HARRISBURG – Efforts to ensure that every high school diploma awarded in the commonwealth represents academic readiness took an important step forward Wednesday as the state Department of Education, the chairman of the State Board of Education, and the Pennsylvania School Boards Association announced agreement on several key principles.
“Whether our high school graduates go on to college or enter the highly competitive global workforce, they deserve the assurance that a diploma is a ticket to success, and the agreement we have reached on graduation requirements will provide that assurance,” Education Secretary Gerald L. Zahorchak said.
As under the proposed regulations adopted unanimously by the State Board of Education last January, the state would develop a series of standard final exams that would be offered to school districts, along with a voluntary model curriculum and diagnostic tools to help identify and aid struggling students.
School districts could continue to use locally developed and administered tests, provided those tests have been independently validated to assure a high-quality level of academic rigor.
Schools also could continue to use other options for determining graduate preparedness, including student performance on the PSSA, Advanced Placement, or International Baccalaureate exams.
Under the agreement reached today, school districts that use an independently validated local assessment to determine whether students have the skills to graduate would not have to use the state-provided standard final exams.
In addition, the agreement responds to concerns raised by the Pennsylvania School Boards Association and other education stakeholders that local school districts would have had to pay the full cost of validating local assessments under the state board’s initial plan.
State Board of Education Chairman Joseph M. Torsella said the agreement will help strengthen graduation requirements while preserving school districts’ options for awarding diplomas.
“In the end, all of us will achieve our common goal of ensuring Pennsylvania produces high school graduates who can compete with students from across the country and around the world,” Torsella said. “That ultimately benefits the commonwealth’s economy, its families and its communities.”
While Pennsylvania has statewide academic standards that define what students should know at particular grade levels, each of the state’s 500 school districts sets its own requirements for earning a diploma. A report from Penn State University researchers released last week showed that the vast majority of school districts were unable to provide evidence of having adequate graduation requirements for all students.
The State Board of Education has sought to address this problem through proposed statewide high school graduation requirements that would provide a menu of ways for students to show that they have the academic skills to graduate.
The board had proposed having the graduation requirements in place for the class of 2014. Under the proposal announced today, the new statewide high school graduation requirements would begin with the class of 2015.
State law passed last July established a one-year moratorium on any regulations regarding high school graduation requirements. The State Board of Education will continue its public hearing and input process over the next several months and will formally revisit the proposed regulations once the moratorium expires at the end of June 2009.
For more information on Pennsylvania’s high school reforms, visit the Department of Education Web site.
