Restoring rigor in high schools

[Anonymous]

In order to reform education system, standardized test may be reinstated, but it barely touch the root issue.

High schools should stop GPA inflation, should provide rigorous grading and rigorous courses. Stop giving 20% of the class 4.0 GPAs. It's just insane. Straight As should be reserved for the truely gifted.

ECs should be done out of true passion. No gaming the system. Colleges should not consider high school research in admissions so that only kids with true passion will pursue it, not fake it.

High school counselors should verify a student's ECs before they send out the app.

High schools should encourage kids taking courses of highest rigor available to their schools, be it stem or humanities. Colleges should put a lot more weight on course rigor in admissions.

Be honest.

Have integrity.

[Anonymous]

In order to restore rigor, we need to return to pencil and paper. Laptops make it too easy to cheat, too distracting to focus and too hard to learn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In order to restore rigor, we need to return to pencil and paper. Laptops make it too easy to cheat, too distracting to focus and too hard to learn.

Maybe we should just revert to slate and chalk?

You are beyond ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Start with enacting real standards for college entrance. Very few countries do just standardized exams; instead, they also have a rigorous high school/college prep curriculum that is so effective for some places that they can nationally by gpa.

Additionally (assuming a lot of funding), follow the magnet school model: smaller class sizes, specialty teachers, etc.

[Anonymous]

The “truely gifted”? Sure, whatever, OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In order to restore rigor, we need to return to pencil and paper. Laptops make it too easy to cheat, too distracting to focus and too hard to learn.

agree. many studies show data supporting writing vs typing is better for learning. laptops are not allowed in most of my kid's ivy classes, just the write-on ipads for notes. exams are in person and on paper. Uva has cut way back too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The “truely gifted”? Sure, whatever, OP.

gifted usually means 95th%ile or above on certain standardized tests. In some test-in high schools that would be 10-20% of the class, it is not a high bar.
regardless, it used to be that only 1-2 kids out of 500 had 4.0UW. It was easier to separate out true top students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The “truely gifted”? Sure, whatever, OP.

gifted usually means 95th%ile or above on certain standardized tests. In some test-in high schools that would be 10-20% of the class, it is not a high bar.
regardless, it used to be that only 1-2 kids out of 500 had 4.0UW. It was easier to separate out true top students.

But can they spell?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In order to reform education system, standardized test may be reinstated, but it barely touch the root issue.

High schools should stop GPA inflation, should provide rigorous grading and rigorous courses. Stop giving 20% of the class 4.0 GPAs. It's just insane. Straight As should be reserved for the truely gifted.

ECs should be done out of true passion. No gaming the system. Colleges should not consider high school research in admissions so that only kids with true passion will pursue it, not fake it.

High school counselors should verify a student's ECs before they send out the app.

High schools should encourage kids taking courses of highest rigor available to their schools, be it stem or humanities. Colleges should put a lot more weight on course rigor in admissions.

Be honest.

Have integrity.

But your whole concept of “integrity” here is that it works against the goal of racial equity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In order to reform education system, standardized test may be reinstated, but it barely touch the root issue.

High schools should stop GPA inflation, should provide rigorous grading and rigorous courses. Stop giving 20% of the class 4.0 GPAs. It's just insane. Straight As should be reserved for the truely gifted.

ECs should be done out of true passion. No gaming the system. Colleges should not consider high school research in admissions so that only kids with true passion will pursue it, not fake it.

High school counselors should verify a student's ECs before they send out the app.

High schools should encourage kids taking courses of highest rigor available to their schools, be it stem or humanities. Colleges should put a lot more weight on course rigor in admissions.

Be honest.

Have integrity.

But your whole concept of “integrity” here is that it works against the goal of racial equity.

+1.

Just look at SAT scores. The wide disparity between Black SAT scores and those of whites proves the SAT test is still very racist, and should be abolished.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The “truely gifted”? Sure, whatever, OP.

gifted usually means 95th%ile or above on certain standardized tests. In some test-in high schools that would be 10-20% of the class, it is not a high bar.
regardless, it used to be that only 1-2 kids out of 500 had 4.0UW. It was easier to separate out true top students.

And why is this important? So we know which ones to send to a hedge fund one day?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In order to reform education system, standardized test may be reinstated, but it barely touch the root issue.

High schools should stop GPA inflation, should provide rigorous grading and rigorous courses. Stop giving 20% of the class 4.0 GPAs. It's just insane. Straight As should be reserved for the truely gifted.

ECs should be done out of true passion. No gaming the system. Colleges should not consider high school research in admissions so that only kids with true passion will pursue it, not fake it.

High school counselors should verify a student's ECs before they send out the app.

High schools should encourage kids taking courses of highest rigor available to their schools, be it stem or humanities. Colleges should put a lot more weight on course rigor in admissions.

Be honest.

Have integrity.

But your whole concept of “integrity” here is that it works against the goal of racial equity.

+1.

Just look at SAT scores. The wide disparity between Black SAT scores and those of whites proves the SAT test is still very racist, and should be abolished.

It's not the test. It's the wealth and resource gap.

[Anonymous]

Why does your first sentence read like an ESOL student still struggling to learn English but the rest of the post has proper spelling (except “truely”), grammar, use of idiomatic phrases (gaming the system), and esoteric language like “be it stem or humanities”?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In order to reform education system, standardized test may be reinstated, but it barely touch the root issue.

High schools should stop GPA inflation, should provide rigorous grading and rigorous courses. Stop giving 20% of the class 4.0 GPAs. It's just insane. Straight As should be reserved for the truely gifted.

ECs should be done out of true passion. No gaming the system. Colleges should not consider high school research in admissions so that only kids with true passion will pursue it, not fake it.

High school counselors should verify a student's ECs before they send out the app.

High schools should encourage kids taking courses of highest rigor available to their schools, be it stem or humanities. Colleges should put a lot more weight on course rigor in admissions.

Be honest.

Have integrity.

But your whole concept of “integrity” here is that it works against the goal of racial equity.

You mean working against privileged white kids who don't perform academically but relying on ECs?

If we learnt anything from DCUM, the wealthy families are the most against academic integrity. But they always show up under the name of DEI.

[Anonymous]

Will never happen without completely reforming the IDEA and getting community/social services out of schools. So long as public schools have to put so many resources into those things they will never have to bandwidth to offer actual rigor to students. Getting students to show up and actually do the work at all is hard enough. Plus so many great teachers have left the profession due to all the issues.