Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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Sunday, January 22, 2006
What makes a “rigorous” high school?
Sunday’s New York Times has a good detailing of the problems of making federal education policy in our fractured national system of locally-controlled schools.
The story says Congress wants to encourage study in the sciences with scholarships, but only wants students who have completed a rigorous course of study in high school.
Who defines rigorous? it’s supposed to the the U.S. education secretary. But it’s not going to be easy. One idea is to qualify high schools in the State Scholars Program. Or they could piggy back on standards used by states to determine if some top students earn “advanced” diplomas. For state’s that not doing either of those, they might look at who offers advanced placement and international baccalaureate courses.
Critics of federal involvement of education say this could be a power grab, one that leads to federally-guided high school curriculum. But proponents say approaches like this could give more schools incentive to upgrade the quality of their course offerings.
What do you think of this move by Congress?
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