<p>"The sudden buzz over the relative value of senior year stems from a recent proposal by state Sen. Chris Buttars that Utah make a dent in its budget gap by eliminating the 12th grade.</p>
<p>The notion quickly gained some traction among supporters who agreed with the Republican's assessment that many seniors frittered away their final year of high school, but faced vehement opposition from other quarters, including in his hometown of West Jordan.</p>
<p>"My parents are against it," Williams said. "All the teachers at the school are against it. I'm against it."</p>
<p>Buttars has since toned down the idea, suggesting instead that senior year become optional for students who complete their required credits early. He estimated the move could save up to $60 million, the Salt Lake Tribune reported...." In</a> Utah, a plan to cut 12th grade -- altogether - latimes.com</p>
<p>Here in Texas if a student finishes during their junior year, they get a few thousands dollars to put towards tuition at a public college or university. I think that’s a great idea.</p>
<p>Why stop with 12th grade? Throw out 9th, 10th, and 11th grade with it. High school is four years of redundancy anyway (this coming from a HS dropout).</p>
<p>I wonder if parents will need to approve a student deciding to opt out. What’s the job market like in Utah these days? How many employers are going to hire a 17 year old who is not legally an adult? Will there be additional costs for unemployment benefits or other social safety net programs if the newly minted high school graduates can’t find jobs?</p>
<p>Well, part of this lies on the feet of the colleges. In our high school the counselors push the kids to get their apps done by the end of October. ED, EA, Early admit programs have put many kids in the driver’s seat by January. Kids are judged many times on junior year transcripts and parents are making frantic guesstimates on financial aid forms that they don’t really need to do until mid-winter. With the acception of the AP classes that extend for a full school year, senior spring is an utter waste as some kids slide and others try to piece together something interesting. Kids that opt for zero hour classes often have all their credits and mandatory classes completed by January, too. I’m not for getting rid of senior year I’m about getting things back in perspective and push the college stuff out of the first part of senior year. To me, it’s just turned into one big CF and frankly I think the 17 that is ready for college socially and emotionally is rare. Put more oompth into senior year not less.</p>
<p>momofthreeboys, some schools do put a lot more emphasis into the senior year. At our high school in Maryland, many seniors take actually college courses offered by our local junior college. In fact, the junior college actually holds some classes in the high school! APs during the senior year, are very encourage as is duel enrollment in college. I think it just depends on the culture of the high school. It is doable ,but you need a very enlightened principal and a supportive school board, not to mention supportive parents and students.</p>
<p>Colleges can restore dignity to 12 graders by doing this:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Calculate GPA for college admission this way: 3 times 12 grade GPA + 2 times 11 grade GPA + 1 time 10 grade GPA.</p></li>
<li><p>Put heavy weight on EC activities in 12 grade.</p></li>
<li><p>Don’t accept college application before February of the 12 grade year.</p></li>
<li><p>Send acceptance letter at the beginning of the summer (there will be no wall of shame).</p></li>
</ol>
<p>When I went to school it was K-11 and 5 years to get the undergrad degree. For those of us who knew exactly what we wanted to do, this helped out since we spent the extra year studying what we were interested in.</p>
<p>I went into my senior only needing half a credit in English to graduate, a whole credit if I wanted to meet college requirements. I used my senior year as a way to take advanced classes in subjects I liked and to take a lot of dual enrollment classes. At my school, it was possible to take a reduced schedule senior year, but few people did. Junior year is a very tough year and don’t think adding college applications to the list would be a good idea. I would support the idea of giving students who graduate a year early the money that the state would have spent on their senior year to use for their college or vocational education at any accredited school. Ideally, this payment would not be calculated into FAFSA, Profile, and would not replace the financial aid the school was going to give anyway.</p>
<p>I am the parent of an early graduate and I think it’s a terrible idea, especially if money follows the early graduates.<br>
If students are to apply to college in their junior year, colleges will essentially have only their freshman and sophomore grades to determine whether or not to admit them. Many colleges either disregard totally or discount freshman grades because 9th grade is a transition year which can be challenging on many fronts for a large number of students. So the only valid set of grades to consider would be sophomore grades and perhaps grades from the first semester of junior year (did not count for S who applied SCEA).</p>
<p>Regarding money: public schools spend xxx for each student; but that does not mean that early graduates should take xxx along for college. Public schools have fixed costs. Suppose the school has 10 early graduates; it still needs to have teachers to teach the rest of the classes; it may not be able to reduce the number of teachers just because a few students graduate early. The library will still be needed, along with labs, janitorial services, heat, water and electricity. But if these students take away 10 xxx, it will be that much less money to cover the costs. Additionally, one expects that the early graduates will be the better students; they would be leaving behind students who need more support and thus more resources.</p>
<p>If the state thinks to reduce the cost of education, I would think that k-12 is cheaper than college.</p>
<p>Marite, I should have considered the costs more before I said that all per-student spending should be given to the student. Additionally, some funding legally has to be used for certain programs that not all students use or directly benefit from. I also agree that those graduating early will generally be the better students. Those not taking extra classes need the 8 semesters of high school to earn the required credits and some students stay in public education until they turn 21. It would still be nice for the state to pay some incentive to those that graduate early, but maybe that money could be put to better use lowering college tuition for all.</p>
<p>I can see why some posters have considered the idea of pushing the college application process back to late winter/spring, but when your college starts in August, that is pushing things pretty close together. Yes, the second half of senior year is not traditionally the most productive time in one’s high school career, but it provides a good break between the 12.5+ years of school before then and college afterward while still getting things accomplished.</p>
<p>Other countries manage just fine without having essentially a six months break between high school and college!
I took my bac in late June (after classes had ended); I got the results in July. By early August, I was in the US taking pre-college orientation for internationals and improving my English. I thus did not even have a vacation, let along time for senioritis. And it did not bother me one whit.</p>
<p>There are countries with 10 grades and no kindergarden. Their HS graduate also have much deeper math/science curriculum. There is absolutely NO reason for child to read / know any math before 7. However, at 7 they can absorb so much more than at 5/6 that kids who start at 7 in these schools are much ahead after first grade in comparison to 6 years old in the US, who has been at school for 2 years. The school curriculum is much more imprtant that number of years at school. These kids start chemistry / physics in 6th grade and take physics until they graduate. 10 years at school is plenty and challenging program will make it much more interesting for most kids who are plainly bored with all that non-challenging time consuming busy work.</p>
<p>I’m all for it, for students that have enough credit. Even if we have enough credit, we have to schedule a full senior year. It’s a waste of time and money. My school system also has the highest number of credits required for graduation - we’re required four English and four math classes, among other issues. I think it’s a huge waste of time. For the students who don’t want to be there, encourage them to work harder and faster to get out earlier. For the students who DO want to be there - well, they’ve more than likely finished the requirements by then anyway.</p>