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New Plan Lets Top HS Students Graduate 2 Years Early
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that education commissioners in Connecticut, Kentucky, Maine, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont have pledged to sign up 10 to 20 schools each for a pilot project that would allow 10th graders who pass a battery of tests to get a diploma two years early and immediately enroll in community college. The new system of high school coursework with the accompanying board examinations is modeled largely on systems in high-performing nations including Denmark, England, Finland, France and Singapore. 'We've looked at schools all over the world, and if you walk into a high school in the countries that use these board exams, you'll see kids working hard, whether they want to be a carpenter or a brain surgeon.' says Marc S. Tucker, president of the National Center on Education and the Economy. Kentucky's commissioner of education, Terry Holliday, says high school graduation requirements have long been based on having students accumulate enough course credits to graduate. 'We've been tied to seat time for 100 years. This would allow an approach based on subject mastery — a system based around move-on-when-ready,' says Holliday. However some school officials are concerned about the social and emotional implications of 16-year-olds going off to college. 'That's far too young to be thrown into an environment with college students who are about 18 to 23 years old. ... Most of them are just not mature enough to handle that,' says Mary Anderson, headmaster of Pinkerton Academy."
That's far too young to be thrown into an environment with college students who are about 18 to 23 years old. ... Most of them are just not mature enough to handle that,
Exactly. That's why we're only sending the top students. There will always be outliers who will be able to fit in at a collegeriate level when they're 16. That's the whole point of this program.
Our worry shouldn't be whether or not they can fit in at that level (I know plenty of 16 year olds who have a better head on their shoulders than many college freshmen). Rather, our concern should be whether or not we have an accurate way of determining if a particular student is ready to move on. What we have to ensure is that this program doesn't fall prey to overzealous parents - especially in the "everyone is a winner" mentality that we currently possess in America. I guarantee that if this gets passed there will be an outcry of "my child shouldn't be discriminated against. (S)he should be able to head to college too at this grade!" They're going to have to be ready for that.
"yay, we're so damn inept, we can't even serve the students who want to learn.
let's shove them out to clown college so we don't have to pay to edumacte them and they can't make us look stupid."
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
How is this different then TAMS? Get with the times people.
http://www.tams.unt.edu/
They'll only be far to young if they're the only ones. I have a feeling a lot of kids will be able to show the proper aptitude, and I have a feeling that college entrance exams will be re-tooled and remedial courses in college will go up a bit.
Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling a pig in the mud. After a while, you realize the engineer enjoys it.
If you are achieving that much at that time in your life, why on earth would you be going to community college? Either make sure that their high schools can challenge them, or get them to a college with an academic environment that will.
A community college does not have that environment.
'... Most of them are just not mature enough to handle that,' ...and they never will be as long as we continue to treat them like little children instead of young adults.
Alex, I'll take keybindings not used by Emacs for $400....
"However some school officials are concerned about the social and emotional implications of 16-year-olds going off to college." Community college is like 13th grade. If they're mature enough to work to graduate 2 years early, they'll be fine.
It's really great seeing incentives for students to work hard. when I was in high school I knew the rewards were not nearly worth the effort to acheive them... So apathy took over. HOWEVER. Hard working does not alyways equate to maturity. Its the same as intelligence, smart guys can still be assholes at times. I'm interested to see how this turns out.
This is more likely just a more sophisticated "trial balloon" which will allow goverments to cut thier education budgets.
http://newsroom.blogs.cnn.com/2010/02/16/should-we-get-rid-of-senior-year/
The idea DOES have some merit and it worth exploring, but remember to "follow the money..."
Why not set up some sort of apprentice system for the student who excels, yet is too socially inept or immature for College? Let them enter the workforce for a couple of years before they move on in school. I know it sounds crazy, but maybe offer a tax incentive for small businesses to take on these students, or maybe subsidize their wages. I'm sure there are many ways to encourage the idea.
IMO the real benefit would be from having the students experience the drudgery of the low level, "real" job and hopefully encourage them to take College that much more seriously once they get there.
I'm not saying advancing more gifted students is a bad thing, but what's the rush? Will it really matter in 20 years if they graduated at 16 or 18 years old?
Part of life (and particularly school) is learning social skills and maturing.
Frankly, I want my children to grow into rounded, self confident individuals in addition to learning how to apply themselves and succeed.
You stereotypers are all the same...
However some school officials are concerned about the social and emotional implications of 16-year-olds going off to college. 'That's far too young to be thrown into an environment with college students who are about 18 to 23 years old. ... Most of them are just not mature enough to handle that,' says Mary Anderson, headmaster of Pinkerton Academy.
Are you saying Americans are immature? Kids in other countries seem to handle this okay.
Maybe if you didn't keep 16 year olds stuck in high school when they are ready for college level or trade study then they wouldn't act like such high school students.
Quoted in the write-up:
Nobody's talking about "throwing" anybody who isn't ready, just about making it an option for students who are. Options are good, no?
You can opt for "dual-enrollment" at most high schools which allows students to earn credit at the local community college.
The real problem is with long summer breaks. School needs to be year round (not just space out the two months for summer) with small week long breaks. You can easily have everyone graduate 2 years earlier and the smart kids graduating 4 years earlier.
This would allow those kids in PA to avoid the voyeurs in the school system there.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
I think the fears about the kids at college are a bit unfounded. Due to being at the tail end of the cutoff date for starting my grade (which at the time was Nov 1 - I was born October 11), I ended up graduating high school normally, as well as starting college at 17. I know several other students who opted to take summer school classes to skip the 11th grade and graduate a year early. Me nor any of them that went to college had any issues.
The reality is most 16 year olds who are mature enough to handle this, are mature enough to handle the social situations of college. Yes, like most college students they'll probably hit up some parties and such, but the reality is most high school students are already doing that anyways.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Comment removed based on user account deletion
What about students who make terrible grades, drop out in tenth grade and obtain their GEDs? Last time I checked the GED gets you into community college just as easily as a real diploma. What have they actually accomplished here?
One of the main problems we have in our k-12 system compared to others is we try to put everyone into a "1 size fits all" school. What we should do is have schools that specialize. Allow the schools to put into place entrance exams -- like our college system. This is just a lame attempt to evade the problem by getting kids out of school sooner. Better to focus on the problem itself, as that will help far more people and won't require the colleges to lower their standards even further. (College today is comparable to high school 50 years ago.)
In our small rural school the population of kids declined by 10% this year (but the school taxes went up 5%) and is projected to decline another 5% next year. And the taxes are going up another 3%.
So with *this* plan - kicking the kids out of high school two years early - I guess I can plan on my taxes going up another 20-30%?!?!?!
And then in another eight or so years there will be *no* students due to our aging population, and the fact that fucking school taxes are so high nobody younger that 50 could *afford* to live here.
I'm sure the School Board Bloodsuckers will increase our taxes 100% to pay for a school system with no students.
It's called a GED.
I could have tested out and gone to community college. I knew a few people that did exactly that.
Thing was (and maybe still is) that a GED carried a certain stigma. My perception at the time was that it was better to stick it out in high school and get my diploma.
Do we want to extend childhood into a person's 30s and have them live at home as we're seeing a lot of people do? Do we want teenagers with little more maturity than 10 year olds? Let's increase the drinking, driving and voting age, because they can't handle it.
