Remember that bogus survey with the $46,000 price tag, all about high school reform in Harford County?
The Dagger just received another survey that’s full of questions the folks who got paid the $46,000 didn’t even think to ask. The new survey was created by a local high school teacher who wanted to know more about one of the Concepts of Comprehensive Secondary School Reform (CSSRP) – the one theorizing that students should choose a “career pathway” in high school, because students would be more interested in school if they had “coursework with an exit purpose.”
So let’s find out what kids really think about picking a career path when they are still freshman in high school and what happens when students are, as one of them put it, “pigeon- holed” into taking certain classes.
Thirty percent of the ninth and tenth graders at a Harford County Public High School were given a survey created by students and teachers regarding the Career Pathway Program required for graduation. These results reflect the responses of those 172 students who completed the survey.Item 1—When given the selection of career pathways, I was unsure of which one to chose.
62% Agree | 28% Disagree| 10% Unsure
Item 2—I plan on attending a four-year college.
88% Agree | 9% Disagree | 3% Unsure
Item 3—I know what I would like to study in college.
51% Agree | 35% Disagree | 14% Unsure
Item 4—The career pathway program chart was confusing.
73% Agree | 16% Disagree | 11% Unsure
Item 5—The scheduling process was confusing.
65% Agree | 18% Disagree | 17% Unsure
Item 6—Did you want to take any classes that weren’t in your career pathway program but following the required career cluster classes got in the way?
56% Yes | 44% No
If so, what is your career pathway and what classes did you want to take but couldn’t?
I’m graduating early so it didn’t apply.
My pathway is math and science studies, I couldn’t take foods, crafts, or guitar lab.
Journalism, gym, foods.
Literary arts and I wanted to take foreign language classes but could not.
Biomed—everything –specifically journalism.
Biomed—more than one chorus
Literary arts-German 3 and German 4
My career pathway is in performing arts and this excludes the literary arts courses I would want to take.
AP euro
Performing arts, but I wanted to take some art.
Medical services—I wanted to take the original science, didn’t want advanced health, interested in psychology, foods or teacher classes.
General educat ion pathway—environmental sciences, art
Teacher academy, writing business classes
My pathway is science and match advanced studies. I couldn’t take German 3 because of my career classes.
Performing Arts; wanted to take more math classes like statistics and also some sciences.
Social sciences, I couldn’t take advanced tech because I need 4 credits in social sciences.
General education-science. Social studies, gym
Somebody chose my career cluster and I couldn’t take foods
Social sciences and I wanted to take foods, SAT prep, Drama, or Principles of Business Management
My career pathway is general education. I really wanted to take speech and creative writing but I couldn’t.
I am in teacher academy but I also wanted to take general education and I had a problem choosing
More visual arts
Business technology—environmental science, food for healthy living, learning about children
I am in the teacher academy but I wanted to take general education and I had a hard time choosing my classes
Environmental science, physics
Beginning piano, drama 2, marine science, psychology, sociology
Science and math, cultures and cuisines
Literary arts and I wanted to take fine arts
Science/adv.math—food for healthy living
Learning about children
Performing arts—I want to do creative writing
Physical therapist, healthy foods
Architectural class
Journalism but my pathway is general education
Foods
Foods and learning about children
Drama 2
Performing arts- but I wanted to take art
Biomed
There isn’t enough room for electives now
Accounting 1, psychology
Medial literacy, astronomy
Marketing and I wanted to take gym
Social services; sociology—but only because I have to be in 11 grade.
Adv. science and math; acapella choir
Biomed; learning about children
My career pathway is teacher academy and I wanted to take women’s chorus but couldn’t
Medical pathway; advanced studio art, foods for healthy living
Business technology, environmental science, food for healthy living, learning about children
More visual arts.
I am in teacher academy, but I also wanted to general education and I had a problem choosing. (x2?)
Environmental science, and physics
The career pathway pushes me to only focus on one career pathway. As a 10th grader I really don’t now what I want to do, so forcing us to only one career is INSANE and UNFAIR it NEEDS to be changed.
