Where did all the fun classes go?

Afew decades ago, students could look at their class choices and see classes like woodshop, home economics, and driver's ed. Today, however, such classes have largely disappeared from the modern curriculum. This is anything but a coincidence.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the total credits earned by high school graduates increased by 11%, but the number of vocational credits earned decreased by 17% between 1982 and 1992. When it comes to what classes a school offers, budget is a substantial factor. Over the years, states have been providing less funding for various reasons, and a major one is California's Proposition 13, which reduced property taxes that were funding the education system.

According to the Public Policy Institute of California, 65% of all Californians voted for Proposition 13 because of the significant drop in property taxes along with voters having more certainty on what taxation would occur later on.

"The property tax revenue dropped 53% of the educational budgets," said Jennifer Lang, the Instructional Vice Principal at Carlmont.

When Proposition 13 reduced the taxes, many schools were left with significantly less funding than before for their budgets.

"One example is LA Unified. Before this all occurred, it was spending $4,000 per student, and after the passage of Proposition 13, it was $577. Another extreme is Beverly Hills, and this one encompasses a different socioeconomic area. They were spending $50,000 per student, and after, they were only spending $1,231 which means the music, the arts, the metalworking, the driver's ed, the typing, anything you can think of changed due to that funding source," Lang said.

In 2002, President George W. Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act, and primary subjects like English and math became the main focus nationwide. The requirements put in place by the act forced schools to live up to higher standards and focus more on these subjects.

Later on, President Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015, which replaced the No Child Left Behind Act. According to the Department of Education, the act allows states to choose their student standards instead of the federal government. However, each state has to have an accountability system to ensure schools are performing up to standards.

"If you, as a school, didn't perform in your understanding of math, reading, and writing, they would pull the principals and vice principals and bring in federal people to run the school. That seems extreme but that tells you where we got all this rigor," Lang said.

The federal government isn't the only one making such a push. Colleges are also making their admission course requirements more standardized. For the University of California (UC) system, a student must meet the A-G requirements, which state that a student must take a certain number of years for English, history, science, and math, along with required foreign language classes and visual arts classes. hard to find teachers because when you find a teacher that wants to teach CTE, they have to have a specific credential. An average CTE credential can take anywhere from 12 to 18 months, and it's the equivalent of a master's degree. Not every teacher wants to do that," Lang said.

"There became a push in the 2000s to focus on standard base academics and make sure you're prepared for college. With No Child Left Behind, it was starting to gain momentum," Lang said.

As the UCs have started requiring high school students to take these classes to get a chance at admission, schools have prioritized the A-G requirements over other electives. The UCs did not put technical courses in their requirements and therefore have deprioritized these classes in high schools.

Even though fewer students get the opportunity to take elective courses and schools have shifted their focus to college admissions, some students still get the chance to take more unique classes.

Jared Chou, a student at Boston University and graduate of Design Tech High School, had the opportunity to take classes like computer-aided design, engineering, and programming classes led by Oracle employees.

"Many of these classes explore concepts and ideas that are difficult to teach in a normal curriculum, so the learning process involves a lot of selflearning and research," Chou said.

A solution educators have found to create elective classes is the Career and Technical Education (CTE) pathway, where students can take classes like computer science, marketing, and biotechnology.

However, according to Lang, finding teachers who can teach CTE classes is quite formidable.

Xavier Lem, a junior, has taken the CTE biotechnology pathway at Carlmont, allowing him to take classes that are centered entirely around biotechnology.

"It gives you an edge over students who are training solely in a traditional classroom setting. I think there's a fundamental difference between pure instruction and doing things physically. It's not the same experience or level of understanding," Lem said.

Although school budgets have sharply declined and the priority has shifted toward primary subjects, people are starting to rediscover the benefits of elective classes. Because of that, people like Lang are working to bring back these classes behind the scenes.

"We're trying to create classes using what's already here. We constantly survey students, we're constantly talking to the community, we're trying really hard," Lang said. l