5 Year High School

Daniel Kim 12-5-11 Honors English, period 5 High school essay Educators have been recently debating whether or not to extend the four years of high school to five years. They have argued that students need the extra year to have more time to achieve all that is expected of them. Yet, others have argued that the percentage of high school dropouts would increase, because the students would lose interest in their education, and will eventually drop out of high school. Considering all the pros and cons, such as economics, student voice, and curricular plan, sustaining the school year duration of four years would be the most sufficient choice. High schools do have a limited amount of money that is accessible to them. Most schools already struggle to keep the required four years of education in their system. Adding another year would devastate many schools in the United States of America. High schools would have to make major decisions to cut funds in categories such as sports, materials, and hours in a school day. Not to mention that having another whole class of roughly 300 students would require more staff, consequently costing the district more money. Students should have a part in making the decision to either keep the current four-year curriculum, or to extend it to five years. If school boards do decide to extend the duration of high schools without the opinions of high school students themselves, students surely would not just sit quietly about the decision. Four years is plenty of time to achieve what students need to learn in high school. Instead of looking at the decision to increase the duration of high school, educators should be looking at how to increase the efficiency of education throughout the four years of high school. Although adding a whole year of high school would allow teachers more room to teach what they are required to teach, it can also disrupt the smooth flow of education that is being handed to us already. Students who already entered college would be behind a year of education. Educators argued that colleges would like to see high school students develop more in a longer period of time, but having five years of high school would shorten the numbers of students in each class, and when it comes to their senior year, the population would be extremely low. Reviewing the cons of adding another school year to high school, it is clear that educators should not intervene with the current four-year duration of high school. Educators must look at this decision in different perspectives, such as the views of students, because this decision could result in one of the biggest mistakes in education.