Nancy Bailey writes about the ratcheting up of pressure on high school students.
What are we doing to our kids?
“Freshmen are told on one hand not to worry about college, then given an early version of a college entrance exam three weeks into their first year of high school.
~Chicago Tribune Nov.13, 2017
“Like kindergartners pushed to be first graders, high school is the new college.
“Teens are more anxious than ever. Depression and anxiety are a fact. Drugs and alcohol use are an actuality. Suicides are real. More teens seek support from counselors and mental health facilities than ever. Some miss school due to hospitalization.
“The New York Times recently chronicled the lives of teens who struggle with anxiety. They’re frightened they will fail. They load up on Advanced Placement (college) classes not understanding they’re pushing themselves beyond high school—beyond normal teen development.
“However, despite all this so-called concern in the media, the underlying theme is still—grit and mindset.
“The subtitle for the above report is Parents, therapists and schools are struggling to figure out whether helping anxious teenagers means protecting them or pushing them to face their fears.
“Does anyone believe school administrators, teachers, and parents will quit pushing?
Students are expected to learn more than ever. They must do college in high school so they will succeed.
There’s little time to relax. Even sports and extracurricular activities come with a price. Students can’t just play a sport. They must lead. If there’s art, it must be a perfect drawing. If it’s music, there are contests to win.
Some competition is fine, but how much, and at what price? If so many students are struggling, isn’t that a sign there’s too much?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
In the high school where I recently worked, students some students were taking over 25 standardized tests each year and attempting at the same time to complete the work for 8 classes. The teachers in those classes were required to post two grades per student per week, so each student had sixteen graded assignments each week, in addition to responsibility for preparing for all those tests. Many were commonly burned out.
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“The Long shadow of competition”
The competition’s claimed
To motivate the kid
When really, they are maimed
For life, by what it did
The competition shines
A spotlight on the “best”
And naturally defines
A shadow for the rest
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I have to quibble with the “earn more than ever” part of this. Under the current test prep regime, students are learning less, not more. They were learning how to take tests, certainly, but when I asked my juniors to tell me what major event occurred in the United States from 1861 to 1865, 2 of them (two!!!) out of three classes (about 75 students) got the answer right. If one added to the enormous pile of tests they take the Hirsch test on cultural literacy, I suspect that the median score would be very close to what one would get by guessing–e.g., around 20 percent.
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“Students are expected to earn more than ever. ”
Fixed
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lol
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Race to the bottom.
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The dummies like Duncan always go for the sports metaphors. Years ago, I taught in a Catholic girls school with a lot of really wonderful nuns. We had, however, a drunken priest who would get on the PA in the morning and say things like, “You’ve gotta get up every morning and carry that ball.” LOL.
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All of this pressure and worry makes me wonder what they are in a hurry to do. While a few of them may create a comfortable stable life for themselves, the vast majority of them are unlikely to live as well as their parents did. In the land of extreme income inequality, there are fewer opportunities than there were for their parents. The media hypes the new “gig” economy, which frankly, is a fancy title, for someone that can be easily exploited as they drift from gig to gig with no security for their future. We know that the fake STEM “crisis” is another ploy to drive down salaries to give billionaires and corporations a buffet of disposable workers to further enrich those at the top. While I hate to mention her name, Hillary Clinton said that in addition to climate, AI (artificial intelligence) is a huge threat to America. With new technology more and more workers will be displaced. We should be working on ways to retool our economy.
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Hillary Clinton?! Slowly, I turned . . .
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This is one of my favorite stooges routines. By the way, we’ll have to start calling HRC, she who must not be named.
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FLERP!, thanks for the laugh.
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Classic
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I have had students who have NO LUNCH break because they are fully booked with classes. It’s not right. I can’t even tell you how many kids have anxiety issues and are on meds (not to mention teachers). I often wonder why we are stressing ourselves and our children. For what? Perhaps it’s that old answer – fear of death. It’s complete craziness.
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Guess the deformers don’t want our young to know about BASIC NUTRITION. All this talk about “LIVING HEALTHY” is a sham. We are destroying our Earth and our sources of nutrition.
Maybe kids have NO TIME to EAT LUNCH in order to prepare them for The Hunger Games.
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DeVos is citing made-up statistics again:
“Now, more than ever before, it’s important to focus on individual students and their unique needs. It’s no secret that the world is changing rapidly, and the requirements and demands for tomorrow’s workforce are dynamic and evolving.;
A study cited in the World Economic Forum’s 2016 “The Future of Jobs” report estimates 65 percent of kids in kindergarten today can look forward to working in or creating jobs that don’t yet exist.
