I think it is safe to say that when things are tough, people become loony when dealing with education reform. I have been following the interesting situation in Texas, where the Slave Trade is being changed to the “Atlantic Triangular Trade in textbooks. But now Utah wants to put their five cents in. They don’t want to change the curriculum or lay off people. They just want to get rid of the 12th grade.
I don’t know how they do things in Utah, but our horrible education program out here in California teach “American Government” (They should be teaching “Civics”) and Economics in the 12th grade. Where will you fit these two subjects if students or parents decide to “opt out” of the 12th grade? Research shows that the majority of students today don’t even know who the Vice President is, what the Bill of Rights consists of, or who their city mayor is. In fact, I would argue that many don’t even know the purpose of a city council! And economics, an issue highly relevant in today’s economic climate is to be eliminated? How is one to understand why we are in the deficit ridden economic mess we are in if they are not taught the subject? Furthermore, many colleges don’t require that economics be taken for a Bachelor’s Degree. that means thay educated people will not learn the topic. But we are assuming that all the students will be attending college,which if they don’t they will never learn it at all!
We need education reform, not elimination. We can disagree on what reform is, but naming the slave trade something else because it is a “negative connotation” (Um, duh!), and getting rid of two courses essential to “creating productive members of society” is not the answer.
What do you think?
I completely agree that we can’t revise history just because we don’t like it. And totally agree on the “Um, duh!” comment. Also, eliminating the 12th grade is completely ridiculous. Are those students going to be entering college a year early? If so, are they going to mature enough to handle college at 17 years old or possibly 16 depending on their birthday? If I were in high school with no 12th grade, I would have been entering college at 16 years old and not ready at all for that life. We need to create “productive members of society” by giving students the time to mature and learn more so that they can become productive citizens of the world.
Until this post I ad not read any recommendation for eliminating the 12th grade. What I keep hearing about is shortening the number of years for a college B.A. from 4 to 3 years. At least for me that makes more sense then eliminating the 12th grade. On that note I doubt that keeping the twelfth grade will impact whether or not a student knows who the Vice President ior the names of their representatives.
yay no 12th grade =)
Pingback: Bottle Rockets – Radar Gun (“The Brooklyn Side”)