Or do we want to cut short a kid's childhood so that they start working at 15? Send them to the salt mines young so they can learn their trade early! Never mind the ones that can't handle it and end up depressed or suicidal. Never mind that you've robbed them of the chance to just be kids while they can be. From what I understand you've got enough trouble keeping your kids from coming to school armed.
Society is messed up, doesn't know what it expects from children, or even where childhood ends. Then people wonder why kids play up and go wild. They've got no clue what's expected of them.
What's wrong with the middle ground of letting a child have their childhood but not letting it extend into their 20s and 30s? If a child has special needs because they're particularly mature or particularly developed give them that option, but don't make it the norm.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
There are far too many kids graduating today whom I wouldn't even hire to wipe their own asses!
Basically, this means the public schools get out of having to pay for educating their top students two years early, while the stuents are then expected to rack on an additional two years of community college debt, before undergrad programs start to take them.
Or, the kids somehow jump straight to a four year school and then find themselves SOL when no employer wants to hire 20 year olds.
That's far too young to be thrown into an environment with college students who are about 18 to 23 years old
(1) you require college students to have a HS diploma,
(2) you're requiring students (generally) to complete 12 years of education, and
(3) you don't let them start until they're between 5 and 6
It's not much of a stretch to realize that you're not going to find many 16 year olds in college.
That said, there is still a lot of maturing to do for most 16 year olds. Even a lot of 18 year olds are pretty slim on the maturity front. I'll be honest, I'm not sure how comfortable I'd be sending my 16 year old off to college somewhere. A local CC, though, wouldn't be a big deal.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I went to the University of New Mexico at 14. Graduated at 19, Summa Cum Laude with a B.S. in engineering. Masters from Purdue at 21. I'm now 23 and a semester away from my Ph.D.
Believe it or not, I am extremely social!
My girlfriend, who is a foreign national, started her University studies at 16.
It is all about individual cases. Great to see more flexibility in the educational system.
The real purpose of this is to cut education costs by only providing 10 years of free public education, instead of 12. Schools can dump all the expensive advanced placement courses. This also helps keep poor kids from moving up in society, by diverting them off to some low-end community college, instead of bringing them to the point where they can compete for entrance to a good school. Rich kids in private schools will have an even bigger edge than they have now.
The next step will be to divert the kids who don't make the cut into "work experience" programs, i.e. McDonalds.
I suppose this is an easier solution than improving high schools so that they are able to educate rather than detain our brightest students.
I have nothing against this. If it works, do it. But it highlights what I think is a fundamental problem with the American education system: we try to give everyone the same education in the same place. You can't give the brightest what they need if you're too busy trying to regroup the stragglers.
'That's far too young to be thrown into an environment with college students who are about 18 to 23 years old. ... Most of them are just not mature enough to handle that,' says Mary Anderson, headmaster of Pinkerton Academy."
Speaking as a 19-year old who is attending a community college with a high enrolment of under-18's (via the Running Start program) I can say with full confidence that a lot of them are quite capable of handling it. They tend to place into the same classes as most freshmen anyways, they do about as well, and most of them adjust quite easily to the community college culture.
CC is easy stuff, not much harder than high school in the first place. I think this is a great move - it's at least worth a try.
Depends on the college and the course of study. NVCC is well regarded as a prep school of sorts for GMU, GWU, and UMD. Do your first year or two at a much lower cost than a "real" university.
Best Slashdot Co
There was two similar programs in Boston (in the late 70s, early 80s.)
I can't recall the name of the programs. The first would allow a high school senior
to spend their entire year as a freshman in college, and it would count both as their
freshman year in college and senior year in high school.
Another was the open campus program, it would allow a senior (I did it both senior and junior years) to take college courses as a regular student
and receive credit in both high school and college. The student still was required to attend classes in high school.
Fight Spammers!
In California we have the CHSPE, which is a High School proficiency exam you can take once you're 16. I took it and left HS two years early, went on to a community college then a 4 year and got my degree. For me it was a great option since I was essentially just twiddling my thumbs in HS.
Are we really doing kids a favor by asking them to grow up that much sooner? Because 35+ years of having to work every day isn't enough lets add another 2 years on top of that. There's more to life than working, and for 99% of the people school is just preparing you to work.
If you're a homeschooler, and you're 16 or older, and you can pass the placement exam (math and english) at the community college at the college level, you can become a "concurrent enrollment" student and take classes for transferrable college credit.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
In washington, there is a state wide 'running start' program which allows junior and senior high school students enroll and complete coursework in a community college and only at the community college and cast those credits back down to be accepted for high school. Running start students don't have to spend any time in the high school at all.
I went through this program both my junior and senior year and was able to get an Associate (2 year) degree as i graduated with a high school diploma in 2004.
It's a wonderful program... The last two years of high school is just ridiculous anyway. I didn't fit in, and i don't think a lot of kids do.
I was much happier at the community college where learning was the goal than at the high school where it really didn't seem that way.
really this needs to go all the way down to elementary and they need to suck down info as fast as they can absorb it. educated students are to held back by the current system where they may already know basic math and how to read and so spend the first 6 or 7 years of their school lives learning absolutely nothing. also our ability to learn deteriorates rapidly as we age so one relies more on acquired wisdom as opposed to reasoning skills, so the more wisdom acquired the earlier the better.
The entire state has a program called Running Start where you can take a test your junior year and if you pass the school district pays your tuition for the local community college. I went to the college full time, never took another class from the HS, and had my college graduation for my AA the day before the HS graduation. Only thing public schools ever did for me besides waste my time.
16-year-olds will become mature when they have more responsibilities. It's time we stop dumbing ourselves down.
I wrote to ask the author what this would do to, say, having four years of english, four years of science, four years of math, etc. The impression I get is that this is designed for people wanting to go on to vocational schools.
I can offer an anecdote here. Through some loopholes in homeschooling graduation requirements I got into my local community college at 16. Before long, I couldn't stand to be friends with most high schoolers. This whole high school mentality perpetuates itself (see: other countries).
UW Academy. They didn't give us high school diplomas, but once you have a bachelors, who cares if you graduated from high school? (Also, the continued success of the program is proof that at least some 16 year olds can handle themselves in a university setting)
Pennsylvania should know if they are ready to move on to college based on the live webcam feeds they have of the students.
"I don't have to think. I only have to do it. The results are always perfect, but that's old news." - Meat Puppets
Some rigorous, 4-year colleges will take 16 year olds as freshmen. The best one is Simon's Rock College which exists solely for that purpose. One can get a good overview of other institutions that have related programs.
I went to Simon's Rock for two years and afterwards attended a top-10 ranked university for two years. I think most students who care strongly about academics could benefit from starting college early, and if they went to Simon's Rock they would get better teaching and better peers than at said highly ranked university. (The university is much better in the area of research.)
Simon's Rock College
If a student is performing well, give them higher level content. This "everyone is the same because we say so" and keeping a linear structure to learning for all is asinine.
No sig for you!!
This exists already. I did it. It's called Dual Enrollment. You don't have to take a battery of tests. You just need a 3.0+ GPA, a willing parent, a car, and to pass a very minimalistic test to get into the college. Not everyone is cut out for it those, most kids just want to skip school. But the diehard nerds are in Calc III and Diff. Eq. by the time they're 17 and look at me now: Grad school for structural engineering at 20. Good program, just gotta get the lazy ones booted out so it doesn't look bad. I ha
It's called a GED. Unless you are trying to get into law school or medical school right out of high school, a GED is all that you need.
