Why are credit requirements so inflexible?
Photo Credit: Carly Wooldridge
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February 19, 2010
Filed under Call Editorial, Opinion
In 2005, the Missouri State Board of Education increased minimum graduation requirements to 24 credits for the graduating class of 2010, the first major change to high school graduation requirements in the state since 1984. Unfortunately, many students who take challenging, time-consuming classes often have to drop one or more of them in order to fulfill requirements like health, gym and personal finance. These restrictions punish kids with a busy schedule and force them to drop important classes. Often for these high-achieving students, summer school also is not an option, as many attend extracurricular programs. In this world of high-achieving high schoolers, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) needs to make requirements more flexible and realistic.
To say that Maddie Moll plays the bass is to say that Michael Jordan plays basketball.
First picking up the instrument in the fourth grade Kirkwood instrumental music program, Moll, sophomore, now plays bass in the KHS symph
onic orchestra, which will travel to New York City to play with two other groups at Carnegie Hall in March at the prestigious 2010 Instrumental Music Festival. She’s played in the St. Louis Youth Symphony Orchestra since the seventh grade, and she made the Missouri All-State Orchestra as a freshman (an incredibly rare achievement) and has played in it for the past two years. Last year, she received Honor I Superior Ratings at the MSHSAA District Solo/Ensemble Music Festival and an Honor I Superior and an Honor II Excellent at the state level.
The bass isn’t her only love, however. Moll also has spent her sophomore year working as a photographer on the Pioneer yearbook, a nationally-recognized publication. The 2009 edition of the yearbook earned the highest honor rating from the Missouri Interscholastic Press Association and a Gold Medal from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association’s annual scholastic yearbook critique.
Although both programs are incredibly demanding, Moll has managed to successfully balance and exceed at both. The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), however, has crashed the party.
GOOD INTENTIONS
Beginning with the class of 2010, all high schoolers in the state of Missouri must graduate with a total of 24 mandatory classes, including one full credit of gym, a half credit of health and a half credit of personal finance. The personal finance, health and gym quandary is no stranger to many students. In order to ensure all students can graduate, KHS offers summer courses in those three classes. Counselors also provide information on taking health and personal finance online through the University of Missouri High School program.
Since both the yearbook and orchestra are year-long classes and Moll will be attending a music program in Oklahoma next summer (which prevents her from taking summer classes), she is forced to drop the yearbook next year. Her demanding regular classes prevent her from taking the classes online, so she’ll take a gym class and a health class during the school year.
Moll’s story is not an uncommon one. In the past year, The Kirkwood Call lost two excellent staffers, Emilee Graham, junior and features staffer, and Mike Killeen, senior and art editor, because the two had to fit in mandatory credits like health, personal finance and gym. The orchestra and band lose top upperclassmen to the credit requirement dilemma every year.
The current DESE requirements punish the student who wants to pursue AP and honors classes and intensive extracurricular activities. All this conflict raises the question: Why is the DESE so inflexible about these credit requirements?
THE GYM DILEMMA
According to the DESE, “Missouri high school graduates must earn at least one unit that provides students with knowledge and skills necessary for developing and maintaining a lifestyle that fosters physical fitness, participation in recreational activities and general concern for personal well-being.” However, the department states, “Courses devoted to conditioning for interscholastic sports or practicing for interscholastic sports may not be counted toward meeting the minimum requirement.”
Why in the world don’t varsity sports count as gym credits? