Oregon College-Prep Standards Found Lacking

By Betsy Hammond, The Oregonian, Portland, Ore.

Feb. 21–Oregon is behind the curve in ensuring that high school students get prepared for college or careers, a new report says.

Nationally, there has been a pronounced trend toward making high schools more academically demanding, according to the report by the nonprofit group Achieve, which advocates high standards.

States are changing the rules so that students must take the right courses — and prove their stuff on tests, the report says. The goal is to make sure all teens end up ready to start college when they graduate from high school.

While Oregon education leaders have said they plan to move in that direction, the state school board has yet to take concrete steps or set hard deadlines, the report says. The concern is that Oregon high school graduates get a false sense of security that they are prepared to compete in the global economy when they are more likely to get trampled, the study says.

For instance, 18 states have voted that high school graduates will have to take a full set of college-prep classes, including four years of English and math through at least algebra II, to earn a diploma. Most of them will require that level of course-taking from students now in high school.

Oregon also plans to require students to pass algebra II to get a diploma — but not until 2014.

Oregon has no academic standards for the junior or senior year of high school and does not give tests that require reading or math skills above the ninth-grade level.

“There is no question there are other states that are moving faster than Oregon,” says Sandy Boyd, vice president of Achieve.

This year, Oregon students can graduate if they pass three years of English and two years of general math — the lowest standard in the nation.

Oregon requires sophomores to take state tests in reading, math, writing and science that measure whether students have ninth-grade skills, but that is nothing close to what they need for college.

And Oregon students can fail all those exams and still qualify for a diploma. Most students who get an Oregon diploma failed the test in one or more of those subjects.

Oregon school board members say they are committed to raising standards for high schools and point out that they voted to require students to demonstrate “essential skills” — reading, communication, using math in real-world applications and thinking analytically — as early as 2012.

But, more than a year after that vote, there are no specifics about how those skills would be measured, who would determine which students have proved they deserve a diploma or which graduating class would have to clear that hurdle.

Jerry Berger, chairman of the state school board, says Oregonians should expect to hear concrete proposals in March. The board will decide the new graduation standards by June, he said.

To read the report, “Closing the Expectations Gap,” go to www.achieve.org/node/990. For more about Oregon’s graduation requirements, visit www.getreadyoregon.org.

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Copyright (c) 2008, The Oregonian, Portland, Ore.

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