Education board looking at new graduation requirement

Members of the state Board of Education are poised to adopt new graduation requirements for high school students next week, including tougher, more extensive courses in math and science.

But even so, the new Oregon standards are significantly below diploma requirements put in place by a dozen other states over the past few years, after disputes surfaced over just how prescriptive the state should be.

After more than a year and a half of discussion, consensus is emerging to require that students take three years of math and three years of science to earn a diploma. The goal, state Board of Education members said, is to better prepare students for college or the workplace.

Only math classes at the Algebra I level or higher would count toward the Oregon diploma-pre-Algebra courses, which are currently allowed, would not fit the bill. In science, students would have to take two laboratory-based science courses, plus a third year, during which they could opt for an applied science.

But Oregon diverges markedly from other states that have pledged to raise math requirements. Arkansas, Minnesota and Texas are requiring four years of math-the traditional Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II sequence, plus a year of probability and statistics courses. In Oregon, students could follow Algebra I with two years of applied math classes.

Other states, including Ohio and Oklahoma, have leapfrogged Oregon in the science requirements. They require students to take three years of laboratory science, in the biology-chemistry-physics sequence.

Other states are also considering upping the ante on their graduation standards, including Idaho, Arizona and North Carolina, said Matt Gandal, the executive vice president of Achieve, Inc., a nonprofit organization working on raising state education standards.

States are driven, he said, by research showing that students’ odds of earning a bachelor’s degree increase when they take more higher-level courses.

“Every state has academic standards driving testing and accountability, but we used to be able to count on one hand the states trying to align those standards with what it takes to succeed in college,” Gandal said. “But this notion (of alignment) is gaining traction rapidly.”

Oregon education officials and school board members are defending their approach, saying their emphasis is not on a one-size-fits-all, prescribed approach, but a more open-ended system.

“There are eight or nine states going farther than we are,” said Ed Dennis, deputy schools superintendent at the Oregon Department of Education. “I’ll admit that we are behind that line. But we believe in our approach, not a top down mandate based on seat time.”

Students will still be required to demonstrate they’ve mastered the skills taught in a typical Algebra II or higher-level math course, state school board members said, but might get those skills from another class, like a technical mathematics class for students interested in engineering.

“We understand that there are a variety of ways to gain knowledge and skills in math and other subject areas outside the traditional curriculum,” said Oregon Business Alliance president Duncan Wyse, who is a member of the state school board. “It’s relatively easy to simply add more courses. What we care about are mastery and results.”

In shaping the new standards, school board members in Oregon have contended with backlash from principals, teachers and superintendents, who worry that the new requirements will be an unfunded mandate.

They also worry that it will be difficult to hire enough educators to lead upper-level science and math courses, particularly in rural school districts. And there’s also concern that the stricter requirements will lead some students to drop out, where they might once have soldiered on.

Still, five of the six school board members contacted by The Associated Press Thursday said they were leaning toward supporting the proposed math and science requirements.

“We have done a lot of in-depth looking at what is going on around the country,” said board member Nikki Squire of Bend. “Those places having success are providing a variety of pathways. This may not be the last step, but it is a step in the right direction.”