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Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Graduation Standards: How High Is Too High?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
State education officials are putting the finishing touches on their proposal for new graduation requirements, which could make it much tougher for some students, including career prep or vo-tech kids, to graduate in the future.
Many, including higher education officials and business leaders, are backing the revisions because they say students have been leaving ill prepared from Georgia high schools for far too long. (Although, the graduation requirements actually were last updated just five years ago.)
The changes in how many and which courses students must take to graduate will coincide with the phase-in of the state’s more rigorous public high school curriculum, and will be in effect starting with freshmen in August 2008.
As I’ve reported previously, State Superintendent of Schools Kathy Cox wants all public school students to leave high school having mastered at least the equivalent of algebra II. True to her word, the committee working on the new graduation requirements is expected to recommend that all basic skills math courses be eliminated.
This, of course, raises the question of whether all students, not just college prep kids, can succeed when forced to perform at a higher level. In other words: When raising graduation standards, are there consequences for overreaching?
UPDATE: In talking about the proposed diploma changes with State Board of Education members Wednesday, Cox repeatedly characterized the revisions — particularly in math — as “huge.” “This is so significant for the overwhelming majority of our kids,” she said. “In the past several years, only 20 percent of our students have graduated with algebra II or above.”
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