Frustrated with California Public Schools

Parents Forum
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<p>Hello,</p>

<p>I've been reading this forum for awhile, and have been impressed with the support groups, both on the students' end as well as the parents.</p>

<p>Sorry if I'm venting here, but I don't know what else to do.</p>

<p>My kids (Jr and Soph) both attend our local High School, in a suburban bedroom community near San Francisco. Each year, the number of AP and even Honors classes are limited, while adding classes to supposedly help kids pass the exit exam (which they try to have all kids pass by Soph. year). So meanwhile, our AP Physics, Creative Writing, AP Euro History, Flim classes, etc. are being cut. </p>

<p>I find that I have no option but to seek out online ($$$) classes to get my kids the education that they are entitled to.</p>

<p>Yes, California has a number of excellent private schools, most of which have tuitions that would rival most NACAC. But some of us, being idealistic, believe that we can still get a top education from our publically-funded schools. </p>

<p>Anyway, rant enough.</p>

<p>I have a Sophomore who doesn't fit any mold that I've been able to find. He wants to major in Creative Writing, but he refuses to do the "standard" essays in order to get himself into the requisite AP Language class at our HS. I fear that he's going to fall into the "average HS, average grades" category and not be considered in a college that he could benefit from. In other words, he's a 40 year old in a 15 year old body, and his HS just isn't equipped to deal with this sort of thing.</p>

<p>I'm not even sure what I'm looking for, except I'm certain that there are other parents out there who have non-conformist kids, and I'm just wondering where they found their niche?</p>

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<p>
[quote]
I have a Sophomore who doesn't fit any mold that I've been able to find. He wants to major in Creative Writing, but he refuses to do the "standard" essays in order to get himself into the requisite AP Language class at our HS.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Maybe I'm just being a jerk, but even "creative writing" requires that someone slog through the crappy and boring standard stuff. I say buckle down and get used to doing stuff you don't like.</p>

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<p>Not sure I entirely agree...or at least I wouldn't put it to the kid like that. </p>

<p>I wish I had something more helpful to offer here, but while I can think of some things to say, I'm way to tired to count on making sense. I guess I just want to say that I think a lot of bright kids seem to fall through the cracks when it comes to high school performance, but they tend to find their (individual) ways through everything, and often with success (although they might define the word differently)...</p>

<p>(I hope that's not too garbled, I swear I'm going to bed now.)</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Not sure I entirely agree...or at least I wouldn't put it to the kid like that.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>There's always a better way to put bad news than just, "Hey, guess what? Bad news!"</p>

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<p>Hey UCLA, you are my Alma Mater, '84, English.</p>

<p>What I was trying to say is that our public high school offers only 1 AP Language class (and this to Juniors), and my kid didn't get in. Probably most of it was his fault because he didn't take the "essay requirement" as seriously as he might have. Ok. What I need to start thinking about for him is colleges/universities that would be able to offer him the Creative Writing Major, with him being so obviously out of the box.</p>

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<p>I actually told my kid that he was, at some point, going to have to "give the prof what he/she wants" rather than think out of the box, but I hoped it wasn't going to happen this soon.</p>

<p>I didn't get all A's in my Eng. Lit. classes until I started to just regurg everything my profs told me. I would want something better for my kid.</p>

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<p>Dear E.M.,</p>

<p>I PM'ed you.:)</p>

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<p>Hi, Erin's Mom
My son is a first-year at university of Chicago, and I've been hanging out on the Chicago forum for a while now. In the long wait until April 1st, I read an essay that one of the students had submitted to provide my opinion on whether it would help get in or not. It was brilliant - but it scared me because it was kind of like submitting a Jackson Pollock painting - you couldn't count on everyone seeing the brilliancy, and I was really hoping he would be accepted. I suppose I should have had more faith - he will be at UChicago this fall.</p>

<p>What you son needs to do is to show colleges that he is capable of being a good student, and that he will add to the life and liveliness and glory (if you will) of the school. He needs reasonable grades - and may have to compromise his out-of-the-boxness just a tad. As for the college essay ... a safe essay will get you into some colleges ... and onto the reject or wl pile at other. Identifying these others will be important. </p>

<p>Somehow, your son needs to form the opinion that some of the more interesting colleges out there will want to see that he is at less capable of being a successful college student.</p>

