Board softens high school plans

BOISE – An Idaho Board of Education task force has backed away from some of its plans to make classes at Idaho high schools more rigorous after students, parents and school officials complained the proposals would increase dropout rates and reduce art and music.

The trimmed-down high school requirements presented Wednesday retain the recommendation that students add two years of math and one year of science, and that seniors complete a yearlong project with a written and oral presentation.

“The heart of the plan includes math and science,” Sue Thilo, the board member from Coeur d’Alene who led the task force, told the Idaho Statesman.

The requirements redesign was prompted by reports from the National Center for Education Statistics that only 45 percent of Idaho’s high school graduates went on to higher education in 2000.

The national average was 56.7 percent.

The task force released its initial proposals in late summer. The plan would affect the graduating class of 2012, this year’s sixth-graders.

Board members unanimously adopted the proposal and sent it out for public hearings across the state.

As a result of those hearings, the task force dropped the requirement that students use eight high school electives to explore subjects they might pursue after graduation. Families and teachers had said the requirement would take away enriching electives such as music, arts and humanities.

The revised plan also drops the requirement that students leaving middle school carry a cumulative C average in language, math, science and social studies to get into high school. Critics said that might increase the dropout rate among eighth- and ninth-graders who are deciding whether to continue with high school.

The new plan also eliminates having sixth-graders and their parents talk with school counselors to begin thinking about what the students will do after high school. Families complained that the recommendation could force kids to make career choices too early.

Board members are still studying how much it would cost to toughen high school requirements, especially adding math and science teachers. They expect to have an estimate before the Legislature meets in January.

The plan still needs final board and legislative approval.