Sunday, August 7, 2011

I predict

I predict that in 10 years, there will not be, in most states, any graduation requirements or government issued high school diplomas.

I also suspect that only a small percentage of students will be educated in state supported schools, if there are any such schools left at all.

11 comments:

Bill said...

To what do you contribute the continous decrease in requirements for graduation?

Bud said...

Bill: The industrial notion that all schools should teach the same stuff to the same people for the same amount of time and expect them all to succeed at least to a certain level of proficiency.

Those were the proper goals of past generations, and they weren't all so successful then.

Sparty said...

I know things have changed quite a bit since I retired, but aren't establishing graduation requirements the responsibility of local school boards? Why would they eliminate them?

And, while it's probably my liberal arts bias speaking, hasn't one of the functions of public education been the formation of a citizenry that shares a common understanding of the nation's history, its civic traditions, and its literature? Do the powers who be think that's out of date?

Bill said...

Will not the subject specific focus of education take the U.S. to the form of education that the European/Asian communities pursued? Are these not also the communities that bemoaned the fact that this type of education stifled the imaginative process that the U.S. student had but the Europe/Asian student lacked? There might be a possibility that the decline in education, and therefore graduation requirements, may be due to the lack of support and incentive offered by the home life of the present student.

In reality why do anything or pursue anything as Washington will take good care us. Luckly we have minds much greater than ours working on these problems. Even though Pink Floyd may not have intended their title to be a young peoples mantra, "We don't need no education" may be winning.

Bud said...

I don't think that graduation requirements are the exclusive province of school districts, but that states are involved in them as well. And, when we look at the testing requirements, the latest came from Washington, I believe.

Lay aside for a minute the question of whether or not diplomas have value. Ask whether they have any purpose.

I think Bill is right when he says that parents in our society have to a great extent given up expecting their children to excel. See this as an advancing social phenomenon.

Sparty said...

What does the State of Michigan require? I probably don't know what I'm talking about but my impression is that Washington (NCLB) required proficiency in tests somebody else created - and at that the student isn't required to be proficient, it's the state that is punished for "failure."

Bud said...

@SPARTY:
http://www.michigan.gov/documents/mde/New_MMC_one_pager_11.15.06_183755_7.pdf

Bud said...

I would bet that without sports teams, most high schools would have been closed down by now.

Sparty said...

Bud, you're throwing bombs, hoping to get readers to react, right? Sports teams keep the high schools open! Really??

Bud said...

Nah, Sparty. Although sometimes maybe a wild flight of fancy here and there.

Dashmann said...

Resolved, the United States should (ought to but not neccesarily will ) adopt the essential features of the British system of education .
Amazing the things you remember after 54 years when you can't remember what happened last week !!!!