Letters: Graduate job-savvy students

The April 30 news story "New paths to graduation" made me extremely excited that there's finally some change going on in education.

I've always felt that the problem with teens going to college today is that half of us have no idea what we'd like to do to make a living. For 18 years of our lives, we've learned extensive math (which most of us will never use), complex science (also something most won't use) and all about what generations have done before us.

But where does that leave us in deciding our future? Why is it that we are taught all of this information just to get to senior year and have no idea what to do with it?

Here's my theory, which the article touched on. I believe that thinking about a career should be introduced into a teen's education earlier than college. We should be choosing classes in high school that pertain to our particular interests as early as sophomore year. This would help students get better grades, because they would be learning something they enjoy and relate to, as well as put them on the straight track to learning a skill and pursuing a job.

Brittney Gross, Baldwin
 

Although most teachers may not like the idea, I think that student scores may have to be taken into account when grading a teacher's performance ["Testing times for teachers," News, May 6].

Newsday recently had an article showing the number of students receiving Regents diplomas for the 2010-2011 graduating year ["Regents diplomas," News, April 6]. My daughter was in that graduating class. She received a Regents diploma, but missed getting her advanced Regents diploma because she was not able to pass the trigonometry Regents, even in three attempts.

Many other parents from the Middle Country Central School District told me that their children also failed that test, even two or three times. When the article showed that Middle Country had only 42 percent of its students passing that test, I wasn't surprised. How is it that we had among the lowest percentages on the Island? Is it just bad students, or do the teachers have to take some of the blame?

These kids were able to pass the class; shouldn't they be able to pass the test also? Teacher evaluations that take into account student scores may shed some light on these questions.

Laura Smith, Centereach