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<p>You mentioned on-line courses, but have you looked into accredited on-line high schools in your area?
If your son is turned off by high school in general, and is looking for alternatives, I could PM you with more info. I know that Stanford is starting to advertise an on-line high school program for gifted students, but there is a tuition fee.<br>
A friend of mine has her actor son enrolled in an on-line high school here in So Cal (not the Stanford one). It's an alternative growing in popularity for kids who prefer to work at their own pace or set their own hours and have day-time hours free to arrange as they see fit. Quite a few actor kids are enrolled to give them time for jobs or auditions, also kids on year-round traveling sports teams, and some with learning disabilities who need a work-from-home flexibility.
My friend is enthusiastic about the program and from what she describes, it demands more writing and effort my freshman son's honors English class in public school. There is a full math, science, language, etc. curriculum
He can also take advanced courses, earning college credit through the program. This on-line program is free, paid for through the state, since she files an inter-district transfer with our local district for her son to attend the on-line school.
If you think a really different alternative might appeal to your son and want more information, you can PM me.</p>

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<p>There's one thing you benefit from being in California! That your son can concurrently enroll in community college and take courses there, most of the times the fees are waived for high school students, if not than you face the cheapest community college fee in the nation(per unit) which is $26 dollars a unit, which is equivelent to $78 per 3 unit class. Considering the fact that an AP exam costs more than that $78, taking a class at a community college is more of a bargain, considering that if your son ends up at a UC, or even a cal state, some of the courses may transfer. He could get some of the general eds out of the way while still in high school. I know a girl from my high school who did this, and she managed to graduate as a high school junior and was accepted to UCBerkeley as a transfer students(she had earned enough units at a community college to transfer in at junior level).</p>

<p>Not only that but community college classes count as much as AP classes when you weigh them into gpa.</p>

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<p>My daughter is about to graduate from a public magnet high school in the SF bay area. She will be attending Barnard College in the fall; she was also accepted to Univ. of Chicago as well as most of the other colleges she applied to. </p>

<p>She did NOT take AP English language; however, she did take the AP English Language exam and scored a 4. All she did to prepare for the exam is spend about an hour with a review book looking at sample questions and reviewing vocabulary. After the exam she felt she had done well, but the kids from the AP class were not so confident -- they had been unprepared for some of the multiple choice questions that pretty much parallelled what my daughter had studied for with the review book. </p>

<p>My daughter was eligible to take the AP class after talking to the AP teacher and to the Honors English teacher about course content; she simply felt that the Honors class -- which was a literature course - was more interesting than the AP class, which was a composition course. She did take AP English Lit this year, but has not been happy with the class. I'm not happy with it either -- it is too much of a test prep class, and the reading list is IMHO too much for high schoolers to really digest in the time allotted. It looks like a college-level "great books" curriculum... but there is no way to do justice to it, and with the heavy focus on producing AP-test style essays, it kind of undermines the ability to really deal with things in depth. </p>

<p>My daughter is an excellent writer with a breezy and rather free-form style of writing. She does not adapt too well to the standardized-test, standard 5-paragraph format, and so she always has scored all over the map on those sort of writing tests. The essay she wrote for her Chicago app was absolutely hilarious and probably broke about every rule for what a college essay ought to be, but I guess it was o.k., because Chicago admitted her. It certainly wasn't because of her test scores. (My daughter is one of those kids who just doesn't test well)</p>

<p>So what I am saying is: you don't have to put your son in someone else's box in order to get into college. It doesn't matter whether he takes a particular set of AP classes or not. Colleges like to see kids who challenge themselves, and AP courses are certainly one way to do that -- but that doesn't mean that they are required for admission. I think it is a big mistake for kids to take a course that they don't want to take mrerely because someone thinks they have to or ought to do it for college admissions. </p>

<p>Also, there are plenty of colleges that your son will be able to find. A quirky kid who doesn't like to do anything standardized very likely will want to find an off-the-beaten-path sort of college, in any case. I was surprised this year after my son applied as a transfer to Evergreen that they accept pretty much all comers. Evergreen may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it is generally well regarded and is one of the colleges featured on the College That Change Lives book/website/tour. Which, by the way, is a great source of information if you are looking for colleges for a quirky kid who maybe doesn't end up with the best grades. (See <a href="http://www.ctcl.com/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.ctcl.com/&lt;/a> ) </p>

<p>So please, don't worry -- give your son space to grow & explore and be himself. He's not going to be happy trying to conform in any event, and he isn't going to want to go to the colleges that reward conformity. I know because I am the parent of two kids who are pretty much insistent on doing things their own way, and both had no problems getting into top colleges. (Though my son had a big problem with staying at one college for 4 years -- he's just now resuming his education after a 3 year hiatus)</p>

