As 25 towns try out a new state curriculum for high schools, New Haven has chosen not to participate in the pilot plan.
Starting back in March, Connecticut’s education commissioner, Mark K. McQuillan, started developing reforms to the high school curriculum. He announced that Connecticut would increase the number of courses necessary for graduation from 20 to 25, replace the Connecticut Academic Performance Test (CAPT) with state-mandated final exam in five courses, and begin to phase in a two-year mandatory foreign language program.
The state commissioner hopes to start a pilot program this fall in 25 school systems. However, New Haven won’t join those volunteer test sites. At a monthly school board meeting Monday night, Schools Superintendent Reginald Mayo said he wanted New Haven kids to have longer to prepare for the changes.
The city’s graduation requirements are already more strenuous than the state’s: Where the state requires 20 courses to graduate high school, New Haven already requires 24. The changes for New Haven students include: an additional science course, an additional math course, more technological course offerings, and “double testing” in the 10th grade.
Science Supervisor Richard Therrien (pictured above) elaborated on a number of changes to the previously outlined plan.
At the heart of the new Secondary School Reform are the tenets of engagement, rigor, and 21st century learning, said Therrien. The engagement segment is implemented in the sixth grade, where every student will be provided with an “individual success plan.”
“It will engage them and prepare them for high school,” said Therrien.
The rigorous element is implemented during the student’s high school career in the following ways: CAPT exams (in reading, writing, math, and science) will still be taken in the 10th grade, along with the previously proposed end of the year exams in five courses — three of which will typically be taken in 10th grade. The end of the year exams will be state tested, but locally scored.
“I believe there is a benefit to each test,” said Therrien. “But I’m not sure there is a benefit to administering both.”
There is also no foreign language requirement in the new reform plan, mostly due to budget constraints.
A capstone project, involving real-life research akin to internships, to be completed during the 12th grade, will prepare each student for the 21st century.
“This project, the one at the end of 12th grade, is very meaningful,” said Mayo (pictured). “It’s what life is really about.”
The new plan was adopted by the State Board of Education on Oct. 2. There is no law written yet, but the state legislature is expected to approve the plan in 2009.
BOE member Richard Abbatiello (at right in photo) expressed concern that the numbers in the state’s budget are “a little on the low side.” A specific pricetag was not discussed.
“When bureaucracies start to grow, are they really rigorous or really rigid?” asked Dr. Carlos A Torre, another BOE member (at left in photo). “These additional dollars may take us away from the direction we know as educators we need to take.”
If everything runs on course, the Secondary School Reform will start affecting the general class of 2017 (current fourth graders).