Description: This is
a VOA Special English Education Report.
See text below
Text:
The Obama administration says American schools
should produce students who are "college and career
ready." What is the best way to do that? The
National Center on Education and the Economy has
some ideas.
The center will be working with eight states on a
project to test board examination systems. Students
who volunteer will take board examination classes
similar to those found in other parts of the world.
Once they pass the exams, they can leave high school
as early as the end of the second year.
Marc Tucker is president of this nonprofit
organization. He says the aim is to make sure
students finish high school with enough skills to
succeed in at least a two-year college. He says: In
the United States, one is expected to go to high
school for four years and you get a diploma just for
showing up or attending. It doesn't particularly
attest to any level of accomplishment. What we're
trying to do here is to change the system in the
United States from one that is based on the time
that is spent in the seat to one that is based on
your actual accomplishments."
The state projects will start as early as September
of two thousand eleven. They will involve ten to
twenty high schools in each of eight states. The
states include Connecticut, Kentucky, Maine and New
Hampshire. The others are New Mexico, Pennsylvania,
Rhode Island and Vermont.
Some educators and parents do not like the idea of
sending students as young as sixteen off to college.
They say the students may not be socially ready for
college.
But Marc Tucker says students who pass the exams
could stay in high school and take a demanding set
of exams at the upper division level. That program
is designed to prepare students for entrance into a
competitive college or university. The Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation has provided more than one
million dollars to start the program. Marc Tucker
says he expects interest in the idea to grow.
He says:"Our hope is that this will become the way
school is in the United States, it will become the
dominant way of going to high school."
And that's the VOA Special English Education Report.
Does your country use a board examination system?
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
