Lawmakers back versatile graduation rules
Incoming high school freshmen, listen up.
State lawmakers are poised to overhaul what you will need to do to earn a diploma in four years.
A House-senate conference committee negotiating a compromise state budget agreed Tuesday night to implement new graduation requirements recommended by Ohio Excels, a new business coalition; the Alliance for High Quality Education, a group of fast-growing districts; and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education policy think tank. Their plan was chosen over one developed by the state Board of Education.
Senate President Larry Obhof said he believes lawmakers have landed on graduation standards that should stand for years instead of undergoing regular revisions.
“It’s important we have certainty for the kids starting (high school) this year,” he said.
Obhof said the conference committee also agreed to a one-year moratorium on a controversial law allowing state takeover of academically failing school districts while lawmakers continue work on a solution in separate legislation. Minority Democrats were not pleased; they oppose the law and want it abolished, not replaced.
And the budget launches studies of students in poverty and preschool.
The new graduation benchmarks aim to ensure
students are prepared for college or career and give them multiple options for meeting them with less emphasis on highstakes tests. They are designed to end a decades-long debate over what students should know before they graduate from high school. Students must: • Complete minimum course credits set by the state and school district.
• Show competency by passing the state’s Algebra I and English II tests or meeting non-testing measures including earning one math and one English credit through College Credit Plus, demonstrating career experience and technical skills, or showing military readiness.
• Earn two “diploma seals” developed by the state or district. For example, students could earn an industry-credential seal, college-ready seal for scoring remediation-free on a college entrance exam, citizenship seal for scoring proficient on the American history or government tests, and community service seal based on local guidelines.
The class of 2023 will be the first required to meet the new mandates.
“We’re pleased,” Lisa Gray, president of Ohio Excels, said after the conference committee added the plan to the budget package, which now goes to the House and Senate for approval. “We want to get it over the finish line.”
The new graduation requirements will replace state mandates that are stricter on paper but have not been fully implemented for nearly a decade because of fears that they would prevent too many students from graduating. It’s not known how many students
would graduate under the new requirements because testing pass/ fail scores still must be set by a committee of educators.
Supporters say the requirements are simpler, reduce testing requirements and offer non-testing paths to a diploma. High school end-ofcourse tests will be reduced from seven to five by eliminating the English 1 and Geometry exams.
The budget also requires that students at risk of not graduating on time be identified by ninth grade, their families notified and support services provided.
The plan had been included in the Senate version of the budget; the House had no graduation requirements proposal.
The lawmakers passed on a competing plan developed by the State Board of Education that would have also included numerous options for demonstrating a student’s readiness for college or career, including a “capstone” project along with community service.