<p>
[quote]
High school sophomores should be ready for college by age 16. That's the message from New Hampshire education officials, who announced plans Oct. 30 for a new rigorous state board of exams to be given to 10th graders. Students who pass will be prepared to move on to the state's community or technical colleges, skipping the last two years of high school.</p>
<p>Once implemented, the new battery of tests is expected to guarantee higher competency in core school subjects, lower dropout rates and free up millions of education dollars. Students may take the exams which are modeled on existing AP or International Baccalaureate tests as many times as they need to pass. Or those who want to go to a prestigious university may stay and finish the final two years, taking a second, more difficult set of exams senior year. "We want students who are ready to be able to move on to their higher education," says Lyonel Tracy, New Hampshire's Commissioner for Education. "And then we can focus even more attention on those kids who need more help to get there."</p>
<p>But can less schooling really lead to better-prepared students at an earlier age? Outside of the U.S., it's actually a far less radical notion than it sounds. Dozens of industrialized countries expect students to be college-ready by age 16, and those teenagers consistently outperform their American peers on international standardized tests.
<p>In Massachusetts, kids take the high school graduation exam (the MCAS) in 10th grade. The only difference is that they can’t graduate then; they still need 2 more years of, at least, English.</p>
<p>In CA, students take the CASHEE (high school exit exam) for the first time in 10th grade as well. However, the bar is set pretty low: nothing beyond basic algebra and 9th grade English.</p>
<p>It’s pretty hard to imagine how a student could meet the necessary requirements in CA to apply for admission to the UC system in two years.</p>
<p>Then there’s always the question of the emotional maturity of someone who’s just in their second year of high school.</p>
<p>We live in NH and my daughter is 16 and attending Community College in Massachusetts. It’s a 40 minute drive to get her there.</p>
<p>There are several NH community and technical colleges that are ten minutes away.</p>
<p>I looked at the NH CCs and TCs many years ago when our son was taking college courses part-time and crossed them off my list of acceptable schools. UNH was fine but that wasn’t nearby. Our local NH CC has gotten somewhat better.</p>
<p>I think that there’s a lot of politics behind this proposal.</p>
<p>We’ve recently raised the age of mandatory schooling from 16 to 18. I think that it’s a major part of governors going after the dropout problem. The argument against raising the age was that if someone didn’t want to be in school, forcing them to go to school would be counterproductive to their classmates and an abuse of their time.</p>
<p>This is against a backdrop of lawsuits against the state on funding issues for the last 20 years with no resolution at this time and a difficult budget environment.</p>
<p>If someone wants to go to college at 16, the can. There’s a lot of paperwork to be done but it is nowhere near impossible. There are lots of kids at CC that start college at 16 and 17 and I assume that they’re from other states.</p>
<p>this is a complex, tricky topic. Why? Because schools, kids and “college” each vary so much. </p>
<p>Take the schools. Some HS offer a depth of courses that rival the first year of some colleges. But some don’t. So one size won’t fit all.</p>
<p>Take the kids. Maturity, intellectual agressiveness and such vary all over the map.</p>
<p>Take the colleges. There is a world of difference between a poorly supported community college and MIT. Who is ready for which.</p>
<p>The final issue is the experience in the past with radical acceleration, which is basically what educational researchers call such double grade skipping. Julian Stanley was an early proponent of this, and followed kids who started college several years early. What he found was curious. In college, the kids did fine - good academically, reasonably well adjusted socially and such. But what he found out was that a number of them in later years felt they missed something - that later HS experience, and missed it with regret. </p>
<p>Unless things have changed since I last delved into this topic about 10 years ago, most researchers in the arena of gifted children believe it is better to provide extension opportunities in place. And that is, in fact, what is being done in most places. And it is becoming increasingly easy to do with various distance learning opportunities.</p>
<p>To me, the scariest part of this is that it smells like it is being done for budget reasons, not for the kids. But heck, since when did the educational leadership care about the kids? Seems to me they care first about themselves (keeping employment and salaries high), next about the political establishment, including elected officials, then about parents. If any time or energy is left over, they think about the kids. (slight tongue in cheek…)</p>
<p>“To me, the scariest part of this is that it smells like it is being done for budget reasons,”</p>
<p>NH doesn’t have the commitment to education that Mass has.</p>
<p>If they’re in college instead of high-school, parents can get certain tax credits and deductions under certain income amounts. The cost of NH CCs is lower than average per-student expenditures in public schools by a few thousand dollars. And kids can go after vocational training that they’re interested in.</p>
<p>On another topic, I have a coworker with a daughter that was accepted to Phillips Exeter. I assumed that she was attending but only found out this week that he’s homeschooling her. She’s quite advanced in mathematics and she’s using EPGY (they have an online high-school) for her courses.</p>
<p>I wish that all of these educational options and services were around when our kids were a lot younger.</p>
<p>Texas has gone in the opposite direction. Has required 4 years of social studies and English for some time. Starting with this year’s sophomores, 4 years of math and science are also required.</p>
<p>Plus, let me just say that pigs will fly before the state of Texas would ever do anything that would impair or weaken high school football.</p>
