Where High Schools Are Headed (Hint: It's Not Good)

The school year has started up again, and I am aghast at what my younger brothers are telling me about their school experiences. I remember in my senior year of high school, the principal was just starting to get a little crazy. She was particularly fond of shortening our lunch and taking away our break, and claimed it was because of too much trash in the halls, which I frankly never noticed. Still, I escaped relatively unscathed.

But the horror started the very next year, when my brother was a freshman. First, the ID badges. All the students had to wear an ID badge around their necks or keep it visible above the waist, no matter what. If they lost it, forgot it, or even had it in the wrong place, the teachers were supposed to give them automatic lunch detention. There was no longer any forgiveness for being tardy: one tardy was too many.

And then, they decided that there couldn't be any more soda, because kids obviously will never drink soda if they can't have it at school. Instead, they put Nesquik in the vending machines, which has high fructose corn syrup and sugar, just like soda. It's not about the result, just the pretense of action, and that annoys me.

It got worse, especially with respect to how a school day is scheduled. For me, it was always easy to remember, because every day it was just first period, second period, etc. until lunch, and then a few more periods, and then the day was over. Well, this is no longer the case. They have invented something called PAT (Putting Academics on Top). They didn't care to elaborate when asked what academics were being put on top of.

PAT is a study period before lunch, and it replaces the occasional block schedule collaboration we had when I was in high school. The biggest changes have come this year though: a hybrid schedule. It gives me a headache trying to explain. Mondays are collaboration schedule, which means school starts a little later (8:00 AM instead of 7:45 AM), and consists of three 55-minute long classes, followed by two 1 hour and 25 minute classes, and lunch is in there somewhere.

Every other day of the school week falls under a separate system. There are 3 hour-long classes, and 2 hour-and-a half classes, and lunch is much shorter than it was when I attended high school. The shorter classes are the same every day, and typically represent core classes, while the longer classes, usually electives, alternate each day. In addition, the 3 hour-long classes could either be in the afternoon or the morning, and the 2 longer classes will then fill up the other part of the day. Does that make sense? I didn't think so.

He also is forced to take a full course schedule, even though he came into high school with high school credit from an advanced Gifted and Talented type school. The reason he worked so hard then was so he could concentrate on fewer, more challenging classes in high school, but now he is taking AP in addition to a bunch of required classes that do nothing but fill up space and stress him out. The only reason for this is because it's the only way they guarantee funding.

Other, less obvious changes really surprised me. My youngest brother just started sixth grade, and he told me that he has an advisory class, but that at lunch, they are required to sit with that class in the lunch room. They don't get to choose where to sit or with whom they want to eat lunch. He mentioned the new system for tallying absences and tardies doesn't add up in each class, but cumulatively. In other words, where you could have gotten six tardies, one in every class, and be fine, if you get one tardy in each class now, that adds up to six and you're in danger of being expelled. The same goes for unexcused absences.

It's as if they want teen suicide, drug abuse, depression, and the high school dropout rate to skyrocket. If someone had told me that the schedule in high school would be changed to a hybrid mish-mash, and students would have to wear badges everywhere, and there would be no breaks, and shortened lunch and passing periods, and lunch detention would be given out at every possible opportunity, and all the other things I've heard, I wouldn't have believed it. It just didn't seem plausible to change from something relatively reasonable to something so convoluted and punishing so quickly. I am relieved to be out of high school, but I feel nothing but compassion for my poor brothers who have years yet to be rid of public school. The government needs to realize that all students will learn from this method is how to depend on authority for every little thing they do. If the government doesn't intend to become head of a socialist country, it needs to let kids learn in a less regulated environment. A free-market system is predicated on freedom, and I don't think a system that forces children to fear creativity and innovation represents freedom, nor will it serve us well if schools continue in this direction.