PROVIDENCE -- The Providence School Department plans to raise the
number of required courses for high school graduation to ensure its
students are better prepared to succeed in college.
Preliminary recommendations, presented to the School Board last night,
far exceed the minimum course work the state now requires for high
school graduation.
Beginning with next year's freshman class, students will have to take
four years of English; three years each of math and social studies; two
years of science; and one semester each of government, economics and
speech.
Also required would be a semester of health, at least two years of the
same foreign language, and one course each in fine arts, technology and
physical education. Of four electives, three must adhere to a particular
theme.
The state currently requires four years of English; only two years each
of social studies, math and science; and 10 1/2 electives and 100
minutes a week of physical education.
The Providence proposal keeps pace with a state mandate that gives all
school districts until May to come up with plans for phasing in more
rigorous graduation standards. Those standards call on students to apply
skills and knowledge not only on tests but in other formats such as
projects and demonstrations.
But Providence -- which has about 17 percent of the state's public
school enrollment and the largest concentration of failing schools --
probably faces a bigger challenge than any other district.
If students are to make the grade under stiffer standards, the new
requirements must have the backing of parents and the community,
according to School Supt. Melody A. Johnson and others who worked on the
proposal.
The plan has the backing of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform,
the Education Partnership and the Rhode Island Children's Crusade.
The Children's Crusade will sponsor four public forums beginning Feb. 25
to solicit public opinion on the draft proposal and the final plan will
be presented to the School Board for a vote in March.
Businesses want to hire local college graduates, but instead find
extreme shortages of qualified labor, according to Hillary Salmons, of
the Education Partnership, which represents the state's business
interests in public education.
Salmons heads the Partnership's Rhode Island Scholars initiative, which
will send business executives into eighth-grade classrooms in the spring
to drum up public demand for more challenging courses at the high school
level.
Parents of sixth graders have told her they never realized that the
courses their children choose -- or don't choose -- in high school can
close the doors to colleges long before they fill out the applications.
"If you complete Algebra II, it's a pretty strong predictor of success
in college," Salmons said. The proposal presented last night would add
Algebra II to graduation requirements in four years' time, beginning
with next fall's freshman class.
Mary Sylvia Harrison, executive director of the Children's Crusade, said
she has spoken to many parents who consider themselves to have "done OK"
as high school graduates.
But they grew up when manufacturing provided 8 out of 10 jobs, Harrison
said.
"They were shocked at learning that this is the deal for their kids in
the 21st century," Harrison said. Now only 2 out of 10 jobs come from
manufacturing, and students without some form of post-secondary
education cannot expect to climb out of poverty.
Today's young people have gotten the message that they must go to
college and they are going, but they are not necessarily graduating,
Harrison and Salmons agree.
Salmons said the graduation rate at community colleges nationwide is
about 37 to 39 percent.
Students who arrive at college poorly prepared are going deeper into
debt for remedial courses than their better-educated classmates,
Harrison said.
Once the new requirements are adopted, the courses and grading systems
will have to be reworked. This will allow the district to make sure
course content, teaching and grading are consistent from one high school
to another, according to Cheryl King, the district's chief academic
officer.
Johnson put it another way. All the city's high schools should offer the
same kind of education students get at Classical, the only
high-performing school in the city.
