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Comment by rmah | Hacker News Reader

My God. Is this a joke? What kind of idiot tells kids to drop out of high school? I have a hard enough time with people who recommend skipping or dropping out of college -- but high school?!?!?

They told me how boring high-school was, how narrow-minded their families were.

That sounds like what 2 out of 3 teens would say. How much more typical can you get? Maybe these two teens are brilliant, I don't know. If so, they should simply accelerate and go to college earlier. But, drop out? I'm simply stunned that someone could seriously tell teens this.

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Why?

For what reasons is finishing high school better than dropping out? Not that they don't exist, but you've dismissed his argument without listing any.

The problem is that every person I know would say that high school is boring. This is why most of the drug dealers I know dropped out of high school... boring and can't make money sitting in class.

At the same time I found being able to read and knowing basic math useful, but that's just me.

I don't necessarily have a problem dropping out of high school for good reason. But the article didn't show these reasons. First he met these girls one time for lunch? Unless he was really grilling them I'm not sure how smart you can really tell someone is. As a professor I've met students that are conversationally brilliant (witty, charming, etc...), and not surprisingly, it resembled little how strong they seemed in the material.

I'd even consider home schooling first. Teenagers who simply drop out are a lot more likely to get into destructive behavior. If they need challenge, I'm sure there are plenty of people who can give them this challenge in a loosely-structured manner.

"At the same time I found being able to read and knowing basic math useful, but that's just me."

According to the National Center for Education Stastistics, only 4% of high school graduates are able to read proficiently. (And by proficiently, they mean having the minimum amount of skill necessary to 'compare viewpoints in two editorials' or 'interpret a table about blood pressure, age, and physical activity', i.e. an extremely low bar.)

http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2006470

http://nces.ed.gov/NAAL/PDF/2006470.PDF

According to me, that sounds like an incredibly dubious measure of "able to read proficiently". If only 4% of students are passing that means something is wrong with the test, because experience tells us that the majority of people are quite capable of reading normal passages and understanding what they mean.

"experience tells us that the majority of people are quite capable of reading normal passages and understanding what they mean."

Unfortunately science tells us the opposite.

http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/3b.htm

What experience? I know quite a few people (not the HN crowd) who are reasonably smart, but give them a newspaper editorial by itself and they'll be lost. Not 96% of people I know, but a decent amount.

Because they lack the ability to read, or because they lack background knowledge on the subject of the editorial?

Take, for instance, today's editorial in the Telegraph (of Calcutta):

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:qrMr6hx...

I'm pretty lost trying to read that. If I didn't keep up with US politics I'd be equally lost trying to read the New York Times.

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