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    "College-Ready Seventh Graders"

    So, a funny thing happened in Ohio higher education. I don't blog about things that happen at my university, but this decision didn't happen at my university. It happened in the State Legislature, with a new law that affects every public college in the state. And of course, decisions about this law weren't made by people who actually teach college. Obviously, we are too biased, and probably too corrupt, to help make wise decisions about educating young people. That needs to be left to politicians.

    We have had, for longer than I have lived in Ohio, a program that allows some high-school juniors and seniors to take some classes at local colleges, counting those courses toward their high school diploma and but also banking them for college later. The idea is that they'll start college with several credits already. I have never heard complaints about this program, and I've heard a lot of anecdotal evidence for its success. So far, so good.

    Since this program is successful, the lawmakers in Columbus reasoned, why not expand it? Why not have more high school students take more college classes, and get more credits? Our Governor, John Kasich, has bragged in one of the Republican Presidential debates (the one on October 28), that Ohio students would soon be graduating high school with a full year of college credits, because of this brilliant new law. What is the brilliant part? First, the law opens up the high-school/college program to younger students: to all high school students, in fact. And even better, the law requires colleges to accept "college-ready seventh and eighth graders."

    Now, I have not personally met many college-ready seventh or eighth graders, but that is probably because teaching at an actual college biases me somehow.

    Now, you may have noticed that I said the law requires colleges to accept college-ready seventh (and eighth) graders. It does not simply allow public colleges and universities to accept those students. Public colleges in Ohio are not allowed to refuse college-ready seventh-graders, however many of them there may be. And, because colleges can be tricky, the law wisely forbids colleges and universities from deciding what "college-ready" means themselves. Public colleges are not allowed to set admissions standards for high-school or middle-school students. Instead, the law tells them what the standard should be, so that lazy professors don't throw up pointless obstacles.

    That standard, under the law, is that a seventh grader's GPA count's the same as a high school senior's GPA. No, I am not making that up. All public colleges and universities in Ohio are required to let in seventh graders if they meet the GPA requirement for regular students. If you're trying to keep standards very high, and turn away applicants with anything below a B+ average, then a twelve-year-old with a B+ average in middle school also qualifies. If you're trying to give students who've struggled a chance to succeed, so that you let in students who got Cs in their senior year of high school, then a seventh-grader's Cs are also good enough. Columbus says so.

    Of course, pointy-headed academics will try to throw up all kinds of road blocks if you let them, and claim that somehow a B in 7th grade and a B in 12th grade are different things. But who's going to believe that? A B is a B, right? Otherwise, we would use a different letter. And letting educators put up these artificial obstacles about things like "preparation" and "class content" just mean more obstacles to people getting degrees.The point is to give people college degrees, and the professors are an obstacle to that.

    Obviously, someone doing seventh grade math, what with the long division and all, is just as ready for college as someone doing calculus or trigonometry in twelfth grade. It's all math, right? And someone pulling an A in seventh-grade English, where the writing assignments are literally dozens of words long, should be all ready for first-year college English, where the papers are hundreds or thousands of words long. Good writing is good writing, yes? If your child is a good writer, and has been told so in middle school, then her essay about what she did on summer vacation should certainly be worth college credit. Most of the punctuation is exactly where it should be.

    But then, you shouldn't ask me. I'm just a college professor. What do I know?

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    Are Ohio middle schoolers taking up this offer?


    I can't tell yet. And the state has only just started to promote the program to middle schools.


    No doubt some kids can actually handle it but way to take all the fun out of college.  Do these people really think there's nothing of value in high school and that it should all just be skipped? Insanity.


    Better yet put it all online in mind numbing multiple choice 'education' where if you get one question wrong they give the exact same question back to you....at least 3 times later, and call it 'a personalized curriculum'.

    Eliminate Ohio State except for the football team, and basketball if they can't beat Michigan State.


    This is bad news on many fronts.
    It defies the importance of a child developing enough to accept the rigors of college.
    It pisses on high schools trying their best to prepare students for those rigors.
    It turns colleges into machines that don't care what comes out the other end.
    And if you thought that the above was already a problem then now all those problems just  became much more difficult.


    Amen, moat.


