Graduation requirements come under scrutiny

Oregon has been getting rapped in national press coverage of high school graduation requirements. But in some ways, it’s a bum rap.

The latest round of criticism originated with a report issued in December by Achieve Inc., a nonprofit organization founded by business leaders and governors at the national education summit of 1996.

The report noted that Oregon ranks near the bottom among the 50 states in its high school graduation requirements for math and English. Oregon requires only two years of math whereas most states require three. Oregon demands only three years of English, including onewriting course, while most states require four.

The Achieve group says that every student should take at least four years of both math and English to be prepared for college or an adequate career not requiring a college degree.

Yet as Lora Nordquist noted last week, “Many school districts consider the state requirements a minimum, and most districts go beyond thatminimum.”

Nordquist is best known locally as the principal of Sisters Middle School. But she was interviewed on this subject because of her other role as the district’s curriculumcoordinator.

She noted the irony of the fact that “Oregon gets bashed for a lot of things, for a lack of rigor. And yet you know we have basically the highest SAT scores in the nation of any state where 50 percent of the kids take the test.”

On the specific issue of graduation requirements, she explained that while the state itself requires only 22 units of credit for a diploma, Sisters requires 26. Each unit represents the equivalent of a year-long course. The highest number of credits a student can earn during four years of high school is 30.

Neither the state nor the district assigns all the required credits to specific courses. Here are the state subject-area credit requirements: Language arts (English) 3, mathematics 2, science 2, social sciences (including history, civics, geography and economics or personal finance) 3, health education 1, physical education 1, applied arts, fine arts or second language 1. That adds up to 13 credits out of a total minimum of 22. The other nine can be earned in elective courses.

Sisters requires four years of English instead of the state’s three. And it specifies either two years of math and three years of science or the reverse, for a total of five credits in those two subjects instead of the state’s four. Sisters also supplements the state list with two additional credits left open for electives.

This is not uncommon. In neighboring Bend-La Pine School District, for example, the diploma requirement went to 27 credits beginning with this year’s graduating class. The total had been 25. So Sisters and many other districts come much closer than the state itself to meeting the standards endorsed by Achieve.

The state is likely to beef up its own list before long, though, thanks in part to political pressure. Last month, Gov. Ted Kulongoski attended a National Governors Association summit on high schools in Washington, D.C. While there, he joined 12 other governors in signing a pledge to raise their states’ high school graduation requirements.

After he returned home, Kulongoski visited the Oregon Board of Education and encouraged it to support changes making high school work more rigorous. The members expressed strong support for the idea and agreed that current standards are too low. But they did not endorse specific changes or set a deadline for improvement.

By contrast, in Sisters work is nearly complete on a proposal that will add an even greater challenge for the top high school students. Nordquist said the plan to add an “honors diploma” may go to the school board at its May meeting. “We’d like to start it with the class of 2007, but that may be a subject for debate…whether it would be enough time to allow those students to have a fair opportunity.”

“Honors” are alreadyofficially bestowed on graduating students who achieved a state Certificate of Initial Mastery (CIM) during their high school careers. Sisters is among the state’s leaders in the proportion of students earning these certificates.

But under the newarrangement, a CIM will be only one requirement for an honors diploma. Qualifying students must also have at least 28 total credits, including specific additional classes in math, science, English and a foreign language.

Nordquist doesn’t want to go into detail until the board sees the plan. But she said, “The idea is that we want our top students to make sure they have challenged themselves all the way through. We also want to see that students who really take a rigorous program in high school … are honored for it, and to see that students on the margin will maybe push themselves a little harder.”

The value of an honors diploma is not just symbolic. Colleges pay attention. When students with high grades apply for admission, Nordquist says, officials always want to know: “Given the program that’s available (at this high school), how effectively did this student challenge himself?” An honors diploma will signal a positive answer to that question.

Separate from graduation requirements, Nordquist is pushing yet another idea to help strengthen the high school program for top students — adding more Advanced Placement classes (See story page 8).

).