We need schools that let kids move up at their own pace. Unfortunately that means we’ll be expanding student parking at elementary schools.
A student this good could be bumped up a grade (or more, if he’s still blowing away the tests).
Children should be permitted to take the GED at any age, or a similar qualifying exam. If they pass the local high school would be required to give them an official high school diploma. The student would then be eligible for all state a private scholarships and loans for college or post-secondary training.
Finally....ALL of the government school lectures from first to 12th grade should be filmed and put on the Internet for access by its citizens for FREE! ( We pay taxes don't we?) Then the student ( or any citizen) can move forward at his own pace or fill in and gaps where he may not have fully understood a topic. Qualifying exams would prove he has mastered the material.
Allowing students to graduate from high school and move on into their local community college, university, or post-secondary training would save the taxpayers literally BILLIONS! Fewer schools and teachers would be needed. Also the benefit to the students, allowing them to start their careers earlier could add up to a quarter of a million to a million dollars or more of earnings over a lifetime.
Personally...I think government schools exist for the benefit of teachers, bureaucrats, unions, and Democrat Communist Party. The longer they can keep kids dependent on them and in an infantilized state, the more work for them and the more money that flows into the union and Democrat Party pockets.
*Note: Didn’t read the whole article yet.. will read later though.*
I will say this though; this situation is nothing new. It happened to me throughout Grade School, Middle School AND High School. It made me very poorly prepared to face academic challenges when I was in college, and the material actually required me to give some effort to understand it.
This is one of the main reasons I homeschool my children. I believe it’s about the only way they can truly learn at their own pace.
Ping for later
Yes, but tweaking the school model won’t help.
I just finished a book about the Amish. There was a study of Amish kids performance (in various proportions in schools) vs public school kids.
Best performance was Amish kids in a parochial school with only other Amish kids.
Right up next to that were Amish kids in a PUBLIC school that only had Amish kids.
Far behind were bvarious proportions of Amish kids including over 50% in public schools and last public schools with no Amish kids.
What that would suggest is that RESPECT FOR THE TEACHER, ORDER AND DISCIPLINE in the classroom are key along with parental involvement at home.
Obviously even less than 50% of a class that is undisciplined wrecks it for all.
I won’t claim to have been a gifted student, just more able than most.
I was bored out of my skull through most of my public school days. My parents taught me how to read before kindergarten. We had no TV yet (very early 1950s) so reading was our entertainment. In the 1st grade I was often admonished for being ahead of the rest of the class. I read our reading book, “Fun with Dick and Jane” the first day. While everyone else was struggling to read “See Spot. See Spot run.” during class I’d be staring out the window and daydreaming. The rest of elementary school wasn’t any better. I developed an intense dislike for rote homework but did well enough on tests to pass with low grades.
High school wasn’t much better, I continued to brush off homework and max my tests and quizzes. I was even called in to see a shrink, the school wanted to know why I did so well on tests but seldom did homework. If they had asked me I would have told them. The interview didn’t last long and the shrink determined I had too many chores at home! My parents weren’t happy and thought I had fed the shrink a line of BS.
All this led to a humorous time as graduation approached. Our Advanced Math teacher demanded we turn in every page of back homework. I was hundreds of pages behind. At our graduation rehearsal she stormed in and read the list of people who would not graduate if the homework wasn’t turned in. I didn’t care if she did fail me, I had more than enough math credits. She wasn’t happy when I was handed my diploma. Her expression made my day.
The last two years of high school are mind numbing for smart kids. They have too much time to ruin their attitudes and characters during this period of busy work - amoral nothingness.
This is where teens lose their own motivation and minds and learn to follow the lowest common denominator of the herd like good little, dumbed down conforming socialists.