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."

Comments

Ill placed worries

[pwnies]

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.

Re:Ill placed worries

[Renraku]

This will last until some parent decides that their kid is smarter than 'the system' and sues for 'discrimination' against '(social class)'. Where (social class) can be race, disorder, sex, location, criminal record, etc. It'll quickly be axed by the legal department of whatever schools are taking part in it. Even without this, there are still a LOT of parents who call up the teachers and demand better grades for their snowflakes.

Re:Ill placed worries

[Maniacal]

Agreed. Plus, this is only going to be a problem for the "pioneers" of the program. Colleges only have an abundance of 18 to 23 year olds because of the way the system is structured. If they were to change to this new system colleges are going to be full of 16 to 23 year olds in no time.

Re:Ill placed worries

[Red Flayer]

I dunno about that...

I had 33 college credits under my belt (from AP classes & night classes at the local community college) when I finished my sophomore year of high school. But there was no way I was emotionally ready for college. Yes, I could do all the work. Yes, I could force myself to study when I'd rather be playing. Because I'd been in classes with older kids for several years, because I had four older siblings, I think I was pretty mature for my age. But I still wasn't ready.

What there should be are more programs like Simon's Rock of Bard College. A transition program for kids academically ready for college, but not quite there emotionally, psychologically, etc.

One note on this proposal that I find abhorrent -- community college is not the place for these kids to take coursework if they leave high school early. Not that there's anything wrong with community college for a lot of people (I did my time there for money & scheduling reasons)... but the best and brightest should be surrounded by the best and brightest. Let them be challenged by their peers, not held back.

This was a fundamental problem with the trial acceleration program I took part in. Yes, I went to high school for math & science classes as a seventh-grader... but I took those classes with the regular college prep kids, not with the honors college prep kids. This held me back; I learned some bad habits, and I wasn't challenged by the pace of the coursework nor by my peers in the class. Nor did I get the benefit of the best teachers, who taught HCP classes only.

As for your final issue:

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.

That's exactly what happened in my school system. When I was a senior in high school (I couldn't graduate early because of the required 16 quarters of gym class per state law in NJ), my AP classes were filled with sophomores who weren't ready for them. The success of those of us in the trial run led the system to offer early AP classes to all students... they actually made AP classes a requirement for graduation for college prep kids. This killed the quality of those classes... AP Bio, AP English, AP European History were killed by the fact that 90% of the kids in the class didn't have the foundation to learn collegiate level material.

Anyway, I'm rambling. But you're absolutely right that the no-child-allowed-to-excel-if-my-child-doesn't-qualify people are going to cause big problems for these states and districts.

Re:Ill placed worries

[jedidiah]

Nonsense.

The extra 2 years doesn't help anything.

HELL, an extra 6 years doesn't help anything quite often.

The people with talent are having their time wasted due to boredom and those without talent
are also having their talent wasted due to boredom. Artificially extending childhood just
feeds on itself.

Off to college at 16 is not entirely unprecedented.

The cultural failings that cause 16 year old to be children aren't fixed by subjecting them to 2 more years of high school.

Re:Ill placed worries

[BobMcD]

the problem is, the test is not likely to test emotional maturity. They might have the book learnin' but they won't have the lived experience. The teenaged brain is literally missing important parts that aren't fully developed until 19 or 20, mostly having to do with risk assessment and sociality. There's a reason why a 16 yr old is many times more likely to wreck a car than a 19 year old.

Nature or nurture? We really have no way of knowing. I suspect that we find 19 year olds becoming adults precisely because we expect that to be the case. Not too long ago, 14 was a marrying age, and I don't recall anyone of that time period thinking that this was odd or 'too much for them to handle'.

Re:Ill placed worries

[Andy Dodd]

"That's exactly what happened in my school system. When I was a senior in high school (I couldn't graduate early because of the required 16 quarters of gym class per state law in NJ)"

I grew up in NJ and had a similar problem. I was lucky and discovered the Rutgers High School Scholars program, which was specifically designed to allow high schoolers to take a few classes per semester at Rutgers.

