Dear Kadoka Area,
This week, I will write about how our state’s commitment to dual credit courses could potentially impact how we think about early childhood education and can delay decisions on accelerated learning in public schools? What are the potential effects of this on the high school level as we go forward?
In the Kadoka Area School District, we provide dual credit classes from our state universities that count as a high school credit and college credit for the student. Students are eligible to start taking these classes the summer before their junior year through their graduation from our district. The district does cover some of the extra cost of taking these classes and allows the student to have a focused ‘dual credit’ hour to advise an on-site staff with problems that may arise with the courses on the online portal.
Since 2000, students taking dual credit classes have risen exponentially across the United States. The use of dual credit enrollments rose 753 percent between 2000 and 2017. In our current environment, it is common for students with substantial academic achievement to graduate with 30 college credits when entering the higher education portal. Typically, school districts, including KAHS, have high academic entrance standards for students who are allowed to take dual-credit classes.
With this rise in high educational achievement at the high school level, what implications does it have for the system? Recently, I was able to take part in a roundtable discussion with educators and administrators from across the United States and talk about the current is- sues of the present educational system. One of the topics discussed was retention at the elementary and middle school level. Research shows that some brains do not mature until age 26 after our prized graduates walk across the 8th-grade graduation stage at age 14.
The idea has been presented that kids are often held back in early elementary school, kindergarten or younger, to increase physical maturity in sports. Dual credits seem to expand this discussion. If students’ minds are mature enough in the high school years, they can save families thousands of dollars in high education costs by being mature enough to take dual credit courses in their high school years.
As the roundtable discussed, building a foundation of maturity for students in the early years can pay dividends for families who commit to helping their children learn and gain the skills that will be the bedrock of their educational growth in K-12 schooling. Many times, families consider the cost of having their child in their household an extra year as an expense when deciding when and how to invest in early childhood education. Still, a trend could be erupting in education that was insolated to athletics previously. A higher occurrence of older early childhood entrants could be coming in the United States.
Recently, a student from North Dakota was in the news because she was the first in that state to earn an entire associate’s degree and graduate two years of college before she could give her speech at her high school graduation. At the University of South Dakota, the cost of credit is $354 each. If a student at KAHS can complete their 60 credits of an associate’s degree before graduation, they would save the family over $21,000 in tuition costs.
While missing two years of higher education is not going to be a typical result for any child, it is essential to recognize that, indeed, it is about the timing of the decision. There is no exact science as to when and how to be a parent and work through the primary years of education; it is essential to recognize that every child is different and will grow at a different pace. Families may find it at- tractive to decide to accelerate the growth of their student’s education at age 16 instead of age 5, allowing them to understand better the child’s skills and desire to achieve. Time will tell if the pattern of later entrance into early childhood and early entry into dual credit courses becomes more commonplace. Still, recent conversations advocate that it isn’t going away.
Sincerely,
Robert Lukens