By
NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — A group looking at Kansas graduation requirements is still relatively early in the process.
"Their goal is to have recommendations developed by the end of next spring, basically to take proposals to the State Board of Education next summer," said Mark Tallman with the Kansas Association of School Boards.
The group will have to weigh several things when shaping requirement recommendations.
"What should every student who graduates have and know?", Tallman asked. "What's kind of the minimum that we want every student to have, balanced with how much flexibility or how much variation should be allowed based on different students interests? I think the dilemma is, both of those are important."
It's also hard because if you tailor graduation requirements to specific non college preparatory credentials, then if the student decides they want to go on to college, it may be difficult for them to do so, or conversely, if they thought they were interested in college, then they might have to take additional time to get a skills-based credential that they could have had straight out of high school if they had made different earlier choices.
"How can we make education seem more relevant?" Tallman asked. "How can we make it seem more personalized? How do we ensure that students have the skills that employers and parents and others are saying they want, that in many cases aren't related to academics?"
Agreement about what goals are, how they are measured and who is accountable will be the policy questions that the group hopes to answer as they make their recommendations.