Who needs 12th grade? asks Kalman R. Hettleman, a former member of the Baltimore school board. Why not eliminate senior year — and maybe junior year too — for students who already meet college- and career-readiness standards?
North Point High School in Charles County, Maryland offers 17 career-tech programs.
If high schools reopen with social-distancing rules, there won’t be enough space for everyone. But the concern about “senioritis” goes way back.
In 2007, the National Center on Education and the Economy called for redesigning K-12 to let students exit at 16. NCEE worked with Maryland’s Kirwan Commission on a Blueprint for Maryland’s Future that would enable students to meet high college and career standards by the end of 10th grade.
If it becomes law, Maryland students who meet the new standards would choose a pathway in 11th or 12th grade, “including International Baccalaureate or other advanced courses, dual-enrollment programs leading to associate degrees or transferrable college credits, and access to robust career and technical education leading to industry credentials,” writes Hettleman.
But it misses an even bolder choice option: Why not allow the college- and career-ready students to exit high school altogether at the end of the tenth or eleventh grades?
. . . The students could pick their own paths. Not just higher education or work, but other life experiences. Early exit would align with proposals for national, state, and local service programs.
If ready-to-go students exit early for jobs, vocational training or college, school funding could be used to help other students reach career and college readiness by the end of 12th grade, Hettleman writes.
I’m not sure parents will want their teens to leave high school early to go to college, even community college, on their own dime, rather than taking advantage of taxpayer-funded AP, IB and dual enrollment courses.