[speedgibson] Speed Gibson: What's the Hurry?

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Posted by Speed Gibson:
What's the Hurry?
http://speedgibson.powerblogs.com/posts/1234882099.shtml


   While on vacation, I saw this proposal to let exceptional students opt
   out of high school early to enter college early, trading the school
   money saved for college tuition. Whatever I might have said about it,
   this Letter to the Editor in Monday's Minneapolis Star Tribune said it
   better.

     In Minnesota, high school students are required to pass four full
     years of both English and social studies as well as three years of
     math and of science plus a year each of health, phy ed and the
     arts. Most students also want to take a world language and
     technology classes. All this is rightfully provided by the state at
     no cost to students.
     If students and their families feel they are ready to be in college
     early, the postsecondary options program allows them to substitute
     college classes for high school ones during their junior and senior
     years. The new proposal for a "get out of high school early with a
     minimal scholarship program" appears to try to rush students
     through high school and then push them out to pay for college
     mostly on their own so state taxpayers can save money.
     We are doing our students and families no favors and much potential
     disservice with this proposal. Minnesota is a better place than
     this!

   There's more to high school than academics. I've always told my
   children that school is 50 percent social. Sixteen year old children
   are still children no matter what Phyllis Kahn thinks. Their social
   immaturity will directly threaten their college success to some
   degree.
   We may be sending them too early as it is. Dennis Prager has long
   argued that high school graduates should take a year off before
   entering college. Travel, work, whatever, but get some sense of the
   real world before the isolation and fantasy of college life jades your
   mind.