School can be really overwhelming at times. Especially when your trying to make yourself stand out to colleges with sports, community service, and other extra curriculars, while maintaining good grades, and taking a million different mandatory test for individual classes and the ones colleges want (SAT, etc.), all while trying to have some sort of social life.
Freshman year. Your first year of high school. The year when everything and every one is new and scary. Sophomore year is when you start to get the hang of things. Junior year is the year when you work yourself to death getting your transcript perfectly polished for college. Then Senior year rolls around. Senioritis sets in, and you get ready to graduate. Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, Senior. Everyone knows that’s how it goes. But what if it didn’t have to be that way? What if the last year of high school was optional? What if you could go straight to college after just three years of high school? Would you?
In Utah, this idea could become a reality. Republican State Senator Chris Buttars put forth a bill that proposed making the 12th grade optional in the effort to reduce Utah’s $700 million dollar budget deficit. Buttars projected this proposal to save $60 million dollars if put into practice by the 2010-2011 school year. Within the educational community, there’s a bit of controversy over the bill. Supporters of the bill believe that students will benefit from the optional last year of high school. Those who have fulfilled their requirements can graduate early, eliminating Senioritis and saving the state money. Those who oppose the bill believe that the 12th grade is a fundamental and necessary step in high school. John Balden, president of the Utah chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, called the bill “very shortsighted.” Others believe that by eliminating the 12th grade, some students will enter college at 17 and not be ready to face the real world.
Personally, I think making Senior year optional is a wonderful idea. When applying to college, admissions officers look at the applicants grades up to their Junior year. By the time senior year comes around, most students have gotten all of their core classes out of the way. They spend their last year fulfilling performing arts or P.E. credits. If a student has completed all necessary classes, I think they have earned the option of skipping 12th grade. I myself am currently in an alternative high school. I currently attend Independence High School in San Francisco. Here, I attend class once a week and I independent study all of my classes. I have also recently passes the California High School Proficiency Exam, which in the state of California is equivalent to earning a high school diploma. If I have the equivalent of a high school diploma and I can teach myself my high school curriculum, shouldn’t that mean I’m ready for college?
In a recent article, I read that California ranks 48th out of the 50 states in percentage of college-bound high school graduates. Being a member of SMASH, I was both astonished and disappointed in our state. Programs such as AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) and SMASH (Summer Math and Science Honors) Academy help to counteract those low numbers. SMASH, however, is unique in that it works to increase the number of students of color interested in the STEM-related fields pursue higher education.
Hope you enjoy the podcast!
Monica Alcazar
Hey Everybody, I hope that everyone had fun during the
summer, with a good start off in the new academic school year. Today, Nov. 3rd,
is our first day in SMASHCAST. Our first
pod cast is on how technology helps everyday college students and how they benefit
from it. Today was an exciting start off in SMASHCAST and a worth learning
experience. Before the pod cast we watched two videos that inspired us by Michael
Wesch. The two videos gave us a look at technologies influence on college life.
- Juan Del Toro & Virgil Almeda
Videos: Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE)
A Vision of Students Today
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o)
Marvin might be a famous martian but I’ve got some music-making martians with the 411 on space travel. Listen to this podcast to find out what these crazy aliens have to say.Download Mars_Madness1.mp3
In this new podcast I, Orion Macario, am interviewing Jann Ramirez a student at ISA high school. He is talking about school closures which is a very important issue for parents and their children’s education. He talks about how he felt when he heard his school was going to be closed. I feel that it was very interesting hearing about this important issue. After hearing this I felt that maybe my own high school could have been closed down too. The closure would have affected me in a way that is hard to say. I wouldn’t be able to see most of my friends. It would also make me go to another different school which I wouldn’t be too familiar with. Download Bshbababump_backup.mp3
Anthony and I (Iris) recorded a podcast about my current challenge.
Sometimes, getting accepted in a Top High School has a little or nothing to do with your grades, but more with money or power. I don’t have either of those but i have excellent grades, and duPont Manual High School feels like I am not good enough for their school. Hear my story and post your opinions in a comment. Thanks
