“Our local community college offers a program for HS seniors, where they can spend their senior year full-time at the college taking college courses which are transferable to most 4 year colleges. Juniors can also participate, but part time. My daughter took advantage of the program and entered her 4 year college as a sophomore.”
That is so common now that secondary school should now probably end after the 10th grade. Underperforming kids don’t appear to show measurable improvement in the last two years of HS according to some research so why waste the money (with so many kids taking college classes anyway?
It's essentially a jobs program for unionized teachers, which is why change will be so difficult. I would also be in favor of abolishing any need for an "Education" degree to teach high school, preferring instead people who actually majored in the subject. It's absurd to think that a grad student who taught college freshmen is unqualified to teach HS seniors.