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Utah Considers Cutting 12th Grade - Altogether

Harry Guerrilla

Harry Guerrilla

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Utah Considers Cutting 12th Grade - Altogether // Current

Reporting from Denver - At Utah's West Jordan High School, the halls have swirled lately with debate over the merits of 12th grade:

Is it a waste of time? Are students ready for the real world at 17?

For student body president J.D. Williams, 18, the answer to both questions is a resounding no. "I need this year," he said, adding that most of his classmates feel the same way.

The sudden buzz over the relative value of senior year stems from a recent proposal by state Sen. Chris Buttars that Utah make a dent in its budget gap by eliminating the 12th grade.
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The notion quickly gained some traction among supporters who agreed with the Republican's assessment that many seniors fritter away their final year of high school, but faced vehement opposition from other quarters, including in his hometown of West Jordan.

"My parents are against it," Williams said. "All the teachers at the school are against it. I'm against it."

Buttars has since toned down the idea, suggesting instead that senior year become optional for students who complete their required credits early. He estimated the move could save up to $60 million, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.
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I think it's a good idea, a lot of time is wasted in senior year doing fun and not necessarily educational stuff.
 
There goes senior prom

its gonna hurt division one prospects for athletic scholarships though
 
That's one way to balance the education budget, cut back the number of years of free education. Maybe cutting the number of school days per year would help, too.

Then, we could find out that ignorance really is a lot more expensive than schooling.
 
Dittohead not! said:
That's one way to balance the education budget, cut back the number of years of free education. Maybe cutting the number of school days per year would help, too.

Then, we could find out that ignorance really is a lot more expensive than schooling.
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Do you really believe that 1 year less of high school equals ignorance?

I had to take and pass my graduation exams in 11th grade.
If I pass them then what was the point of 12th grade?
 
Harry Guerrilla said:
I think it's a good idea, a lot of time is wasted in senior year doing fun and not necessarily educational stuff.
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I don't know about completely eliminating it, but for those kids who are ready to move on before the 12th grade I don't see the problem. Kids shouldn't have to be stymied into attending an extra year of school, if they are capable of college level entry earlier. Some kids will still need it, like the ones who jacked around their frosh year getting into "shennanigans" rather than attending class(like me).
 
WI Crippler said:
I don't know about completely eliminating it, but for those kids who are ready to move on before the 12th grade I don't see the problem. Kids shouldn't have to be stymied into attending an extra year of school, if they are capable of college level entry earlier. Some kids will still need it, like the ones who jacked around their frosh year getting into "shennanigans" rather than attending class(like me).
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I screwed around a lot between 9-11th grade, enough to put me behind a year and a half(in credits) but I still passed my graduation test in 11th grade.

If you can pass the graduation test, you should be able to move on.
 
WI Crippler said:
I don't know about completely eliminating it, but for those kids who are ready to move on before the 12th grade I don't see the problem. Kids shouldn't have to be stymied into attending an extra year of school, if they are capable of college level entry earlier. Some kids will still need it, like the ones who jacked around their frosh year getting into "shennanigans" rather than attending class(like me).
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I jacked around for all four years, not just as a freshman.
 
TurtleDude said:
its gonna hurt division one prospects for athletic scholarships though
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In football many kids work hard to graduate early from school(in Jan.) so they can get on campus on their university for spring football practice.
 
Tucker Case said:
I jacked around for all four years, not just as a freshman.
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With the exception of PE, I had to redo my entire freshman year over the course of my soph and junior years. The nice part was, that all my friends that I was cutting class with were in the same boat. :2razz:
 
WI Crippler said:
With the exception of PE, I had to redo my entire freshman year over the course of my soph and junior years. The nice part was, that all my friends that I was cutting class with were in the same boat. :2razz:
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For me it was Sophomore year that I had to redo. As well as a smattering of classes from the other three years.

If you cram the total number of passed classes I had over the four years and removed the failed classes, I'd have graduated in 2 1/2 years.

Instead it took me four with something like a 1.3 GPA. :lol:
 
I'm in 12th grade right now, and my year has been almost entirely useless. I have one free period, two just-for-fun classes because I couldn't get another free period, a useless English class, and the rest are pretty much college-level courses. Now that college resumes are done, there isn't much of a point to the rest of the year except to rack up some college credits which I just as easily could have gotten in college.
 
