5 ms·

No. We already have a testable case in the US, which is a large percentage of kids drop out in the 10th grade. We increasingly are losing kids to low-skilled se

by geuis 18y ago

No. We already have a testable case in the US, which is a large percentage of kids drop out in the 10th grade. We increasingly are losing kids to low-skilled service jobs.

unalone 18y ago
We don't just have drop-outs because of that. In my sophomore year in high school, I wanted to drop out. Things are taught too slowly, and 12 years of learning is far too much with the present system. If there were more acclaimed systems for graduating early, I'd have jumped at it. That's what this article is about.
- tjic 18y ago
  It's not 12 years of learning. It's 12 years of attending a jobs-creation project for education majors (i.e. teachers).
  - unalone 18y ago
    Bleh, cynicism. I had teachers who were easily good enough to teach for private schools, who chose public service instead. I believe that teachers are good people stuck in a bad system.
    - Prrometheus 18y ago
      Some teachers are good people, stuck in a system that does nothing to reward them for it.
      - unalone 18y ago
        Yeah. The system is at fault. But don't go around suggesting that the system only exists to give hand-outs to teachers. Teachers are worth much more than schools pay them.
    - elai 18y ago
      And private schools tend to pay less than the public system, unfortunately.
  - Prrometheus 18y ago
    Don't forget, the only way to make it better is "more money for schools".
- LogicHoleFlaw 18y ago
  Now that I think about it, you could say that I started college at age 16. I was still a High School Senior but I had met most of the requirements for graduation so the school paid for me to attend the local university. (I graduated from HS and started attending college full-time out of state at age 17.) Any program which allows bright students to accelerate their progress is good in my book.
  - unalone 18y ago
    We had a system like that, too. The problem was that it was an ugly workaround. I think that making the system better should be preventing exceptions, not using them to avoid a broken system.
  - jleyank 18y ago
    Their "progress"? Their progress at what? I went to school at 16, and it's a mistake. Most people, certainly myself, are not socially prepared to deal with the environment at 16. Hell, if people are being coddled today, there's no way in God's green earth that they can self-organize on their own at that age. Yeah, people do it successfully, but then some people can remove their own appendices and live. Just don't bet that way.
blackguardx 18y ago
Whats wrong with dropping out after the 10th grade and going to a community college? You would learn the same things (or more) and actually get something for your time. You could cheaply knock two years off of college that way. You would also be in classes with people who actually want to learn.
- silencio 18y ago
  That route usually requires some sort of high school diploma or equivalent. It's also exactly what I did. I don't regret leaving high school early because it was a real hellhole for me. For the record, it's also entirely possible to transfer to prestigious 4 year universities this route too. I'm planning on applying to Stanford and the like :) Many of my friends also finished HS early or left in middle/high school to go to college. We're very proud to call ourselves high school dropouts. ;)
  - tjr 18y ago
    I also "dropped out" to go to college. If that's what you're doing, then great! But I think the earlier poster was referring to students who drop out and just get a low-end job somewhere. I suppose that's fine if that's really what you want to do, but how many high-school drop-outs really quit school out of strong desire to enter the food service industry?
    - elai 18y ago
      FYI, I found working retail more satisfying than high school. It makes you feel important, you feel like your actually getting something done, your getting paid, and if your one of rare people who actually would stick around in those environments, you'll get into management quick with a $30'000 annual job. I could see how it would be tempting for some people fed up with high school.
    - silencio 18y ago
      Yeah, there are some people who do that. But I really doubt a lot of them ARE doing so because they want to, but because given multiple factors (family, past history, school..life in general, really) that it's very difficult to get a good post-HS education with the budget and resources they have for a career they want. Loans, grants and scholarships are hard to come across especially with the way the economy is now..and like I said, I dropped out of HS to go to a community college. My tuition costs less than my textbooks, and in total as a full time student with a 12 unit courseload now I'm paying less than $1000 for classes+books+materials+parking permits and all that this semester. But some of my classmates are struggling with financial aid and jobs because they can't even afford to pay for the classes alone and they are residents, not students paying insanely high out-of-state rates. For what it's worth, I have considered entering the foodservice industry, but as an owner/operator and not a minimum-wage employee. In the right location with the right food, there's a killing to be made and it could leave me a fair amount of time to work on what I want (code code code ;) ). But again like you point out, it's a different situation. Most high school dropouts wouldn't be considering that. On a related tangent, what's interesting to note is just how much of those units I'm taking now can transfer to the schools I'm applying to. Almost all of my classes transfer to UC (I'm in a california CC), which means for the same as one year's tuition at a UC like UCLA or UC Berkeley, I could spend a couple years at a CC taking the same classes, possibly even pay rent on an apartment and gas for the car, and then transfer. I'm seeing more and more students go this route because they're short on money even to go to a UC. Like I said, mine this semester is under $1000 and I could probably make a fair amount of that back by selling my textbooks, this academic year at UCLA is just under $10,000 for undergrad.
petercooper 18y ago
Why is that a bad thing? It is awesome if someone is intellectual and job focused, but it's similarly fine if someone is not. We can't all be paper pushers or professors - we should be grateful to those in the service industry. If we didn't "lose" people to "low-skilled service jobs" then there'd be a lot more competition for high end jobs, which would drag up costs across the board.
- tjr 18y ago
  It's a bad thing if those in the "low-skilled service jobs" are there because they gave up on something bigger. It's a good thing if they are in those "low-skilled service jobs" because that's where they are happy. Likewise, it would have been bad for the likes of Steve Wozniak to have lived his life as a cubicle-dwelling random engineer, rather than to have blessed the world with his bigger ideas. We should all aim for what we really want to do in life... our highest potential. If that's food service, then great! Do it with gusto! But don't settle for food service out of giving up on something else.
  - petercooper 18y ago
    It's a bad thing if those in the "low-skilled service jobs" are there because they gave up on something bigger. Are the people with the drive and ambition to do something bigger the type to give up? It seems like a catch 22 to me. There are many successful people who grew up poor, uneducated, and even in violent family situations, but are now successful. They may have even had a "low skilled service job" at one point. It's good we have people to work those jobs - we need them, and it appears to be no serious impediment to true ambition and skill. Likewise, it would have been bad for the likes of Steve Wozniak to have lived his life as a cubicle-dwelling random engineer, rather than to have blessed the world with his bigger ideas. Without Steve Jobs' endless gusto and encouragement, that might have happened. It's not necessarily that we give up on things and end up with crappy jobs.. it's usually that we have crappy jobs and then things come along and inspire us out of it.
  - Zev 18y ago
    You forget, Woz liked his job at HP before Apple and was reluctant to leave. Jobs had to get all Woz's family and friends to talk to him before he went and quit HP.
nandemo 18y ago
Well, a good college education is not for everyone. And not everyone wants to college anyway.
- blasdel 18y ago
  And not everyone wants to verb either.