    My seventh grader is taking high school Algebra for high school credit.  We spent 2 months this summer getting him ready to test out of eight grade math that was really pre algebra.  He worked hard and so did I.  I had to keep him on schedule and relearn it to tutor him.  He finished all his assignments and tested out with a perfect score.  His report card came home with a 97 in the class.  He had other A's in other classes.  This is a IB middle school and has a program for talented and gifted kids.  He is already assured of a scholarship to any Florida State College.  

    Why would anyone send a 7th grader to college?  He is having too much fun with other little nerds the same age as him. His teachers seem to keep him interested and challenged. There are schools all over the country that are set up for bright children. 

    Most high schools offer AP classes to juniors and seniors. These courses usually are part of honor classes and the student has the option of taking the AP exam for that class in the late spring. There is a fee for the test just like ACT/SAT.  They usually have fee wavers for poor kids that qualify. My bright 7th grader is scheduled to take the ACT in February. It is thru Duke University. It is part of a gifted program.  It will be interesting to see what he scores. They will be tracking him every few years. His older brother went off to college with 4 AP classes that he tested for in the last 2 years of high school. 

    What is Kasich smoking these days?  I just read a couple of days ago that he wants to set up women's health care services in food banks and school nurses as a substitute for Planned Parenthood. I qualify for 4 boxes a month from local food pantries.  I am scheduled to go to two different places. There is no way in god's green earth that these operations have the space for it  Nor would they want to be part of something like that. School nurses are trained in pediatric health not OBGYN. Parents don't want strangers running in and out of their kids' schools.

    There is a whole lot of stupid going on there with him. My relatives in Akron tells me he is an idiot. 


    Even there (not to be critical, we're facing similar decisions) - isn't it better for a 7th grader to be out playing in nature for the summer than studying for some damn college prep?

    All these core skills, and our kids will spend all their time trying to get someone to click on a Web ad or boxing/setting up a display for some smartphone.

    Nothing past some conceptual algebra (if  I buy 3 boxes of macaroni & cheese at 39 cents...) is used in 95% of our jobs.

    But most every job involves some project skills or other.

    Personal well-being is hardly part of the curriculum - psychology and mental health in K-12? or how to cook healthily in the era of preservatives & modified foods? no time, doing core math & science - how many dinosaurs were there fighting cavemen, how many silos would fit in a grain pyramid, how much better is the US than all those piddly foreign countries due to # of nuclear weapons?

    In A Study in Scarlet, Sherlock Holmes declares: "“What the deuce is [the solar system] to me? You say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.” And now that he knows that fact? “I shall do my best to forget it,” he promises." Similarly he ignores how many planets there are. Think he'd learn the names of the dinosaurs?

    The people pushing math & science as a cureall seem to be the ones least skilled in it. And if I'm not teaching advanced calculus in Baby Einstein CDs/MP3's, is there any chance my kid can learn that material say in 1st year college, and instead enjoy playing ringy-dingy in the crib? Sacrilege.

    [I had a real debate about Latin recently - like it's so important for med school or law school, so kids study it 8 years before and remember nothing but "hic haec hoc"? vs. learning say a real spoken language to keep up, and then learning Latin over the summer before going to law/med, if you actually decide to do that. Our educational strategies are pretty perverse, and this is only scraping the surface]


    He was not forced.  He asked if I would help him do this.  He loves math. The papers were signed and he came home with the book and assignments. I was making a point that there is schools for bright kids that don't rob them of their childhood and middle school social life. If they like what they are doing, they will work hard at it. 

    He thinks in numbers.  He is the one who tells me the sticker code of the produce in my charity box is organic, GMO or buy at your own risk. He reads labels very well.   It drives the other grandma nuts at the grocery store because the kids read the labels and tell her that all the sucrose in that can will hurt their liver or it will soon expire. 

    A school was started last year at the local community college for middle school and the kids will continue through high school. It is a program that will give a child a AA when they finish high school.  My grandson brought the paperwork home for it in 5th grade but it didn't appeal to us that this was right for him. He would have been in the first class. He had already been to open house at the school he is going to and it was love at first sight for him.  It was the clubs and extra after school events that was part of why he wanted to go. He has found his niche in music and playing the viola. The community college program offered nothing like that. 