Build/Design things
Biomed (cluster) Drama, and foods
Drama 3, Creative writing, and journalism
I just kind of wanted to take a class that I might like instead of taking ones that I must like (Because of the career cluster)
Medical (cluster) and weight toning I couldn’t take
General education, can’t take speech or communication
Math and Science (cluster) couldn’t take visual and literary arts
I wanted to take a mix of science and business classes but because of the career clusters I could only take business
Biomed sciences (cluster) and I couldn’t take business’s or tech classes
Biomed (cluster) I wanted to take foods but couldn’tItem 7—I feel the career pathway programs are preventing me from exploring all of my interests.
82% Agree | 5% Disagree | 12% Unsure
Item 8—Is this the first time that you have thought of the career pathway programs as problematic?
30% Yes | 70% No
Item 9—Do your parents help or go over the scheduling with you?
65% Yes | 35% No
If so, what have they said about career clusters?
It’s confusing, don’t worry about it.
They don’t know.
Disagree with the process- asked is you could graduate without them.
They said to pick which is the most important to you.
That they’re confusing if you want to take other classes.
They did not like how it was formatted.
They are pointless.
They like having it so I would have credit for what I want to do in college.
They dislike it also.
They are stupid.
Bad idea.
They reviewed it.
That it wasn’t right.
They said it was okay.
They think it’s stupid that you have to pick what you’re choosing as your career in 9th grade.
That they are stupid.
They do not like them.
Don’t know what’s going on.
They’re confusing.
They like it.
Confusing.
No.
They’re stupid and holding us back.
My mom thinks it’s pointless at such a young age.
My parents hate them
They absolutely DO NOT like it.
They think it is wrong to pick something to do in life at such a young age.
They did not like career clusters.
They said it was stupid.
They said I should take th e classes that will help me pursue my career.
They were confused as well.
Encouraged me.
Didn’t understand the purpose of making kids pick a career cluster.
They said pick what most interests you now.
Confusing and horrible.
They were neutral about it.
They don’t understand it.
They think it’s a nuisance as well.
They shared in my problems.
Nothing, they didn’t really understand.
They think we should be able to try many things and not have to pick one and stick with it.
They think that the idea is not a reasonable or useful system of scheduling.
They’re pointless. Some people don’t know what they want to do.
They said it was sort of stupid.
Said it was confusing and to pick the one that I’m sure I can already complete.
They don’t understand them.
They don’t like them, thought they were an inconvenience
They don’t agree with the career clusters.
They think it’ s ridiculous to ‘box you in’ for your high school career when you don’t even know what half the careers are.
They don’t think it fair that we had to pick new.
There dumb.
They like it.
They said it was sort of stupid
They dislike it also.
They like having it, so I would have credit for what I want to do in college.
They said to pick which is most important to you.
They thought it was dumb
That we shouldn’t have to decide what we want to do right now
That they’re confusing if you want to take other classes.
They did not like how it was formatted.
They are pointless.
They said pick what most interests you now.
Confusing + Horrible
They said it was dumb.
They are pointless. Some people don’t know what they want to do.
They think that the idea is not a reasonable or useful system of scheduling.
They think you should be able to try many things out and not have to pick on and stick with it.
Nothing, they didn’t really understand.
They shared in my problems.
They think it’s a nuisance as well.
They don’t understand it.
It’s confusing, don’t worry about it.
They don’t agree with the career clusters.
They don’t like them, thought they were an inconvenience.
They don’t understand them.
Said it was confusing and to pick the one that I’m sure I can already complete.
Disagree with process. Asked if you couldn’t graduate without them.
Don’t understand the purpose of making kids pick a career clusters.
They thought it was very important.
They no likey.
Not much. She thinks I should sample everything
They didn’t say much because they didn’t understand it
It is very confusing
They think that it is a good idea to get kids thinking about what they want to do but they also believe that it limits exploration in your other i nterests
They disagree because a lot of kids don’t know what they are going to do with their lives
It was unnecessary
They don’t understandItem 10—The career pathway program makes me feel as though I am in control of what I want to learn and explore.
