See this story:
http://www.cnn.com/2002/fyi/teachers.ednews/05/08/graduation.policy.ap/index.html
So why do so many boneheaded people (judging from their brilliant ideas) gravitate to school administration? Jeez.
Because boneheads just charge forward and don’t think about the future. Perhaps if they had taken a year off after high school their ability to reason would have developed more. And, what if somebody had planned to take a year off and travel around the world and grow as an individual? Would they be banned from their graduation? What a bunch of shit.
tcsh! This is almost as stupid as the panty checking people. I hope the parents tear them a new one, and I’m sure they will. I don’t know what it is but you’re right, they’re usually on the school boards too. There isn’t a week that goes by that I don’t thank my lucky stars that I got out of school in 1992 before they started cracking down on the students. I mean here these kids worked hard to graduate, or at least I hope they did, and they can’t celebrate with their friends cause they aren’t fast trackers.
We recently had a female HS senior who wanted to wear pants rather then the required dress under her graduation gown. The school said no it was against policy, so her family is upset, non-profit rights groups offers to threaten lawsuit on girl’s behalf. It drags on for awhile, finally school officials realize they can’t win and back off.
So when will the lawsuits fly? i say sue the crap out of these knuckleheads, they are proof that college doesn’t guarantee brains.
I know exactly why they did this: they want to make the school graduate-to-college ratio look better. Ah, the things administrators do with rose-colored glasses. Let’s completely ignore them the twelve years before they graduate and then hit them with another stupid policy! Yes!
I am an honor student in college, and I also was in high school. No one questions that I have ambition, capability, intelligence and that I am now living up to my potential. Starting college right after high school, however, led to what was quite possibly the worst year of my life and almost destroyed my future before it started. I can’t imagine having been any unhappier and in retrospect I realize I came dangerously close to a suicidal level of depression. I simply wasn’t ready to start college. If I could change anything, any one single thing about my life, it would be to take a year off between high school and college.
Superintendent Collins, you are the worst of all individuals, and have no business in the public schools.
Why is it considered some kind of moral failing to not know what you want to do at age 18? The question is not that of high expectations, the question is what the appropriate expectations are. It is not appropriate to expect everyone to go to college, and certainly not immediately after high school. To believe that people must fall in lock-step with an arbitrary conception of what appropriate post-high school choices are is delusional and harmful.
I have only one thing to say to the San Fernando Valley high school administration: Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.
Hell, I’d be personally startled if even one in three of highschool graduates had an honest idea of their future plans.
I used to recruit for the Navy, and let me tell you… The things kids will say about their plans when they’re sure their parants and teachers can’t hear!
Geez. I’ll be 30 in November and I still don’t know what I want to do.
Oh, do tell. 
And what if your plan is something to the effect of, “I’m going to work now to support myself/my family?” Not everyone needs to go to college, not everyone wants to go to college, and this is possibly the most asinine policy I’ve ever heard of.
This story and thread make me remember an old "Doonesbury"cartoon. Several men are gathered at their 30th college reunion. It seems one guy, Howie, still doesn’t have a regular job, saying he “just doesn’t want to rush into anything.” Chided by one of his friends, who tells him a man has to have a “life’s work” Howie makes this rebuttal
"In the last thirty years I have watched thousands of sunsets; I’ve painted still-lifes of ferns and Indian corn; I’ve read the verses of Milton and I’ve taken long walks in the Bershires! What have you done that was so great?
“Why Howie, you ol’ hippie you!”
“Damn straight!”
Name: Daniel Withrow
Date of Birth: July 23, 1984
High School: San Fernando Valley High School
GPA: 3.5
Reason for applying to Cletus Community Technical College: Well, like, my principal won’t let me walk at graduation if I’m not going to college, so I decided I better go.
What? Do they really think that some schmoe who isn’t otherwise planning to go to school will be persuaded to do so by their policy?
Oh yeah, I forgot. They’re high school administrators, and therefore slightly stupider than moss.
Daniel
I suppose that this means that university graduates should not be convoked unless they proceed to post-graduate programs, etc.
Convocation is a celebration of students’ accomplishments at which diplomas are awarded based on the students meeting the requirements for graduation. Prohibiting students from convocation despite their meeting the requirements of graduation is absurd, shameful, and just plain mean hearted.
(It took me a while to have a half decent convocation. I didn’t get a high school one because I didn’t do sr. year; at my first university they went down the row but bypassed me, leading to an extended period of embarrassment until they came back to me; my next one was in a very hot building, so I dislocated a few ribs due to heat cramps; the next one was physically tolerable, but they made us sit and listen to an extended sales pitch from a guy from IBM; the most recent one actually went OK, and my family and friends had one hell of a reception afterward. Practice makes perfect. More to the point, it took a while, but when I finally had a good convocation, it left me with a very good feeling. No one who earns it should be deprived of such a feeling. Anyone who earns the right to graduate should not be deprived of the right to do so in public along with one’s peers at convocation.)
It was only a matter of time. First the schools start to focus less on behavior prior to graduation as a requirement until there’s pretty much no pre-requisite. Now the pendulum swings the other way, the focus is on what they do after graduation as a requirement to graduate.
Makes sense to me in a government-ese kind of way. Plus, I like the guys statement:
Right…that’s why they graduate. They met (note the past tense) your high expectations.
Makes me think of that simpsons episode with the standarized tests. The sign read “Controlling Your Destiny” since some year or other. Ain’t it the truth.
Not to defend this policy or anything, but the policy is that they aren’t allowed to participate in the graduation ceremony, not that aren’t allowed to graduate. I think that the title blurs that distinction.
So what, The Ryan.
The whole idea of a graduation ceremony is celebrating the completion of school. Why deny them the right (IMO) of celebrating their accomplishments?
It’s a stupid, stupid, stupid, idea, and one that can only come out of people willing their will upon others.
Fuck 'em.
When I saw the thread title, I thought it meant that no one without future plans would be allowed to graduate. While the actual policy is not great, it’s certainly much better than that.
OK, you twisted my arm… 
I’ve mostly heard the usual ‘I don’t know what I want to do’, or ‘I’ve got plans, but they don’t invlove military, work, or college’, to which I’d reply "Yeah? Does it pay well?
I’ve had kids tell me of plans for a career as a fastfood fry cook, plans to become actors (with no experience or training), authors (who scored ‘D’s in English), professional atheletes (after having been ‘cut’ two years running), and I even had one young lady tell me straight to my face that she planned to sit on her folks’ couch until someone married her, in just so many words. When I asked her how her parents felt about that plan, she said “They’re not happy. I could care less.” This girl had the academic qualifications to be a Reactor Operator, but her attitude sucked.
Sure, some of these might pan out, but the odds are damn poor.
The Ryan, I think the offensiveness isn’t in what the kids are or aren’t allowed to do, but just the general message of the thing. “Only our way is good for you.” That’s what bothered me so much, anyway.
Good God! Flippin idiots!!! I needed the year off school, and the time, without pressure, to decided whether I would go to college or not.
These folks are in effect saying that college is for everyone. Grrr.