in high school and I am a "founder" (can't really officially call myself one without being on my own) of a few startups.
High school really doesn't seem to be worth my time.
Few degree programs are tailored to an individual. School is a place of babysitting of students, giving them time to figure out how to learn and work with others. And it's designed so that if a student hands in assignments and shows up to class, they will finish with some kind of a degree. Otherwise, or in conjunction with this effort, students are free to do as they please--they may try to start a business, join the honors program, start a club, join a sport, and/or do anything else. This means that a degree and grades are not necessarily proof of competence or a judgement of one's skill, but show the degree holder has been exposed to an environment where they had to learn and get along with others. The piece of paper after four to five years is just the minimum notification they have to give to kick a student out into the real world--it is up to the student himself to have become functional enough in that time to know to avoid a mind-sucking career.
The comments so far seem to be analyzing the rule as it pertains to themselves (I'm smart and don't need HS to be successful!). We need to take a step back and look at the larger demographic set.
My wife and I have been advocating this for several years now, but graduation would not be the only option. The emphasis here is on choice. Once they turn 16 (the magical arbitrary number) they have a choice: stay, test out, go get your AA at a comm college, go to a trade school, peace corps, military, or apprentice somewhere. Needless to say the entrenched educators we've talked to about this hate it, but I'm still behind it.
They would almost certainly learn more from age 16-18 if they graduated early than if they stayed in the government education sector for 2 more years. Of course, the same case could be made for any earlier grade as well.
You can already do this: quit highschool, take the GED, go to a community college, and transfer to a university. The only problem is that the school switch can have a bad effect on your social life. Hopefully the New Hampshire test will help students to skip community college and get directly into university.
I waited to graduate highschool... I had an equivalency in 10th grade, though. I regret not leaving highschool as soon as possible. I would have had another year working during the .com boom. as it is, I only got in on the tail end.
No. We already have a testable case in the US, which is a large percentage of kids drop out in the 10th grade. We increasingly are losing kids to low-skilled service jobs.
Whats wrong with dropping out after the 10th grade and going to a community college?
You would learn the same things (or more) and actually get something for your time. You could cheaply knock two years off of college that way. You would also be in classes with people who actually want to learn.
That route usually requires some sort of high school diploma or equivalent. It's also exactly what I did. I don't regret leaving high school early because it was a real hellhole for me. For the record, it's also entirely possible to transfer to prestigious 4 year universities this route too. I'm planning on applying to Stanford and the like :)
Many of my friends also finished HS early or left in middle/high school to go to college. We're very proud to call ourselves high school dropouts. ;)
I also "dropped out" to go to college. If that's what you're doing, then great! But I think the earlier poster was referring to students who drop out and just get a low-end job somewhere. I suppose that's fine if that's really what you want to do, but how many high-school drop-outs really quit school out of strong desire to enter the food service industry?
Yeah, there are some people who do that. But I really doubt a lot of them ARE doing so because they want to, but because given multiple factors (family, past history, school..life in general, really) that it's very difficult to get a good post-HS education with the budget and resources they have for a career they want. Loans, grants and scholarships are hard to come across especially with the way the economy is now..and like I said, I dropped out of HS to go to a community college. My tuition costs less than my textbooks, and in total as a full time student with a 12 unit courseload now I'm paying less than $1000 for classes+books+materials+parking permits and all that this semester. But some of my classmates are struggling with financial aid and jobs because they can't even afford to pay for the classes alone and they are residents, not students paying insanely high out-of-state rates.
For what it's worth, I have considered entering the foodservice industry, but as an owner/operator and not a minimum-wage employee. In the right location with the right food, there's a killing to be made and it could leave me a fair amount of time to work on what I want (code code code ;) ). But again like you point out, it's a different situation. Most high school dropouts wouldn't be considering that.
On a related tangent, what's interesting to note is just how much of those units I'm taking now can transfer to the schools I'm applying to. Almost all of my classes transfer to UC (I'm in a california CC), which means for the same as one year's tuition at a UC like UCLA or UC Berkeley, I could spend a couple years at a CC taking the same classes, possibly even pay rent on an apartment and gas for the car, and then transfer. I'm seeing more and more students go this route because they're short on money even to go to a UC. Like I said, mine this semester is under $1000 and I could probably make a fair amount of that back by selling my textbooks, this academic year at UCLA is just under $10,000 for undergrad.