Living With a Nerd
It actually can. I did this very thing some 25+ years ago now. though my highschool was paying for my community college at the time.
And yet you apparently didn't learn how to post online without
putting line
breaks in app
arently random places.
Seriously, dude, what's with that??
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
We used to have a move-on-when-ready system, only the other way around. If you weren't ready to move on, you would fail and repeat the course/year/whatever. Strange to see this same concept offered as a revolutionary new approach for top students. Maybe it wouldn't be necessary to do this if the less capable students were forced to master a topic before moving on. How many of these apparently super-bright tenth graders are really just good students surrounded by kids that haven't been forced to perform for fear of damaging their self-esteem?
yp.
Agreed with the headmaster. I went to university at 16 and stuck out like a sore thumb. Social effects? the one guy in rez who cant go to the bar until 3rd year, so very few friends for 3 years, and none in the "popular" crowd. Not even fucking worth it.
I skipped my senior year of high school to attend The Clarkson School, a program that basically combines year 12 with freshman year in college, and the maturity issue was extremely apparent, in hindsight. Although, interacting with those of an older age was extremely beneficial in providing a "quick start" to collegiate learning and young adult development.
I like the idea of this program.
I hated HS and would have done anything to get out early.
In the end, as there was no early out, I simply dropped out of HS entirely. A bit thereafter I took the insanely easy GED exam, got my paper and started at my local community college in what would have been my senior year in HS.
I don't regret that decision. Never have. And once you have your BS/BA no one cares about your HS history.
"...we have been tied to seat time for 100 years..."
Amen.
My niece lives in Washington and was able to take advantage of this program. She graduated from Washington State University last year, at the age of 20. That she is a hard worker goes almost without saying, but I see nothing but good about rewarding that hard work with the huge head start she got in the pursuit of her baccalaureate.
Running Start
Similar program in Washington state, has been around for 20 years now. Students can enroll full-time in college and fully skip the last two years of high school if they meet the admissions criteria (though you don't get your diploma until the end of your 12th year.) This gets them an Associates in Arts and Sciences, which is immediately transferable to any Washington 4-year public university, and is guaranteed by law to fulfill their basic education (e.g. non-major) classes at that university. Alternatively, they can go part-time and simply transfer the credits, though not all are guaranteed to correspond to basic ed requirements.
Incidentally, I did the former, starting at 14. The administrator in TFA who thinks maturity is a problem for anyone who wants to do this program, though, needs to get a clue. While I'm well aware that the plural of anecdote is not data, it was an amazing program that beat the pants off the "high school experience." People at community colleges generally want to be there, and the elevated age levels mean that you're surrounded by people with experience that you can learn from.
got standards? --- http://www.w3.org/
I was bored in 11th-12th grade, and I grew tired of watching my peers and their cliques and other silly antics. College was much better by far, although it wasn't perfect by any stretch. But yeah - why not reward students for their hard work with something that will actually benefit them in the long run, as opposed to just putting them in the honor roll.
I was wondering if anyone would mention that. When I was in highschool, a junior came up with the plan to drop out, get a GED and then go right to college.
Sadly, she wasn't one of the brightest ones, and I don't think she did it... But it was definitely possible and made me consider the option as well.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
We seem to forget that, in much of the world and during earlier periods of American history, young people transitioned to adulthood much earlier than they do today. Thus, in many cultures, children take on adult responsibilities at age sixteen or even earlier. Besides, the only students who might seem out of place as a result of this plan are those who move on during the first few years of the program. Once it is well established, seeing 16-year old "kids" in college will be the norm.
To me, moving to board exams is a great idea. It lets those who are able to move ahead do so, and it takes pressure off some of those who might need a little extra time to master a subject before moving on. I'm all for it (even if my own kids despise the idea)!
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
I learned things in the first few grades and in high school. I remember the grades 5-8 as kind of a mental wasteland.
It seems to me that the most precocious people are frequently the least developed socially. What they need isn't to be alienated even further in an environment consisting of older people, but a way high school can continue to challenge them academically while providing a healthy environment for social development.
A long time ago in MN I tested in to Post Secondary Program and started full time at the University instead of going to local HS, got credit for HS and college and the state paid for tuition (and books). Sounds like these states want to give the top students a raw deal.
My grandfather was jumped across two grades in elementary school due to test scores, graduated as the class valedictorian in 1938 at the age of 15, and to this day, his handwriting sucks, since he was jumped across the grades where handwriting was learned!
I only attended kindergarten for the spring semester. In September 1985, I was at the correct age for kindergarten, but the school district wanted me to start straight into first grade due to my high test scores. My parents fought this, I spent a semester at home in "school limbo", and eventually, in January 1986, I was welcomed into kindergarten. My parents' argument: I might have tested at a first-grade level, but first grade would have chewed up an unprepared 4-year-old who had never been anywhere except preschool before.
Thanks to my half-baked kindergarten education, I was a less-than-perfect student through K-12; my grades and "standardized test scores" coming nowhere close to each other. My high school GPA? 3.065. SAT? M720/V530. Heck, my SAT was the saving grace that got me into a flagship state university. I wasn't in Gifted, since I didn't meet that threshold, so it was general classes for me. In 11th grade, I had to take the HSCT [High School Competency Test]--I aced the math half and missed something like five questions on the verbal half--I could have passed it in my sleep.
Even at the time, I was aware that I "kicked ass" on standardized tests, and I realized that there are people out there who were opposite of me: they had 3.5+ GPAs, yet had to struggle through standardized tests.
Flash back to 1996. Walk up to me, a 130 lb, braces-wearing, 15-year-old, 3.0 GPA high school student who tests solidly at the 11th- or 12th-grade level in every academic subject.
"If you can pass this battery of tests, we'll give you your high-school diploma, and you can start across town at the community college. If you can get your Associate's degree, you can transfer to a state university and get your Bachelor's degree."
"If I can pass this battery of tests, I get to go to college. Community college perhaps, but college. I'll bear full responsibility for attending class, taking exams, and studying. Among my fellow students, I'll be judged by my personality, worth ethic, and merit. Nobody will care that I wear braces and don't have a car. No more being heckled by [insert stereotypically ignorant group here]s for actually wanting an education. If I want to grab a part-time job to beef up my savings, I can do it. If I play my cards right, I'll have a BS at 19; maybe 20."
That would be the hardest you'd have ever seen me study. :-)
I did a similar college in high school program. I think it can be a great thing, but as long as colleges in the US are still highly valuing GPA, it is also going to hurt a lot of people. I was one of those "bright" kids, or at least people thought so in high school. So at 15 I was guided into one of these programs and basically left to fend for myself. In general I managed to do ok, but I flunked two online classes that dropped my high school GPA nearly a full point, and because I graduated soon after (at sixteen) I was not able to rectify it in any way, and this previously "bright" student has been shunned by all the colleges I've applied to. I'm 18 now, I've been a painter for the last two years, and taken some community college courses. My top school for transfer? Arizona State. That is who is likely to take me. Fuck people trying to push children ahead so that they, not the kids, get a pat on the back. No one is proud of you when you push that kid too fast and he's looked at as a burnout now. Hell, you likely don't even support that same kid anymore, or attempt to guide them. This goes for parents and teachers.
