High schools may push college-prep courses
State officials to vote on new curriculum
Massachusetts would prod high school students to take a set of rigorous classes to graduate, under a new proposal that is less aggressive than in other states that mandate college preparatory courses.
State education officials, who will present the proposal to the Board of Education today and seek approval in May or June, say that the coursework would be voluntary and similar to the requirements for admission to a state university. Massachusetts now mandates only that students pass physical education, civics, and the 10th-grade MCAS tests in English and math; a science test will be required in 2010. School committees set their own course requirements.
The proposed statewide curriculum, called MassCore, recommends four years of English; four years of math, including Algebra II; three years of lab science; three years of history; two years of the same foreign language; and electives.
The push comes 14 years since the state's Education Reform Act, which set academic standards and led to MCAS testing. But business leaders and college presidents still raise concerns that many high school graduates are unprepared for college or work. More than 60 percent of new community college freshmen must enroll in at least one remedial class.
"This is a first step, but at some point it really needs to be mandatory," said Patricia F. Plummer, the state's higher education chancellor and cochairwoman of the committee that drafted the recommendations. "This really affects the kids from urban school systems more than anything else. What we're trying to do is make sure that they're well prepared, that they don't slip through the cracks."
A recent survey of 79 high schools, nearly a quarter of the state's public high schools, found that 70 percent of 2006 graduates completed the classes the state is pushing, compared to only 45 percent of students in urban schools.
Plummer said she hoped that Massachusetts would make the classes mandatory in three years. Then, she said, the state universities could toughen their admissions standards, including requiring a fourth year of math.
Education Commissioner David P. Driscoll, said he opposed mandating the courses. Instead, he supports rewarding students who complete them with credit toward the state's new Certificate of Mastery.
"I honestly think it works best when we as a state give strong direction, but don't make things mandatory unless we need to," Driscoll said.
Glenn Koocher, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees, also opposed requiring the classes. "We really feel that we're overloaded with mandates," he said.
But others prefer requiring the change.
State Senator Robert A. O'Leary, Democrat of Barnstable and chairman of the Joint Committee on Higher Education, recently submitted legislation to require four years of math and science for all students and said he hopes that lawmakers and others will begin debating it in coming months.
"This is the state that made public education what it is nationally," he said. "To me, we need to have this discussion."
David Hartleb, president of Northern Essex Community College in Haverhill and Lawrence, said that simply recommending the classes is not enough.
"If it isn't mandatory, you're still allowing people to graduate from high school not ready for college," Hartleb said. "When they get here, they still have real problems."
Nationally, 13 states have instituted tougher graduation requirements, and more than a dozen others are moving in that direction, according to Achieve Inc., a Washington-based nonprofit organization that seeks to help states raise academic standards and achievement. Some states allow students to opt out of the classes with parental permission, but want to make sure that all students have a chance to take them.
Michigan requires a college-prep curriculum for graduation beginning with the class of 2011, amid concern about the future workforce, as auto plants move jobs overseas and as unemployment rises.
"Michigan may be ahead of some of the other states because of our economic condition," said Jan Ellis, spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Education. "We were so heavily reliant on automotive, and we recognized perhaps more keenly than other states that we are now a global economy. Our kids have to compete in it, and if we don't do something, then they won't be able to."
Maria Sacchetti can be reached at msacchetti@globe.com. 