Friday, January 07, 2005

Illinois apparently has slacker high school graduations requirements

Interesting . . . .looks like our state's requirements for graduating high school are too easy. This Bloomington-Normal Pantagraph editorial lays it out quite nicely. We rank fairly low in the number of years required for English and science (only one year for science! according to the editorial).

Luckily, Senator Miguel Del Valle (D-Chicago) and Chair of the Education Committee is introducing a bill to ramp up our state requirements.

I wonder who is against this? People animated by "the soft bigotry of low expectations"? The school boards who want the right to set the bar lower than the rest of the state? Any insight will be appreciated.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

(Duff)

Professional educators sometimes oppose this kind of thing because, by creating more requirements, you effectively end up forcing some kids to drop out (b/c they're barely staying in to begin with). Looser requirements allow the schools to social-pass the students easier.