If I had not been in the Rutgers HSS program, I would have HATED my senior year in high school, since in addition to the three classes I was taking (Gym was required, Language and Literature aka English was required for any student attending school, and Wind Ensemble because I actually wanted to take it), I would have had to fill my high school schedule with classes I had no interest in taking. Instead, thanks to HSS, I was able to get an exemption to my high school's minimum courseload requirements.

In some ways I'm glad things worked out that way and I didn't graduate early, the "part high school part college" year of transition period helped a lot in terms of developing maturity without feeling like the system was holding me back. In addition this meant starting college at 18 (It sucked to be the one 17 year old on the bus when we went on a marching band roadtrip to Canada my freshman year), and getting to turn 21 in October of my junior year of college instead of senior year. :)

I think it would be a far better approach than what is proposed to continue targeting an age of aproximately 18 for high school graduation, but providing more opportunities for gifted high school students to enrich themselves. We do have this to some degree with programs such as the Rutgers program I attended and magnet schools, but they're rare and far too much of a pain in the ass to participate in thanks to the "everyone's a winner" mentality that No Child Left Behind put into law.

Re:Ill placed worries

[sonnejw0]

I graduated a year early from highschool and went straight to college with enough dual-enrollment/AP credits to be considered a junior. That didn't work out, and I ended up taking the second semester off. I just didn't have the maturity, experience, or sense of who I was to live on my own and make healthy decisions. That gave me time to figure out what I wanted to do, so I reapplied to a different program and got right back on track.

My sister-in-law also went to college a year ahead of schedule. She stayed with it, but she still hasn't quite gotten her feet on the ground six years later.

Sure, some kids, like 2 entire kids out of 6 billion. would be mature enough to be great at 16 out and on their own. I don't think that's very many, though. At that age, they barely have experience enough to know how to navigate a four-way stop. I think that the parents would have to be very involved in teaching their child how to live on their own and be responsible for that to work. It takes good parenting more than a smart kid for this to work.

Re:Ill placed worries

[Tetsujin]

I could see your point if the students were going away for college but their not

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Re:Ill placed worries

[trb]

I went to college when I was 15 and was graduated at 19 (in the 1970s at a New England engineering school). I was bored in high school, where I had good test scores and mediocre grades. I had skipped 5th grade, then the college asked if I wanted to enroll before my final year of high school.

I was not ready either emotionally or academically, but I went to college and struggled through. I did enjoy myself, and I did learn a lot, but I wasn't ready. Engineering school was tough. If I went to liberal arts school, I think I would have had a harder time socially and an easier time academically. I think engineering schools are easier socially, because all the kids are nerds, and they tend to be more open-minded, more practical, and less socially exclusive than liberal arts students.

I think that most kids who are academically ready for college two years early probably aren't ready socially. And it's not good that they are thrust into the role of "fully responsible wage earner" two years early. I don't really see what problem this is trying to solve.

Re:Ill placed worries

[B1oodAnge1]

I have news for you. Barely any of the college freshmen are ready either.

Re:Ill placed worries

[elrous0]

Oh man, I wish they had this when I was a teenager. I was smart enough to have passed these tests and wasted most of my time in high school getting my ass kicked by bullies who didn't belong there any more than I did. College was like heaven to me. I was finally at a place where I could learn without having to put up with getting the crap kicked out of me in the hallways. My high school teachers made college out to be so hard, but I found it was a LOT easier. You can actually relax when you realize that half the kids in your class aren't knuckle-dragging, illiterate morons whose only function in school is to waste teachers' time with disciplinary problems and to torment the kids whose gas they will one day be pumping.

Re:Ill placed worries

[elnyka]

I think those that can fit in academically are the least likely to fit in socially.

Because? Academically speaking, how would you support that statement?

Re:Ill placed worries

[lgw]

A "helicopter parent" hovers over her child at all times. Phoning the teach or professor to complain of every bad grade has recently escalated into accompanying adult children to job interviews for college internships, attempting to be present during the interview (really: many Silly Valley companies, including mine when I was stuck in charge of an inter program, had plans in place to deal with this).

