Kieran's right about some things.
He's wrong about students arriving prepared for college.
The problem isn't that we're preparing students for a service (=slave) economy; basic grammar skills haven't changed that much in the last two thousand years. Or maybe we just don't have the system (nobody does) to teach both slaves and masters under the same roof.
But he's dead on about why this school is requiring future plans for graduation participation. There are politics involved, but it's not Democrats vs. Republicans or Liberal vs. Conservative; it's the funding game.
Remember Oakland schools and "Ebonics"? The reason they tried to claim most of their students were native Ebonics speakers wasn't because they honestly believed it, but because they were strapped for cash, and (something like) schools with over 50% non-native speakers got extra money.
Gee, now we have this pure genius "Leave no child behind" BS, which uses testing to divide the public schools into a top half and a bottom half. There's always gonna be a bottom half folks, and odds are it's going to correspond pretty closely with the half that doesn't get much money. So let's take more money away from them. That'll work.
And no, you won't see any kind of interesting behaviour on the part of administrators to ensure their school comes out on top in testing.
The kids who make it to the university may not know how to spell, read or write, but they sure can ace a multiple-choice exam.
