State Working to Improve High School Education

By The Associated Press

State education officials are hoping to bolster high school education in West Virginia by improving attendance, increasing standards and making the senior year more meaningful.

“Many senior classes are vacant at high schools across the state,” said state Assistant Superintendent Stan Hopkins, who heads a task force that examined West Virginia’s high schools. “The group of students not availing themselves that senior year are the ones who need it most.”

Only about 30 percent of West Virginia’s 82,000 high school students take a full load of courses their final year, while about 3 percent drop out of school each year, according to a task force report presented to the state Board of Education in August.

About 84 percent of students graduated from high school in 2004. Of those who did graduate, only 54 percent immediately enrolled in college, compared to 57 percent nationally. Of the students who do attend college, 31 percent had to take remedial classes, according to the report.

On Friday, a subcommittee of the state Board of Education discussed how the state can best implement the task force’s recommendations listed in “A Vision for Student Success: High Schools for West Virginia’s Future.”

The task force, made up of business leaders, school superintendents, high school principals, teacher organizations, West Virginia Department of Education staff and parents, worked on the report for four months earlier this year.