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Education is quietly but significantly changing in the country, and there is little if any debate going on about it. All the debate is about the nature of the "public school industry". But a change started when home schooling started to take off. At first, it was just some born agains trying to create some false environment for their kids. But in there somewhere an ability started to get created for parents to take direct control of their children's education. Their kids might still be "in school" but they were getting sent to tutors, or to specialized programs that were doing more of the actual "teaching" than the school. This ran head long into an "AP" system that sat roughly "outside" of the individual school, and was open to some extent to anyone, in any school, public, private, or home schooled.
We are now seeing kids getting into high school and spending as much time "out of the building" as in it. "precollege" programs, AP programs in other buildings, and private "tutors" running "classes" for groups of students from different schools. And beyond just the "advanced" students, we are seeing the "GED" system catching up to the 21st century. Students are taking classes "online" at "virtual" high schools to finish degrees. It is becoming a way for the pregnant teenager, or the expelled "trouble" student to get their diploma. And community colleges are starting to step in. There are courses being given for "remedial" education, in some case to support a GED program, in others to allow students to move on to "college level" classes towards a AA or BA degree.
And this is where the sea change is coming. The high school "diploma" is soon not going to be the avenue into "college". Community colleges will merely take "any" student and work them "up to grade". Much of it may be done "on line" similar to the students accomplishing this for the GED. Colleges and Universities are offering much of their graduate programs "on line" with "distance learning" and the system lends itself to almost anyone studying anything. And there is little reason it won't work at the high school level. Furthermore, the college itself can run a "remedial" program whose purpose is to allow people to get enough education to begin the college level studies. Every state college can in essence have an "on line" high school.
It is all a small minority of students right now. But as the traditional "public school" model begins to disintegrate into an odd collection of AP programs, GED programs, and various versions of "charter" schools and "home schools", the model of the public school is going to change. And it could be for the better.
Gone could be the concept of the student moving through a system, almost on a social level, through a standard curriculum, "graduating" from each grade to the next. Teachers won't be "day care workers" but education management specialists, dealing with each student and their needs. Progress will be measured by educational results, not the age of the student. Students won't be tied to their neighborhood schools, but can use them as a "base" of their education resources. Socialization and edition can be finally separated from each other. No more "student factories" that "pass" students on to the next link in the chain, unprepared and failing. "troubled" students will be educated in environments that deal with their needs, and prevent them from damaging the education of other students. "Advanced" students can study in greater depth, or breadth, or merely at a faster pace, without any socialization issues. There will be no more "special education" because all education will be individualized.
It will be no utopia, and there will still be problems galore. But the individual nature of the system will allow individuals to succeed, as soon as they are ready, which may not be until well into adulthood. Furthermore, "education" will become something that never really ends. Gone will be the day of "getting your degree and cashing in". It will merely be a case that we study less, and work more. But "continuing education" will become an integral feature of employment, with "students" using company assets to access distance learning courses at colleges and universities. Major corporations will probably establish courses, thought colleges, which combine the work of the professors, with the needs of the employees. In the end, education won't be something you "accomplish" it will be something you just "always do".
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