By Kristin
Remember the Pushmepullyou in Dr. Doolittle? It's an animal with two heads. I was always impressed it got around as well as it did.
Unfortunately, the graduation requirements in Washington State are like a Pushmepullyou that hasn't figured out which direction it's going. The requirements for earning a diploma are at odds with what teachers are expected to accomplish, and I think they need to change.
Imagine a grid with six columns (one for each period in a typical high school day) and eight rows (for eight semesters in a typical high school experience). According to current Washington requirements, six of those forty-eight squares are used for English and another six for math. That's twelve of forty-eight periods spent on the two most highly evaluated subjects.
Only four squares are spent on science, and five on social studies. Nineteen squares are required to be spent on art, P.E., occupational education, and electives. Washington State requirements leave eight squares blank – that is, you could meet all of your high school graduation requirements by second period of senior year, and have afternoons free. That's not rigorous. If a student plans on going to a four-year university, those eight empty squares would be filled with the math, English, and world language credits required for college admission.
Though schools are being told to prepare students for four-year universities, high school graduation requirements fall short. Preparing for admission to a four-year university is, right now, something that is left up to the student. And though English, math and science are heavily tested to evaluate a teacher's or a school's worth, only 33% of a student's high school career is spent studying those subjects.
Changing requirements in high school gets messy because in real life there are no boxes, there are teachers who teach electives and who enjoy teaching them in high school. No one wants to see them lose their jobs. At the same time, shouldn't high school students have a more rigorous course of study? Shouldn't they be given the choice to pursue art, P.E., and other electives? And shouldn't we offer vocational high schools for students who want and need a hands-on education?
Electives teachers don't need to lose their jobs. We should dramatically increase funding for the arts in elementary and middle schools as well as access to physical education and other electives. Move many of the high school electives teachers to elementary and middle schools. By increasing the staffs and subjects in elementary school, teachers will have more than thirty minutes of planning time a day. By increasing the opportunities for electives in middle schools students can enjoy a better staff to student ratio and have more opportunities to find an area at which they can excel. Students graduate from eighth grade with a rich, well-rounded experience.
By high school, if the expectation is that students are being prepared for university, then their studies should be mostly academic with room for a few student-chosen electives. Three years of math (for the class of 2013, right now it's two years of math), three years of English, two and a half of history and two of science are not enough.
I wonder if “career concentration” is kind of a self-selected voc ed pathway. I like that list of graduation requirements. I’m sure I wouldn’t like it so much if I was a P.E. teacher, but it is academic.
I’m only for the academic or vocational track in high school, remember. Not elementary or middle school. I want young kids to have access to all those electives, and not spend their whole day in a desk.
Bob – I think it’s pretty clear which eon of education we’re in – big business. The push is on for schools to prepare students for the world of university and business.
Do I agree with it? Not necessarily, and I don’t spend the bulk of my time with 10th graders on how to be more efficient than someone in Tokyo or New Delhi. I tend to focus more on, “Will you sound educated at that cocktail party, or like an ignoramus?” So, we spend most of our time building skills and knowledge that will allow my students to feel comfortable in any social situation in which they find themselves.
After all, I’m believing more and more that the business world is perhaps a little less what you know, and a little more who you know.
Good post, Kristin and thoughtful comments. As we all know from ed history, this is an ongoing discussion over the past several hundred years. Yet, a theme exists that I’d like to add. I’m sure your readers recognize it also.
A prime reason public schools started in the U.S. was to make sure citizens (cominig from diverse backgrounds and interests) had a similar background so they could participate in civic affairs. Prior to that schools offered instruction, so the next generation could read the Bible. Public schools offered classic liberal arts curricula, sometimes with The Bible as literature. Later, unions and other special interest groups inserted more specific programs to address their outside interests.
Setting aside the inflamatory rhetoric of 21st Century this and that, I wonder where you see the common curricula of eons fits into public schools, including in Washington.
What is “career concentration?” I know I could probably click the link and read…
On September 15th, the State Board of Education tentatively approved the following requirements for the class of 2016:
English—4
Math—3
Science—3
Social Studies—3
Health –.5
Fitness –1.5
Arts—2
World Languages—2
Career Concentration—2
Occ. Ed – 1
Electives – 2
Total=24
To learn more or express your opinion via survey
see the SBE website at: http://www.sbe.wa.gov/
Mark, DrPezz, and Brian,
the big but in the room is that, currently, high schools are being told to prepare ALL students for university.
Someone needs to make a choice, and that someone is the department of education and the office of the superintendent.
If we’re going to put all the emphasis on test scores – and the media is – then we need to put more time into those subjects.
I just heard in a meeting after school today that my district might be looking at two tracks, each respectable. Students will get to pursue preparation for a four-year university OR will get to prepare for and pursue a vocational future.
Frankly, I prefer this model over the “every child will go to college” system we’re living in right now.
It’s interesting that you say “No one wants to see them lose their jobs.”
But art is a vocation. Math is overrated, and we all speak English all the time.
So I respectfully disagree. Lower the math requirement instead. Keep the electives!
Is the purpose of high school really to prepare students for college? Or success in life? Or a job?
I’ve never viewed high schools as preparation for colleges; it’s an option for students but not the only one.
If the purpose of a high school is college-prep, then we need different high schools (track schools?) for different purposes. The all-purpose high school could cease to exist, which may not be a bad thing but the system would probably have to change entirely.
This is an interesting reframing of the requirements. Some schools do ask more for their diploma–my building requires four years of English, and though I’m English department chair, I have serious questions whether that is actually necessary for all students or whether English 9, 10, 11, and 12 are the best/only ways to accomplish this (that’s a whole different conversation).
I am intrigued by your idea of shifting more arts and PE to elementary and middle school. There are numerous benefits I think could result from such a shift. But I tend to think that there should be PE, Art, Voc, etc., in the high schools still. What perhaps needs to happen is a development of core competencies in all content areas. For example, are art teachers really trained in how to treat their content as a venue for developing reading, writing, and math? I’m not saying that an art or PE teacher should be obligated to eschew their own content, but perhaps it would be a worthy investment to consider “writing across the curriculum” as it was called back when I was at OSU. How can the the PE, art, voc, or other teachers reinforce and teach the math, reading, and writing skills which are relevant to their disciplines? As an example, I know so many kids who say they learned more about “real” writing from their marketing/DECA courses than they did in their core English classes. PE actually has many science and math potential connections. I think art could encompass all. It would involve paradigm shifts for many teachers to see that all teachers are teachers of reading, writing, and math, but I think it would reconnect these disciplines which for too long have been separated by bells and passing time.