27% Agree | 46% Disagree | 26% Unsure
Item 11—The career pathway program issue is important to me.
46% Agree | 28% Disagree | 26% Unsure
Item 12—I feel that the career pathway program is necessary to help me focus my high school education.
20% Agree | 65% Disagree | 14% Unsure
Item 13—I feel that I will benefit from choosing a career pathway program.
22% Agree | 51% Disagree | 27% Unsure
Additional comments:
It’s ridiculous that we are being forced to take classes we may not be interested in. It strips away our already limited freedoms and attempts to pige on-hole us into categories of choice.
My life is over! Yep, that’s right—no one can help me with ALL the problems I have. I will never get to take the classes I want.
Why should we be held to this when the pathway I want to complete I can’t take because the school does not offer all the classes for it? (Ex.) I wanted to take photography/advanced photography, to a visual arts program but neither is offered here.
No one knows what they are going to do with their lives when they are 15. When I registered for my ninth and tenth grade year I wasn’t aware of the requirements for the program and now I feel like I’m struggling to meet graduation requirements. The pathways complicate things. Most people just go with which classes are easiest to fit in their schedules, and not what they are truly interested in.
Scheduling wasn’t very hard, but the career pathway program is obscure and silly.
I am not sure if I need the career pathway or not, does it really help me for college? I thought only the AP classes stood out, I feel that I have to choose my career and now because I am in the middle between being a teacher or pursing the medical career so I felt torn between them and went with medical. I feel I am being pushed without a lot of work and am not ready for some of my classes.
It’s hard for us, going into our junior year and basically just starting this whole career cluster thing. It feels like high school should be when you try different areas out, not the time to decide on the rest of your high school and college year.
Some of the career clusters overlap with other clusters and some overlap with other specific credits (Such as math, science, etc) which makes it difficult and confusing when trying to find out which credits actually will be considered career cluster credits.
I really don’t think us, as high schoolers, should have to pick a career. E ven if it is just an idea and not permanent. The average college student changes his/her major at least once.
Students should have a well rounded education with no boundaries to the classes they should take or want to take yet with this program it’s not possible; you have to decide if you’re going to be a brain surgeon(in 20 years) by your tenth grade year. Foolish! We don’t’ know what it entails. High school should be a time to taste the different kinds of careers there are, not time to prepare for one.
I know what I want to choose for my career pathway but if I didn’t I would be very frustrated because I would want to be a well rounded person and by only taking certain classes it restricts me from being myself.
Career pathway are confusing and do not let the student learn what he is interested in.
What if were not sure what we want to do entering high school. So we take one because we have to and then figure it outs. It completely messes up our plans.
Career pathways sucks.
I hate it.I think it’s unfair to force people to pick what they want to do with the rest of their lives in high school.
The process is disadvantageous to those who excel and don’t need guidance. It prevents us from taking more difficult courses and focuses us to take easy courses that may not help in the future. High school is a time where students should explore career possibilities. They shouldn’t be a graduation requirement.
A well rounded student is on who has experience in all different subjects.
The career pathway pushed me to only focus on 1 career path. As a 10th grader I really don’t know what I want to do so forcing us to only focus on one career is insane and unfair. It needs to be changed.
The career pathway program is a big help to prepare me for college.
6 year planning was confusing.
I don’t like the career pathways.
I didn’t really know what type of college I want to attend. The counselors made me think that I needed to what I was doing EXACTLY after high school.
We are in high school not college. Our career interests may change and college prepares you for life. You should be able to take whatever classes you want in high school.
People tell us to explore options for college… And this just makes us choose one specific topic. They tell us we will change our minds a million times before we leave… So why are they making us center in now?
At this age I have no clue what I would like to do, the career clusters are forcing us to make important permanent decisions even though we don’t know what we want yet.
CAREER PATHWAYS SUCK!!
Teachers shouldn’t have a say in what we can and can’t take. It’s our lives let us live them, please.
They are too confusing. I’m 14 and I don’t know what to do when I grow up.
Career pathways are completely dumb, thanks.
They’re pointless.
We don’t know what we want to do with the rest of our lives at 15! High school is our chance to explore, don’t take that away!
