<p>Came across this short editorial today and thought the topic would be of particular interest considering many CCers are indeed high school students who take college classes.</p>
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[quote]
According to the article, state taxpayers paid $17 million to send 11,000 high school students to college. Why don't we use that $17 million to reduce college costs and allow more students to attend college instead of allowing select high schoolers to attend courses they are not prepared for?
I am a big supporter of local schools and am very aware a school district can make or break a town. However, I feel high-schoolers need to stay in high school. Let's not turn our local colleges into a high school, but rather keep them at the higher learning level that we need them to be at.
<p>Thoughts? Should high schoolers indeed be kept in high school - and keep college for colleges? Reserved for a few, elite students? Open to all, regardless of what college students like the author may think?</p>
<p>Our local HS doesn't have a lot of course choices for an above-average student. As a trade-off we have Running Start. It was a life savior for our S, otherwise he would have died of boredom. As for being "ready" for college ....high-schoolers taking RS tend to do VERY well in their college classes.</p>
<p>The students at our high school (and in neighboring districts) who take courses at the Harvard Extension School do so for free; cost of an Extension school class: $600. And now, they will be able to take regular college classes, too. Tuition at Harvard College: around $4k per course. The high schoolers get good deal. And so does the high school, which does not have to offer more AP courses.</p>
<p>As for unprepared, where is the author's evidence?</p>
<p>Yeah Running Start! (WA doesn't have charter or magnet schools, so it's really, really needed here) I've been taking college and university classes for the past two years and it has definitely saved me from complete boredom in high school. A few other HS students and I have been keeping 4.0s with "difficult" classes. We believe it was money well spent by the state. </p>
<p>Quick question, is this money that is diverted away from the high school to the college? If that is so, maybe the money really isn't being "taken away" from actual college students. Just a thought.</p>
<p>Chronological age does not always equal academic age. Fortunately states like Wisconsin make it possible for students who have exhausted some of their HS offerings to take courses at colleges without the parents having to foot the bill. This is giving the mandated "appropriate education" to these high level students. Then there are the students who get ahead and start college after HS graduation while still 16, and get to pay just like everyone else.</p>
<p>The thread title is a bit misleading- most college freshmen ARE teenagers. I didn't bother with the article, its author sounds clueless regarding gifted education... It would be delightful to keep HS age students in their schools (think of the travel time and costs, as well as the schedule discrepancies) - and school districts try to, but it is more cost effective to send a student to the college instead of bringing the additional college level courses to the school for only one or two students.</p>
<p>I think the $17 million the author referred to was limited to spending on Ohio's PSEO program. For those who didn't read, it's a letter to the editor, not a freestanding article. It's also chock-full of anecdotal evidence and not a lot else. The author cites lack of knowledge and experience, as well as "inappropriate dress" as reasons to keep highschoolers out of college classrooms. I think a lot of us on CC know that these generalizations are a bit off. Lack of experience and knowledge? There are students right here on CC doing university research and getting books published! There are incredibly smart students here who would surely "add" a fine amount to any college classroom. As for "inappropriate dress", apart from being purely anecdotal (and, from my interpretation, based on ONE course), it's present EVERYWHERE, and everyone holds different views of what is appropriate in any environment. I'd challenge this author to walk onto a college campus where the only "inappropriate dress" she could find came from high school students. I know that some students, especially older ones, may resent being put on par with a high school student, but that doesnt justify the authors comments.</p>
<p>That letter is a little ignorant, but it's essentially spitting into the gale-force wind in favor of programs like this.</p>
<p>Honestly, my problem with the high-schoolers-in-college programs goes the other way. My son had the opportunity to take classes at the not-very-elite college next door to his high school (you don't even have to cross a street). He declined, because he thought the teachers and students in his high-school classes were more stimulating than those at the college. Some of his friends did take classes there, with mixed results (higher level math was the most successful). A couple of his friends travelled to Penn to take foreign-language literature courses; even they were less than impressed with the amount of effort many of their classmates were putting into the course.</p>
<p>Way back in the Pleistocene Era, I took a college course in Renaissance Spanish Poetry during my junior year in high school (actually, the last Spanish course I ever took). I got the highest grade in the course, and I probably knew more about Spanish poetry going into the course than any of the other students, too.</p>
