I'm about tired of this subject because it appears to be so argued out, there is no points you can make anymore. I'll go against my better judgement and post another rant.

I know I never took a study hall in high school. I took 7 classes each year, I think I set a record at that time for credits earned on graduation. There wasn't a lot of AP classes, I think we had 2 available then. I was ahead of the curve and took the SAT in 6th grade or something because I had a perfect SRA test (verbal I think which is scary since my language skills have gotten 10 times worse). I was able to never study, never crack a book, show up now and then, and pretty much ace any test. I wasn't that smart, I just had a grandmother who was a teacher and she started my education when I was young, so I was reading at a pretty good level when I started school. I could not pay attention directly but still know what was going on by just being in the room.

I know this, when I went to college, I was behind. Not so much on my ability as much as I had no study skills, I had no ability to no how to push myself because I was never pushed. If you had to work hard in school, then you probably did ok in college but I know I wasn't alone. Out of probably 10-15 people out of my class who went to a 4 year college out of the gate (estimate), I think most either flunked out or quit. And since we're talking about people who went out of the gate to school, they weren't the slow learners either, they just went from an environment where they could coast, to an enviroment where they couldn't.

Why do you think nobody, or nearly nobody, outside of science majors take a science class at CVC or UVA-Wise? Because they have nothing that resembles real labs, nothing that resembles any real study. Why do you think a large percentage of our local kids go and take a below 100 level English or Math class? Those aren't imaginary numbers too, those have been given before by the college. It's not that nobody from our local schools can go there and make it, it's just that the normal way of having success is being pushed earlier in schools. In my opinion, block scheduling and the stupid tests they do now make it that much worse as teachers can't teach. They have to push in a few facts and have people spit it back out. One of the funniest ones I can remember hearing fairly recently was a parent asking their child about George Washington, and the kid could only tell you what they had to know for a test, but nothing else.

So if you were on top of the game in college, congrats. Be proud that you were an exception. No, building new school buildings is not going to fix things. Hopefully though, and I know its a freaking longshot, the areas fix the system, not just from the buildings but down to the way they educate.

It was summed up nicely awhile back when the talk was that 'not every kid is going to college'. There has never been a more accurate statement but the problem is the system is set up to make sure the weakest survive and dumb it down for them to get out the door. It's not set up to push the top ones to be even better and challenge them.

Put it to the wonderful world of athletics. Complaints were made here about kellys schedule and how it wasn't right for them to be rewarded for playing cupcakes and make it while PV had played tough competition and might not make the playoffs. Some of the same people who couldn't help but complain about the system benefiting the ones who play bad teams are the same ones who are happy as a lark to have the education system benefit the ones playing the weaker schedule.

I took one satellite class at UVA-Wise. An advanced finance class taught by a professor at UVA. Most of us were upper level students, a lot of seniors ready to graduate with accounting or economic degrees. We were so freaking far behind that we couldn't even have intelligent discussions. These were people who were on the Dean's list all the time at the college, and some who probably never even had to study there. More than a few dropped the class and gave up. A few toughed it out and tried to push ourselves just to sneak out of the class without failing but it took more work than I had ever had to give to a class. I think we had 2 people pass, while nearly every person there, who had been challenged before, passed. That's not an isolated example either.

No, new buildings are not going to make everything better, but consolidate your resources and reward excellence, not mediocrity. Or do like we complain about on the athletic field, nobody around here is going to win because nobody is pushed, everybody is soft. After all, why should it be different on the field when we don't want to fix it in the classrooms.