Something happens to 18-year-olds when they hit the home stretch in high school. Soon after their college applications are in the mail, the students' academic gallop to the finish line turns into a lackadaisical lope. As many have noted, they lose interest in school, take on part-time jobs in the afternoons and are distracted by parties.

And why not? Unless they screw up royally, the grades they get as seniors won't affect the acceptance decisions four-year colleges make based on students' prior performance. Most community colleges are open admissions institutions. Students feel they've paid their dues and can move from the hustle to the slide.

Does this loss of engagement have anything to do with the need of about one-third of college freshmen to enroll in remedial or developmental courses?

Stanford University education professor Michael Kirst believes it does. Author of the recently released report, "Overcoming the High School Senior Slump: New Education Policies," Kirst sees a big disconnect in the message high school students get from colleges for the period between admission and matriculation.

For one thing, the students don't seem to realize they will have to take placement exams when they enter college. Even students who achieved high marks in their all-important junior year of high school will fail to retain math concepts, for example, if they don't study math as seniors. Also, because community colleges have open admissions, high school seniors may get a false notion about what level of academic preparedness two-year colleges expect from their first-year students.

The advent of early admissions decisions, which colleges release in December, is almost guaranteeing that the senior year of high school will be a write-off for students. Yet everyone is paying a price for this.

A study by the national Commission on the High School Senior Year finds that seniors lag behind their international counterparts in key academic measures. This slippage occurs in the upper grades. U.S. fourth-graders outperform almost every other nation in science, for example, but U.S. 12th-graders are close to last place in science.

The commission recommends a long-overdue rethinking of how high school is organized. In addition, it pleads with postsecondary institutions to communicate more clearly with high schools about college performance expectations. The payoff could be more engaged high school seniors and a better qualified pool of freshmen to teach down the road.

Teacher curriculum on promoting democracy

A new AFT-developed curriculum on democracy, Help Your Neighbor, Help Yourself: Global Democracy Promotion and U.S. National Interest, is now available to AFT members free of charge. The teaching guide, which includes interactive lessons, is divided into five sections. The curriculum, which is targeted primarily to high school students, can be used in conjunction with classes in American history or government, international relations, world history, global studies and current events. The goal of the unit is to investigate the U.S. role in the post-Cold War world and to explore international efforts to promote democracy.

"The post-Cold War era brought changes in international governments that needed to be examined and understood by students in the United States," says Deborah Straughn Moore, one of four high school social studies teachers who developed the curriculum.

"As an educator, I believe that teachers--especially in the area of social studies--must make sure that students understand the role that U.S. foreign policy plays in its obligation to promote and support global democracy," says Moore, adding that it is also important "to provide students with the tools to understand that current international events have a connection to their everyday lives and that the response of our government to these events can weaken or strengthen U.S. democracy."

Moore, a member of the United Federation of Teachers in New York City, was joined by Yvonne Bess of the Washington (D.C.) Teachers Union, Tara Donoghue of the United Teachers of Lowell (Mass.) and Joseph Putro of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers in developing the curriculum. They were assisted by the AFT international affairs department.

"Recent terrorist acts have made it mandatory that students understand the process of foreign policy that our president must now use," says Moore, who teaches at Boys and Girls High School in Brooklyn. "Once they have passed the period of grief and mourning, students have to pay attention to the decisions made by our government."

The unit was developed under a grant from the U.S. Department of Education and the Center for Civic Education. To request a copy of the curriculum, send an e-mail to iad@aft.org or write the AFT International Affairs Department at 555 New Jersey Ave. N.W., Washington, DC 20001.