Skipping Your Senior Year? Oh, So Now You Say Something, Linus Wright.

By Robert Wilonsky Thu., Jan. 6 2011 at 12:21 PM

Categories: Edumication News

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A fellow Thomas Jefferson High School grad forwards along this brief interview KERA-FM's Bill Zeeble did with former Dallas Independent School District Superintendent Linus Wright, who's now one of Governor Rick Perry's appointees to the Teacher Retirement System of Texas's board of trustees. In the clip, Wright suggests that when the state Legislature gets 'round to gutting the education system to trim the $25-billion budget shortfall, maybe we oughta do away with senior year, which is the only good year in school:

The 12th grade has been a waste of money for years. All a student in the 12th has is one required course. We need more early childhood education. because we need to get a kids at 3 and 4 years old, and eliminate the 12th grade to pay for that.

My felllow Patriot wonders: "Why couldn't Wright have said something when we were in school?" 'Cause he was a mediocre superintendent?

And speaking of T.J., which I often am even though I've never once been asked to speak to a class there, when I drove by this morning on the way to work there was quite the parade of parked cars out front. Turns out, it was for the unveiling of the covers of the new White Pages and Yellow Pages, both of which will be graced by T.J. Principal Eddie Conger and six Patriots. Mazel tov. Though last time I used a phone book, Linus Wright was superintendent.

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There is much more to this story than this brief is saying...most of what he is proposing makes absolute sense to me (as an Early Childhood Education Specialist for 10+ years).
Not sure when your day was, but, as of graduation day 2000, it was 4 years of P.E. in Illinois at Naperville Central HS. Otherwise, I would have graduated a semester early.
A comments to Lacey B, It is true that 4 years of P.E.in Illinois is required. I do recalled in my day at Samuell High school, 1 and half year of P.E. is required, but at Hinsdale South High school, 4 years of P.E. is still required.
Congrats! You know the correct form of it's to use--so many don't. Pat yourself on the back!!
That's the point nothing will really change They will have a Senior year..and thirteen years of school .. it just won't be in the 12 grade.
We had so much fun at Woodrow in our senior year I would never have given that up - placed out of English and Spanish at SMU to boot!
What Monte said.
12th grade a waste of money? TJ Class of 83 here. Betty McClain taught me a lot, not the least of which was the addictive nature of nasal spray. Virginia Rester m'a enseigne' Francais. Sweetman's AP physics Of course, Bailey's calculus course could have been eliminated and I wouldn't have noticed. All that allowed me to enter SMU as a sophomore. I don't call that a waste of money. Linus, why don't you go hug your blanket.
@Lacey: love the Hinojosa/windbag/bribester comment. Very funny. Sadly true. Let's face it: our school board just voted to give an administrator a $32,000 raise, and she already made more than $150,000. In order to keep up that kind of waste, they have to cut somewhere, so it might as well be the schools. Pretty soon we'll be down to 3 grades and all DISD administrators will make $500,000 a year.
which makes it 13 years of school, still.
These go to eleven.
Wait .....Problem solved if we make Pre K =K and K = 1 (g 2 3,4,5,6,7. =X) 8= Freshman 9= sophomore 10= Junior 11= Senior Problem Solved .... By a DISD Grad no less .
The point of what he is trying to say is that we would get more better educated students (and reserch supports this) by spending the money we are currently spending on 12th Grade on Early Childhood Education. Early Childhood Education would pay huge dividends all the way through school at every grade level.
whoa wait what, whats a phone book? I thought when you spoke of cover of the yellow pages you were talking about the the front page of the website.
In Illinois, I had to stay the last semester to finish out the last of 4 years of PE credits. Yep--PE, that was it. But I also took all kinds of cool classes, and started developing my identity, which adolescents do, around that age. At 3 years old, school is more like socialized day care. Which, could be argued, is how it sorta is today in HS, 'cept with TAKS. But eliminating an entire school year, rather than cutting some salaries? Really? Send Billy "Linus Wright" Madison back to school, including 12th grade. Just don't seat him too close to that windbag bribester Hinojosa.
There are problems facing our education system, no doubt. However, I'm not sure that less education is a part of the solution. "All a student in the 12th has is one required course." Then make it more worthwhile. I'm pretty sure nobody is saying that kids are graduating from high school over-educated. Mathematics and grammar are good places to start, from what I have seen lately. (Please, nobody nitpick my grammar. It's too late for me!)
You know, I was only half listening to that interview on the radio yesterday, and I was SURE I misheard him say to eliminate the 12th grade. I'm even more surprised to find out that I heard it correctly!
Awesome. Now we just need to convince all the colleges in the state to accept a bunch of 16 year olds, for city and county offices to provide new polices and truancy laws and employers to hire them while providing criminal background checks on everyone in the company.