Should these students be allowed to graduate?

Great Debates
81

I don’t agree. I think it should be possible to graduate from high school without being able to answer those questions. If you say that everyone should be able to answer those questions, you’re saying that the college prep track should be the only kind of high school education offered: if the college prep track isn’t for you, you shouldn’t be in high school at all.

I think that there should be more then just one type of high school education. In addition to college prep, there should be a less-demanding “general” track, plus a wide variety of vocational tracks.

When it comes to high school graduation requirements, I think anyone who has taken and passed all of the required classes, and has taken and passed enough electives to bring the number of classes completed to the required minimum, should get his or her diploma. These extra “must pass to graduate” tests should not exist. They’re just a bad shortcut, imposed in an effort to avoid doing what really needs to be done. Which is, stop letting the schools promote kids from grade to grade without making sure each kid is properly prepared to do the work of the next grade.

82

See my most recent thread above yours.

**

I think that, too often, high school classes are akin to “fire and forget.” If the students were told at the beginning of, let’s say, 9th grade that they’d be required to still know the information four years from now that they might try to maintain the knowledge rather than discarding it.

(Thought added on preview: Their books–they don’t get to keep them. That’d make studying kind of difficult, especially in classes that don’t progress in sequence (like math, as opposed to history, let’s say).)

**

Count back about 21 entries to where I said:

“Social promotion is the root evil behind this. There’s no excuse for letting a kid move on when s/he isn’t prepared. You can blame teachers and school boards for that, but not for failing to present the material.”

83

Schools should continue to use these tests. The purpose of the test should be to assess the school. We need to identify where students have weaknesses and be more innovative in the way we deliver instruction. I struggle every day in my classroom. I want to help students. What I have trouble finding are the people who are willing to help me help the students. The power structure is backwards. I think I would be more successful in my classroom if I could show up on Monday and tell the administration what I need to have done. So many in the organization produce nothing of value. I think they create work for others so they can justify the position they hold. The people closest to the work should have the most power. If I were in charge the first thing I would do would be to reduce class size. It should be criminal for the administration to place 28 – 33 second graders in a class. First through third grade classes should have 15 or fewer. Other grades should have smaller classes as well. Teachers should have more time to plan and prepare for class. I believe students need quality feedback on assignments. Teachers do not have adequate time within the school day to evaluate and grade student work. I believe this is where the system begins to break. Students learn pretty quickly that if they throw something together and turn it in, they will get a decent grade. Once this attitude takes hold, they become focused on grades and not on learning. If teachers gave quality feedback and engaged in discussions about the student’s work, I think most students would actually enjoy learning. Students need more attention and teachers need more time.
Should the students that fail the test be allowed to graduate? I think there should be other kinds of opportunities for students to demonstrate their qualifications. The standardized test should be one of several “competency measurements”. Maybe there should be some kind of review board that could look at test scores, teacher recommendations, grades, community involvement, job performance, extracurricular activities, student interview, portfolio, etc.

I think society should get away from the attitude that all good kids should get a high school diploma by age 18. Many kids do not see the value of this educational opportunity. I believe that after the 9th grade students should be allowed to choose another educational path. There should be some school time required each day but they should be allowed to get involved with the job world. They should be required to complete rigorous courses before they earn the diploma. Many students would not get the diploma until they are twenty years old. AND THAT IS OK! I think the years of maturity would enhance their appreciation of educational opportunity. Real world experience helps students become better decision makers.

84

New Jersey has a “must pass to graduate” test for high school students. The following is from my memory of things I’ve read about it in various sources over the course of several years; I may have some of this wrong. If anyone more knowledgable can provide better info, please do so.

The test is first given in 9th grade. Kids who don’t pass in 9th grade take it again in 10th. Kids who don’t pass it in 10th grade, take it again in 11th, and so on. It’s a test that a 9th grader is supposed to be able to pass. I have to assume that it’s a test anyone who has a genuine 8th grade education can pass.

In the most suburban school systems, most kids pass on the first try. In many city high schools, kids fail in droves.

IMO, this is not because the city kids are less intelligent; it’s because the ones who fail the test are, in terms of their actual skills and knowledge, years below the grade that automatic promotions have landed them in.