Dav said:
I'm in 12th grade right now, and my year has been almost entirely useless. I have one free period, two just-for-fun classes because I couldn't get another free period, a useless English class, and the rest are pretty much college-level courses. Now that college resumes are done, there isn't much of a point to the rest of the year except to rack up some college credits which I just as easily could have gotten in college.
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Excellent example of reality. :yt
 
Dav said:
I'm in 12th grade right now, and my year has been almost entirely useless. I have one free period, two just-for-fun classes because I couldn't get another free period, a useless English class, and the rest are pretty much college-level courses. Now that college resumes are done, there isn't much of a point to the rest of the year except to rack up some college credits which I just as easily could have gotten in college.
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Aren't you glad you can get those credits for free now, before paying college tuition?
 
I think it would be better to cut one of the earlier years rather than Grade 12. Say Grade 7 or 8 for example....
 
In my day (I am old), at my school (Smiley High in Houston), you could only get 24 credits, and you had to have them all......

Buttars is an idiot....but that is another story.

I can see allowing a few to skip the last year, those who can already do college level work. Being bored for a whole school year is not a good thing.
 
Its my understanding that if you have enough credits to graduate by your 12th grade you can graduate early.

There's a potential way for people who are "Ready" for college early to get out of their last year.

I think the majority of people need that 12th year, both for a maturity aspect and a transition aspect.

Yes, you're 12th grade generally has less "core" type classes and tends to have more electives. That's not a bad thing, its a nice transition period between primary school when so much of what you take is chosen for you and college where its much more free form.

The general lighter load in 12th grade helps in a variety of other ways too. Usually its during this time during the first semester kids are spending putting into college and attempting to get any scholarships, both time consuming things.

In general I don't think that 12th year is a wasted thing or something to be rid of imho.
 
I think it's just their way to get the girls out of school a year earlier so they can get married and start making little Mormon babies.
 
Being that we are falling behind on education compared to most other modern industrialized nations, perhaps instead of doing away with the 12 grade to save a buck, why don't we keep seniors busy and challenged academically through the 12th grade.

I would suspect that most people behind doing away with the 12th grade are those that disagree with the entire notion of a public education system. Of course in that case, its not out of pragmatism, but rather some irrational opposition to all things government. I really think it should just be diagnosed as a phobia and treated for lunacy that it is. Nations that don't have a public education system are not exactly a paradise. In fact, they are pretty much all 3rd world **** holes.

For the extreme libertarians, the idea is not to just do away with the 12th Grade, its to do away with the entire public school system. You see it will start with this, and then they will just say "well if you want to go through the 12th grade they can just charge you a fee for it" and then on down the tubes with the whole thing.
 
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SouthernDemocrat said:
Being that we are falling behind on education compared to most other modern industrialized nations, perhaps instead of doing away with the 12 grade to save a buck, why don't we keep seniors busy and challenged academically through the 12th grade.

I would suspect that most people behind doing away with the 12th grade are those that disagree with the entire notion of a public education system. Of course in that case, its not out of pragmatism, but rather some irrational opposition to all things government. I really think it should just be diagnosed as a phobia and treated for lunacy that it is. Nations that don't have a public education system are not exactly a paradise. In fact, they are pretty much all 3rd world **** holes.

For the extreme libertarians, the idea is not to just do away with the 12th Grade, its to do away with the entire public school system. You see it will start with this, and then they will just say "well if you want to go through the 12th grade they can just charge you a fee for it" and then on down the tubes with the whole thing.
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Comparing a country with no real history of education with one that does have a history of some real form of education does not make a good argument.

United States ≠ 3rd world country

And just to stop you short, we weren't a 3rd world country before we had government schools.
 
WI Crippler said:
In football many kids work hard to graduate early from school(in Jan.) so they can get on campus on their university for spring football practice.
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Without athletics, i would never have went to college. Not because of ability, more or less due to desire.
 
With a youth today whose social interaction is 90 percent through texting and internet, I say they desperately need the social interaction.

It is scary just how socially inept young people are today. You say hi to them and they look like they want to dive for cover.
 
Why not encourage homeschooling? Statistics say home schoolers are better educated and plus it costs the state nothing. Schools have become nothing but a center for undisciplined teens to do everything but school. I blame the culture and the education system. Self discipline is on the decline, and without that we are going to fail in many more areas than education.
 
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