Our secondary schools are a swamp. High school students aren't challenged, don't want to learn, behave badly, and in a misguided attempt to reduce dropouts, the classes have been dumbed down so more students can "pass." In so many ways our high schools are simply holding pens; not terribly effective daycare for moody and rebellious teens.
This Wall Street Journal article describes the behavior problems in our secondary schools, and how little is learned there. Few high school grads can pass the ACT exam with scores sufficient to do college-level work.
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As a college freshman working with a counselor to find a career path, I took tests which said I should be a teacher or business person. Those tests weren't bad; I spent 30+ years teaching business subjects.
So the career counselor suggested high school teaching. Having just graduated from a rural high school, I immediately rejected that choice. The notion of teaching in high school was entirely repellent to me as I had no interest being a sort of cop - in maintaining order - and that was all those years ago. Imagine how bad it is today in urban schools.
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Speaking of which, I propose three separate high school systems: one for students who will work and intend to go to college, a second for motivated apprentices, and the third a sort of commuter reform school for everybody else. You'd have teachers in the first and second, but most behavior problem kids would go directly to school three where you'd have wardens and correctional personnel.
Only systems one and two would issue diplomas. The trick would be to make system three unpleasant enough that students would be motivated to behave and study to stay out of it. I know I'm dreaming, my proposal isn't politically correct.