    Could Kasich be thinking that Ohio should do that on a grand scale now that the Charter Schools are not living up to even the public school standards? The Charter Schools in Ohio are a mess. 


    I'm wondering about the pressure on the professors when these children can't do college work and actually fail...or will failure be even possible?  If these kids don't earn college credits doesn't it defeat the purpose, and also give them a bad college experience, which will negatively affect their futures?  This strikes me as a no-win situation, but, like you I am rational biased.  

    I guess this will provide the answer at long last to the question, "Is our children learning?"


    No one fails. Everyone's a winner! It's life!

    Winning like Charlie Sheen?


    CVille, see my comment above.  

    For kids to attend college that young it has to be tailored for them and not in the general collegiate population. It appears to be a political response to the fact that Ohio has failed with their charter schools. The same thing happened here with Gov. Bush's charter school voucher program.  The charter schools only delivered sub standard results and some just closed their doors due to bankruptcy. Florida's response was free virtual school on line.  Ohio had a real scandal going last year with charters. I only know bits and pieces about it because I have a nephew that attended a charter in Ohio. 

    This 7th grade college garbage came along at the same time they are pounding the drum for removing money from Planned Parenthood with the excuse they can run women health programs out of food banks.  It makes the crazy right happy to hear this junk. They live in an alternative reality. It has nothing to do with if it really is possible or will it give good results.

     


    When one of these students fails a class, the college will have to repay the tuition that was paid for them.


    That's interesting. In the FAQ page to which you linked, I understood that there would be no class tuition, fees or required supplies charged to public high school students. It didn't mention middle schoolers; so do they have to pay?

    CCP students from public or non-public high schools who attend a public college are NOT required to pay for college course tuition, instructional tools, or supplies under any circumstances. However, homeschool students are responsible for providing their own instructional tools ("books"), but not tuition or course-required supplies.

    The student's school district has to pay the college for the tuition. So money for this program comes out of the high school (and now out of the middle school) budget. Middle-schoolers don't have to pay either.

    This program therefore hurts the K-12 education budget as well.

    Where the money will come for private school students, and for home-schooled students, is not clear to me.


    Then a cynical person might wonder how this brilliant idea saves the state money that is already invisible within K-12 boundaries - so much so that they've extended it from high to middle school. Are there federal dollars available to the state/district/college behind the scenes in the form of grants, subsidies, et al?


    This post is so ageist. My daughter gets straight A's for all her art work in kindergarten. Doesn't matter if it's crayons, chalk, paper mache, or finger painting, it's always an A! So I think it's clear she's ready for college level courses in the fine arts.


    Seventh graders? What? I've read this  over several times and come back to it, because I just couldn't' believe.. I mean 12 year olds?

    Colleges are not prepared to have a bunch of 12 year olds on campus. This seems like a recipe for disaster. 


    This is going to be a hard sell to parents. Parents normally have to argue with their tweens to do their homework and go to bed at a reasonable time. I just don't see many trying it until they are in high school and are ready for some freshman classes. School districts have programs for gifted smart children. Besides that is not a safe enough environment for middle schoolers.    


    There are a lot of college freshmen who aren't ready for college. Having a 7th grader who is emotionally and socially ready would be rare.

    But, that is beside the point, eh? I think the point is that legislators are making decisions about academic standards when they might not have the expertise to do so.

    Sounds to me like it's just politicians moving bad ideas around so it looks like they're doing something productive. It's what they do here in Michigan, too.


    I really appreciate your perspective on the craziness of College Credit Plus since you are a college professor. I am a high school teacher and have written about the possible negative effects of this program on students and high school teachers. Here's a link to the blog at the Ohio Education Association webpage; it's a two part series:

    Part I: College Credit Plus: Potential Pitfalls for Students    http://blog.ohea.org/college-credit-plus-part-i-potential-pitfalls-for-s...

    Part II: College Credit Plus: A Pyrrhic Victory? http://blog.ohea.org/college-credit-plus-part-ii-a-pyrrhic-victory/

    I am not sure what else we can do besides keep talking about and writing about this issue. My legislators all know how I feel about it. I urge anyone else with an opinion to speak up! There are some benefits, but even at the high school level, there are several negative repercussions which get glossed over when Kasich talks about how great it is. And the idea of a 7th grader taking a college class is beyond laughable to me.


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