The commission plans to issue a final report with recommendations in June. According to the commission, too many high schools have remained stagnant, despite the national discourse on education reform. It says high schools are not doing a good enough job preparing youths for college, despite the fact that economic security today requires at least two years of postsecondary education. Senioritis' sets in. Senior year becomes party time rather than a time to prepare for one of their most important life transitions.
Students are bored and studying becomes irrelevant.
And for many seniors, part-time jobs and extracurricular activities take up so much time, there is little time left for academic studies. Requiring students to pass a competency test to get a diploma does little to improve the senior year, the commission reports, because most of these tests cover material taught in ninth or 10th grade. The same is true of science. U.S. seniors report spending fewer hours on homework than the international average for final-year students. That is three times the international average.