Drop out nation: Has the GED done more harm than good?
economist.com
economist.com
Thank you, GED.
While I understand that you are simply stating your case, I don't understand how your case is relevant to the article. I'm obviously missing something, so it'd be great if you pointed out what I was missing.
All in all, there's nothing like a four-year university experience. Especially if you're spending all your time grinding away with huge course loads. You're cheating yourself by rushing through college or being a junior transfer.
Of course you believe that. Most people tend to any ascribe success to the efficacy of their earlier life choices and hardships -- to believe you didn't select the best path would make you uncomfortable.
Nobody wants to think that their suffering through a particular choice was unnecessary to achieve their current standing.
> You're the first actual GED success story I've heard of.
When you've got government-run schools railroading every student into college, and few real options outside of that path except for the unusually non-conformant, then you're just not going to hear about many GED success stories.
> All in all, there's nothing like a four-year university experience.
That's what a lot of people who just concluded a 4-year university experience say. They very right, but they're hardly unbiased about just how valuable that unique experience is.
To admit that it may not have been necessary would be uncomfortable, especially if they're sitting on student loan debt to pay for it.
> You're cheating yourself by rushing through college or being a junior transfer.
I could also just easily say you're cheating yourself by waiting until you're 21-24 to get your career and life started.
That you were allowed to take APs early in your high school career is rare. That you were allowed to take higher level math/science is rare. That a university accepted a 16(?) year old student is also rare.
The argument isn't that it has no benefits. The argument is that it fails the people it was designed to help. Considering the trend is that most drop outs come from disadvantaged backgrounds and tend to have less beneficially involved parents, it seems your case is irrelevant entirely.
Also, I believe that education should mirror yours in more ways, where intelligent students can progress forward at rates that reflect their changing status rather than an inflexible system.
Better question: how is it that it now takes 12 years to educate someone to a minimally acceptable standard, when in the days of the one room schoolhouse it only took 8?
These days, high school is much more focused on being a generalized preparation for a college education, giving students a wide variety of knowledge in hopes that something of that lot interests them enough that they know what career they would like to further pursue.
I can't think of any complex topic -- on par with school maths and science -- that took one hour a day for 180 days to learn, outside of the time I spent in school.
> These days, high school is much more focused on being a generalized preparation for a college education, giving students a wide variety of knowledge in hopes that something of that lot interests them enough that they know what career they would like to further pursue.
Translation: High school focuses entirely on college preparation to the detriment of encouraging useful, immediate work that demonstrates the basic cause and effect of applying real work output to produce genuine value. It strongly discourages interested teenagers from focusing on a specific area of real-world economic exchange, and perpetuates their state of child-like helplessness well into their 20s.
I much rather would have taken Electrician 101 than Introduction to Percussion in high school.
Assuming this is accurate: http://people.moreheadstate.edu/fs/w.willis/eighthgrade.html ... you can see that this has algebra, volume calculations, weights and measures, etc. I know many high school graduates that would have difficulty with both the math and other portions of the test.
And, before you say that this is not representative, let me tell you that I have known many old farmers with only an 8th grade education who were in fact, able to operate at the above test's level.
I recall in particular one couple that built a series of multi-million dollar nursing homes, learning to read and interpret blueprints and handle an architect's rule, on just such an 8th grade education.
It is a lot easier to teach a room filled with children who are willing to put in the work or at least not screw it up for the other children. It is a lot easier for a teacher when he/she can kick a child out of class for misbehavior and the teacher is protected rather than chastised.
(Note: I tutor at a community center and not in a prison, so this probably changes the demographic a bit.)
Actually, I think at the undergraduate level it's even worse (you still learn a lot of generally useful things in GED/high school). I would guess that what most people actually learn at the undergraduate level is completely unnecessary for their eventual careers. There are certainly exceptions, but it's a good rule (consider this: why do you need a bachelor's degree before entering med school? We invented a "fake" major for this requirement--premed--but objectively, it's completely unnecessary)
I wasn't too concerned about the test, since I'd scored in the 99th percentile for the ACT. But I found the GED dramatically harder. Anyone else have this experience?