As I said, child labor laws prevent 13 and 14 year olds from working. As for the other two, you'd be putting them in with adults who are paying their own way. You put in one or two adolescents who behave themselves, it's okay. You put in 6 or 7, the whole tone changes. No adult who is paying his own way through college wants to help baby-sit other people's adolescents.
Next, the ACT, SAT, and GED exams are ***voluntary*** exams. Only the students and parents who wanted the option would be taking these exams.
They are also expensive to administer and grade, and the ones taking the test will be the ones who want out of school, period. That means a ton, and I mean a TON of cocky little kids who hate school would be blithely saying "I'll just test out" because kids always think they are smarter than they actually are. So you'd get a tremendous financial waste from kids who think they are so smart they can b.s. their way through it (only to find they can't) and it would be just as expensive to administer and score that many tests as to keep the current system.
Now, a certain number of kids will test out. But that leads to the next problem. Behavior. Maturity level. You really only know YOUR children. You don't know other people's children. I've been a teacher for 12 years now. I have dealt with about 2,000 kids, and let me tell you, the schools are full of kids who are bright, but not necessarily mature, responsible, or polite. These are the kids who'd either end up running about loose, or shoved into college classes where adult students, who are paying good money, would be forced to put up with their nonsense.
It is unlikely that children who hate school and hate working hard would do well on these exams.
Oh, you really have no idea what you are talking about. I've known plenty of bright kids who can pass a test, but they are still 14. They still act like 14 year olds. And no 22 year old who is taking on a ton of student loan wants to be in a college class with 4 or 5 of these little Jokers.
For those who have been studious enough to pass the SAT, ACT, GED, or community college placement exams, these are very students who are very unlikely to be “yelling out cheeky remarks”.
You really haven't met enough teenagers.
Any student who did that would be asked to leave the classroom. Period! No questions asked. And...They would be shunned by the other students, too!
Yes. Then what? Then what do we do with them?
You have very strong opinions but that does not make them facts. My daughter was in community college at 13 and was a bit intimidated being with older kids at first. She made friends she has stayed in contact with 10 years later. She was well loved by her professors, especially English, History & acting, all of whom wrote her stellar recommendations for college. She was uniformly praised for being forthright, responsible and thorough in her presentations & reports.
Where is she in your universe of higgldey, piggildy, rambunctious teenagers?
People make those ageist generalizations all the time. My kids went to Shakespeare plays from age 4 or 5, to concerts, NY theatre, dance performances, anything we could find to broaden their experience. Frequently we were stopped leaving the shows to be complemented on their perfect behavior. My children in private commented on the bad behavior of the adults who whispered, opened candy etc. Its all a matter of explanation, expectations and setting an example.