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Andrew Mollison - Cox Washington Bureau Thursday, January 18, 2001 Washington --- High schools and parents let many seniors waste their last year of school, which helps explain why one-third to one-half aren't adequately prepared for college or the workplace, a report submitted Wednesday to Education Secretary Richard Riley concludes. ''Many students reported 'ditching' senior classes because the atmosphere encouraged them to consider the senior year a farewell tour of adolescence and school,'' said the report from Riley's National Commission on the High School Senior Year. ''I have heard too many college leaders describe the senior year of high school as a wasteland,'' Riley said. ''Many high school seniors literally check out, others spend more time working than going to school, and too many young people do not get the help they need (in choosing their courses) to make well-informed judgments about life after high school.'' The commission said many seniors apparently don't realize ''a high school diploma is no longer a guarantee of success in either postsecondary education or the world of work.'' About 30 percent of today's college-bound seniors have to take remedial courses in college, and many of those going directly into the work force find out they can't get jobs that would ever pay enough to support a family. Unlike their counterparts in many other countries, American seniors are more likely to hold down a job than to take courses in science or math. ''When push comes to shove, low-skilled, part-time jobs that earn students spending money appear to be far more important than school,'' the report said. Stephen Portch, chancellor of the University System of Georgia, has served on Riley's commission and has preached to Gov. Roy Barnes' Education Reform Study Commission about the problem for more than a year. Echoing the report, Portch said there is a kind of collusion between many seniors and their parents: Parents don't mind their sons and daughters having light schedules during the last year because that lets them work to make money for college. Top colleges add to the problem by accepting many students by October of their senior year, Portch said. "What does that say to students?" The lack of focus on academics in the senior year may be one of the reasons more than half of Georgia's HOPE scholars are unable to maintain a B average in their freshman year of college and lose the scholarship, he said. Portch has advocated that Georgia move to a single, more rigorous high school diploma requirement that would force students to continue taking tough classes into their senior year. Currently, students can earn college-prep or technical track diplomas. In both cases, students can finish most of their key classes before their senior year. Many of the seniors or recent seniors interviewed by the commission said they were ''too bored'' to do much in school during their final year. At one extreme, Riley said, are the poor-performing students who ''haven't learned to read well, to read critically, so they are really bored.'' At the other extreme are high-performing students who finish their required courses before or during their junior year and say they don't feel challenged anymore, said the commission's vice chairman, Jacquelyn Belcher, president of Georgia Perimeter College in Decatur. Last semester, the community college tried to combat boredom among those students by accepting 900 high school students from the metropolitan Atlanta area in a dual-enrollment program. They take a mix of college-level and high school courses. Amanda Seals, a spokeswoman for Georgia School Superintendent Linda Schrenko, said the state has taken steps to combat senior slacking. It added a year of math to the college prep curriculum, encouraged students to take more Advance Placement courses and pays for them to take the PSAT before they take the SAT. The 33 officials, dignitaries and researchers named to the national commission last September by Riley include Houston schools superintendent Rod Paige, designated by President-elect George W. Bush to be Riley's successor as education secretary. Staff writer James Salzer contributed to this report. > ON THE WEB: The full report, ''The Lost Opportunity of the
Senior Year: Finding a Better Way,'' is to be posted by Friday at
the commission's Web site: www.commissiononthesenioryear.org
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