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College Credit For 9th Grade ?Ethnic Studies?

Reader (and Townhall columnist) Joseph Phillips sends word of a new program in San Francisco (where else?) in which ?high school students, just months out of middle school, can start earning San Francisco State college credit this fall through a ninth-grade ethnic studies.?

The courses will become part of the California State University?s Step to College program, which has offered college credit for high school students across the state since 1985. Most of those courses require students to be juniors or seniors.

The program is designed for students who might not otherwise be considering college as an option, said Jacob Perea, dean of the School of Education, who runs the Step to College program at San Francisco State.

?We?re not really looking for the 4.4 (grade point average) students,? he said. ?We?re looking for the 2.1 or 2.2 students.?

Students cannot fail the class. They either receive a ?pass? grade or are withdrawn from the course if it appears they cannot pass, Perea said.

?All we do is give them an opportunity,? he said. ?I do believe that (the ethnic studies) course is a course set up so the kids will come out of there with the kind of information that a freshman here taking an ethnic studies course will have.?

The content of the courses offered in the Step to College program are reviewed by CSU faculty to ensure that they?re equal to any offered at the university. The instructors teaching the courses are vetted and given university adjunct status while the course is in progress, Perea said.

But can ninth-graders really produce college-level work?

Perea acknowledged that asking them to write at a 12th- or 13th-grade level could be difficult, but added: ?I doubt that we?ve ever had a student come through the program who shouldn?t have.?

And we should be encouraged that that a 9th grade ethnic studies course for 14 year olds on their way to a 2.1 or 2.2 average provides ?the kind of information that a freshman [at San Francisco State] taking an ethnic studies course will have??

Full post as published by Discriminations on March 03, 2010 (boomark / email).