Colleges look for diversity; I’ve been told and told again. Career pathways are doing the exact opposite. Limiting students is pointless.
They are GAY!
7pd days.
The point of high school is to find out what we want to do for a living and if we are forced to pick one how can we find what we want to do?
High school is about exploring and figuring out what you want to do so we should be able to try a lot
People don’t know what they want to do in life when they’re in high school. Some don’t even know in college. Career clusters are good for the ones that do know but are unfair to those who don’t
We should be well-rounded students, not pigeon-holed into one specific area
Show jobs that spark interest to any given personality because humans are complicated (just because I like to fix things doesn’t make me want to become a mechanic)
Career clusters inhibit students from discovering various interests that they have developed. Specific studies should be left for college
I feel as I don’t know as much about the classes as I would like to
I think that the career pathways are restricting me from doing what I want to do
I don’t like this idea because you can’t’ force kids to make this decision.
Most people don’t know which one to pick and are forced to pick one
Students don’t normally know exactly what we want to do in life and forcing us into it doesn’t really help
Has anyone been able to figure out the difference between a Career Pathway and a Completer Program? I met with a school board member and he didn’t know either! Why in the world would anyone think it is a good idea to complicate the registration process to this degree? My son is in the 8th grade and he has absolutely no idea what he wants to do next week. Why would I expect him to know what he wants to do 8 years from now.
When registering for classes for 9th grade, I just wrote “unknown” for his career pathway. It would be ridiculous for us to say otherwise. When I spoke with someone in the school administration I was told to just pick something because it doesn’t matter since it can be changed anyway. I still haven’t gotten a straight answer as to whether or not a child can graduate if they have all the necessary credits but don’t have them all in the right pathway.
This is just another example of someone trying to be progressive. I can’t figure out why our educators feel they have to try all these new ways of doing things even though there is no evidence it helps. I wish they would spend more time figuring out what is best for the kids and less time figuring out what is best for their own careers!
What a ridiculous idea. I had no idea what i wanted to do for a living when I was at Bel Air High twentysomething years ago, and I didn’t really settle on a major until my junior year of college. Even then, what I ended up doing isn’t exactly what I thought I would be doing when I got my B.S. It is ludicrous to expect freshmen to be able to choose a career path with any degree of certainty or confidence in their selection. All I see coming out of this is stress, disappointment and anger.
What ever happened to college prep vs. vocational training? Oh, I forgot. It’s old school so it must be worthless.
And don’t evenget me started on magnet schools. As soon as we have a full slate of magnets, the students (pushed by their parents) won’t look at them as the science school or the medical school or the performance school. They will soon become the soccer school and the wrestling school and the football school. Forget the kids who actually have an interest in the subject – little Bobby has to get into Central High math magnet so he has a better chance at a lacrosse scholarship.
Give us the vote so we can vote them out.
I have to continue to reiterate what college bound students are told by admissions officers…” It is okay if you are unsure of what you want to do…explore your options….”
too bad it is no longer this way in high school. The kids surveyed say it the best…they don’t know what they want to do so don’t force them to choose…and more importantly the students have far less flexibility than ever before. I feel we are doing a major disservice to our kids with this career cluster…I would like to know how many of the people in School administration OR on the BOE thought they would be doing this when they were in high school –or better yet when starting high school.
I am a high school teacher. We are repeatedly told that we are preparing kids for jobs that don’t even exist yet with technology advancing at such a rate. If the jobs the kids will have don’t even exist yet, how can they possibly make a decision on what pathway to follow at age 14. We should be educating well rounded, informed citizens, who have many interests and the ability to learn so they can become lifetime learners. The pathway we need is “take whatever interests you as long as you complete your required courses.”
I knew there were problems with this, but I didn’t know how little sense it made. How could the schedule possibly have been set up to prevent a student interested in performing arts from taking “literary arts” courses? Or music courses? Or fine arts courses? Shouldn’t they actually be the same thing, given that each is required to truly appreciate any of the others?
