BAD MOVE IDAHO

The state of Idaho is thinking about being like the first state in the union to force a GPA on all students that want to move on to high school.  This is certainly a controversial idea that I would never ever want to see passed.

In order for a student to move onto high school under this crazy idea they would have to have a cumulative C average in a bunch of core classes that includes math, reading, and social studies.

Forcing a C average on a student in a bunch of core classes so they can move on to high school to me sends the wrong message.  This idea in my opinion will wind up putting too much pressure on a student at too young of an age. I do not think that this is going to increase the graduation rate for students for any state that wants to try this idea out and will not get more students to move on to college as well.

Forcing a certain grade average to move from one grade level to the next is fine by me, but the Idaho idea goes too far.

Another bad idea this state is thinking about is to have sixth graders to have a post-secondary learning plan for their education which is two years earlier then what the state already has in place.  Sixth grade is way too soon for a student to have a post-secondary learning plan in my opinion.  Under my educational idea I do have a career exploration class that I want all eighth graders to take.  That class alone will serve them well in finding out what they want to be later on in life and in the eighth grade it is the perfect time to select what major you want in highs school.

Even though the state of Idaho has some bad ideas they are also going to make more changes though that I like much better.  They do want all students to take four math classes as a high school student and one more year of science. Doing these steps instead will get more students into college which is what the educational system is supposed to do.

Giving students a tougher curriculum is the right thing to do, but you have to make the right choices or the educational system will not work.

To comment on my commentary: RichardGinn@myeducationalplan.com

SOURCES

Jacobson, Linda "Idaho Studies Minimum GPA for High School Admission" Education Week (2005) vol: 25 n:10 pag:21 . Online. Internet. November 2, 2005
Available: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2005/11/02/10idaho.h25.html