Students should not be able to take outside classes to boost their GPA

By Isabelle Chiu
Staff Writer

Private, alternative schools such as Halstrom and Fusion Academy do not completely prepare students for the future. Students should not be permitted to take outside courses that offer one-on-one teaching to boost their Costa grade point averages because the standards at outside schools differ dramatically from Costa’s academic standards.

Both Halstrom and Fusion Academy have a “No Child Left Behind” policy which does not allow students to move on and learn the next concept unless they have a B- or higher in the subject area. This policy guarantees students that they will get good grades if they pay for this one-on-one education, giving an unfair advantage to the students in terms of GPA and college admissions.

In a challenging educational environment such as Costa, good grades should be earned based on merit; everyone does not and should not get unlimited do-overs in order to pass a class.

If these supplemental classes are added to the Costa transcript, students GPAs will be artificially inflated. Separate transcripts should be required to differentiate between the schools’ vastly different policies and expectations.
Public and private education should not be combined, as private schools are not required to comply with state laws and do not have to teach material required by the state. Private and public schools are not comparable and should not be treated as such.

Although, one-on-one teaching may benefit a student’s learning in a particular class, it does not necessarily help students develop skills for the future. According to the psychological study published by Springer Science, group learning increases the retention rate of material learned and causes less mental stress overall.

According to the same study, group learning promotes social skills whereas independent learning does not. A student must develop a variety of skills learned by working with others in order to prepare for the workforce, in which group collaboration is especially valued.

The public school setting is also more helpful in terms of college preparation than an individualized environment, because most colleges have a student-teacher ratio that is significantly higher than one-to-one. Professors will not cater to each individual student, so students must learn to adapt to a variety of teaching methods and become familiar with the possibility of failure.

In order to prepare for college academics, a student must learn to adapt and adjust to a variety of teaching methods where the method will not be specifically designed for just one student.

Costa students should not be allowed to replace failed classes with outside classes, other than Costa summer school which adheres to California State Standards and is equivalent to Costa’s public education. Combining public and private education on a transcript should not be permitted.

These programs do not adequately prepare students for the future and should not be relied upon over public education. Costa should stop unjustly crediting classes outside of Costa to boost students’ GPAs.