Race to college

I recently found a blog about acceleration with a goal towards early college. As someone who has already been down that path personally, I found it interesting. I currently have an informal plan of acceleration, with the goal of having Cowgirl do FAU High, and be able to complete a few years of college work during high school. So it was interesting to me to see other people's approaches. Well, after reading it, I had some concerns. Their approach is to school year round, and do lessons 5 days instead of 4 days. That seems fine, we also are pretty much doing the same. But, after reviewing her curriculum choices, I had to wonder how well it would really work. It's mainly in her math program choice, which is widely known to be about a year or two behind other math programs. The advantage of this math program is that it is computerized, and student activities are managed by the program. She has about 6 kids, so I can see the convenience of it, but if you use it at the grade levels, you are behind other programs by 1-2 levels. It doesn't seem very accelerated when you start 1-2 years behind. And then there's the aptitude, not every child will be able to work at that level, especially in college. I was fine being 14 in college, but I'm pretty sure that out of 6 kids, some will not be fine. Or they'll end up getting some fluff degree. (ok, so I found out that she's planning for them to get Bachelor of Humanities from Thomas Edison College.)

I don't think accelerating using weak programs and loopholes will really prepare a child well. The kinds of jobs a person with a Bachelor of Humanities from a unknown college is pretty low paying. Aside from the fact that they are still young and don't have a clue to what they want to do with their lives.


But this also brings to mind the weakness in the American educational system. I look at the Core math standard and compare them to other countries and find us behind. Then if you compare your math program to the Core standard and it's behind, then you're basically twice as behind. Now you want to accelerate from that hole you're in. And the end goal is to do a test based college "degree." It seems to be about doing the minimum to get that piece of paper. I can only think that a minimum effort to get a minimum degree can only yield a minimum job. And when lots of people are only doing the minimum jobs, it's hard to be an high achieving country.