More Calculus? Toss the Frisbee!
Schools cope with an outbreak of senioritis
Ah, spring, when a graduating high school senior's thoughts turn to . . . well, anything but calculus or Shakespeare. Some cut classes to linger over lattes. Others drop physics for Ultimate Frisbee, chuck their classroom manners, and party hearty. After surviving the college-admissions grind and five Advanced Placement tests this year, 18-year-old Amy Small feels she deserves a little downtime. "There's nothing left to prove," explains the Plano, Texas, senior, who is heading to North Texas University on a full scholarship. "We've worked so hard, why shouldn't we have fun?"
Fun is one thing. But a new study suggests that "senior slump"--far from being a benign symptom of spring fever--earns the American education system a big red F. First off, it's not just the spring that's lost. The slide into senioritis often starts as soon as the school doors swing open in fall, and it picks up steam through the winter holidays as students finish their college applications and, increasingly, secure a place via early decision. "The basic purpose of senior year is child care," concludes Stanford University education Prof. Michael Kirst, author of the Institute for Educational Leadership report.
Fractions. Kirst's analysis contains some alarming details: Only 36 percent of seniors say they do six or more hours of homework a week. Only 1 in 3 seniors takes a science course, compared with two thirds of European students. (To be fair, more than half of American seniors spend at least three hours a day working, about three times the international average.) The result is that many of the 70 percent who now go on to college either have let their knowledge base decline senior year or never acquired the basic knowledge and study skills to succeed. At some universities, as many as two thirds of the freshmen must take remedial courses--and many never return for sophomore year.
No one blames the students. "I'd act the same way," says Kirst, who sees slacking off as the natural response to the confusing cues sent by colleges and school officials. By admitting students on the basis of their junior-year grades, for example, colleges send the message that senior year doesn't really count. The trend toward early admissions only exacerbates the urge to kick back.
The repercussions have grown so serious that last year the U.S. Department of Education established a National Commission on the High School Senior Year to suggest remedies. "It's a tragedy to wait until you get to college to find out you're not prepared," says commission member Gene Bottoms, senior vice president of the Southern Regional Education Board in Atlanta. The panel's recommendations for strengthening senior year are due out in late June. In the meantime, universities and high schools are taking measures to stem the tide. Harvard College, for example, insists on seeing a student's final grades and asks those whose grades have slipped to explain why. Admissions Director Marlyn McGrath Lewis now sends over 100 such letters each year and rescinds a handful of acceptances.
For their part, high schools are experimenting with February graduations, internships, and intellectually stimulating electives. "We really have to scramble to keep the kids on task and occupied," acknowledges Robert Jarvis, the principal of Weymouth High School near Boston. Class-cutting grew so rampant there that the school made the prom and other senior events off limits to slackers. Other schools try to spice up the curriculum. Wakefield High School in Arlington, Va., requires graduates to complete a 150-hour, independent research project that culminates in a formal presentation.
While such strategies may energize some seniors, they don't get at the basic disincentives of the system. "This is a massive problem calling for a massive solution," says Kirst, "not just tinkering around the edges." Among the report's recommendations: Redesign the high school curriculum so that it links to the first year of college; have colleges and universities set explicit performance standards for senior year; and withdraw admission from those who seriously slack off.
Such measures won't stave off the kind of slump that has hit Sarah Atkinson. The senior at Bellaire High School near Houston has maintained her B average despite dozing off in tests and missing classes, and she decided not to take any AP exams because her full-time waitressing job left her no time to study. A case of early-decision slacking? Hardly: Atkinson dumped her books for a paycheck because the financial aid package she received from Washington University in St. Louis fell far short of what her family needed. She may have dropped calculus, but she's earning a valuable lesson in Real Life 101.
This story appears in the May 28, 2001 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.