by geuis 18y ago

No. We already have a testable case in the US, which is a large percentage of kids drop out in the 10th grade. We increasingly are losing kids to low-skilled service jobs.

unalone 18y ago

We don't just have drop-outs because of that. In my sophomore year in high school, I wanted to drop out. Things are taught too slowly, and 12 years of learning is far too much with the present system. If there were more acclaimed systems for graduating early, I'd have jumped at it. That's what this article is about.

tjic 18y ago
It's not 12 years of learning. It's 12 years of attending a jobs-creation project for education majors (i.e. teachers).
- unalone 18y ago
  Bleh, cynicism. I had teachers who were easily good enough to teach for private schools, who chose public service instead. I believe that teachers are good people stuck in a bad system.
  - Prrometheus 18y ago
    Some teachers are good people, stuck in a system that does nothing to reward them for it.
    - unalone 18y ago
      Yeah. The system is at fault. But don't go around suggesting that the system only exists to give hand-outs to teachers. Teachers are worth much more than schools pay them.
  - elai 18y ago
    And private schools tend to pay less than the public system, unfortunately.
- Prrometheus 18y ago
  Don't forget, the only way to make it better is "more money for schools".
LogicHoleFlaw 18y ago
Now that I think about it, you could say that I started college at age 16. I was still a High School Senior but I had met most of the requirements for graduation so the school paid for me to attend the local university. (I graduated from HS and started attending college full-time out of state at age 17.) Any program which allows bright students to accelerate their progress is good in my book.
- unalone 18y ago
  We had a system like that, too. The problem was that it was an ugly workaround. I think that making the system better should be preventing exceptions, not using them to avoid a broken system.
- jleyank 18y ago
  Their "progress"? Their progress at what? I went to school at 16, and it's a mistake. Most people, certainly myself, are not socially prepared to deal with the environment at 16. Hell, if people are being coddled today, there's no way in God's green earth that they can self-organize on their own at that age. Yeah, people do it successfully, but then some people can remove their own appendices and live. Just don't bet that way.

blackguardx 18y ago

Whats wrong with dropping out after the 10th grade and going to a community college? You would learn the same things (or more) and actually get something for your time. You could cheaply knock two years off of college that way. You would also be in classes with people who actually want to learn.

