Too Young to Fail

 Too young to fail

 

Guidance from the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) says that children should not be removed from a diploma program until the final semester of the senior year.  The purpose of this guidance is to give students every chance possible to earn a high school diploma.  Isn’t that wonderful?  

Well not exactly.  The high school diploma program is supposed to prepare student for career or college.   In fact, the curriculum mainly prepares kids for college.  There isn’t much need for algebra 2 or a high school foreign language unless you are going to college.  And what about science?  Science is interesting but if the student is not going on to college just how much science is useful in high school.

Some school districts are moving kids out of diploma tracking courses very early.  Some as early as elementary school!  Is that horrible?  If you worship at the altar of rigor and academic learning, such behavior is blasphemy. 

However, if you believe as the first educators did, that education should prepare you for your life as an adult; this change makes good sense.  So back in the very olden days, 1700 and 1800’s kids went to school to learn to do what their parents did or what they would do.  There were lots of bad things about that plan because it certainly didn’t lead to kids moving up socio-economically.  

What is the point of modifying academic content to the point that it is accessible to children with significant learning challenges?  Sure, The Tale of Two Cities can be rewritten on the second grade level but when you do that it is no longer the Tale of Two Cities.

Wouldn’t it be a better use of these students’ time to teach about money, internet safety, how the government in a democracy is supposed to work?  Failure to get a high school diploma may not be failure at all. A certificate works much the same as diploma for almost all things.  Maybe it’s just common sense useful education. Wouldn’t it be nice if that’s what we all got.