Re:Ill placed worries

[Anonymous Coward]

Nature or nurture? We really have no way of knowing.

You're on the right track, but I'd just like to mention that it's very easy to know this.

Spend time with a teenager and treat him like an equal if inexperienced adult and he will likely respond like an adult.

Spend time with a teenager and treat him like an inferior immature kid and he will likely respond like a kid.

It's worked that way with every teenager I know. If everybody treated teenagers like they were inexperienced adults and we let them have older peers to learn from, we would not have the stereotype of them being older kids nor a huge segment of society living down to those expectations. Cordoning teenagers off in schools and letting them only interact with people their age is one of the worst things we've done to them, next only to putting other adults in inappropriate positions of power over them, e.g. the PA story.

Re:Ill placed worries

[Onymous Coward]

It isn't like there's some "maturity lobe" that sprouts out of your brain on your 19th birthday.

Actually, there is kind of. The prefrontal cortex, responsible for "executive" thinking (e.g., self-control), doesn't finish developing until the early 20's.

So you're wrong there, but your general idea of maturity progression being dependent on the individual I agree with.

Re:Ill placed worries

[Sunkist]

In short, people have never thought marrying at 14 a great idea. 16, on the other hand, we see Capulet/Shakespeare finds quite a good age for a girl to marry

correct. you were also likely to die by 35 during the time of Bill.

Re:Ill placed worries

[frank_adrian314159]

Academically speaking, how would you support that statement?

Academically, I can't say... But anecdotally, there's Slashdot.

Re:Ill placed worries

[Chosen Reject]

It wasn't that long ago if you were 16 and couldn't fit in with adults, you'd be considered an idiot. It's time we stop this teenager nonsense. It's really only been in the last 50 years or so that there has been anything between child and adult and every one got along just fine like that. Throwing teenager in between those only delays responsibility. Teenagers know, if not explicitly, at least implicitly, that they aren't being treated like adults so there is no reason to act like one. Treat them like adults, and you'll see them mature a lot faster than just sitting around waiting for them to reach some magical arbitrary age.

Re:Ill placed worries

[wurble]

The true value of college for the most successful people in the country is not education, it's networking. Who you befriend in college and the contacts and connections you form are the greatest value you can gain from college. Successfully taking advantage of networking opportunities requires one NOT be socially inept or awkward. Being younger than everyone else puts one at a disadvantage in such situations. You only get one shot at undergrad college really. If you take that shot while too young, you'll never get the most out of it. Sure you may get an education, but you won't get the same friends.

So sure, someone who goes to college early may enter the workplace earlier as well. They are more likely to enter the workplace at a lower point of entry though. Someone who enters college at the appropriate age will have greater social opportunities in college and thus greater potential for forge contacts and connections which will in turn land them a much better job when they graduate. Obviously this is provided they take advantage of those opportunities. Someone younger will simply not have those opportunities presented.

Networking is the real value of ivy league schools. Truthfully, the difference in what you learn at an ivy league school and what you learn at a "decent" university is marginal (based more on the student than the college). The true value of ivy league schools is that they are full of rich kids. Rich kids have rich parents who frequently hold positions of power. Befriend a rich kid and their parents and your likelihood of landing an extremely high paying position after college increases dramatically. I would go so far as to argue that most executive positions are only available to such people and that without those connections you will likely NEVER be able to land such a position.

Anyway, to sum it up, college's true value isn't just education; it also has social value. A younger individual may be ready for a college education, but such a person will be at an extreme disadvantage socially. In turn this puts them at a disadvantage for life rather than giving them a "head start." If giving someone a "head start" is the real concern, then you might as well drop out of high school at 16, get a GED, and get a job. You'll be working at 16 instead of "losing years" in high school and college. Landing a good job isn't just about your education, it's about your connections.