The problem is that most 16-year olds will have different interests and levels of emotional maturity than their 18-year old classmates will. They'll have all the same problems as those who skip multiple grades. I would think a better alternative would be to bring those college-level courses to the high school, but to keep all the similarly aged students in the same high school social setting. Just allow them to get the college level credits sooner. The social aspects of both high school and college are just as important as the educational aspects. Those who miss out on the social experiences often regret it later.
Speaking as a recent high school graduate, this isn't the solution. The solution is to not subject high school students to four years of bullshit, and let them move ahead at the rate they deserve instead of the rate that the worst of them can barely handle. For people who want more advanced options, getting 2 years of community college before being mature enough for university is definitely one solution, and for those who want/need to work, it's fair to not subject them to 11th and 12th grade. But I feel this way because any individual year of schooling is almost totally worthless, so why not just cut them out if there's a chance to let a person get what they OUGHT to be getting. All realistic knowledge and development of talent at a young age is either outside of the classroom, or so restricted by the classroom it's years behind where it could be. And people wonder why Americans are falling behind foreign students...
Beavercreek High School in Ohio already allows students to attend any of the following colleges/universities instead of senior year, and I suspect it is available for juniors if they are admitted: The Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright State University, the University of Dayton, Antioch University, Wittenberg University, Central State University, Wilberforce University, Wilmington College, Cedarville College, Clark State Community College and Sinclair Community College.
The best part is that the school district pays the student's tuition at least at Sinclair Community College or Wright State University and possibly the others as well. Why waste time and take a few AP courses when you can complete an entire year or two at college in the same amount of time?
Here in Benton and Franklin counties in Washington there's a program called Running Start. (it may be statewide I don't know.) Basically, high school juniors are given the option to attend the community college to earn both high school and college credit, and those who successfully complete all the coursework graduate high school with an AA/AS/AAS and a high school diploma. Pretty awesome.
You are correct. It's a good thing to advance people based on merit, but there are tons of adult-world elements that are not based on merit, but instead based on "putting in your time". Lots of things like upper level academia (try getting your phD in less than two-three years by testing out of it...instead it's often based on when they feel you have worked long enough), promotions which seem to never come unless you have worked at the company for a long enough time, etc. Can I take the bar exam without going to law school? Why not? I have to "put my time in" at law school even if I can pass the test.
However some school officials are concerned about the social and emotional implications of 16-year-olds going off to college. 'That's far too young to be thrown into an environment with college students who are about 18 to 23 years old.
I went to college full-time at 15 and it was great; much better than high school. The "social and emotional implications" were overwhelmingly positive; I grew a lot more from being in college than high school. People mature when you stop treating them like kids, and start acting responsibly when you make them responsible for themselves. Once during freshman year I had to go to back my high school to get a transcript or something, and it was very jarring when some teachers I encountered treated me like a high school student--someone whom they don't trust to act maturely and who has to be herded around to classes.
Wish they'd had this when I was in the third grade...
Not sure why people think this is so novel. Even 15-20 years ago it was well known that you could go to college after 11th grade and would recieve your high school diploma upon completing Freshman year of college. And this was Pennsylvania. I mean what's the state going to do if a college accepts you? Say your parents can home school you, but you can't go to college? Yeh, that makes sense. For a number of states compulsory schooling stops at age 16 or 17, ie roughly after 10th or 11th. Pennsylvania is 17.
And yet most people don't take advantage of this for a number of reasons.
Washington state already has a very successful program called Running Start that is very similar to this proposal. Starting their junior year, high schoolers are allowed to attend a community college instead of (or in addition to) their local high school, all paid for by public school funding. I had the great opportunity to participate in a program at my local CC called Ocean Research College Academy. ORCA gave me the opportunity to earn my Associates Degree while I finished high school (with college courses standing in as equivalents for high school requirements), all while having actual scientific research experience. Heck, recently they started maintaining an underwater monitoring station for the State Department of Ecology.
(Commentor medeii gives a better explanation of Running Start above.)
Of course, there's the concern that students doing this may be brain-smart, but might lack the emotional and social skills gained in a high school environment. Some of my own family made that concern clear to me when I applied for this program. However, because of the nature of ORCA (where students have to make an effort to apply and be accepted), the students there were predominantly highly-motivated and socially capable.
Anyway, I got a terrific education, earned an AA degree while I was still in high school, and got 2 years of tuition paid for by the public school system. Also I made some awesome friends.
-stalefries
Graduated HS and CC on the same day. They let her attend CC classes while in HS (the college credits applied to her HS requirements). Tis a good system for those who can handle it.
Individual treatment in general will improve education.
My cool story is that i was bright (but not brilliant) but hated doing repetitive nonsense (homework). i would have been a great student if graded on tests alone. Our current systems grade obedience more than intelligence or learning. In HS i had all the credits i needed to graduate my junior year (aside from senior english).
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...if their parents raised them like the parents of those kids in those high-performing foreign schools do, they would be mature enough for college.. like not letting them watch 15 hours of tv a day, or letting them experience the effects of alcohol in a safe environment so they don't feel like they have to sneak out and binge with their contemporaries, or setting rules and consequences for breaking them - and sticking to those rules, or actually talking to them about sex, drugs, and similar subjects most american parent avoid like the plague.
Anyone who thinks this is a bad idea and that everyone should be forced to stay until they turn 18 simply because of some imagined "emotional trauma" they might suffer has NO BUSINESS TEACHING CHILDREN! Some kids are simply smarter than others and some develop much faster. It would be a crime to hold them back and effectively punish them for being smarter and achieving more.
The only thing you get by holding back intelligent people is a bunch of extremely intelligent anti-social people who are frustrated and don't give a shit. I know first hand.
I was one of those kids in high school who was extremely bored. I stopped caring about my school work when I got a B instead of an A on an English paper...the teacher cited the reason for dropping me a letter grade was because it was "too long". Well, they told us it had to be at least three pages, so I figured five was a good balance between doing more than the minimum but not doing too much.
After that, I stopped giving a fuck.
I never did any homework or classwork, yet still aced any tests thrown our way. I eventually dropped out, got a GED, and worked full-time as a mechanic for four years before quitting due to injury. For that period of time, I made more money than the teachers telling me I wouldn't amount to anything. Now I do mail merge programming at a call center.
Will I ever get into management? Nope, I'll be a peon for my whole life...I'm only responsible for myself at work, and that is EXACTLY how I want it to be. A bit more money would be nice, sure, but I still make more than enough to support my lifestyle.
Living With a Nerd
the problem is, the test is not likely to test emotional maturity
If it did, many of the 18-19 year olds would fail getting into college while many of the 16 ahead-of-time year olds would be a home-run.
It is (many of) the 18-19 year olds that are not mature enough to be decent when bright 16 year olds surpass them in class. Sadly, those 18-19 year olds don't get more mature with age in that aspect. There is so many adults that can't take 16 year old software developers seriously.
I started college classes 2 years early. For me, I felt I fit in with the college freshmen MUCH better than I did with the high school kids. Advanced skills kids typically yearn to be with their own kind (or, if you prefer, geeks and nerds).
Why do so many people consider academically advanced and socially advanced to be mutually exclusive? You can be smarter that your peers in spelling but not more mature also? I've met kids who act alot more like adults that some adults do.
