Well, it looks like I am going to have to rethink the plans we have made for the kids as they move into high school. It turns out that one has to jump through a ton of hoops to get kids below the age of sixteen into our local Wake Tech Community College. The requirement is for the kid to take a bunch of tests at the parent’s expense. Then, and only if an administrator at the community college gives their personal approvales of both the test scores and the maturity of the kid, he can be admitted to the school. If the kid is admitted, the parent must sit in on every minute of the class–and this for the mediocre, politically correct education provided at the community college.
It also turns out that the “transfer” degree at the school is not a transfer degree in the traditional sense. All the Wake Tech transfer degree says is that if the state universities in North Carolina would normally accept a class that is part of the transfer degree program, then the credit will be given for the class at that university. The “transfer” part of the program sounds EXACTLY the same as just taking classes at the community college without participating in any program and then transferring them over to the big state university. The only thing one receives from the community college is an Associate of Science transfer degree which requires throw-away classes like psychology and sociology and is worth just about as much as a government high school diploma–the cost of the paper.
We were planning to send both of the kids to the community college for a couple of years each. Based on the abysmal and inadequate “transfer” program and age discrimination at Wake Tech, we have decided to just have them take as many CLEP tests as possible until they are sixteen. Then, if we have no other option, put them into a community college to take a couple of math and science classes that can be transferred to a real school.