Colleen27
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2007
I think different schools need different curriculums based on the population. A city 4 miles from my house has a median household income of $35,000, a town 4 miles from my house has a median household income of $197,000, my town is $85,000. I’m guessing that their educational needs differ. I had to pay for my kids to take a financial literacy class online over the summer because it was mandatory, and if they took it in school, they would’ve been stuck with a study hall because it’s a half year class (computer applications used to be mandatory the second half until they realized kids didn’t need it).
The problem with that is that it becomes a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy - kids in that working class district don't have the opportunities to take the classes competitive colleges and scholarships want to see on applications, so they settle for community college or trade school or take on big loans for a mediocre college, so they earn less than their equally talented counterparts in more affluent communities who had more opportunities, so they have more financial stresses and end up sending their kids to a lower income school with those same "different needs" and on and on. So there's a fine line to try to walk there, to meet the needs of local communities without selling students from those communities short, and so far, I haven't seen many districts hitting a good balance between the two (FTR, I live in the sort of community you describe, where the local high school offers financial literacy and life skills classes but doesn't offer advanced placement; if we weren't fortunate enough to be able to send DD18 to private high school, she wouldn't be at the college she's currently attending or have scholarships covering the vast majority of her costs or be able to manage her double major, which only fits in a four-year plan because of AP credits satisfying some of her core requirements).