A piece in Saturday's New York Times titled "Students Say High Schools Let Them Down" reports that a majority of high school students believe their courses are not demanding enough:
A large majority of high school students say their class work is not very difficult, and almost two-thirds say they would work harder if courses were more demanding or interesting, according to an online nationwide survey of teenagers conducted by the National Governors Association.It's encouraging - students seem to want to be challenged, not let off easy.The survey, being released on Saturday by the association, also found that fewer than two-thirds believe that their school had done a good job challenging them academically or preparing them for college. About the same number of students said their senior year would be more meaningful if they could take courses related to the jobs they wanted or if some of their courses could be counted toward college credit.
"A lot of business people and politicians have been saying that the high schools are not meeting the needs of kids," said Barbara Kapinus, a senior policy analyst for the National Education Association. "It's interesting that kids are saying it, too."So, that leaves parents and teachers as two major influential groups that aren't mentioned in the story. I wonder how they feel about what students are learning? Posted by Tom Nugent at July 18, 2005 05:14 PM