At Benson, where I went to high school, the education you received was intended to be meaningful. But that is mostly because it’s a technical high school designed to train people for trades, and in most cases, leave students ready for work when they get their diplomas. Benson also partners with community colleges in Portland so students will receive credit for their technical classes if they want or need to pursue further education.
It’s an awesome program, and I don’t understand why more high schools and universities aren’t partnering to make high school classes count during college. And not just technical courses, but all courses.
I was talking to a friend at work today, who expressed her frustration over her psychology class:
“I already took the class in high school, but I just didn’t want to pay for the test, so now I have to take it again to get a science gen-ed out of the way” she told me.
I have felt the same way over many of the general education courses I’ve taken in my time at the University of Oregon. The classes I took in high school, especially during my junior and senior year, were subjects I would end up repeating in college. But because my school was tech-focused, it didn’t offer very many AP classes. Still, AP or no, my economics, English, math, physics, chemistry and history courses prepared me very well for college. Some of them (especially econ. math and science classes) cover the exact same material as courses taught in college. [And I have yet to take an English class in college that could match the rigors of American and then world literature with Ms. Wong]
So why doesn’t the U of O to set up a program with Oregon high schools where students can earn college credit for courses they take in high schools? (And for that matter, why isn’t this something that is happening nation-wide?)I see a number of benefits to a program like this:
1. It would help motivate students to learn in their high school courses, instead of just treating high school as a stepping stone to college.
2. It would also help reduce the burden of tuition by allowing students to take care of many of their general education requirements and reducing the number of credits they would need to pay for while in school.
3. It would also allow students to pursue their majors more in-depth instead of being forced to spend so much time taking general courses to fulfill degree requirements.
4. Conversely, it would allow students to take different subjects not offered in high schools (for example, if I hadn’t been required to complete eight credits of economics, I probably would have taken international studies classes, or some other subject that I was more interested in and hadn’t already learned about).
5. It would prevent frustration (like that expressed above) at having to repeat a class you have already performed well in.
I know AP testing does offer tests in many subjects that most colleges award credit for, I just think it would be a much better system for Oregon high schools and Universities to coordinate their curriculum enough for students who perform well in high school to receive credit for equivalent courses at the university level without further fattening the pockets of the College Board.
Here I go 