In many of the city schools, kids who flunk the test are pulled out of regular classes and put in special, teach-for-the-test classes where the emphasis is on rote drilling, and there they stay until they either pass the test or drop out. Perhaps are driven to drop out to avoid the deadly dullness of the test-preparation classes?

85

Option 3: GED. Getting away from the “who is to blame” aspect of this, the fact of the matter is that by the time these kids hit 10th-12th grade they are already lost. No laws or tests are going to make someone learn how to read or add fractions if they don’t want to. Fail them if they can’t reach the requirements. After they see how easy school really was and how cruel and hard the real world is they will be motivated to educate themselves. Every community college offers a GED program. My taxes paid for a poor students education for 12 years. I don’t want to pay for more. Make them pay their own way at the CC.

86

In my early school years my family was on welfare and I was going to a very poor school. I didn’t even expect to learn anything. The teacher seemed scared of the class and would get angry if someone even asked to get a bathroom pass. Still, I passed my classes and when we moved I chose to go into the GATE program at my new school. I was amazed that the teachers actually liked their classes, and that the students weren’t constantly out of control. Ever since then I only took advanced classes, and I graduated high school as valedictorian with a 1600 SAT score.

My brother had more trouble in his early school years. For one entire year he turned in all his homework in the wrong place. The teacher never told him. At the end of the year, he found out he would have to repeat the grade. When we moved he chose to take the easiest classes he could. He never felt like he belonged, and he didn’t trust any of his teachers. He recently dropped out of high school after tenth grade.

The strange thing is, my brother is just as smart as I am. The difference is that I decided to get everything I could out of school, while he felt intimidated and betrayed by school. I don’t believe that social promotion is the problem here. If a year of school is not successful, there is no reason to believe repeating it with the added stigma of having failed will be any better. It’s not that everyone should be passed, but you are missing the problem if you keep people in a failing system in lieu of improving that system. Holding someone back can make them feel betrayed, because it may not be entirely their fault that they failed. As for the test, it is just another thing that seems to the students as intimidation and betrayal. It is just another thing that tries to make them feel inferior, when they really aren’t. I can see why people wouldn’t even try to pass it. If someone told me they had a test that would tell them how smart I was, and I didn’t expect to do well on it, I would not want to take it to heart and make a good effort.

Some of you seem to be of the opinion that the test should be required for a diploma, but that certain jobs that don’t require a high school education shouldn’t require a diploma. This is incredibly wrong! School has failed for these kids for a reason, and in most cases it will continue to fail them for that same reason if they are sent back. But this does not mean that they are too stupid to learn how to do advanced jobs that require a diploma! They may be so happy to find an environment in which they can learn, that they will learn more on the job and do better than someone who could answer the questions on the test.

I believe there should be achievement tests, but they should not be required for graduation. As it is, many teachers are forced to teach their students nothing but how to take the tests, which is really a betrayal of the students, and makes them very frustrated. Social promotion is not all bad, since the benefits of repeating a year, compared with the disadvantages, are often small. Of course, I haven’t said what I think should be done, and I don’t really have a great solution. I think one of the biggest problems is that in non-advanced classes there are often students who are disruptive and not interested in learning. The teacher has to spend a lot of time dealing with these students, and they treat the students as if all they want is to get them to pass whatever they have to pass to get them to the next grade. In fact, a lot of social promotion comes from teachers wanting to get rid of a problem student even if they are not ready for the next grade. The students begin to have lower expectations for themselves and their academic future. There needs to be an effort to not intimidate the students or make them feel like they are being blamed. There needs to be more encouragement. Something needs to be done to seperate the kids who don’t want to learn and are constantly disruptive from the other kids. This is of course controversial, because if it is your kid who is disruptive, would you want them singled out? Still, I think one of the biggest reasons advanced classes are so much more successful at teaching is that the kids there want to learn, or they wouldn’t be there. If the same could be said of all the other classes, maybe a test designed to shift the blame to the kids wouldn’t be necessary.

87

I never said they were. I don’t think anyone here has.

