This morning, at the Washington State Senate Early Learning & K-12 Education Committee meeting, State Board of Education Chair Mary Jean Ryan reported on the board's work on meaningful high school diplomas. One of the preliminary recommendations from the board is to have "alignment with post secondary education minimum entry requirements." When questioned by Senator Steve Hobbs, D - 44th Distirct, Mary Jean explained that the post secondary education requirement would look at all options after a student graduates from high school. Besides the option of attending a four-year institution, some of the other possibilities included: apprenticeships, two-year colleges and military service. However, at the SBE meeting last week in Wenatchee, board member Eric Liu strongly argued that the post secondary education minimum requirements really meant the Higher Education Coordinating Board entry requirements. Those requirements include:
- Four years of English
- Three years of math
- Two years of science including two lab sciences
- Three years of social studies
- Two years of world language
- One year of art
This one recommendation has huge implications for all schools and school districts in Washington about what all students need to know in order to graduate from high school. For example, the area of world language has a number of implementation issues, not the least of which is finding an adequate number of teachers. The SBE expects to have a schedule out within the next week of places in the state where they will take public comments about high school requirements. Schedules will be posted on the SBE Web site. Click here to go to the SBE home page to find the dates of the public hearings and also see a PowerPoint presentation shown at the Senate Early Learning & K-12 Education Committee meeting.
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