<p>How different is this in actuality than the dual enrollment programs some states have? In WA, you can take your last two years of high school courses at the local community college and they count for both high school and college credit. Then you enter a four-year school as an 18-year junior. Of course, if you go out of state, those credits may not transfer, but it’s the same basic concept. There are GPA requirements in order to start the program and GPA requirements that have to be maintained, but no testing required other than the placement tests for math and English.</p>
<p>To expand on cap’s post, the WA program is called Running Start; students can essentially complete their last two years of HS at a community college. Students receive a joint diploma and AA (or similar) degree. As I understand it, Running Start does not require a two year degree path, but can substitute for HS courses. It is a full AA degree and the courses are all college level and may or may not be transferred outside of the state based on the policies of the particular college. [The downside is that I was told by admissions officers at some of the schools S1 was looking at that they prefer students not take community college courses. They said the courses may be excellent, but that they had no way to evaluate them, whereas they knew the curriculum at S1’s HS and could evaluate that.]</p>
<p>In addition, the UW (Seattle) offers an early admission program to 7th grade, 8th grade, and 10th grade students. The 7th and 8th graders must attend a one year transition program provided by the university, the 10th graders simply begin at the university. The program has special support services for the students as well. All of the students are also automatically admitted into the Honors program. Admission is by application process that includes test scores, transcripts, interviews, etc.</p>
<p>USC (Trojans) offers a program for HS seniors where they can complete their final year in a special program at the college, and then move on to undergrad at USC or elsewhere.</p>
<p>I asked my S (now a Jr in HS) whether he might be interested, as USC is one of the places he’ll be applying (my H is faculty there, so S would get tutition remission.) However, my S is really enjoying HS waterpolo and recognizes that he’s not big enough to make it on a team at a D-1 school like USC. So he said no, he wanted to finish out at the HS for the sports and social aspects. It sounded reasonable to me, and he’s taking a large load of APs plus a CTY on line class in linear algebra and thus getting the academic challenge. So the conversation ended there.</p>
<p>There’s a program at Universty of North Texas where kids do their 11th and 12th grades there. A friend’s son did this …then he went to a prestigious university and got a terrific job. So…now he’s this very young guy with a fantastic job, in a new city, with older co-workers, no friends and he’s miserable. You really do need to look at the social/personal aspects of some of these accelerated programs.</p>
<p>I think the kids who take honors and AP classes would be ready for college educationally after 11th grade. 11th grade English is pretty important. </p>
<p>But why miss senior year? </p>
<p>Plus, I think that the college testing is best done for most kids at the end of junior year/beginning of senior year. To move all of that up one year, before you’ve had 11th grade English would be a stretch for a lot of kids.</p>
<p>But then maybe kids in NH are smarter than the average bear…</p>
<p>I don’t think the intention of the NH program is to get kids into college sooner, but rather to get kids who aren’t really that well served by college into other vocational programs. This sounds a lot like what exists in much of Europe where many 16 year olds are out of regular high schools and have started other programs. We had two draftsmen in our office who spent part of the week in our office, but also some time getting training. Sometimes it works well - one draftsman was happy with the job, the other was inspired to do better in school and go back to the college track. Other times it’s a disaster. I had a friend who was steered to being a bank teller and she hated it. She had a facility for languages, but had a hard time getting jobs and training that matched her interests and abilities. She worked for a travel agency, went back to school and for the last ten years or so has been working as a secretary at a language school. She’s probably have had better options in our country.</p>
<p>I had lunch with someone from Germany and he said that it’s more the norm that kids leave school at 10th grade. The percentage that go to university there is much lower.</p>
<p>This is a good idea. Whether it will be implemented well, or not, remains to be seen. </p>
<p>The concept, though, is wonderful. In practice, the high-achieving, college-bound students will be able to choose whether they prefer to do four years of traditional high school, followed by college, or two years of community college followed by whatever they want. Essentially similar to what happens now in places with programs like Running Start. </p>
<p>For students who don’t plan to go to college, they can get out of high school (where they’re taking things that are arguably not necessary to their future goals) as soon as they’ve demonstrated basic proficiency, and then get vocational training. This will make for fewer frustrated students in unnecessary classes, and perhaps encourage these students to work towards basic proficiency faster (so they can get the heck out of high school and get on with their lives). </p>
<p>Of course, the question is how this will play out with funding. The community colleges will probably need more of it; hopefully the high schools will need somewhat less. Let’s hope nobody gets screwed when they do the math on that.</p>
<p>This sounds like they’re offering the students in tenth grade a chance to get a GED sponsored by the school so they don’t have to deal with the students that don’t want to be there as much. I think it’s actually a pretty neat idea, though I also hope the driving age in NH is 16 since I’d hate to be a parent with a high school graduate but not able to get themselves to work/CC.</p>
<p>In Germany, children take a test in 4th grade which determines their future course of education. There are 3 tracks - the highest leads to college and beyond, the lowest, to vocational school, the middle, to training for mid-level management. And college, as well as post-graduate education, such as medical or law school, is all free.</p>