03-06-2011, 06:37 PM
graylocks wrote:
[quote=Grace62]
Not sure I agree with the "high school is easier now" idea when in fact standards for graduation have become tougher in nearly every state, with more math, science, and foreign language required now than a few decades ago.
250,000 high school students take AP Calculus, 3 times more than in 1990. Lab science is now a requirement for graduation in many places. Proficiency exams are required for graduation now too, designed to eliminate that problem of graduating kids who lack the minimum math and reading standards.
I know there's a lot of local variance, and the move towards national standards (core standards) will help.
oh, Grace62, if you lived in GA you'd understand. yes, more years of math and science are required but the curriculum is a mile wide and an inch deep. And proficency exams are a joke. case in point: GA has End of the Year exams in math. the results are listed as Exceeds Expectations, Meets Expectations, and Below Expectations. Last year only 51% of sophomores qualified as Meets Expectations or better. AND, the kicker is (and most parents don't know this as they don't dig) in order to meet expectations you only had to get 43%. that's right, just like in baseball if you get it right less than half the time you're doing great!
the 'proficiency' exams here only weed out the truly illiterate not the woefully undereducated.
The ramifications of this are nicely found in the University System of Georgia. The following link is to the latest data on recent high school graduates who enrolled at a University System college or university and the Learning Support requirement. Now, those students have all passed their graduation exams and proudly carry the "college prep" seal on their high school transcripts. But, when they are tested (by either the SAT or the COMPASS), they don't meet minimum standards for college level work, so they are required to take remedial classes to bring them up to the appropriate levels. Our research universities are fine (1% need Learning Support) and our state universities are ok (about 13% need Learning Support) but at our state colleges (50% need Learning Support) and 2 year colleges (60% need Learning Support), we've got a disaster.
http://www.usg.edu/research/students/ls/...ll2008.pdf
And, when we look at how those Learning Support students do, we typically find that 2 years after first enrollment, 48% of the Learning Support students are no longer enrolled, suggesting that they were not able to complete those Learning Support requirements in the 2 attempts allowed.