will k+12 really produce quality graduates?

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There will be changes in the country's educational system in terms of the number of years. Before, our children attend preparatory school, then they will spend 6 or 7 years in grade school, and 4 more years in high school and they will be off to college. But some parents don't send their children to preparatory school. Needless to say, public schools don't offer grade 7. So after sixth grade, they're off to high school. Therefore, the total number of years our children normally spend in a school are 10, excluding college years. This time, kindergarten ( K1 and K2 ) is already mandatory. It is no longer an option. Though public schools still don't offer grade 7, they deemed it better to just add 2 more years to the 4 years of high school. 2 years in prep school, 6 years in elementary and another 6 years in high school, thus the name K+12. This comes with the hope to produce quality graduates and later on become productive citizens. I think the intentions are very noble. And I guess, it's about time. Almost all countries worldwide require a longer number of years to be spent in schools. So if want don't want to be left behind, we might as well make some changes. However, I don't think this will guarantee good quality of graduates. Why? Do you know that in our school, there are 65 to 70 students in a class? That in a year level, there are 20 sections? Other schools have more. Does it matter? It wouldn't matter if all of these students are cooperative, willing to learn, disciplined and equipped with basic knowledge. However, we only get this kind of students in the first two sections. The rest are a mixture of not so ideal students. Let's put it this way, you enter a room full of 65 noisy and unruly students. You have 80 minutes (science time) to spend in that class. You'll spend the first few minutes checking the attendance ( this is a must because they tend to cut classes and they are your responsibility that whenever something happened to them you will be held accountable ). You can't also let another student to check the attendance for you because some gets bullied and hated by their classmates. Another few minutes in checking the assignment then proceed to your lesson for the day. This is where the problem comes in. How will you teach your students scientific concepts when they neither understand nor speak English? If they cannot understand English, how can you ask them to make or do some observations? Much more make conclusions? We are required to teach the subject in English but if this is the case, how will you let the day pass? Translate? Yes. This slows down the learning process. The topic which you are suppose to teach in just one day will take 2 days to finish. In a quarter, half of the topics will not be introduced and this is not possible because the quarter exam is centralized and if you were not able to discuss the assigned topics for that grading period your students will most likely fail in the exam which will affect their grades. What to do? Most teachers proceed with their lesson regardless of whether the students learned the lesson or not. Where is quality there? Can you blame the teachers? Aside from poor comprehension, another problem is the inability to read. High school students but don't know how to read. Another problem? Inability to perform math operations. We, as high school teachers are not suppose to teach these basic skills anymore. Why are we getting this kind of students? How did these students graduate from grade school not learning how to read and do math? Here's how. I have a co teacher who handles the physics subject of the graduating class in high school. That school year 4 students in her class failed and definitely will not be able to graduate. She was summoned by the division supervisor and was told to take pity to the family and allow the students to graduate because times are hard and that she will ruin the lives of the students if she decides to fail them for good. But she stood her ground. Later when she passed the full scholarship program sponsored by Tan Yan Kee Foundation, her permit was not approved. She lost a big opportunity because she did what should be done. That is the main reason why we cannot produce good quality of graduates, mostly in public schools. I hope to make a difference but its so hard.