How every student is allowed to take teaching courses, given the national shortage, is beyond me…and how any student could be prevented from taking a foreign language course, in direct contrast to 3,500 years of educational theory, is simply incomprehensible.
Good luck to these students– hopefully they will all attend a liberal arts college so that they can receive a well-rounded education (wasn’t it just 5 years ago that we had “renaissance” schools to let everyone know Harford wasn’t neglecting a classical education?)
As with everything in our publicly funded school system, this is just some more “social engineering.” Teaching kids what to think, not how to think has been the norm since day 1. What can possibly be wrong with a goal of turning out graduates who can compete with the avian and Asian Indian kids the same age? No let’s let a freshman decide what he or she wan ts to be and then “punch the magic planger froggie,” we have what we need for the job market ten years from now. If the education industry had as its sole goal to turn out well rounded kids who can read and write English, have a working knowledge of one other language, know the fundamentals of mathematics, at least to the geometry level and a firm grasp of history and geography, that would be a full time job. Just think each grade could set its sites on that goal. Yes music and art and photography and drama and all of the other parts of our education system could still be taught and we could actually compete in the future world market. I would bet good money that the elimination of the government monopoly and the introduction of competition would go a long way here.
“I just kind of wanted to take a class that I might like instead of taking ones that I must like.”
Sounds like excellent real world job training to me, unfortunatley.
It was my class who completed this survey, as we were all so troubled about our career pathways. They were poorly compiled, poorly thought through, and are really holding us back. They added more stress into our alredy stressful lives during the scheduling week, and are hurting us more than helping us. Especially if someone is planning to enter a very competitive field, their high school classes may determine whether they are accepted into the school that will help them accomplish their goal. In my case, I would like to be an orthodontist, but don’t want to waste all my time on medical courses, in case I plan to be, say, a journalist. Taking the wrong classes, especially when my two fields of interest are so different, could really mess up my future plans, and leave me not nearly as prepared as I should be for the career I finally settle on. And how can we possibly take enough classes to find a “happy medium” when there are mandatory classes such as Foundations of Technology and Living in a Contemporary World, that most of us will never end up needing. Most people can’t even decide their major once in college, let alone High school. I don’t see why we can’t just take the courses we want, so long as we get the basic academic classes. How would it hurt to let us experiment a little, taking what interests us, not what the schoolboard thinks interests us. All the other counties in Maryland do it, so I don’t see why Harford has to go out on a limb, experimenting with something so rediculous. I don’t think its to profound of me to say, maybe we should just get what so many people before us have succeeded on; a well-rounded education.
“From the mouth of babes”
It is sad that the children of our county understand the problems in our education system better then we ….especially since we are paying for the education with our taxes.
It occurs to me that we do more research on buying a new car or buying a refrigerator then we do educating our children.
I realize that one of the main problems is finding the information we need to review what the BOE is doing. Well an elected board and MORE community involvment will do a lot to cure that ill.
I had three children go through the public schools and each of them turned out to be well rounded, succesful adults and they never chose a career pathway.
What kind of jobs are available in the biomed field to students with a high school diploma? Maybe those students can get a job at Upper Chesapeake cleaning bathrooms.
I also don’t like the idea of students not having classes every day.
They’re not in college yet, so why do they have to choose a major and sit in classes that meet every other day.
I’m just glad my children graduated before the Board of Ed implemented this comprehensive reform.
i went to private school ,, but i know alot of public school kids.. i dont know if the education is bad but most of the students there are retarded.. but i heard if u need good coke ..southampton is the place to go..lol
I am a high school teacher and after several of my students had been through registration orientation—the entire ninth and tenth grade sat through one 90 minute session—students expressed confusion and frustration.
Students were told to turn to a page in the registration booklet, answer a few survey questions (image that), and then told to choose a career pathway. How could five minutes of completing an interest survey prepare students to choose a career pathway? One (the interest survey) fosters exploration while the other (choosing a career pathway) solidifies the outcome. Experience and exposure are what educate our students to go on to make future career decisions, not pathways and clusters. The names themselves are confining.