I am currently attending the university of Kentucky after graduating from a local high school before I was supposed to, recently after turning 17. I wish I could have taken a bunch of tests to determine how prepared I was for college instead of taking a couple classes over the summer. From personal experience I can say that I feel much better in college than high school, my gpa in high school was well lets just say low, while in college I am maintaining( and hopefully improving) on a 3.4, which is higher than the average. I am majoring in computer engineering and enjoy the classes I am in as opposed to high school where I just bothered to do well enough. Many of the lower level courses seem to review high school courses heavily, I wish I had been able to graduate earlier so I would only have had to learn it once. I also very much enjoy living on campus where I have many friends and many people are surprised when I tell them I am only 18 and a sophomore. My younger brother inspired by what I did graduated from high school at 16 and is also doing similarly, but on the other hand I have actually met other people who graduated early and are not doing nearly as well, being swept up in the social aspects of college, parties, and other such things.
Heh. As someone who was once a 16 year old freshman at an Ivy league school, I can authoritatively state that I was *way* too nerdy to partake of any of that until well after I graduated.
I participated in a similar program to what is being discussed here in the 90's in Washington State
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_Start
In my case I transitioned completely to the community college for my junior and senior years. I completed a two year CS degree before graduating from high school. I then moved up to the University of Washington as a full time student with two years of credit transferred and completed a four year degree.Aside from providing a superior educational environment it was also a 50% off coupon for in state college tuition.
While I can understand the point of view of many posters who worry about a 16 year old moving into an adult atmosphere I do not think that it should prevent anyone from considering this option. Giving advanced, or more motivated students the additional freedom to succeed or fail may be one of the most important benefits of this program.While some students will make full use of this opportunity, others will inevitably find ways to fail. Why let the fear of failure remove an opportunity for success?
I also take issue with some of the comments posted here that characterize community colleges as having an inherently low quality of education. The finest college professor I ever had was at the community college I attended. His passion and mastery of his subject matter exceeded many of the professors I met at the University of Washington. While not every professor was like this I think it is important to not devalue community colleges because of this perception.
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I do agree that 16 is too early to go to a University. The maturity level is just not there. In some states in India, high school graduation happens in the 10th Grade. The next two years are spent in a Junior College. These two years form the basis for what you want to specialize in your university. If you are engineering/physics oriented, you would take two years worth of credits in only Math, Physics and Chemistry. If you are interested in becoming a doctor, you would take Biology, Physics and Chemistry. There are other credits that you would take for becoming a lawyer, english major etc.
The upside is that you are not taking courses that you are not interested in. The downside is that once you make this choice, turning back would mean spending another two years in a Junior College.
How can people not see this for what it is. A way for those states to graduate kids early and save them the 2 years of public school expenses. Then kids who want out of high school can run out and get crappy jobs because they 'hate school'. This is only there to save the state costs. The concerns about 'social adjustment' is just a red herring to distract everyone from the actual reason for the change and it certainly seems to have worked.
If you are achieving that much at that time in your life, why on earth would you be going to community college? Either make sure that their high schools can challenge them, or get them to a college with an academic environment that will.
A community college does not have that environment.
Bullshit. Depending on the type of community college you are referring to. I spent my freshman and sophomore years at Miami Dade College, the largest center of higher learning in the US, the top center for learning of English-as-a-Second-Language at an academic level (catering to many university students from around the world), with superb facilities and labs, decent AA and AS degrees.
I got far more exposure and training in programming there than at the 4-year college I went after graduating from there. I shit you not. Its calculus, differential equations and physics classes were much better. We got full courses in x86 and mainframe assembler, programming with Mathematica, classes on expert systems, a full-time math/physics lab, theaters and fine arts stuff up to the wazoo. Broward Community College, a smaller community college in adjacent Broward county is not shabby either.
There is nothing in these community colleges that lack in academic environments compared to most 4-year schools. There are many other community colleges out there that are the same. In many cases, it is better to take your freshmen and sophomore science science courses at a community college than at a 4-year university because a) they are of a better quality, and b) they are cheaper.
Maybe you have never sat foot on a good community college or you went to a shitty one. But you are completely mistaken if you think the best chance to study at an academic environment is only at a 4-year school (sometimes it's just the opposite.)
Plenty of states already offer "Running Start" programs, whereby students spend their junior and senior years of high school taking courses at community college.
Generally the students who take part on this are not the "best and brightest" but rather the generally smart kids who for whatever reason don't fit in to the culture at their high school, or in some cases students whose interests are far beyond what struggling public schools can offer (such as Vo-Tec, Theater, etc). In my experience, the program was not a brain drain, leaving senior classes filled only with the least motivated.
In my opinion, the only way to fix public schools is to fix the structural poverty that most poor-performing students are born and raised in.
Sort of. The Running Start program allows high school juniors and seniors to take some or all of their courses at local community colleges and the credits apply towards both. So technically they don't graduate until 18, but it is possible to start college full time at 16. This program started in 1992.
I was a participant in the first year of the program, and it was great for me as I was able to get a mostly free year of college out of it (per student allotments cover the tuition but not books). The biggest issues were that almost anybody could get in, even without passing the placement exam to a college level (I got in at math 095, others much lower) and that the Running Start students were allowed to sign up before the regular enrollees.
The program is still in place and going strong.
Even the worst community college I've ever seen has been better than 95% of the High Schools as far as potential to learn. The whole "you're locked in here against your will" thing never really appealed to me, and I found it distracting to say the least.
I took a test at 15 to do exactly this, the California High School Proficiency Exam, left HS the day after I turned 16, and have never once regretted it.
Let's save the whole prison treatment for those that need it to learn (assuming/pretending there is anyactual value in doing so), and let the intelligent kids move on to college where students are treated with respect.
It's called Running Start. You can substitute the last two years of high school with two years of community college and still receive a high school diploma. I graduated community college and high school at the same time. Then if you transfer to a state university or college you will already have your first two years of general education completed. It's a great program and basically costs nothing; the college receives the money that the high school would have received from the state anyway.
Why limit it to a few states and a few schools. Looks like a plan meant to fail.
The kid graduates two years early, and gets a job for a few years so as to claim independence for financial aid. Colleges are gonna love this. (HA!)
But high school's not primarily about learning, anyhow: It's about sitting on kids until their hormones stop making them insane. This way they don't waste two years doing almost nothing.
The question is, how do we keep them from going to college right away, lacking the social skills needed to get much beyond academics out of the experience?
The motive to get rid of two years of highschool is enticing right now--especially to bankrupt state legislatures. This is all about cost-savings. In a way it makes sense. Universities have huge computer labs (compared to High schools) and fascilities for every speciality, yet, with a highschool in order to provide any sort of specific education requires a lot of money. Multiply that by how many highschools there are in a state (which greatly outnumbers the number of universities in the state) and presto! Instant reduction in operating costs for schools. No need to hire better teachers if the level of education remains remedial...
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I went to a medium sized University in the mid-west, and I had a couple of freinds who had graduated early from high school. One was 16 and didn't have a drivers license yet. He did fine academically (actually outstanding), but faced some social challenges. He would have likely had a better college experience if he'd come to college a couple of years later - why not have a more robust series of high-school options so that you can keep all students gainfully learning throughout the process? Strong magnet school programs can mitigate this - when I lived in Louisiana I attended an awesome magnet school in 9th grade, but then we moved back to Ohio and my school was good, but not necessarily challenging.
