Originally appeared on my Blew's Clues blog:
Wringing of the hands when it comes to the disappointing and disastrous high school dropout rate is as predictable as the ringing of the bells each day in Triangle high school halls. What a pleasure it is to read about alternative high school programs that are succeeding. The Josephine Dobbs Clement Early College High School in Durham is graduating its first class of 60 students, who are leaving the public high school with diplomas and with undergraduate college credits.
There are 40 similar programs in the state, The News & Observer says, one of them being the high school affiliated with WakeMed, where students go to high school five years and leave with free associate's degrees in a health-related field. More than 160 students were enrolled there for 2007-2008, more than 23 percent of those students qualifying for free and reduced-price lunch.
In Eastern Wake County, where every school is above the county school board's goal of no more than 40 percent of the student body qualifying for free and reduced-price lunch, there is East Wake High School, now broken into four career pathways: School of Arts, Education & Global Studies (410 students, 46.6 f&r); School of Engineering Systems (372 students, 36.3 percent f&r); School of Health Science (417 students, 36 percent f&r) and School of Integrated Technology (368 students, 42.7 f&r). This school is helping students -- clearly, many disadvantaged students -- cultivate a focused interest and visualize an actual career after high school.
In offering high school students alternatives beyond the traditional model, we are finally, thankfully recognizing that individuals have individual needs and goals that often cannot be met within the parameters of traditional high school. Of course, at the same time, it's difficult to argue against toughening graduation requirements, as Wake County has proposed, because who can be against higher standards? Anyone who understands how far U.S. students lag their peers in the rest of the world has to feel almost a panic about the future.
But not every child is destined for Stanford. Not everybody needs to understand statistics or to speak three languages. What everyone does need is an education that will provide a fulfilling job that contributes to society and to a sense of self-worth. A healthy school system should be able to offer both roads of intellectual rigor that meet worldwide standards and alternative roads to self-sufficiency. Both directions lead to students fulfilled and a society helped.
There are 40 similar programs in the state, The News & Observer says, one of them being the high school affiliated with WakeMed, where students go to high school five years and leave with free associate's degrees in a health-related field. More than 160 students were enrolled there for 2007-2008, more than 23 percent of those students qualifying for free and reduced-price lunch.
In Eastern Wake County, where every school is above the county school board's goal of no more than 40 percent of the student body qualifying for free and reduced-price lunch, there is East Wake High School, now broken into four career pathways: School of Arts, Education & Global Studies (410 students, 46.6 f&r); School of Engineering Systems (372 students, 36.3 percent f&r); School of Health Science (417 students, 36 percent f&r) and School of Integrated Technology (368 students, 42.7 f&r). This school is helping students -- clearly, many disadvantaged students -- cultivate a focused interest and visualize an actual career after high school.
In offering high school students alternatives beyond the traditional model, we are finally, thankfully recognizing that individuals have individual needs and goals that often cannot be met within the parameters of traditional high school. Of course, at the same time, it's difficult to argue against toughening graduation requirements, as Wake County has proposed, because who can be against higher standards? Anyone who understands how far U.S. students lag their peers in the rest of the world has to feel almost a panic about the future.
But not every child is destined for Stanford. Not everybody needs to understand statistics or to speak three languages. What everyone does need is an education that will provide a fulfilling job that contributes to society and to a sense of self-worth. A healthy school system should be able to offer both roads of intellectual rigor that meet worldwide standards and alternative roads to self-sufficiency. Both directions lead to students fulfilled and a society helped.
No comments:
Post a Comment