Board Approves Tougher Standards for High School Graduation

The state School Board approved a new curriculum today for high school students. It will add two new courses and require all graduates to have four years of math.

Tennessee students will have to earn 22 credits instead of the current 20. They’ll need an additional year of math and an additional half-credit in physical education. They must take a personal finance class. They’ll still have six credits to choose for themselves, but those will have to be specific to their course of study.

Education Commissioner Lana Seivers says the new requirements won’t keep students in school longer.

“The senior year is often a wasted year for students, because they’ve already taken all the required courses. What we’re doing, is giving them the practice up ’til the day they graduate.”

Seivers and the Department of Education helped the state School Board craft the new standards. Governor Phil Bredesen told the board members that it’s appropriate to set the bar higher.

“You know it’s hard to imagine a good job today where four years of math in high school wouldn’t help you, terrifically, in that. We’ve also seen issues, personal finance issues, in fact they’re going on right now with things like this mortgage crisis, where I think the schools can, you know, give some help in getting these young people prepared for the real decisions they’re going to face in their life.”

The new standards will go into effect over several years.

WEB EXTRA

Commissioner Seivers says some systems, such as the Knoxville school system, already require four years of math.

Governor Phil Bredesen told the Board members they were doing more than setting new graduation requirements.

“What you really are doing is charting a new course for Tennessee students, and setting the bar higher, and really, setting a course that’s appropriate for the twenty-first century and the demands of the twenty-first century.”

The governor told the School Board he counts on classroom teachers to make the new standards work.

“We can do all this work about standards and curriculum and assessment and so on, and I’m sure we’re very important. In the end it doesn’t work unless the teachers in the classroom are there. We have got to work to have the very best teachers. We’ve got to work to give them the support that they need to go out and do these things. Because in the end, this system is going to rise or fail, depending on the quality and the motivation and the feeling of support that our school teachers have.”