FYI, I found working retail more satisfying than high school. It makes you feel important, you feel like your actually getting something done, your getting paid, and if your one of rare people who actually would stick around in those environments, you'll get into management quick with a $30'000 annual job. I could see how it would be tempting for some people fed up with high school.
In my sophomore year in high school, I wanted to drop out. Things are taught too slowly, and 12 years of learning is far too much with the present system. If there were more acclaimed systems for graduating early, I'd have jumped at it. That's what this article is about.
I had teachers who were easily good enough to teach for private schools, who chose public service instead. I believe that teachers are good people stuck in a bad system.
Yeah. The system is at fault. But don't go around suggesting that the system only exists to give hand-outs to teachers. Teachers are worth much more than schools pay them.
Now that I think about it, you could say that I started college at age 16. I was still a High School Senior but I had met most of the requirements for graduation so the school paid for me to attend the local university. (I graduated from HS and started attending college full-time out of state at age 17.)
Any program which allows bright students to accelerate their progress is good in my book.
Their "progress"? Their progress at what? I went to school at 16, and it's a mistake. Most people, certainly myself, are not socially prepared to deal with the environment at 16. Hell, if people are being coddled today, there's no way in God's green earth that they can self-organize on their own at that age.
Yeah, people do it successfully, but then some people can remove their own appendices and live. Just don't bet that way.
We had a system like that, too. The problem was that it was an ugly workaround. I think that making the system better should be preventing exceptions, not using them to avoid a broken system.
Why is that a bad thing? It is awesome if someone is intellectual and job focused, but it's similarly fine if someone is not. We can't all be paper pushers or professors - we should be grateful to those in the service industry.
If we didn't "lose" people to "low-skilled service jobs" then there'd be a lot more competition for high end jobs, which would drag up costs across the board.
It's a bad thing if those in the "low-skilled service jobs" are there because they gave up on something bigger.
It's a good thing if they are in those "low-skilled service jobs" because that's where they are happy.
Likewise, it would have been bad for the likes of Steve Wozniak to have lived his life as a cubicle-dwelling random engineer, rather than to have blessed the world with his bigger ideas. We should all aim for what we really want to do in life... our highest potential. If that's food service, then great! Do it with gusto! But don't settle for food service out of giving up on something else.
You forget, Woz liked his job at HP before Apple and was reluctant to leave. Jobs had to get all Woz's family and friends to talk to him before he went and quit HP.
It's a bad thing if those in the "low-skilled service jobs" are there because they gave up on something bigger.
Are the people with the drive and ambition to do something bigger the type to give up? It seems like a catch 22 to me.
There are many successful people who grew up poor, uneducated, and even in violent family situations, but are now successful. They may have even had a "low skilled service job" at one point. It's good we have people to work those jobs - we need them, and it appears to be no serious impediment to true ambition and skill.
Likewise, it would have been bad for the likes of Steve Wozniak to have lived his life as a cubicle-dwelling random engineer, rather than to have blessed the world with his bigger ideas.
Without Steve Jobs' endless gusto and encouragement, that might have happened. It's not necessarily that we give up on things and end up with crappy jobs.. it's usually that we have crappy jobs and then things come along and inspire us out of it.
Kids should be able to advance once they demonstrate they have the knowledge to advance. Each level should have an optional test that allows one to advance to the next level, and that test should be available whenever the pupil wants to take it. Combine their performance on the test with observations from teachers of class performance and move the pupil up accordingly.
If this results in some precocious seven year-old graduating, more power to her.
Being 16 doesn't mean you have a 10th grade level of knowledge any more than being 40 means you are responsible. Everyone is different.
The same problems can be found in undergrad education. Degrees are earned by putting in four years. Why are all degrees four years long? Do all fields have exactly four years worth of knowledge to impart? Degrees should be based on demonstrable knowledge of the subject, however long (or short) that takes.