USA TODAY: Millions of kids simply don’t find school very challenging, a new analysis of federal survey data suggests. The report could spark a debate about whether new academic standards being piloted nationwide might make a difference…
•37% of fourth-graders say their math work is “often” or “always” too easy;
•57% of eighth-graders say their history work is “often” or “always” too easy;
•39% of 12th-graders say they rarely write about what they read in class.
Ulrich Boser, a senior fellow at the center who co-wrote the report, said the data challenge the “school-as-pressure-cooker” image found in recent movies such as Race to Nowhere. Although those kids certainly exist at one end of the academic spectrum, Boser said, “the broad swath of American students are not as engaged as much in their schoolwork.” … (more)
EDITOR: If a youngster pursues the International Baccalaureate program offered at J. P. McCaskey High School, he or she is likely to spend two or three hours each day on assignments. The world renowned program is only by application by the student and acceptance by the school. The two or three hours is in addition to whatever extra curriculum activities to which they belong, and they often do.
As Microsoft founder Bill Gates recently told Charlie Rose, highly successful people totally devote themselves to their career interests during their twenties and thirties. Our educational system needs to produce more the likes of entrepreneur and philanthropist Bill Gates!
