State legislators warned the State Board of Education on Tuesday that North Carolina’s efforts to step up high school graduation requirements could cause unintended problems, from higher dropout rates, to overly stressed teachers, to increased student obesity.
“The more comprehensive and rigorous set of requirements are laudable, and I hope the board is dead serious in preparing students for success,” said Sen. Vernon Malone, D-Wake, during a meeting of the Joint Legislative Education Oversight Committee. “It would serve no useful purpose to raise the requirements and then push more kids into failure and dropout. I don’t suggest that we water down the curriculum for success. What I’m suggesting is that we double our efforts to increase the number of kids who will succeed with these [requirements].”
“We’re struggling now with the dropout issue,” Malone said. “We don’t want to see those numbers go up because we don’t have anything to applaud [with] the number of kids dropping out. So I would strongly encourage the state board to be very, very serious about preparing circumstances so that kids can succeed with this.”
Malone offered his assessment after hearing plans for the state’s new high school Future Ready Core Curriculum. Rebecca Garland, the state board’s executive director, outlined the requirements scheduled to take effect for the freshman class of 2009. Each of those students will face minimum state requirements of: four credits in math; four in English language arts; three in both science and social studies; one in health and physical education; and six electives. That’s a total of 21 credits.
Because 85 percent to 90 percent of the state’s high schools use a block schedule, most North Carolina high school students have an opportunity to earn up to eight credits per year and a total of 32 credits, Garland said. “We look at the block schedule and the fact that there really are — in addition to the six elective slots that the state board requires — in most other schools there are 11 other elective slots that the board does not touch.”
While Garland assured lawmakers that the new curriculum would ensure enough flexibility for students to take arts courses, foreign-language classes, vocational education, and other electives, the information about block schedules raised some questions.
“Has anybody ever done a statistical comparison comparing students from block schedules versus traditional schedules and their performance on the SAT or ACT?” asked Sen. Fletcher Hartsell, R-Cabarrus. “Has there ever been a study done comparing dropout rates in systems or schools that have block scheduling versus traditional schedules?”
Staff with the N.C. Department of Public Instruction responded that they did not have information about either type of study. “We have a lot of anecdotal and subjective information, but it seems to me that information is available and is a useful tool — or can be made available — if someone just goes out and looks for it,” Hartsell said. “It can be a useful tool to justify one [schedule] or the other.”
The state board will watch for any negative impacts of the new curriculum on dropout rates, Garland assured lawmakers. “It is the primary goal of the board that all students graduate from high school,” she said. “We are also working on our dropout issue. So we have dropout counselors. We have high-school counselors. All of those folks are being retrained in what the new requirements are.”
The Future Ready Core Curriculum combines three of the state’s four existing high school courses of study, Garland said. Almost all students will now need four math credits to graduate, and they will need to meet “proficiency” on standardized tests covering Algebra II. “Math is the major change in the new course of study,” Garland said. “Given the input from business and industry, the university system, community colleges, math was the area where we made the greatest change.”
An increased focus on math made sense to lawmakers such as Sen. Charlie Dannelly, D-Mecklenburg. “We are globally competitive because we’re utilizing scientists and mathematicians from other countries to keep us that way,” Dannelly said. “We’re not producing our own.”
Other lawmakers raised concerns about North Carolina’s capability for boosting math instruction. “We still have a fundamental problem — do we not? — in terms of the people who are qualified to teach math and science who are teaching in-field with their degree and certification in the area,” said Rep. Ray Rapp, D-Madison.
“You mentioned earlier the retraining of teachers to implement the Future Ready program; certainly that’s laudable,” said Sen. Steve Goss, D-Watauga. “Teachers are stressed to the point that I don’t see how they can put much more on their plate.”
At least one lawmaker noted his concerns about the impact of the new curriculum on high school students’ waistlines. “The concern I have relates to only one requirement for health and [physical education],” said Rep. Marvin Lucas, D-Cumberland. “That’s one in four years. I have a little problem with that. In this era of fast food and computers — where we’re becoming more and more sedentary as a society — and with the concern toward obesity in our society, I just feel like we need a bit more physical activity or we might become a well-trained, obese society that’s unhealthy.”
The state board would likely agree with Lucas’ concern about physical activity, Garland said. Some local school systems already add additional health and physical-education requirements. “Because of the space in the schedule, there is certainly no reason why a student could not take health and P.E. every year,” she said. “And I think the state board would encourage that because it would keep our students healthy.”
The state board still has a year-and-a-half to prepare for the Future Ready changes, Garland said. “We’re doing everything we can to get folks ready,” she said. “We’re doing extensive communication plans with middle schools. We’re putting out brochures. We’re training our counselors. We’re looking at our courses to see if we can teach them in a way that students will understand them better.”
Mitch Kokai is an associate editor of Carolina Journal.