silencio 18y ago
That route usually requires some sort of high school diploma or equivalent. It's also exactly what I did. I don't regret leaving high school early because it was a real hellhole for me. For the record, it's also entirely possible to transfer to prestigious 4 year universities this route too. I'm planning on applying to Stanford and the like :) Many of my friends also finished HS early or left in middle/high school to go to college. We're very proud to call ourselves high school dropouts. ;)
- tjr 18y ago
  I also "dropped out" to go to college. If that's what you're doing, then great! But I think the earlier poster was referring to students who drop out and just get a low-end job somewhere. I suppose that's fine if that's really what you want to do, but how many high-school drop-outs really quit school out of strong desire to enter the food service industry?
  - elai 18y ago
    FYI, I found working retail more satisfying than high school. It makes you feel important, you feel like your actually getting something done, your getting paid, and if your one of rare people who actually would stick around in those environments, you'll get into management quick with a $30'000 annual job. I could see how it would be tempting for some people fed up with high school.
  - silencio 18y ago
    Yeah, there are some people who do that. But I really doubt a lot of them ARE doing so because they want to, but because given multiple factors (family, past history, school..life in general, really) that it's very difficult to get a good post-HS education with the budget and resources they have for a career they want. Loans, grants and scholarships are hard to come across especially with the way the economy is now..and like I said, I dropped out of HS to go to a community college. My tuition costs less than my textbooks, and in total as a full time student with a 12 unit courseload now I'm paying less than $1000 for classes+books+materials+parking permits and all that this semester. But some of my classmates are struggling with financial aid and jobs because they can't even afford to pay for the classes alone and they are residents, not students paying insanely high out-of-state rates. For what it's worth, I have considered entering the foodservice industry, but as an owner/operator and not a minimum-wage employee. In the right location with the right food, there's a killing to be made and it could leave me a fair amount of time to work on what I want (code code code ;) ). But again like you point out, it's a different situation. Most high school dropouts wouldn't be considering that. On a related tangent, what's interesting to note is just how much of those units I'm taking now can transfer to the schools I'm applying to. Almost all of my classes transfer to UC (I'm in a california CC), which means for the same as one year's tuition at a UC like UCLA or UC Berkeley, I could spend a couple years at a CC taking the same classes, possibly even pay rent on an apartment and gas for the car, and then transfer. I'm seeing more and more students go this route because they're short on money even to go to a UC. Like I said, mine this semester is under $1000 and I could probably make a fair amount of that back by selling my textbooks, this academic year at UCLA is just under $10,000 for undergrad.

petercooper 18y ago

Why is that a bad thing? It is awesome if someone is intellectual and job focused, but it's similarly fine if someone is not. We can't all be paper pushers or professors - we should be grateful to those in the service industry. If we didn't "lose" people to "low-skilled service jobs" then there'd be a lot more competition for high end jobs, which would drag up costs across the board.

tjr 18y ago
It's a bad thing if those in the "low-skilled service jobs" are there because they gave up on something bigger. It's a good thing if they are in those "low-skilled service jobs" because that's where they are happy. Likewise, it would have been bad for the likes of Steve Wozniak to have lived his life as a cubicle-dwelling random engineer, rather than to have blessed the world with his bigger ideas. We should all aim for what we really want to do in life... our highest potential. If that's food service, then great! Do it with gusto! But don't settle for food service out of giving up on something else.
- petercooper 18y ago
  It's a bad thing if those in the "low-skilled service jobs" are there because they gave up on something bigger. Are the people with the drive and ambition to do something bigger the type to give up? It seems like a catch 22 to me. There are many successful people who grew up poor, uneducated, and even in violent family situations, but are now successful. They may have even had a "low skilled service job" at one point. It's good we have people to work those jobs - we need them, and it appears to be no serious impediment to true ambition and skill. Likewise, it would have been bad for the likes of Steve Wozniak to have lived his life as a cubicle-dwelling random engineer, rather than to have blessed the world with his bigger ideas. Without Steve Jobs' endless gusto and encouragement, that might have happened. It's not necessarily that we give up on things and end up with crappy jobs.. it's usually that we have crappy jobs and then things come along and inspire us out of it.
- Zev 18y ago
  You forget, Woz liked his job at HP before Apple and was reluctant to leave. Jobs had to get all Woz's family and friends to talk to him before he went and quit HP.

nandemo 18y ago

Well, a good college education is not for everyone. And not everyone wants to college anyway.

blasdel 18y ago
And not everyone wants to verb either.