North Carolina: increased requirements for more foreign language study

[Harold Schiffman]

Will increased rigor for graduation help students or increase dropouts?
*By Anna Mitchell *

A policy that would heighten the requirements for North Carolina high school
students is being revised.

At the 2006 December meeting of the State Board of Education a framework for
the Future-Ready High School Core Curriculum was adopted. The framework was
designed to address the problem of students entering into college unprepared
and not being engaged enough to graduate high school.

The Future-Ready core curriculum increased the requirements for graduation
with more units of mathematics and foreign language as well as one unit of
art education or Career and Technical Education. Forty four percent of the
6,820 students enrolled in North Carolina community colleges were enrolled
in a developmental class in 2005-06, which prompted this policies creation.

With a desired date of implementing the policy for the freshman class of
2008, the Future-Ready Core Curriculum hopes to increase the rigor of
academics and challenge students. However, some believe that this curriculum
will have negative effects on the students. The regional meetings for public
input found strong oppostition to the policy. Several speakers believed that
the curriculum would increase dropout rates, and wouldn't apply to
non-college bound students. Concerns about the small number of foreign
language and math teachers was also heard.

In May 2007 the State Board of Education revised its core course of study.
The revised policy changed the implementation date to 2009-10. The policy
now delays the second language requirement for all high-school students, and
allows students to "opt out" of a math sequence with permission from
parents, administrators, and teachers. Superentendant Dr. Hedrick believes
that these revisions in the policy will help all students succeed.

http://www.cherokeesentinel.com/news/2007/0606/Local_News/007.html

**************************************
N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its
members
and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or
sponsor of
the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree
with a
message are encouraged to post a rebuttal. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)
*******************************************
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lgpolicy-list/attachments/20070606/09f2b50f/attachment.htm>