Posted on 08/04/2014 12:25:17 PM PDT by Lorianne
As U.S. high schools beef up math and science requirements for graduation, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have found that more rigorous academics drive some students to drop out.
The research team reported in the June/July issue of the journal Educational Researcher that policies increasing the number of required high school math and science courses are linked to higher dropout rates.
"There's been a movement to make education in the United States compare more favorably to education in the rest of the world, and part of that has involved increasing math and science graduation requirements," explained first author Andrew D. Plunk, PhD, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine.
"There was an expectation that this was going to be good for students, but the evidence from our analyses suggests that many students ended up dropping out when school was made harder for them," he added.
Studying census data going back to 1990, the researchers showed that the U.S. dropout rate rose to a high of 11.4 percent when students were required to take six math and science courses, compared with 8.6 percent for students who needed fewer math and science courses to graduate. Results also varied by gender, race and ethnicity with the dropout rate for some groups increasing by as much as 5 percentage points.
"As graduation requirements were strengthened, high school dropout rates increased across the whole population," Plunk said. "But African-Americans and Hispanics were especially affected. I think our findings highlight the need to anticipate there may be unintended consequences, especially when there are broad mandates that, in effect, make high school coursework harder."
(Excerpt) Read more at phys.org ...
Do they want to turn them into day care with beds in rooms for them to have sex and stuff?
It’s a good thing they are dropping out. Some students are not qualified to be in college. College should challenge only those with higher IQ’s. If you can’t handle it, get out, your wasting money and space.
“”There was an expectation that this was going to be good for students, but the evidence from our analyses suggests that many students ended up dropping out when school was made harder for them,” he added. “
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Duh !!!!!!!!!!
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Don’t tell me. Math and science hurts the young skulls full of much “self-esteem”. They find out that they aren’t as bright as they think they are.
I have often thought public schools should concentrate more on life skills like managing finances, skilled trades, and such rather than trying to make every student engineering bound.
“much” = MUSH! Dang you Sharpton! Now look at what you’ve done! LOL!
They have SUDDENLY made it harder to get through the school year. These “students” have been coasting since the first grade, getting used to a “dumbed down” course of requirements.
Now suddenly, everything is harder, strange and in too many cases icomphrehensible. You have the ingredients for instant discouragement, failure, resentment and a growing dropout rate.
The ONLY way to solve this problem is a return to the methods of the past, where the student was introduced to (pardon the word) REQUIREMENTS at the very beginning of their scholastic life. This,passe system, is what made American schools the envy of the world, and thus, made the United States what is once was.
The problem isn’t math and science.
The problem is that they should offer separate academic, business and vocational paths like they once did. Not everyone needs or even wants to go to college, but there is no other path. They should even put computer programming into the vocational path.
Gee..making things harder makes some people quit.. wow.. who would of thought that.
A teachers job is not to dumb down the goal...its to pull you up to the goal... the goal being a fixed point aka a standard
“Duh” for us who have a worldview that actually understands the nature of humans,
but a complete mystery to those of a leftward persuasion.
It is fundamentally ridiculous to impose these so called standards on the students who are struggling with the previous so called standards that didn’t work either.
MOST people will NEVER need to know most of the science and math that the new standards require. They DO need to know how to read a P and L statement and balance a check book and to understand the difference between price and cost.
Not only are the standards illogical, the very instructional materials that is designed for teaching to the new standard is incomprehensible (even to those of us who are knowledgeable in math and science).
I DO believe in standards but what the feds are imposing is insanity.
If you are offended by the math and science curricula take a look at what they have done to the history requirements particularly for US history. It should enrage everyone
The most effective employment screening device is an 8th grade math test.
Only persons who have the self-discipline required to learn abstract concepts will be able to pass that sort of test, and math symbols cannot be challenged as an unfamiliar or biased “language” by the Ebonics advocates.
I agree but the article was referencing High School, not college
I agree with the part that some are not qualified. I would amend the latter statement by saying college should challenge only those who are motivated to succeed. A high IQ is not necessarily needed to succeed in life, or college. That having been said, many blacks and latinos are simply not motivated and should not attend college. Call me racist, but I've observed this as a fact throughout my life. My daughters finished their university curriculum and graduated by the time they were 21. They told me college was so dumbed down for minorities that you could show up simply breathing and graduate. An exaggeration, yes, but many minorities were there to party or simply not motivated and wasting resources that were denied to others.
Your response is on the right path and I think filling in the classwork in the business/vocational tracks with applied math and science is the way to get the skills in there without making it appear as an insurmountable hurdle. An example would be learning the algebra and geometry skills to be proficient in doing materials estimates for construction and metal fabrication, i.e. having a hands-on component to make the connection from the physical world to manipulating it in the mind.
“But African-Americans and Hispanics were especially affected. I think our findings highlight the need to anticipate there may be unintended consequences, especially when there are broad mandates that, in effect, make high school coursework harder.”
Unless they are given a diploma just for showing up they drop out. This isn’t breaking news, they will learn as much dropping out or staying in school. Bell curve and all that.
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