You heard that right: most students are likely to take on a professional life not yet conceived. So our approach to education must be equally imaginative and nimble.”
Young people should NOT listen to the US Department of Education. They give LOUSY advice.
The funniest part of it is there IS a government agency that collects REAL statistics on work- The US Department of Labor.
Tell young people to skip the propaganda coming out of ed reform and go to the Dep of Labor for accurate information. They’re borrowing tens of thousands of dollars. They need good advice, not this silly ed reform marketing campaign.
Public schools shouldn’t take advice from them either- they’re captured and they’re not reliable.
https://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/prepared-remarks-us-secretary-education-betsy-devos-federal-student-aids-training-conference-financial-aid-professionals
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Forcing students to sit in front of a computer screen for hours in which the computer feeds them reductionist, behaviorist options for seeking the “correct” response will not produce “imaginative and nimble” thinkers for this so called “new economy.”
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Bingo, retired teacher. The language used by the deformers are meant to disguise…MARKETING ploys. SICK.
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Chiara,
“Young people should NOT listen to the US Department of Education. They give LOUSY advice.”
AGREE.
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It’s about training, not educating, young people: training them to tolerate tedium, authoritarianism, surveillance, productivity harassment, meaninglessness and absurdity. it’s about training them to produce, above all else, produce, produce, produce, even if much of that production is developmentally inappropriate or empty busywork.
Anthropologist David Graeber has written eloquently about the rise of “bullshit jobs,” employment that serves no useful, social or ethical purpose, which far too many adults are trapped in. While teachers are fortunate in having among the most meaningful of jobs, the so-called reform regime of the past thirty years, with it’s bleak insistence solely on training young people for the needs of an employer-dominated labor market, is about training people for soul-killing wage slavery, or training them to police, repress and incarcerate those who are excluded even from “bullshit jobs.”
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I am a fan of International House Hunters as I get an armchair view of many places in the world. Many of the young people that are moving from the US cite work-life balance as the reason. Many of them state that they feel like a gerbil on a wheel. When they move to Europe, Australia or South America, they find they have more family time and feel less stressed. There’s is a good reason why Denmark is often credited with being one of the happiest countries. They have a better work-life balance and a strong set of social safety nets. The populace is more secure.
In our country, unions have declined at an alarming rate, and benefits and pensions are constantly on the chopping block. It does not make for a “happy” society. It breeds insecurity and misery for many.
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Michael, you are absolutely correct.
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As are you Zorbs!
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Well said, Michael, and spot on. Training for the children of the proles. Education for the children of the leaders of the New Feudal Order.
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Here in MD the push is on for AP for all and dual enrollment in Community College. The HS’s are being allowed to become overcrowded and to deteriorate…..I believe on purpose. They are getting rid of GT programs to force the kids into AP. I have a soph. and I have not allowed her to take AP, although the school will change her schedule and place her into the AP classes without our approval (meetings with the VP usually changes the schedule). My son who will be a freshman next year will be pulled out of public school and put into a private, religious, all boy’s HS because I am tired of this mess…. he will either suffer in AP or rot and get into trouble sitting in the forgotten classes at public school. It’s funny that so many of the kids in the religious schools in the area are flush with children from the public school systems. The parents are tired of fighting and are willing to pay for education and the private schools are catering to the masses…….teaching to the whole child, emphasis on fine arts, social studies, science, music and PE, No CC, No standardized tests, no data collection, No AP for all (but available), free periods during the day, open libraries etc etc. I know it will have it’s down sides too, but I just can’t have my son abused in the public school system any longer. We will have to pay dearly for this, but it will position our son in a better place mentally and scholastically. I still believe in the idea of public education for all and I hope that soon the problems will be corrected, but right now, this kind of schooling and reform is NOT what a good public education should be.
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Biggest beneficiary of AP for all is the College Board, which sells it.
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And I know that. The AP classes are garbage and nothing but test prep. I believe the AP teachers get paid better so they will not complain. So yes, I am placing blame on teachers as well. This is child abuse and I can’t wait until more parents start revolting against the whole scheme.
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“Used Core Salesman”
David Coleman
Was a salesman
For the Common Core
Made a switch
Cuz life’s a bitch
And Core is on the floor
Sells AP
To schools, you see
To even up the score
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Lisa: AP teachers are NOT paid more. Don’t blame teachers for this–the “prestige” of having a lot of AP classes in a district is a siren song for districts, who then force AP on teachers, even when said teachers do NOT want to teach AP.
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TOW,
Said teachers can refuse to teach AP. I refused even though I was certified to do the AP teach to the test process.