I had heard in a department meeting that the state of Maryland was mandating all of this, but I had previously worked in the Howard County Public School System where things were run quite differently. (We had five fifty minute classes and one 90 minute class a day; we also had no homeroom, an attendance office, and valuable staff development at the county-wide level.) Hoping to allay my confusion, I called the state department for clarification.
The woman I spoke with explained that the state mandates each school offer career exploration opportunities, but it was up to the central office to decide which plan to implement. Many schools already have things such as work study and part time attendance. I learned those special programs fit the state’s mandated career opportunities and the career pathway program was a local decision.
Evidently the central office, with the approval of the board of education, has taken it upon themselves (which is how appointed boards work, right?) to force our eighth graders to complete a six year plan and choose a pathway as an additional graduation requirement. (I’d love for middle schoolers and their parents to post on the Dagger about this.)
The woman from the state department said I’d be better off if I spoke with someone from the local level so she transferred me to the HCPS contact in charge of careers. I first asked if students—once they chose a career pathway—were locked into that decision. She said yes.
She said students could change pathways in the middle of their high school career, but they would still be required to take all of the courses within their chosen career pathway program. Then I said brought up three words the career contact didn’t like—liberal arts education.
I asked what was wrong with a student taking a variety of courses, what if someone wanted to explore AP classes, journalism, environmental science, and band. She promised that students would in fact be able to take the classes of their choosing, but according to those students surveyed, following a career pathway restricted 56% of students. (Kudos to those teachers and students who collaborated to finally get us some concrete results.)
In all of this, the most surprising thing I learned was when I asked the career contact if there had been any discussion or arguments against the career pathway program—she said that this was the first time she had ever heard any dissent!
Thanks to the Dagger for giving teachers forum to freely exchange our ideas—ah, democracy!
As the parent of a child in middle school, I think back to when I was in the 8th grade. At that time, I wanted to be a dental hygentist. If asked to fill out a form to choose my career pathway, that’s the path I would have taken. Fortunately, I attented high school in the mid to late 70’s when more common sense ruled. Students were encouraged to explore many different courses. I took math classes up to Calculus, only 3 science classes, participated in orchestra and chorus, 3 years of a language, and many history classes. During my junior and senior years, I thought I’d like to major in history, but also questioned what I would do with that degree, other than teach. At that time, I did not want to be a teacher. Interestingly, it was in two senior level history classes that I had a teacher, Mr. William Young, who truly prepared students for college. He taught us how to write, how to research, and how to study. He taught us how to think! I’m sure that if I had been on my “career pathway” to become a dental hygentist, I would not have had the opportunity to take these history classes. Upon graduation, I attended HCC, majoring in business and then went on to Towson to graduate with a degree in finance and economics. It is not my intent to spell out my ‘pedigree’, but to show how things change SO much from our adolescent dreams. By the way, following an 8 year career in banking, I went on to teach Transitional Studies Algebra at HCC, and now, I’m a farmer with a retail farm business. So much for becoming a dental hygentist.
As you may imagine, I am scared to death of pigeon holing my children into making a career decision at such a young age. LET THEM RECEIVE A WELL ROUNDED EDUCATION SO THAT THEY CAN MAKE BETTER DECISIONS FOR THEIR FUTURE!
