News-Record.com

This new policy, which will require ALL students to complete a year's worth of mathematics beyond Algebra II and two years of a foreign language, seems to be incredibly poorly considered.

First, there is the issue that we have no relevant experience with the existing standards, which have only recently come into place. In particular, we don't know what the impacts of the new standards will be on graduation rates or on job and college preparedness. Yet the state BOE has already decided to scrap these and move on to adopt new, new standards.

Second, how realistic is it that all students will be able to meet the new standards? For college bound students, the standards are fine, but for students whose terminal credential may be their high school diploma, the standards seem unreasonably high.

Like NCLB, the new, new standards reflect good intentions getting in the way of sound education policy and common sense. Neither the costs (both in terms of lower graduation rates and increased teaching resources) nor the benefits (will these standards lead to increased proficiency?) have been considered.

I agree with Mr. Ribar's post and I fear that our graduation rate will drop even more as a result. I'm also concerned about meeting the needs of learning disabled students and the problem with middle school students being allowed to move on to high school without having passed their 8th grade EOG's. These students must then prepare to pass their 8th grade EOG's and their 9th grade EOC's their 9th grade year and all the pressure (aka blame) is placed on the high school teacher. I do not blame middle school teacher though. I also taught middle school at one time and I remember all too well being "encouraged" to push students along despite their lack of academic progress and failure to pass the EOG's. Students learn that not passing the EOG's means nothing and they come to high school expecting the same thing. Ninth grade teachers try to impress upon students that they must pass the EOC's to graduate, but it falls on deaf ears of those that have made it to high school without having passed their EOG's. In addition, what has happened to school vocational programs? They are almost nonexistent. I can remember when kids could take auto mechanics and shop and learn a trade that would help them be successful after graduation. I have several highly intelligent students now that want nothing more than to work on cars or in construction and eventually have their own businesses. What's wrong with that and how will a college prep program help meet their needs?

Andi,

We have pushed for vocational programs for several years now. It would be great to have one high school in High Point concentrate on this and teach basic business math (measuring, balancing a checkbook, etc.) and English, business letter writing, writing resume, basic computer technology. In this way we could put our resources into specialties at each high school. Concentration could be on students who want to pursue a 2 year degree or one year certificate at GTCC.