Re:Ill placed worries

[stephanruby]

One problem with anecdotal evidence is that there is selection bias. For example, in a French high school I went to, there were two sisters, both very gifted, both had jumped two grades (which even in the French system is not always seen too kindly by school administrators).

One girl, the older one, was still completely immature, and could be very obnoxious at times. She was filled with false modesty. Every time she had an imperfect grade, even if it was still the best grade in the class, she had to complain loudly about it. She was complaining, but it was obvious to the rest of us, she was just gloating, and also she loved complaining (we could see she derived lots of satisfaction from that personality trait).

The younger sister, one year younger and so just one grade below on the other hand, was actually pretty cool by comparison. The younger sister didn't brag about her grades, had plenty of friends, didn't stay isolated away at the school library for every lunch/recess, and later I actually found out she was actually much more gifted academically than her older sister. And I think I only found out by fluke really, a teacher told me, and then I confirmed the story with others.

But if you were to have taken an informal poll about gifted kids at my school, I'm pretty sure almost everyone would mention/recall the older sister -- the obnoxious one. Very few people would have actually even known about the younger sister. And that's the thing, the success stories, and the more well-adjusted precocious students are virtually invisible compared to the precocious kids that are obnoxious and totally immature. That's why, we shouldn't go by anecdotal evidence alone, if we're really interested in improving the US educational system. The anecdotal evidence only tells us the story of the outliers, not the results of the core system itself.

Re:Ill placed worries

[russotto]

Research shows that the brain still grows substantially until one is about 16 years old.

Research says the brain doesn't achieve a steady state until one is dead and thoroughly rotted.

"...far too young..."

[Bruiser80]

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.

Why go to community college?

[addikt10]

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.

Re:Why go to community college?

[cptdondo]

Depends on the community college. There are some that are academically rigorous and serve as the first 2 years of a 4 year college curriculum at a much lower cost. And there are 4 year colleges that are diploma mills.

Don't get caught up in the label.

Re:Why go to community college?

[copponex]

Community colleges are filled with people who choose to be there. This is an entirely different environment from American high schools, where attendance is compulsory, backed by the full force of truancy laws.

Trying to get everyone a good basic education has its merits, but in some other countries you choose at 16 whether you want to go to college or receive vocational training or leave school altogether. This seems to work out well for everyone.

And as someone who absolutely despised high school, I know I would have done much better mentally and academically, even at the worst community colleges. I doubt any university would have penalized me for attending college courses (even if poor by their standards) before I hit 18.

Re:Why go to community college?

[natehoy]

I live in Maine, so this has received some extra coverage here. According to what I'm seeing, this is really targeting the kid who has no interest in going on to a 4-year college, but instead wants to jumpstart their career in a skilled or semi-skilled trade (auto mechanic, plumber, etc).

There's also an additional benefit - it identifies weaknesses in those kids that fail the boards, and part of the plan is to focus on subject areas that specific kids are weak on. So if you did well in English on the boards but flunked Math, they might give you more Math classes in 11th grade and back off on the English classes. The target being a student who is well-rounded enough to pass all segments of the board exam.

In some ways, it divides the kids between those who want to continue on with education, and those who want to get education over with as quickly as possible (for one of many reasons) and get on with a career. It almost turns high school into a 2-year or 4-year option, much like college is today.

Those who want a 4-year+ degree will stay in high school and go on the Advanced Placement track like they do today.

Those who do not can take the board exams in 10th grade and, if they pass, they can go to community college or start their careers, with a valid high school diploma. They can continue on to the 11th and 12th grades if they wish, or if they fail the board exam the areas they failed in can be focused on.

Yes, to a point, this is "teaching to the test", and there are some valid concerns surrounding that. But I'm not entirely convinced it's any worse than "teaching to a grade", and at least those kids that want out and are willing to work hard can get out with a diploma.

Re:Why go to community college?

[afidel]

The only way I mastered calculus was through a CC, I flunked it a couple times at two different engineering schools before taking it with someone who could actually teach at the local CC. Engineers and math people generally can't teach worth a damn, even less so in subjects they don't care about. I really don't see where having smaller class sizes and teachers who actually give a damn is a negative.