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“Biggest beneficiary of AP for all is the College Board, which sells it.”
Yep.
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Oddly, in NYC public high schools, PE is required every semester of every year every other day. Even if you are playing varsity sports kids don’t seem to be able to get out of it.
i just want to say that the “AP for all” program in NYC doesn’t mean every student is required to take it — just that students in high schools that did not offer much in advanced classes would now have access to AP classes.
I don’t really have strong feelings as to whether my kid is taking AP Calc or “Honors Calc” or AP Physics or “Honors Physics”. If a high school wants to call its honors class an “AP” class, I suspect the curriculum is very similar.
I think where AP gets a bad rap is in the humanities. And at least in NYC, students don’t feel pressured to take APs in every subject – at least from their high schools. Some high schools even limit the number a kid can take each year.
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My daughter actually got some good out of her AP courses, but we (myself/spouse/daughter) spoke and decided to make a point of not going for too many of them. We wanted to leave time for acting, music, and social interaction in her life. It worked because we knew the system and weren’t afraid of her life falling apart if she didn’t lose her nose to the grindstone. She’s about to graduate from an excellent college, with honors.
This is, once again, all about amateurs invading the realm of education and appointing themselves as the experts and leaders. They’ve pushed aside the methods and opinions of the teachers and child/adolescent psychologists who actually know their stuff and should be in control. Portraying the real experts as remnants of the “Dark Ages” of education.
Time for some “grit” and “rigor”, ‘cuz WE SAY SO!!!!
It’s big money throwing it’s considerable weight around and it’s sick.
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I agree with you about APs.
I just find it silly to focus on APs. It isn’t AP classes that are undermining public schools. It is the attack from the right wing to underfund public school and convince the easiest to teach (i.e. most affluent) to go to charters or privates so that the poorest American children and those with special needs can be abandoned to rot in public schools.
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Why are we doing this to our kids? The basic answer is both political parties, but especially the Republicans who hold power in the vast majority of the states and education is a state matter, is to save money. They want to cut the amount of money going out of the state budgets to fund education. So since there are relatively fixed costs per year, accelerate the speed of education, up the pressure on our kids, limit education to the old rote memory requirements of the Gilded Age (1890s) and then you have money to cut taxes for the wealthy and businesses. Why should be be shocked? It is time the people who really pay the bulk of the taxes, the working and middle classes, to tell their representatives “Hell No, No More of This Idiocy!”
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That Americans are terrified of being left behind is not about political affiliation, it’s about capitalism, which requires endless growth and accumulation of wealth. The basic fear of losing in some kind race needs to be planted in kids asap, and that’s what we see happening in our schools now.
So I think, instead of fighting “conservative” politicians, we need to fight this fear and hence we need to reexamine what our economy really needs to accomplish. Instead of trying beat up politicians and billionaires, let’s simply pull the rug from under them.
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That, Mate, was the sickness at the core of Race to the Top, treating the education of children as a “race” that would affect our role in the global economy
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Speaking of AP courses, I think part of the problem is not just the College Board but the stack ratings of high schools published every year by U.S. News and World Report.
Their metrics focus on students’ scores on standardized tests, graduation rates, but also the number of Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate courses taken, and passed.
The awards for gold, silver, and bronze status differ for public and charter schools. There is killer “tie breaker” for schools forwarded by the College Board and US News Rankings. The CRI value is a composite score conjured from scores on statewide tests, graduation rates and the like.
Begin quote: This year (2017) U.S. News and the College Board collaboratively developed a new tiebreaker to avoid ties in the numerical rankings when schools had the same unrounded CRI values, which was the case for the top 25 ranked schools in the 2017 Best High Schools rankings.
This new tiebreaker was the percentage of 12th-graders in the 2014-2015 academic year who took AP exams and the percentage who passed those exams in at least four of the seven AP content areas. The tiebreaker measures the breadth of students who took and passed AP exams across multiple disciplines.
The AP content areas measured were English, Math & Computer Science, Sciences, World Languages & Culture, History and Social Sciences, Arts and AP Capstone.
Students who took and passed exams in two or three areas were given partial credit – 50 percent and 75 percent, respectively.
Those who took and passed AP exams in four of the seven AP content areas earned full credit.
The percentage of students taking exams in multiple areas was weighted 25 percent and the percentage of students passing exams in multiple areas was weighted 75 percent to derive the final tiebreaker score.
High schools where the largest proportion of 12th-grade students in the 2014-2015 academic year took and passed AP tests in at least four AP content areas scored highest in the tiebreaker.
