Comment by gscott | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gscott | Hacker News Reader

Just my rant on schooling:

My Son just recently graduated High School and now is in his first year of college for dual major in Aviation Science (to be an air traffic controller) and Business. His high school (Valhalla High School in El Cajon California) gave him a test to determine his aptitude that said he should go into "building maintenance" (being a Janitor more or less) and wouldn't move up his classes to more difficult ones so he was in classes with kids who didn't really want to be there and were continually disruptive.

Looking for a solution for this problem I found Grossmont Middle College which is a high school on a 2 year college campus. My son was able to get into that and finished high school with about 34 units in college classes most of which transferred to the 4 year university he now attends (University of North Dakota... why he wants to move from California to the freezing cold I have no idea!).

Common Core can't fix the segregation of high schools between the rich high performing kids and everyone else who isn't allowed into the higher level of learning at schools. Every school is essentially 2 schools and if you don't get into the right classes you are screwed big time.

Reading the article, personally I see what is wrong in schools more about getting kids to where they want to be in life. Either college or a trade. For those who want a trade they should get 2 years of High School and 2 years of trade school along with some additional classes.

Alternative view here:

While I don't doubt that your kid was hilariously unappreciated from the school based on one test, I was a relatively lazy middle school student, scoring B-C ranges on most of my classes as well as pretty much failing the first aptitude test (pretty sure it said that I should be a truck driver). As a result, I wound up getting placed into non-honors classes freshman year. After a few weeks of finding the classes mind-numbling boring, I offhandedly mentioned to my advisor that I wanted my classes to be more challenging, and she immediately moved me to honors courses because of the fact that I had taken the prerogative to tell her that I wasn't being sufficiently challenged. Currently I'm studying Computer Science at a large state University.

Because both our examples have an n = 1 sample size, it's definitely not correct to generalize high schools across an entire nation. However, in my experience, high school advisors were more than willing to toss out aptitude test results if the student had taken the prerogative themselves. While I agree with the idea that "Every school is essentially 2 schools", the barrier between them is honestly so low that it's not realistically a problem.

You were lucky. At my high school someone from the regular track had to jump through hoops and speak up loudly to be allowed into an honors English class. Separately, my high school guidance counselor "lost" the application of a student who wasn't doing very well in high school (it was the student's only application to college, so this may very well have messed up her life for a while), while constantly harassing me in the cafeteria to apply to more/better schools. I believe (somewhat cynically) that her motivation was to make the high school's acceptance rates look better.

But the real crime of the traditional education system, in my mind, is to condition students to be so focused on jumping for gold stars that they don't think about what they really want to accomplish and what activities (stars or no) will get them there.

You had a more supporting environment, I am sure it varies by school. My son did try to get into Honors classes but they would not let him. To get into the Middle College program he tried to get recommendations from all of his teachers and two of them said he would never make it and suggested he give up and that she would actively send a negative recommendation. The rest of the teachers were supportive.

I would say his school situation may have been more on the extreme side. Luckily he was able to get out of there. It was very demoralizing to him but once out of there he received all A and B grades in his college classes and he continues to get A and B grades at UND.

Trying to cross that barrier before high school is in my experience much harder even though the payoff of doing so is much greater.

This sounds very similar to the old eleven plus system in the UK; kids in the last year of primary school given a test (with an enormous impact upon their future prospects) that decided whether they went to technical, secondary modern, or grammar school.

That would make sense where the parent knows the test is coming and the impact of it. They would start early to determine how to improve their child's standing in the test, pushing their children's limits on what they can learn before the testing. However it would discriminate against kids who are slow to mature and come out of their shell.

Highly anecdotal, but from my mother's side of the family, she and her cousin passed, went to grammar school, moved from area, went to uni, etc. Siblings and other cousins didn't, and still in area - one went straight into the navy, so did well long-term with oil, and one married to air force officer (again then oil worker), but the rest are substantially less well-off. From talking to family friends over the years, a marked impact upon life outcomes seems to have been a fairly common result of that single test. How much of that is because of ability/drive etc and would have occurred anyway is debatable, but it pretty horrendous placing that much weight upon a child so young

A rather heavy verdict against people with bad parents or who go to a school that's rubbish and whose parents don't have the time or talent to teach them.

I live in San Diego and my son is a few years away from entering HS, but I had no idea GMC existed. Even worse, I used to live in Fletcher Hills about a block away from the school. Thanks!

I'm intrigued by this test - what did it involve? Obviously his quant skills are up to par if he's studying aerospace.

It was only multiple choice. When he brought home the results and told me how his school counselor assured him she would help him get into building maintenance I took him over to our trash can and we threw it away. As a parent you can't trust the school.. what a disaster. I believe most parents are overworked and don't have a good handle on what is happening with their kids in school. Schools has no incentive to make sure the kids succeed in life.

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