I think we would be better served by having our best and brightest attend primary and secondary school through the full 12 years, followed by a 4 year college program - get them better educated in the same amount of time vs the same education faster . . .
Their is much of your education at college that is more that learning the details being instructed - time, maturity and socialization are important.
Before you go off, yes, I know some people are different, and yes, I know several people made it big after dropping out of college - I'm sharing with you observations based on being 41, working in the military and the civilian sector with many of the best and the brightest / the cream of the crop.
Feel free to flame, but come talk to me again when you've got some more years in the real world and you may agree more with me than you do today . . .
Now there will be even younger girls for seniors to prey on.... Good times...
Pffft. Maybe you were, but not all of us were.
I went to TAMS when I was 15. Since it was a coed residential program, they had very strict rules about fraternization (separate floors, open doors if someone of the opposite sex present within a room, etc) and within weeks of arriving, a couple of us had figured out how to access the ventilation ducting and were making regular visits to the girls' floor/wing after lights-out.
I had a great time, right until I got kicked out. Of college. At age 16.
recently divorced, overweight 40 year old women, disabled/laid off blue collar workers, strippers who are believe the lies they tell their johns, barely above average intelligent poor kids, ex-military with the GI bill to blow, oh, and your anomaly situation which totally shatters my accurate generalization.
1) go to high school until the end, like today
2) have fewer classes in hs so you can go to community college without having to do it after hours
3) go to college early (like some people have always been able to do regardless of their age!) when hs has nothing left for you
4) give these outstanding students more opportunities to do exchange semesters abroad. Now THAT will teach them really valuable things: languages, other cultures, and more rigorous high schools than in America (Japan, Germany, etc)
Society DOES have to move on from the formula for the past 100 years. More than uniformity and conformity now we need self-starting people that can learn their whole lives.
Oooo, teachers' unions are not going to like this one. Teachers being held accountable for what they teach, and students demanding their time be spent on what they actually need to know and not the leftest political dialog that makes up a substantial portion of the classroom time in your average school. Why, it may even lead to merit pay for teachers who have a record of students that succeed (through some other means than warming a seat), and a means of encouraging good teachers to stay in the system and bad teachers to leave rather than the other way around. Can't wait to hear the screaming from the NEA.
I know someone who started college at 16, first at the community college and then on to a 4-year institution. She now holds a Ph. D. and is dean for graduate studies at a public university in a major Midwestern city.
And two people who started at 14. One is the director of the allergy clinic at a research hospital, and a damn good doctor to boot, and the other is me. I'm 21 now and had a perfectly normal college experience -- graduated summa cum laude in 5 years, and am now just about done with my master's degree. None of the above seem any worse for the wear.
Instituting a university level system such that students get a chance to understand it only makes a lot of sense. Yeah some kids won't be as adept at figuring out how best to work a university level credit system. And some will game it to some silly end. But I'm fully of the opinion that letting them have that chance on the public level will only make those who do go on to the higher levels better.
The only big thing I see is that collages/universities need to be aware that discriminating against those who decided to spend 4 years in high school would be illegal. If Sally want's to spend 4 years and graduates with a 3.5 GPA and 1500 SAT she is the same as Jane who does the same in 3 years. Not counting extra-curricular stuff and all that. I'm sure you all see my point.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
There are plenty of 16 year olds that can handle college. But, the problem is there are not many 20 year olds that can handle the real world.
Part of what was implied with that assignment recognizing that the teacher probably hates their job, has no intentions of actually teaching you, and (like most) just wants to do the minimum to get by (which is reading papers that are exactly 3 pages long, as 3 has probably been mandated by the department for whatever reason). I'm assuming that because she gave you a B, you never wrote over the requirement again (and as you said, you stopped doing work - meaning she had to do even less work, win in her book). This is how people (in general) work - they take the requirements and do whatever they can to just get by.
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Washington State has the "Running Start" program. After your 10th grade year, you start taking classes at the local community college. I know several local kids that have received their Associates Degree the day before they get their High School Diploma.
When I was starting my junior year of high school I was taking the last science (and math) classes that were available at my school. I did that partially by doubling up on some classwork that year, but nonetheless I had nothing left for my senior year. Then I heard about the Post Secondary Enrollment Option (PSEO) progam. It allowed me to start at the University full-time during my senior year, and the state picked up the tab. I was only required to pay my own transportation and supplies costs; they even bought my books.
From my point of view the MN program was actually better than what is proposed in this article, because the tuition was paid by the state. The credits I earned that year counted both towards my high school diploma and my BS. Graduating early would have been an option for me as well, although had I done that instead I would have had to pay for those credits I took under PSEO.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Geez, these people are not getting the message at all. The world has changed and yesterdays idea of a high school education is not good enough at all. Frankly the current crops of graduates are no where near what graduates from 1900 up until about 1965 were in knowledge or abilities. And that is no where near what is now needed. Frankly we need college (old school) level classes clear down into the eighth grade level. By the time a high school student reaches anything near diploma time physics, chemistry, calculus, trig and algebra need to be completed as well as far greater mastery of the liberal arts. And that includes the kids who only want to plant pickles or raise hogs or what ever.
We now have no way to coax or baby sit students. Keep the ones that have a burning desire to learn and boot the rest into the salt mines, prisons or ditch digging positions of their choice. If it can't behave kick it out.
Make no mistake. If we do not have academic superiority we will be lunch for China,Japan,Taiwan or any number of not so touchy,feely nations that would like to roast us alive.
I went to college (a 4-year state school) at age 16, after 3 years of high school. I fit in there a damned sight better than I ever fit into high school. Methinks the principal objecting is probably more worried about losing per-student funding than he is about the maturity level of the students.
When I left High School, I'd built up almost exactly two years worth of college credit from AP and dual enrollment classes (would have been over 2 years worth, if they hadn't lost one of my AP tests). Now I'm in my second year at University, and with only four classes a semester I'll still be set up to graduate before the end of my senior year, with a couple of graduate credits to boot. Sure, I could have accomplished the same thing by graduating two years early and going to a CC, but I would have had to pay for (or find scholarships for) that, while my high school paid for my AP tests and dual enrollment tuition. Not to mention the fact that going straight to a 4-year university got me a nice little bunch of scholarships...
I almost dropped out of high school because I had college entrance scores in the 95th percentile by the end of 7th grade. I ended up graduated a year early, and I treated college the same way I treated high school -- as a joke. I became disillusioned with school early on, and thus failed to really get all I could out of my university education. Graduating even earlier probably would have benefited me.
On the flip side, I dated a girl who graduated high school at 15. She was bright, but she couldn't take the pressure of university, and she turned into a fuckup. She flunked out of college, and last I heard she couldn't even hold down a job. So it's probably not something that can be considered wholely good or bad to allow kids to graduate early.
The 16 year olds who want to go to college early are not the problem. There are plenty of 18 year olds who are not mature enough for college, but just go because they can go for free because their family has no money. Then college becomes day care for overgrown children. When I went to Yuba college just a few years ago (in my late 20s that is) I was forever picking up trash behind these little peckers. There were, however, a couple of precocious 16 and 17 year olds in some of my classes getting exceptional grades.