Re:Why go to community college?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

A community college does not have that environment.

That's a pretty bold blanket statement you're making there.

It varies a lot by the CC. There are some CCs that are essentially two more years of high school, filled with losers who want to be able to say they "went to college" but who have no desire to learn any more than they have to in order to get the minimum passing grade. There are others that offer intellectual challenge and rigor equal to that found at the best four-year colleges and universities, and if you don't believe that, then you simply haven't learned enough about the issue to have an informed opinion.

Many, many high school graduates, to say nothing of the HS juniors and seniors who will be taking advantage of the program discussed in this story, would do much better at a good CC than they would at Enormous State University. Campuses are smaller and have more of neighborhood feeling. Classes are smaller and taught by professors who see teaching as their primary mission, rather than a distraction from research. Classmates are an interesting mix of people from various age groups, many having significant life experience, rather than a bunch of other 18-year-olds who haven't figured out that they can't coast in college the way they did in high school. Life after class isn't dominated by the toxic "Greek" life and athletic obsession that eats up so much resources at ESU.

It isn't for everyone. There are students who can graduate from high school and be ready for the challenges at ESU, or even Harvard or Stanford, from day one. Good for them. But like a lot of 18-year-olds, I screwed up my first try, and years later CC offered me a way back into the academic world. Given that I'm now within a year of my PhD, you can probably guess that I don't feel academically deprived by having an associate's degree to my name.

Re:Why go to community college?

[ubercam]

Disclaimer: I was a Foreign Language Assistant in a vocational school in Germany.

This sounds exactly like Germany with their vocational schools and apprenticeship system.

Want to do a skilled trade? Go to school and learn all about it until age 16, then you're off on an apprenticeship for a year or two. Then you can come back for more school afterwards, or continue working (I think).

Want to go to university? You have two options AFAIK: be smart enough in the initial weeding out process to go the Gymnasium route (that's their word for what we would generally consider as AP classes in high school, except the school is entirely devoted to AP students), or you can do your apprenticeship and come back to school and do I think 2 years of Fachoberschule (vocational/technical secondary school). With an FOS diploma, you're allowed to go to university, at least in Hessen. I can't comment on other federal states.

My info might not be 100% accurate... I only observed it in action and participated from a teacher's perspective.

maturity?

[AntEater]

'... 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.

Re:maturity?

[QuantumRiff]

I used to work at a college. You would be scared to meet the parents of the kids enrolling there. you'd think little johnny was 12, not 19. Hell, most 18 year olds aren't mature enough, but you know what, eventually, they become that way, or they drop out. Not everybody gets to be an astronaut when they grow up (I say as I look at my demotivational poster)

I started college at 16 part time, found things like WRI121 incredibly easy, compared to AP English, which would have gotten me the same credits.. In fact, by the time I graduated high school, I had enough credits to get to other schools Transfer requirements, which are often much different than admissions requirements.

But damn. At 17, my grandpa and his buddies lied about their ages so they could fight in a war. And now, we can't have kids in classes with people a few years older then them? Boy do I feel alot older than I am.. I'm starting to sound like my Grandpa.

Thrown?

[McNally]

Quoted in the write-up:

"That's far too young to be thrown into an environment with college students who are about 18 to 23 years old."

Nobody's talking about "throwing" anybody who isn't ready, just about making it an option for students who are. Options are good, no?

Re:So here's what happens

[jedidiah]

> Basically, this means the public schools get out of having to pay for educating their top students two years early

That sounds about right because the public schools aren't teaching them anything at that point anyways.

The kids are just "doing time" until they can finally be released for college.

Drop out

[BDZ]

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.

Re:It's a cost-cutting measure.

[flaming error]

> Schools can dump all the expensive advanced placement courses

Perhaps you intended to be ironic, but the whole point of AP courses is to teach college material to high school-aged students.

One can imagine a certain efficiency in having students take college courses at a college.

"Cutting education costs" is not necessarily an evil thing.