Story by Katie Baker
The National Center for Education Statistics studied high school transcripts from 2009 and found high school seniors were taking an average of 27.2 credits, a jump from the 23.6 credits high schoolers were taking in 1990.
It was also because teens in 2009 were taking harder classes than 1990. 13% of students were taking of rigorous classes in 2009 than only 5% in 1990.
History teacher Jessica Hill does not believe that school has actually gotten harder. Hill said the she believed that over the years it has actually gotten much easier since when she was in highschool.
“Advanced classes are not as challenging as they once were, and the overall quality of work we expect from students has declined,” Hill said.
Others actually do believe that school has indeed gotten hard. Science teacher John Gray is one of these people and he actually believes it has to do with the ranking of country worldwide in education.
“We are 28th in the world in science and math and so our upper level of students are behind the rest of the world in competing for programs in the colleges,” Gray said.
Gray has had the opportunity to teach in Korea, and said that the students there go to school “8-4 everyday” and “8-1 on Saturday.” They have no extracurricular activities, but they have the same amount of homework.
“That gives them about 20% more time on the subjects than our students,” said Gray.
Some adults believe that our generation have it easier because of the technological advances.
“In the past, students used actual books and articles to find information and complete research projects,” said Hill.
Hill said now we are able to have computers and google which “have easy access to all material.” Due to this Hill believes that it changed the way in which students use a lot of in effort school over the years.
Earlier this year Sophomore Gabrielle Gilmore had some trouble with english homework. She asked for her parents to help her with it but they also struggled.
“That was hard, my parents and I were super stuck on it for a good while” Gilmore said. Sometimes parents get stumped on the simple things.
Although people have different opinions we still try to make it our best! I’m sorry I don’t know how to end it.