At some point the system failed these kids, or these kids failed themselves. I tend to think it was both, but more the latter than the former.

88

Nope. “Whomever” is the subject of the verb in the phrase “whomever showed up for class.” The entire phrase is the object of the sentence’s verb; however, that does not mean the subject of the verb in the phrase must be in the accusative. The phrase, not the word “whomever,” is the object. The correct usage in this case is “whoever.” **
[/QUOTE]

You are correct that the phrase is the object of the sentence; however, “whomever” is the subject of the prepositional phrase. It therefore takes the dative case.

Why didn’t your cite include the accusative case in its list? You used it in your post; why then must we exclude the dative?

It would be correct to say “The teacher passed whoever showed up for class”. It would be incorrect to say “The teacher passed whomever showed up for class”. It would be correct to say “The teacher gave a passing grade to whomever showed up for class”. It would be incorrect to say “The teacher gave a passing grade to whoever showed up for class”.

“To whom am I speaking?” - correct.

“To who am I speaking?” - incorrect.

Or maybe

“Whom cares about these petty points of grammar?” - correct.

Regards,
Shodan

89

Shodan: *It would be correct to say “The teacher gave a passing grade to whomever showed up for class”. It would be incorrect to say “The teacher gave a passing grade to whoever showed up for class”. *

Nope. The relative pronoun (“whoever”) agrees in case with its function in the relative clause, not with the function of the relative clause in the sentence. E.g.,

“The teacher gave a passing grade to whomever she liked best”: the relative pronoun functions in its own clause as the object of “she liked”, so it is in the objective case.

“The teacher gave a passing grade to whoever showed up for class”: the relative pronoun functions as the subject of “showed up”, so it is in the nominative. The fact that the entire relative clause “whoever showed up for class” functions as the object of the preposition “to” does not change this.

“Whom cares about these petty points of grammar?” - correct.

Should be “Whom cares about them petty points of grammar?” :wink:

90

Shodan: Another word for “accusative” is “objective.” There’s no dative case for the pronouns in English. See the link above.

Heck, I thought I was the pedant here. :slight_smile:

91

Kimstu

Unless there’s some law I’m not aware of, this policy is not requiring anyone to “complete such an education before they’re considered qualified to work as a busboy”. Who an employer considers qualified is not up to us.

So gradually rasie the requirements. Life isn’t fair, and we shouldn’t consider the revelation of such to be a compelling reason for not implementing a program.

I don’t know. That’s none of my business. High schools exist to teach students, and to certify that they learned. The practices of employers is completely outside of their purview.

I don’t know what you’re saying here.

Because the diploma states that they have satifactorily completed the program of instruction. If they have not done so, to give them their diploma would be a lie.

According to that logic, we should never add any requirements at all, since the fact that we have allowed people to graduate without fulfilling it in the past binds us in perpetuity to keep those standards. This is not an arbitrary hurdle, this is a test to see if they meet the schools standards. And yes, a person who does not meet the standards does not deserve a statement that he has met the standards, even though someone who met lower standards deserves to have a statement that he met those standards. A diploma is a statement that the student met the standards as they existed when he applied for the diploma. It is not a statement that he met the standards as they existed at some time or another.

92

I really can’t understand the argument that, since these kids NEED a diploma to get a job, that therefore we are obligated to provide one for them.

They could get an even better job if they had a college diploma. Isn’t it unfair? How can we hold these kids back? We are condeming them to dead-end jobs if they don’t have a college diploma. I therefore propose that EVERYONE be granted a college diploma, in the major of their choice. Anything else would be unfair.

Man, to think I wasted four years going to biology lab when I should have just been handed my BS degree without learning anything…

If a kid is illiterate they should not get a high school diploma. Yes he will have a disadvantage because he doesn’t have a diploma. But he’s illiterate, for crying out loud! Doesn’t matter why he’s illiterate, he’s illiterate.

Why do so many jobs “require” a HS diploma? Well, because anyone who doesn’t have one is likely to have issues. They may be stupid. They may be ignorant. They may have a problem with authority. They may be illiterate. Isn’t it something of a red flag that a kid couldn’t pull themselves together enough to graduate from high school?