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<li> Educators debate extending high school to five years because of increasing demands on students from employers and colleges to participate in extracurricular activities and community service in addition to having high grades. Some educators support extending high school to five years because they think students need more time to achieve all that is expected of them. Other educators do not support extending high school to five years because they think students would lose interest in school and attendance would drop in the fifth year. In your opinion, should high school be extended to five years?
ESSAY
Why are the school systems of the United States attempting to ruin the minds of future generations? Whether it is intentional or not, a newly proposed plan, which aims to extend high school to five years instead of four, does just that. Not only would an extension of high school siphon tax payer dollars away from other needed ventures, like aiding the needy, but also it would cause severe damage to an already struggling school system. While increasing the duration of high school may seem promising in some areas, it is important to note that the nation does not have a unified school system; different areas that may be only a few miles apart may be at dramatically different milestones in terms of education. Attempting to impose yet another shoddily constructed plan to “improve” our school system would not do any good; rather, it would have the opposite effect. Dropout rates would increase as students who were initially labeled as unmotivated are further motivated to not work due to the sheer tedium of an extra year. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the “smart kids” who all want perfect scores in their exams, “perfect” extracurriculars, and admission to the top schools in the nation would have to subject themselves to one more year of pure stress and tension. Four years also provides a balance; many students take the most important exams in their junior year, when they are prepared enough to do so but not “overprepared,” to the point where they start forgetting vital basic information.
This nation, as a whole, has an education system notorious for its inconsistency. A county in a certain state, for example, may be only a few miles away from another county in which the school system and its accomplishments seem alien. Adding an extra year to high school does nothing but increase the disparity between different school systems.
The dropout rates in the United States, moreover, are astounding when compared to our European counterparts. Mostly concentrated in the Southern region of the United States, the dropout rate would see a drastic increase if high school were made to be five years long. Students who are inclined to do poorly in school are discouraged every day of their academic lives; extending that agony and torture by another 180 days simply to tell the student that he cannot graduate with the rest of his peers is inhumane. In fact, a team of researchers at Brandeis University conducted an experiment in which they asked a series of questions and conducted interviews with high schoolers who were labeled by their teachers as either “intelligent, likely to be successful” or “lack of motivation and intelligence.” The researchers found that many students in the latter group tended to be depressive and, when asked if they wanted to continue with high school any longer and why/why not, an overwhelming majority responded with “no.” The reason? The humilation the students felt when they were labeled as stupid by a school system focused on standardized testing. This led to massive demotivation. Do we really want our children who may not be intelligent academically to feel this way for one more year?
The other extreme to consider is the motivated high school student. There is a website notorious for breeding these “overachievers” and making them feel inferior to others known as College Confidential. There is a thread, or series of posts, on CC about “high school life.” Many students complained that they wished high school could be shorter, since they’ve completed most of their graduation requirements anyways and the stress of maintaining “perfect” extracurriculars and taking hard, unenjoyable classes for another grueling year just to get into a “top 10” school would be mitigated if colleges only considered the first three years of high schools. These are the also the students, a recent study published by the University of Iowa found, who suffer most from anxiety disorders. We already see severe anxiety in students who have to attend high school for four years. Is forcing an extra year and pushing them further into mental disarray really the best choice?
“The life of a student who wishes to excel is perfectly exhibited by these words: four years of pain, four more years of pain, four years of torture, and another thirty or forty years of unhappiness and eventually death,” was the response of Professor Adams of Brandeis when asked about his opinions on the current education system. The only circumstances under which an ordinance which seeks to extend high school by a year should be passed is if the torture of students is the goal. If not, then the proposal has no place in modern education.</li>
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<p>Any grammar errors?
"Whether it is intentional or not, a newly proposed plan, which aims to extend high school to five years instead of four, does just that."</p>
<p>My tutor said that it should be "whether intentional or not" instead of "whether it is intentional or not."</p>