Those last couple of years of high school are not lending anyone any maturity. High school, like the other grades of public school before it, are about indoctrination, not education. Learning to fit in to a scheme of bullying (wherever you might fit into it; perhaps as a silent enabler, as most of the student body is) that won't fly in the Real World(tm) won't help anyone. Once you're out of school, the system of jocks vs. nerds with the masses standing by and providing support in the form of an audience falls down hard. Most of the people who do very well in that system will peak there, and their life will be all downhill from there, with the exception of a few jocks that will have another moment of glory in college. However, if they perpetrate violence against other students there, they'll be old enough to be thrown in jail, and that's exactly what will happen to them. A very few of them will be successful enough to go pro, where they will still be punished for their misbehavior, as has famously happened to a large number of them.
If these students are to build maturity, it would be best to put them in an environment where maturity will be expected of them... like college.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Maybe if you didn't keep 16 year olds stuck in high school when they are ready for college level or trade study then they wouldn't act like such high school students.
Are you saying the sophomores are sophomoric? Surely you jest!
This makes no sense - if you are a top student you dont want to go to community college you want to go to Harvard or MIT. And, community college had more 45 year old moms with grown kids going back to school than 18-23 year olds anyway
I entered college at age 16, coming from a [private] college prep high school. Turns out I was in _waaaay_ over my head on the social aspects. And the age differential was from "skipping" 3rd grade, and had nothing to do with cruising through high-school. Moral of the story is for parents to be conscious of social issues when accelerating kids.
It's 2 less years of being spied on by your high-school-provided laptop!
This is /., so, no, I didn't RTFA, but what about athletic eligibility for high school sports? Not all AP kids are athletic rejects; some excel in both academics _and_ sports. So, if Johnny skips 11th and 12th grade to go to college, can he still come back and wrestle on the high school team?
Truth, Justice. Or the American Way.
Johns Hopkins University had a program called the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY). The state of Maryland selected the top .1% of 7th grade kids on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills for further testing, and Johns Hopkins provided the best-scoring 30 or so of us with advanced courses, both at JHU and at local community colleges. Most of us entered college at 15 or 16 (I was 15.)
It was, in the end, a mistake. I think most of the kids in the group weren't ready for college, and a lot of us didn't do as well as we might have with a couple of more years social experience behind us.
JHU stopped doing this 20 years ago.
There are some success stories, and some ok stories, and some really bad stories. I just don't think it's worth it.
Thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
Is this from the same people that are pushing mathematics and science in school? Good idea except mathematics is only useful sometimes and the science being taught must have come from another dimension.
The maturity element is utter silliness. This is like saying "16 year olds shouldn't hold a job."
If you are 15 or 16 years old, you can go into the workforce, and many do so. The workforce has plenty of 18-23 year olds, not to mention people well into their 50s and beyond. This is similar to the people at community colleges.
And like workforces, community colleges don't take any shit. If you even try to pull the stuff you could do in high school in class, you're kicked out. The people who pass the test likely wouldn't, though, and would probably mature faster in an adult environment than they would being stuck in rooms full of 14-15 year old juvenile delinquents.
The notion of being able to test out of compulsory education at a certain age would the best thing to ever happen to America's outdated Prussianist education system.
This has existed for years. It is called the GRE.
Why do stories about high school get the Slashdot collective so riled up?
I'm a secondary school teacher, and we already do this. Students in their junior and senior year are eligible to take classes at our local community colleges.
Here's something that hasn't really been brought up, though. The quality of these classes varies WILDLY. I've had students retake electives with me, just to get a handle on it before they move on to more advanced classes at a four year university.
I think that the key thing here is introducing some flexibility into what was previously an extremely rigid system. If you're ready as a student, why the hell should anyone hold you back?
Are people gonna accept their kids shortcommings and take the blame for once, if my kid doesnt have good grades or has bad behavior, gues whos to blame? me and only me for not kicking his a** every time hes disrespectful or has a fit cuz he cant watch a generic stupid reality show
I went there for a combination of reasons including boredom, but the biggest single one was one bully who was difficult to deal with. I dealt reasonably successfully with bullies closer to my size, but this one was tougher, captain of the wrestling team, outweighed me by fifty pounds and was two years older, socially connected, showing off to a girlfriend, and so on. It's hard to remember how much in fear for my life I was then (not sure how justified that fear was.) Sometimes walking away towards something better is the best thing you can do when those around you don't or can't help.
http://homeschooling.families.com/blog/bullying-may-be-a-good-reason-to-homeschool
http://www.stopbullyingnow.hrsa.gov/kids/
My Taekwondo instructor showed me how to kill the bully if he ever assaulted me again, but that did not seem like a good idea for multiple reasons, even assuming what the instructor taught was accurate. And I have since studied Aikido which has better ways to handle violence, including redirecting negative energy in more positive ways. Had the bully been the only thing about high school that was a problem, I might have tried harder to get the school to do something else to deal with the situation rather than my leaving, but in general the coursework was not that challenging. I guess that was also before the time of thinking about filing police reports for assaults in schools. Still, looking back from my forties, I can see many ways that I was more of an ass then (e.g. more of a praise-addicted show off and socially oblivious, if generally well meaning) -- not enough to justify bullying and violence if anything does, but certainly enough not to have enough great social connections to prevent bullying on that scale (others were probably afraid of this guy too, and the usual sad story, his father beat him, etc.). Had the teachers in the two classes we shared -- physics and gym -- not been, respectively, burned-out (taking many breaks outside the classroom) and the head of a wrestling team maybe with a chance at some regional competition that year, things might have been different. And while I was smart enough not to try to kill the bully (what a weight to carry), I was not smart enough to make him into a friend.
http://www.wikihow.com/Turn-Enemies-Into-Friends
Still, I had always wanted to go to MIT, and that then did not work out as I had not taken my SATs; Caltech accepted me probably based on my robotics work (including winning a Navy Science Award) and PSATs, but it seemed so far away and expensive and smoggy and earthquakey, so I did not go. So, leaving early essentially cost me a chance to go to MIT, where I had always wanted to go and do robotics. I had never really associated Caltech with robotics (even though I know now they are a great place for that through JPL work).
All the admissions person wanted then at SUNY Stony Brook (leaving in the middle of 11th grade) was proof that you had a B or better GPA. I was disappointed they did not want to see my science fair awards and so on. So, if kids can get into major state universities still, why shunt kids off to community college if they are academically minded? If anything, I think that I would have had an easier time of college starting it even earlier, when I would have been more focused on academics and less on social things and hormones. Maybe academically interested kids should skip high school altogether? Then, by the time hormones kick in, they're off to grad school for their PhD and can date undergrads their age? :-)
With that said, I had a sister who was a residence hall director at SUNY SB, which made it more acceptable (thanks, sis). I also had friends from the chess club and AD&D role playing who had started there the year before. I can see t
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
The plan is to take the best and brightest students and send them to community colleges? Great plan you've come up with there, National Association of Community Colleges.
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Similar type program is already in place in Texas http://www.tams.unt.edu/
open source sub sim. I might start coding again for this. http://dangerdeep.sourceforge.net/contribute/
The more prevalent this program is the less that it will become an issue since the younger students will have more peers at their age level concurrently enrolled in the program.
open source sub sim. I might start coding again for this. http://dangerdeep.sourceforge.net/contribute/
That's far too young to be thrown into an environment with college students who are about 18 to 23 years old. ... Most of them are just not mature enough to handle that.