The new tiebreaker was used to break ties among 297 schools – 61 gold medal schools and 236 silver medal schools. The College Board computed the tiebreaker. End Quote.
Of course for a richer understanding about the history of the idea that high school must be college, you can read any number of books, or some legacy reports from the American Diploma Project from which the Common Core evolved, to the Gates Foundation Database with some key works, among them “college and career ready,” early college, and College Board,
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/articles/how-us-news-calculated-the-rankings
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Perhaps the answer is for students to take the AP exams without taking the AP courses.
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Why not just do highschool stuff in highschool and leave college level material to colleges?
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Sorry, Mate, but that would make too much sense.
😉
Everything is about “accelerating” our kid’s cognitive processing abilities so that they can compete in the global market place. And the people “in charge” think this can be done by “raising the bar so they’ll jump higher”, “applying more rigor”, and “creating grit”.
Even if these processes did work (which they often do NOT), they’re leaving out the essential element of the kids/teens METAcognitive processing.
Without the ability to plan, monitor, and evaluate; the cognitive work will be, at best, meaningless in it’s application.
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“Everything is about “accelerating” our kid’s cognitive processing abilities so that they can compete in the global market place. ”
This is exactly what needs to be questioned: is it really the purpose of our kids to be able to compete in this market place? Do they really need to compete anywhere?
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I would have hoped that the purpose of education is to produce well- rounded citizens with critical thinking skills, who are ready to take their places as members of our society, with enough flexibility to learn new skills as needed. Oh, and a life-long appreciation for learning would also be great.
Ah, well, it doesn’t look as though that’s happening any time soon.
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I think we need to redefine what our kids’ place in society needs to be. If we accept that for most of them, their place is to work for a big corporation, we then cannot question very authoritatively what the leaders of these corporations want to feed to our kids in school.
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“I would have hoped that the purpose of education is to produce well- rounded citizens with critical thinking skills, who are ready to take their places as members of our society, with enough flexibility to learn new skills as needed.”
That was the purpose prior to when the “reform” movement gained traction (right around the time Bloomberg took office as mayor of NYC, not so coincidentally).
Since then it’s devolved into a business centered model.
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It’s sad but it’s true, gitapik.
Funny how countries where teachers are respected and appropriately compensated, where children are not tested to death and treated like cogs in a machine, but allowed to explore and be children, seem to do much better on international testing than our country does.
Or maybe not so funny. 😩
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Because we track students by age, there can be a mismatch between a student’s academic interest and the high school curriculum. That is why qualified admission high schools like Stuyvesant and Thomas Jefferson exist.
In most places, there are no high schools offering advanced courses. My household lives in a university town and we could afford the tuition for our middle son to be a special student at the university. This allowed him to take a graduate commutative algebra course as a high school senior. What high school mathematics class would you have had him take instead?
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The initial effect of AP tests was to reward those who had learned a lot more than they were supposed to learn. So long as this was a small number and of students, this seemed reasonable. Then the game of oneupmanship joined the game of making money and we have the quandary of today: is the person who,was trained to do well on a test actually the equivalent of a kid in the sixties who just happened to absorb more of a subject due to his own ability and inquisitive habits? I come down on the side of those who say that children trained to take a test are not the same as children who know a substantial body of knowledge relative to a subject.
Meanwhile, competition for a small fist of academic rewards creates the pressure Nancy described in this post. Taxpayers used to fund scholarship at a college level, with the idea being better citizens. Now students are going to college for vocational careers, not a bad thing, but a far cry from the idea of training citizens. The history department at my old state university is half as big as it was in 1978. The university is twice as big. Students cannot afford to pay the tuition to take classes because they are enriched by the content. The classes cost too much. More pressure.
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“Then the game of oneupmanship joined the game of making money”
I think you have something else in mind, but we parents have to pay a not insignificant amount of money for the AP exams our kids take. Who gets that money?
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This is a logical step in the corporate takeover of our schools. Competition will bring out the best in us! GRIT and preservence!
The business model can be successful when adults are involved, but it’s being applied to kids from K-12, now.
Fostered by arrogance, nurtured and furthered by greed, this takeover by the wealthy elite is destructive to the development of our children.
They are amateurs who have placed themselves in the roles of authority and mentor.
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My college students tell me that college is muuuuuch easier than highschool was. My highschool senior daughter regularly sleeps 5 hours, and does home works, projects on weekends, holidays.
Burn out is very difficult to recover from, and in my experience, most students cannot do it.
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By the end of the school year, my juniors and seniors were fried. No one should have to undergo what they did.
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