The New Way to Arrive at Public High Schools - Skipping Grades 11 and 12 on the Fast-Track to Community College
The world over, in Europe and in Asia, students in high school are generally allowed a fast lane to high school graduation, if they are interested in further education mainly in vocational training. The system of public high schools in the US never had such a system, until now. Children have always needed to accept education under the entire 12 year high school system, whether they wanted to be doctors, or bus drivers. The entire scheme is the idea of the National Center on Education and the Economy. So the idea is to allow 10th grade students, to submit to a number of quizzes and tests in math, language and science, and put in their applicationfor a diploma right in the 10th grade. That diploma should get them into community college. If you don't really need to create Sullivan and 12 for the way you plan your life, they will make you take them anymore.
All of that started with a government panel four years ago that tried to look into why so many high school students require remedial courses in basic math and language when they enroll in community college. The findings of the panel went to all kinds of changes in the system of education public high schools in the country run on. The panel came up with many suggestions, like testing 10th grade students with the board exams system, starting school for children at age 3, and putting the purse strings for education in the hands of the states, and not the district. The board exams system has been the biggest change coming out of that panel, thus far. The fast-track community college placement system that lets high school students skip two years of school, is the latest attempt at putting the panel's findings into practice.
Schools in Europe and Asia, make it much simpler for their students. Of course, their courses are pretty tough; but they are given clear goals of what exactly they must master in their maths and science lessons, if they are to be accepted into community college. The American model used in public high schools has been to expose students to a broad range of possible areas of knowledge, and not really tell them exactly what is considered important with an eye to community college admissions. Children lose focus, and they don't do as well as they otherwise might. This whole new fast-track project aims to give students a simplified structure, for what they need to learn to see the results they expect.
They plan to trial run this system next year in a few places like New England, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky, signing up a dozen schools in each area. Families where children want to get on the fast track, can apply for special study materials at schools, and these will be paid for by a federal budget. The main thing they're trying to do with all of this, is to reverse the astonishing failure rates you see in community colleges admissions. Children who submit to preliminary testing at community colleges fail a great deal. This plan just tries out whether simplifying the studying process, helps any. Everything might go well, but I can't imagine that the teachers unions would be pleased that children from now on will have the option to skip a crucial part of high school.