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<p>Wow, thanks everyone for the responses, PM's, support and advice! It's hard to get that at our local level.</p>

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<p>liek0806 and Erin's Mom: Be careful about comm. college courses. Our CA high school does NOT count the grades earned at a comm. college into the GPA, which affects students' rankings and such. Not saying you shouldn't look into this, but just be aware of that possibility.</p>

<p>My daughter took online classes through UCCP (<a href="http://www.uccp.org%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.uccp.org&lt;/a&gt;) and had a great time. Again, check with the high school--these classes did not count into her GPA because they were taken somewhere other than the high school.</p>

<p>One of my friends has a daughter who was frustrated with high school, so she left after junior year and went straight to community college. After 2 years, she transferred to American University--without even having to take an SAT.</p>

<p>You might also look into independent study. Our county has a good program, and I'm sure yours does, too.</p>

<p>One last thing: To say I have been frustrated with our CA public high school would be an understatement. (From my screen name, you can probably guess where we live!) Our daughter is graduating in 2 weeks and will attend NYU in the fall, but it was 4 years of serious effort (on her part and ours) to make high school bearable, at least.</p>

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<p>I disagree. From what you've said, he sounds a whole lot like a 15-year-old. 40-year-olds don't refuse to do simple tasks that will earn them great rewards. Teenagers do.</p>

<p>If he sticks to that position (as I did for far too long), I'm not at all sure that he would benefit academically from the kind of college you fear he won't get into. Even the most freethinking, out-of-the box schools (Bard, Hampshire, etc.) are going to require him to read some books he finds stupid and write some papers he finds pointless. He won't be ready for college until he's ready to handle that, and it sounds like he isn't there yet.</p>

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<p>Before everyone jumps on the junior college vs. high school AP course bandwagon be aware that many colleges mentioned on CC do not accept dual credit junior college courses for credit. Our less than "with it" high school is great for kids headed to UT or A+M or Tech as many of our top students graduate with about 14-16 hours of AP credit and 24 hours of dual credit. They enter college as a soph which the school brags about incessantly. </p>

<p>But for my D, one of a handful not headed in-state, zero dual credit hours are accepted by her school. "Did she get high school credit for the JC course?" Yep. "O.K. then. We don't count it." But my D wants the 4 year college experience (and she knew the rule prior to aplying) so it's not a big deal to her as it would be for someone else. (Although it would have been nice to have an easier go at it as a first-year.) </p>

<p>(In fact she won't be using her AP credits either, except for Calc I, as she intends to beef up her writing in an intensive composition course, and take the beginning Bio sequence as she is a bio major and it is highly recommended.)</p>

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<p>california also has a lot of excellent public schools, and you may be able to vote with your feet (or transfer to the next town). Also, if your school is receiving state GATE funds (not all districts apply), they have a legal obligation to place every kid in an appropriate level -- see your district GATE coordinator for details.</p>

<p><a href="http://api.cde.ca.gov/APIBase2006/2005BaseSchSS.aspx?allcds=30-73650-3030657&c=R%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://api.cde.ca.gov/APIBase2006/2005BaseSchSS.aspx?allcds=30-73650-3030657&c=R&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>curmudgeon -- </p>

<p>did any of the schools give you any hassle over the community college hours? My son is homeschooled and will have quite a few community college classes. he is planning on applying to highly selective schools -- and he knows that they don't accept the credits. He is fine with that -- he also wants the whole 4 year college experience.</p>

<p>I have been warned by several people that if he has too many college credits, it can jeopardize his ability to apply as a freshman -- but it seems so common nowadays, I wasn't sure. I can't seem to get any solid answers.</p>

<p>thanks!</p>

<p>stef</p>

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<p>You may want to look into EPGY's on-line AP English course. EPGY does not shoehorn students into the 5-paragraph essay.</p>

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<p>hsmomstef:</p>

<p>I don't think that "too many" cc credits will be held against your S. The issue is whether your S is enrolled full-time as a cc student or not. If he is, then he would need to apply as a transfer. If he takes less than 4 courses per semester, then he is not full-time, so he can apply as a freshman. This was what I was told by a Harvard adrep. Policies may differ at other colleges.</p>

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<p>hsmomstef, as usual I think marite has that question wired. I don't think you should have any trouble as the JC courses were the high school curriculum. As you already know, just don't expect credit. We didn't run into any "transfer" problems.</p>