So as not to 'hijack' the Civics Exam thread, I started this one to expand/expound on some of the issues Richard mentioned in his post there:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard
There are a couple of answers in the quiz which force you to think about it, but it helped having (1) developed the curriculum for and taught the subjects at the HS level and (2) having tutored HS and college students in History, Government, and Economics. At our HS, all seniors took a semester of Government and a semester of Economics; many schools here in Texas have their students take the Govt/Econ course as freshmen or sophomores, but we had it reserved for our seniors because (1) they had a better understanding of the basics of the subjects by then, (2) they had a greater interest in the topics as many were registering for the SSS (males) and to vote during their senior year, and (3) they had a greater maturity level for more aggressively debating the issues presented in the courses.
Some of the ISI programs are interesting. I found their 2011-2012 Scholarship Essay Competition for American College Students - “Are We Back on the Road to Serfdom?” - an interesting read. The attchd pdf has the winning esssays - First Place: Danielle Charette, Swarthmore; Second Place: Robert Sylvester, Catholic University; Third Place: Kevin Sullivan, Georgetown.
And so it goes...
Richard 
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Believe it or not, Arizona state standards do NOT require the teaching of Government (per se). US History and Economics are required and most districts put Government in there to satisfy admission requirements of the state universities. For years, I taught Economics... and occasionally Government... to seniors. Since I was junior in seniority to many, I rarely got to teach Government - since most teachers viewed Econ as harder to teach, and lacked the academic preparation to do so.
Arizona's State Legislature (sometimes referred to as the "90 Dwarves"), in their infinite educational knowledge and forethought, have come up with what they call "The Grand Canyon" diploma - which allows students who don't wish to go to a university to graduate with the "minimum" requirements - and finish in two years. The idea being that they will go on to a vocational school or community college. To get school districts to "buy in" - the district will still receive half the $$ they would have gotten for each student that leaves. (Dire Straits would be proud - "Your money for nothin'...)
However, the entire curriculum and progression of classes needed to be altered. My former school's principal wanted to "lead the parade" for this movement and has "turned over the apple cart" at our formerly high performing high school in order to do it. World History will now be taught to freshmen instead of sophomores. US History will be taught to sophomores. The only 'hole' in potential schedules that is left, due to other required courses, is in the freshman year - so Economics will be taught there.
Seniors often had difficulty grasping economic concepts. I shudder to think how they'll "dumb it down" to get freshmen to understand, especially given the dismal state of social studies education in the elementary and middle schools. (Social studies have not been, and are not, tested in our "high stakes test (AIMS). Since schools are graded by how well students DO on such tests, the schools - naturally - downplay or ignore the subjects not tested.)
Three new teachers were hired to handle the "double-booking" for US and World History (for a year, both sophomores and freshmen will take World and sophomores and juniors will take US. At the end of the year... there'll be three "surplus" teachers.
It remains to be seen how many of the Grand Canyon Diploma students WILL progress on to CCs or VocEd programs. With our population of students, most of whom have been taught the mantra that a High School Diploma - in and of itself - is some kind of "magic talisman" that opens employment opportunities, instead of the value of the education behind said diploma... they may just take it and be done.
I'm glad I retired when I did.
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