This attitude is really a problem among school officials. I'm a homeschooler, now in highschool, which for me is a good community college. When I was in homeschool middle school and elementary school, the local independent study program was inside the local highschool (you go there every two weeks or so to report progress). The highschool was basically a prison - no one could leave - and there were lots of gangs and like. What happened was that the teens got rebellious, the admins cracked down, and then the kids got more rebellious. This loop continued and eventually reached it reached maximum - 1984-like conditions with drugs and gangs everywhere. One friend actually left this highschool for another highschool - because she's Hispanic and real, honest, neo-nazis where causing problems and threatening violence in the school. The problem is that people treated the teens like children, and they reacted to such treatment as any sane person would expect. I'm so glad and lucky I avoided this whole mess by being a homeschooler.
/.), which has been fun. I've learned lots there, and it's been a lot better than working as a fast-food server. It also caused me to really consider business.
I'm in community college now, and started at the same time I would have entered highschool. I was a little immature at first, but it did not show through socially - I could literally feel myself warping forward in maturity. It has been wonderful. I learned lots of things, and discovered a passion I never knew I had: chemistry and alternative energy (I was just a computer guy before). I got along with people, have college-aged friends, and in general had fun. Being a nerd here is like being a jock in highschool.
I then got a job at a Silicon Valley start-up (we've had our products here on
I think the US education system needs way less sports, less english, less arts, more science, more business, and most importantly more labs and experimental studies. We also need to lose the "everyone's a winner attitude", because it does not work in the real world. We need to lose the pro-team attitude, and all the positive thinking self-help style stuff. Universities meet with business leaders, determine their needs, and then plan accordingly. Highschool, middle school, and elementary school teachers and admins should meet with the business leaders and the college folks, determine their needs, and plan accordingly. In addition, we need to be aware of the fact that we will need more universities, and more funding. China is building at least a hundred new universities to crank out skilled workers. We're going to need to do the same.
Responsibility is an addiction
Virtue is a temptation
Community is a cartel
I went to college at 17 and let me tell you, it really sucks when the school has events like a "Beer fest" and you can't participate.
This program instead is steering them into Community College. Most of the better four-years require applicants to have taken four years of English in High School too, so its not like these gifted folks will even have that option if they want to take it.
This seems like a bad idea all around.
Their mistake was providing this program to the students with the highest test scores instead of the students with the highest readiness. It's very likely that the population of high school students who would most likely benefit from a program like yours are to be found among the A- and B students, not the 0.1%-ers.
Narrow skills testing does not give a very complete picture of college readiness.
I grew up in small town northern Idaho. In the 60's you could get a driver's license on your 14th birthday -- with driver's ed. It was limited to daylight-only until age 16. Meant that you weren't driving to a party until you had some experience, which decreased the butcher's bill considerably.
My folks thought that 14 yr olds generally weren't as cocky as 16 year olds. They were more cautious as drivers at that age, and this also gave them more experience before starting through the risky years. Insurance rates bore this out.
You could get a special license at age 12. this allowed you to drive by the most direct non-highway route from your dad's farm to the grain elevator. Often the grain truck's pedals had blocks bolted to them so the kid could reach them.
Third Career: Tree Farmer Second Career: Computer Geek First Career: Teacher, Outdoor Instructor, Photographer.
The problem is that most 16-year olds will have different interests and levels of emotional maturity than their 18-year old classmates will.
Most is exactly the problem with your arguments. Most will go to highschool. This lets those who are ahead on the maturity curve to move ahead and skip the insanity. I think young people need to interact with people of all ages. The best way I've found to do this was to go to hobby clubs intended for adults and late work.
The social aspects of both high school and college are just as important as the educational aspects.
People always talk about the social aspects - a common complaint about homeschooling. When will someone quantify them and study them?
Those who miss out on the social experiences often regret it later.
I don't regret missing out on the drugs, gangs, bullying, sports, and other nonsense.
Responsibility is an addiction
Virtue is a temptation
Community is a cartel
I have a story about a bean-stalk and a whale... it was taught by teachers, that also lied about Santa Clause and the Ethyl Alcohol Bunny.
not a student unimpressed by the literature.
Just like an A+ proves that a student either learned nothing new or cheated by studying ahead of time.
What's the point of education when I can just go to the library and learn meaningful subjects penned in better language and presentation style that these "career" employees that have nothing cutting-edge than their want of fame to teach as counted a greater position of society above elders?
Oh that's right, $30k per 6-months salary is low-pay for an "important" teacher, your kid has something psychologically wrong. Let's stand him out to "help" him if to disguise his shame, and force-feed some licensed meth-amphetamines in a Drug-Free-Zone. Do it, or the CPS Social Services helicopters will round you-up at gunpoint to teach you who the real parents art...
Do you want to learn swordplay from a soldier riddled with scars or priss that only knows to teach the theory without mixing it up for cross?
You don't go to college to make friends with other idiots. You go there to study, end of story.
I've read several books lately suggesting this attitude is a good foundation for watching your future job be outsourced to India from under your feet. Pure analytic skills are no longer the Mecca of employment they once were.
Also, painting your entire peer group by the deficiencies of the majority doesn't score well on the EQ scale. If 80% of your peers are so far beneath you as to deserve contempt, look around you, you've made the worst choice of college of anyone in the room. Three or four like minds is more than enough, amid a larger network of people oriented to succeed in life.
End of story? Yes, if that's your attitude, I bet it is. For the bright and broad-minded, beginning of story.
University is not such a great educational environment for the gifted. It tends to be far too compartmentalized and generativity is barely tolerated until you hit graduate school, by which point you're already deep into the politics of career advancement.
What I would have liked between high school and university is two years in a program with no intellectual walls, a complete absence of what McLuhan called "hardening of the categories". Let the gifted student gravitate to his/her own level, find some difficult problems of interest, and go where the wind takes you.
Why can't we postpone hardening of the categories until our gifted young people have actually learned something of their own devising?
You'll never find a programming language that will free you from the burden of clarifying your ideas. Isn't that the same quest of computer-assisted-learning? Given a young person who has figured out how to engage that challenge, resources for computer-assisted-learning are now ubiquitous that could barely be conceived thirty years ago, bigger than the Library of Congress and a million times faster.
You see this in the software profession as well. Surrounded by the riches of invention, some people only manage to see that the programming language of the moment isn't managing to prevent the guy next to you from making sloppy or irritating mistakes.
Surprised there haven't been /.ers that mentioned the Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science (www.tams.unt.edu) at The University of North Texas. This program has been around for 20+years as a 2yr early admissions college program for the best students in TX interested in STEM careers. Initially it was the only game in the state for the best of the best students until the mid-90's when a separate liberal arts based program (TALH) was created at Lamar University.
As to the quality of student productivity for 16/17/18 yr olds... not only are they mature enough to succeed at a research intensive university, they compete with the brightest students in the country based on not only being named Intel and Siemens science competition semifinalists/finalists but also Barry Goldwater Scholars. Over the last 10-15yrs that UNT has nominated students, the vast majority have been TAMS students, and the resulting named scholars from TAMS/UNT equal or outweigh in number those from the 'other' larger TX research universities.
In other words, the brightest 16yr olds (however you measure them) can succeed - excel even - at the college level, way beyond what most give them credit for. I'm an old-school TAMS graduate myself and many of my former classmates are like myself, PhDs, MDs, DOs, JDs, etc. providing needed economic growth not only to TX but across the country.