As a current ninth grader in the Harford County Public School System, I found the whole Career Pathway/Completer program to be confusing and stupid. I am a student in the honors english class who helped create the idea for this survey, as our entire class was dumbfounded on why we had to do such a ludicrous thing. I had talked to some of my friends in other classes and they all seemed to agree; The Career Pathway/Completer system is incredibly limiting, and the idea of making a six-year plan for your future when you are only 14 or 15 is just plain retarded. When I was filling out my schedule for next year, I picked the Biomedical Cluster being that I am already in the biomed program and have already completed out one of the requirements. I wondered to my self why I was picking this Career Pathway/Completer when I didn’t exactly love the first course. I picked that cluster because it was easy, I had already completed one requirement and I only had to deal with 3 more of these biomed courses and i was done. Then, when I was filling out the rest of my schedule I realized another thing, I wouldn’t be able to fit all the classes I wanted to take into my schedule. Although the biomedical cluster was probably the easiest cluster for me to complete, I also had to take biology in tenth grade because it’s required by the state of Maryland. Another class they force you to take is in tenth grade is Foundations of Technology, which I would not have chosen if it wasn’t required by the state of Maryland. I really enjoy math, so I chose to take Honors Trigonometry and Honors Pre-Calculus. After I filled in my other required courses such as English and World History, I found myself with no room to fit in any other courses I had in interest in, such as Creative Writing and Drawing and Painting 1. These Career Pathway/Completer are forcing you to chose your future before testing any of your options. The guidance counselors told us if we were unhappy with our decisions we could always change them to something else. The truth is that you’ll have to go to summer school to complete all of the requirements. I have been told many times that colleges look for a well-rounded student, so why isn’t the Board of Education making programs to let kids explore a wide variety of careers, instead of pigeon-holing us into one. I don’t know what the idiots at the Board of Ed where thinking when they came up with this, but if they actually listened to what the kids ideas are instead of what they think is best for us, there would probably be programs in place that actually benefit the students, instead of limiting their opportunities.
P.S.
If I wanted to pick my career in ninth grade I would of gone to Harford Tech.
BATMAN,
Thanks for your account. We always want to hear from those directly affected. Too often we are told by government officials that everything is perfect because the stats say so.
I was thinking… How does CRSSP affect the magnet programs around the county? I assume the block schedule and career pathway programs are intertwined with the magnet coursework? If you go to the science and math academy, is your career pathway science and math, or is it broken down further?
Steve,
I have a daughter at the Science and Math Academy. They have their own career pathway code. They have lots of elective choices within that code. I can fax you a copy of it if you are interested. Another thing you might be interested in is that students at the SMA aren’t required to take Foundations of Technology or Living in a Contemporary World.
Oh, I should also add that the block schedule isn’t quite as bad for the kids at the SMA. Their curriculum was written to be taught under that schedule. I would still rather NOT have it, but it isn’t as much of a train wreck as it is for my daughter who is at Fallston.
I am currently a ninth grader at BAHS. I do not understand career clusters at all. All i have ever heard is colleges look for diversity and how can we choose diverse classes with career clusters. I personally have no idea what I want to do when I get out of college or what I want to study in college for that matter. we should take a variety of classes to find out what we like and what we are good at. If I pick a career cluster now and want to change next year or even the year after I can’t fit all the required classes in my schedule and the new one’s i’m interested in. i believe the theory of career clusters are a good idea to point you in a direction but should not be forced among students as a graduation requirement!
okay so career clusters are completely stupid. i, along with “batman” am in the class who decided to create this survey, and we are all so confused about this whole situation. i am in 9th grade for gods sake! how am i supposed to decide what i want to do for the rest of my life at the age of 14?! personally, i either want to be a surgeon or an actress, or maybe even something that has to do with food. completely opposite career clusters. so which one do i choose? gosh… how stupid can you be to make up such nonsense. so next year i am forced to take two sciences (which i am totally dreading), and i have no room in this stupid 4 period schedual to do what I actually want! to the board of ed members – WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO US?! along with it being a total waste of time, we all are so confused and have no idea what we want to do in life, so how the heck would we be able to choose now, in 9th and 10th grade?! if all the students in harford county given the chance to vote on it, i would bet you anything that career clusters would be given a big old THUMBS DOWN. and along with “batman”, if i honestly wanted to determine the rest of my life in 9th grade, i would’ve gone to harford tech. peace
PS. my apologies if that comment above sounded rude, i am just so done with this whole career clusters thing.
Career clusters are just a stupid, time consuming attempt to mold us into what we think we want to be. We all have very different interests and it’s way too early for us to decide on a career. What if singing and art are my passion but I want to pursue a medical career? Now I’m unable to take classes that I enjoy because I have to caremeet the er pathway graduation requirements. We already have a limited choice in classes that we take why limit our choices further?
way to go kid’s, let the adult’s know you can think. you may be to young to vote but the dagger will allow you to voice your opinion.
and there’s no harm in listening to what you have to say.
parent’s pay heed.