<p>Clearly the letter writer doesn't have all the facts. Advanced high school students all over the country are benefiting from attending college courses and as far as I'm concerned, if they can do the work, taxpayers are getting their money's worth. The college is educating students regardless of how old they are.</p>
<p>I'm more conflicted when I consider comparing the trend of taking colleges courses in high school to all the AP courses students are taking. I've been exposed to arguments from supporters of both approachs that one is right and the other is wrong. Is it that simple? Is one approach better than the other or is it that one might be better for a particular student in a specific situation than another?</p>
<p>My oldest S attended a residential high school on a college campus where he took college honors courses in lieu of his last two years of high school. It was an agressive program that provided the kind of challenge he needed. Heaven help us if he had been bored and used his energies in less constructive ways. The younger two S's are taking lots of AP courses at good local high school. The AP courses aren't as challenging, but neither boy is as mature or devoted to school as their older brother.* </p>
<p>While I don't think they're the right thing for every high school student, college courses are clearly the best alternative for some of them.</p>
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<li>I'm not saying that all AP courses are less challenging than the corresponding college courses, but in our specific experience they clearly are.</li>
</ul>
<p>The rule in our school is that students may take college courses if they have gone beyond the AP-level in sciences or if they have a scheduling conflict that makes it impossible for them to take the Ap class. In the latter case, the family is expected to pay the tuition, or at least part of it. Every year, the school (and schools in neighboring districts) have students who have gone beyond the AP level, especially in math. Four years ago, for instance, 53 of the 83 students in the Multivariable Calculus class were high schoolers. And Harvard Extension School is starting to pay attention to this shift in its demographic pool.
In the case of humanities, the school has a variety of senior English classes, so it is not willing to let students take college classes in that subject, much to the dismay of some students and their families. These classes vary in quality and rigor; some are better than AP classes and some are pitched at students with a bad case of senioritis.
Anyway, the general idea is not college courses instead of APs, but college courses after APs. I can only recall a case of highschoolers maneuvering to take Intro-Bio at the Extension School because they thought the AP-Bio teacher (who had a Ph.D.) was awful. She was replaced by another teacher, and the students went back to taking AP-Bio. The only student left taking intro-Bio was my S, because of scheduling conflicts.</p>
<p>There are only a few classes that our high school students are allowed to take through the local community college, and they must be approved by the principal. It is very rare that any student younger than a junior is allowed to do this. Furthermore, we have to pay for all the fees, and the books, and a parking pass, etc...just as if they were a regular student.</p>
<p>In my community, which is in Maryland, there is an organized Early Placement program operated by the local community college, in cooperation with the public school system, by which high school juniors with reasonably decent academic records can take college courses. In some instances, college courses can even be used to fulfill high school graduation requirements. For example, there are several community college courses that are accepted in lieu of the high school courses usually taken to fulfill the one-year Technology Education requirement, and some of them are on topics, such as computer graphics, that are not offered at the high schools. We also have career education programs at the high schools where the advanced courses provide credit at the community college, giving kids who take them a head start in certain community college programs.</p>
<p>Nobody seems to be complaining about any of this. Admittedly, the very top students don't take advantage of it much -- except perhaps for a summer session course or two if they have nothing better to do -- because the top students tend to be in magnet or IB programs or to be taking five or six AP courses. But the program meets a need for many other students and doesn't seem to have a downside.</p>
<p>AFter dumbing down the curriculum so far and now with no child left behind.....this is a good option for bright students....most colleges allow early admission....let them fulfill both h.s. and college at same time. I think it is great. SO much filler in h.s.</p>
<p>well, at my high school junior and seniors take courses at guilford college only. They are almost always the best students in the classes. about 1/4 of the seniors and juniors were on the deans list for at least 1 semester this last year.</p>
<p>When I read the title for this thread, I thought it was going to be a cautionary tale about wild college visit weekends! Instead it's just a letter to the editor from someone who seems not to know much about the subject she's offering an opinion on.</p>
<p>The Post-secondary Enrollment Options (PSEO) program here in Minnesota is more than two decades old, now imitated in other states, and very successful at helping teens who desire academic challenge to find it. It makes high-level study possible for a lot of families who can't afford to send their children to private high schools.</p>