> As a bare minimum, high school is supposed to give kids somewhere to go while their parents are at work and keep them from ending up pregnant, in jail, or dead
Perhaps we should start with putting some trust in the people who are close to the age of majority.
High school is not daycare in any shape or form. Highschoolers can largely fend for themselves. Of course they get ideas, but you consistently see less of that when there's trust and mutual respect in place.
Even top public test high schools like Stuyvesant in NYC have an attitude towards their students as if it is daycare. Just look how they acted when teachers were calling out sick en masse during Omicron. They cancelled many classes but forced all students to come in anyway and sit in a cramped gymnasium "study hall".
I'd agree that for these students HS shouldn't be a daycare, but that doesn't mean it isn't the prevailing attitude amongst current administrators. Piling on a bunch of extra memorization work doesn't mean they're treating students as independent thinkers.
This is the sort of approach that's utterly foreign to me.
When people in my class started turning 18 teachers reminded us that compulsory education doesn't apply to them any more, so they're free to leave at any time - with appropriate consequences regarding their chances of passing, but nothing else.
They still almost certainly live at home and I imagine there’s an expectation from their parents to finish high school. There’s definitely a big line between being a crappy student doing the bare minimum vs dropping out.
I don't get it. At age 15 I had curfew, but could generally come and go as I pleased. At age 17 I was at times left alone at home for a few nights. This was all normal in my teenage years in my corner of the world.
Why would high school need to function as a daycare? The teachers would definitely rather not have to deal with this on top of the usual responsibilities.
Perhaps we should start with putting some trust in the people who are close to the age of majority.
High school is not daycare in any shape or form. Highschoolers can largely fend for themselves. Of course they get ideas, but you consistently see less of that when there's trust and mutual respect in place.