[Drlee]

So here is the story.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/08/us/chicago-high-school-graduation-requirement/index.html

Short version. Either students tell the schools what their plans are or they are not awarded diplomas.

Here is the young Dr. Lee's answer: (Or my kid if I had one.)

Dear Chicago Schools,

Here is my plan following graduation. I am going to spend the next year suing your arrogant asses into bankruptcy. I am 18 years old, a full voting citizen of the United States. I have completed all of the requirements for graduation in all of the classes you have any business teaching me. What I intend to do in the future is none of your fucking business. None at all. What possible idiocy has struck you that you think you can intrude into the lives of an American adult? If I want to sit in my parent's basement and jack off to internet porn that is none of your business. If I want to join the Taliban and keep third world sex slaves that is equally none of your business. Maybe I want to go to Yale. Maybe I want to join the Merchant Marine. Maybe I want to buy a bordello in Thailand and give the profits to the Little Sisters of Charity. Maybe I want to cut lawns with a tweezers. That work for you Mr. piss poor excuse for an educator? So I am going to sue you. All of you.

On one thing we can both agree school board folks. Someone needs to grow up and plan for the future. I suggest you start soon. And make one of your plans for the future reading the fucking constitution, you idiotic self-important shit heads.

And that is what I plan to do on my summer vacation. Now we know what I am going to do, you can fuck off.

'Spose that about covers it.

[Suntzu]

So is sellin' drugs in the 'hood a plan?

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

Pedagogically speaking, withholding a diploma because a student hasn't completed a "plan for the future," which no one is likely to read in depth or do anything about it, has very little justification whatsoever. It makes absolute sense for a high school education program to include a unit, or lesson plan, or spiral activity spread among many lessons which prompts students to talk, write, and plan for their future. That makes logical sense. Refusing to give out a diploma over it, however, is absurd.

However, there is of course no Constitutional requirement for exams and testing in the education system. Not passing one's final exams in high school will lead to a failure to receive one's diploma, even if one excelled otherwise. Unless this gets politicized and picked up by some local/state politicians in Illinois, having a "plan for the future" requirement isn't too far off (but is much less justified and warranted) from having a system of high school final exams.

I imagine that if anyone actually does sue the Chicago school board, the "plan for the future" will simply be recognized as one of the school's requirements for passing. There's many different requirements to earning one's diploma: passing exams, silly requirements like that "future plan," attendance, and so on. I'm not surprised to see an entitled American teenager get into a rage and threaten litigation over a very simple requirement. It's a stupid requirement, but it's harmless to do it, and no diploma if that kid doesn't do it.

[Drlee]

On the contrary. It is beyond stupid. It is an unwarranted intrusion. It presupposes that the school system has any business trying to control what someone does after school. I understand what they are trying to do. The fact is that Chicago is a failing school system. It has, in the past been one of the worst in the nation. Only 6% of Chicago students go on to get a bachelor's degree. Only 3% of black.

I do not agree that this requirement is immune to litigation. A class about planning for the future is one thing. A requirement to invade one's privacy is quite another. I would certainly support teaching students how to plan for the future. I am not certain many teachers are qualified to do it. I would defy educators to define success following school. So they would have to confine themselves to some vague notion of how to plan for possible choices with which they might not agree.

Schools have guidance counselors who are supposed to be experts in advising students on accomplishing their goals after high school. My experience with these people is that unless one intends to go on to college they are of little or no help and even then mostly a waste of time. That is assuming that a student can even get in to see them in the first place.

As to your characterization of someone challenging a rule you yourself described as "absurd" as an "entitled American teenager" I would remind you that the majority of these people are full adults and certainly old enough to vote, serve in the military and answer for their crimes and misdemeanors.

I guess I am just tired of the monumental stupidity I see coming out of our schools in drips and dribbles. This is not a solution. A solution is to try teaching someone something. What the student does with that knowledge in the future is not nor should not be any business of the school.

[One Degree]

How about if you were not allowed to leave your current job unless your boss was satisfied with your future plans?

[Stormsmith]

I read your opening statement. I clicked on your CNN link. I told myself, keep an open mind. I tried to look for any whiff of a benefit in withholding a hard earned diploma. I could not.

Stuff like this would have brought out the Thunderstormsmith in a younger Stormsmith. Not pretty.



Bulaba

I graduated, went to work in a real job to amass money, then went to university and still didn't know until the end of my second year what I wanted to do. To "fake" a plan to obtain a degree I had earned is indeed absurd.

[One Degree]

The proposal actually demonstrates what a terrible school system it must be. Why would you feel the need to threaten withholding a degree if all you want to do is add something else to the curriculum? Do all of their students simple refuse to do assigned work and get diplomas anyway?
The need for the threat before the program is even initiated speaks volumes.

[Oxymandias]

This is one of the stupidest things I have heard in a while.

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

On the contrary. It is beyond stupid. It is an unwarranted intrusion. It presupposes that the school system has any business trying to control what someone does after school. I understand what they are trying to do. The fact is that Chicago is a failing school system. It has, in the past been one of the worst in the nation. Only 6% of Chicago students go on to get a bachelor's degree. Only 3% of black.

I do not agree that this requirement is immune to litigation. A class about planning for the future is one thing. A requirement to invade one's privacy is quite another. I would certainly support teaching students how to plan for the future. I am not certain many teachers are qualified to do it. I would defy educators to define success following school. So they would have to confine themselves to some vague notion of how to plan for possible choices with which they might not agree.

Schools have guidance counselors who are supposed to be experts in advising students on accomplishing their goals after high school. My experience with these people is that unless one intends to go on to college they are of little or no help and even then mostly a waste of time. That is assuming that a student can even get in to see them in the first place.

As to your characterization of someone challenging a rule you yourself described as "absurd" as an "entitled American teenager" I would remind you that the majority of these people are full adults and certainly old enough to vote, serve in the military and answer for their crimes and misdemeanors.

I guess I am just tired of the monumental stupidity I see coming out of our schools in drips and dribbles. This is not a solution. A solution is to try teaching someone something. What the student does with that knowledge in the future is not nor should not be any business of the school.

I was commenting on his petulant attitude. Imagine someone writing a petition, or writing their congressman, or any other situation, with that kind of attitude and language. It's childish, juvenile, and looks like diarrhea-as-text. Of course he has a point, and in my post I agreed that it is both academically unnecessary and absurd to have that "future plan" as a requirement (it means absolutely nothing, it doesn't truly measure and assess anything, and it's overreaching).

Picture someone here on PoFo unhappy with a particular ruling, or some kind of policy, and decides to use the Basement to air their concerns, but uses language like that kid. Entitled instantly comes to mind. It doesn't invalidate his grievances, and the "future plan" is still pedagogically unsound as it's being used.

[Oxymandias]

@Bulaba Jones

I have to agree. Even though I disagree with the policy in every way, the way the article was written was very pretentious. If I was a governor and I was sent a letter written like this I would've discarded it immediately. Someone who writes like that and has that attitude, regardless of his ideas, isn't worth the time and energy to talk to.

[uadialej]

This actually demonstrates what a awful school system it must be.

[The Immortal Goon]

I remember in the 90s when there was a national push to make it so that you had to do so many hours of volunteer work in order to get your diploma.

Jesse Jackson pretty much single handily ended the push when he snarckly remarked something like, "Why not? This country was built on forcing people work for free."



And that really was the push. Instead of having the government or a private business have to pay someone to do something, you could force students to do it for free.

I don't know that this is as sinister as that, but the fact that it's as elevated beyond some "careers class" makes me suspicious.