I have three children and am so glad that they are no longer students in the Harford County school system. What a mess! A friend of mine works in guidance at a local large Maryland university and she told me that 85% of all college students change their major at least once. Also, when my children were students at BAHS, only 30% of their classmates were attending a four year college after graduation. Many more stated that they would attend Harford Community College but, keep in mind that a statewide study shows that only 25% of all students attending any of the Maryland community colleges complete their 2 year degree and/or transfer to a 4 year college. My point is that unless these students are in a vocational program that they are wild about, this career cluster system is nothing but a disservice to our students. I commend the teacher and students who created this survey and compiled the data.
Perhaps they should be paid $40,000 for their work too.
Just to let the board know, it was a class effort to compile the survey, not our teachers idea. and if you guys dont like all of the negative responses and badgering, then stop trying to go behind our backs and do things which you know are not going to work. WAHT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING?!! having the idea of career clusters serves no purpose, and will not advance your efforts to pigeonhole us. there are s still trying to find out what they want to do on a daily basis, switching from job to job; so you want to try and tell us that we have to live our lives in remorse, not having the opportunity to truly find what interests us?
Secondly, this whole uniform thing is not workin. You guys think you have the right to try and tell us what to wear but, in reality you dont. We have no choice of wether to go to school or not, leaving us trapped, unlike private school kids who understand that by attending a private school, they MUST wear a uniform. I know that myself and hundreds of others are already plotting to overthrow your DICK MOVE ideas and its up to you wether or not you want to suspend thousands of kids in schools county wide for “not obeying the dress code” or if you want to throw the whole idea out. We as a county are not going to stand for the boards DICK ASS MOVES!!!!!!!
Josh……calm down dude……
Lawfull protest and demonstration is a good thing….just think it through. Look at the power they have to hurt you….carfully find a way to be out of reach and get your point across…..but most of all….do it in a way that doesnt allow them to give you greif. In other words dont do stupid things…go to the limit of a rule but dont break it.
… and …
Loose the potty mouth. It deminishes your very valid point.
By the way you made a great point about a life of remorse on not finding your own job interest. A very valid and well made point.
Best of luck…but be civil and legal…..you loose it all when your not.
Josh I agree.the uniform idea, if it’s inforced will simply put a strain on the all ready strained pocket’s of the poor.
as for career cluster’s. what genius came up with that Idea. it’s nothing short of ridiculos. kid’s have there own personality’s.
of course the reasoning here being, they will stop the gang dress code. which will not happen.
these gang’s are a bit more violent. in my time.it was juvenile delinquent’s drape’s beatnik’s & none other than the hippie’s.
of which I found some what disturbing’ singing there protest song’s while I’am in vietnam as a guest of the u.s. goverment. I suppose in one sense of the word they won.
the war ended the draft dodgers were pardoned. & we still have learned nothing must be those career clusters. there so excited about.
semper-fi
Josh–
Thank you for your passionate posting. The Dagger is the perfect place for your passions to be heard (as long as there are no personal attacks)
Those passionate responses–from parents, students, and teachers–on a subject that directly impacts our children–(Career Pathways, Block Scheduling, School Uniforms)–are often ruled out as (according an interview with a BOE member on WBAL Talk Radio) “emotional” and “make no sense.”
I have to say that the passionate responses are the ones that should be given the most attention and not be ruled out because it is “emotional” or “makes no sense.” Those of us passionate enough to speak out are those who actually care about the future of our children.
Our freshman and sophomores in HCPS are most affected by this school reform plan and I feel sorry for them, and until the change comes, I’ll continue with my “emotional” responses that “make no sense.:
Frankly, I see the implementation of CSSRP as a microcosm of our federal governemnt. (Personally, I think the federal government should have nothing to do with education, but I’ll save that for another time.) This one size-fits all mentality–this COMPREHENSIVE school reform–has taken away the rights of individual schools. What happened to school-based decision making that was so popular a few years ago?
I am go going to Bel air high next year and that hole pick your carrer crap sucks! Do something eles you idots on board!!!!!!!
P.S. You have NO idea what we’re thinking so stop acting like you do!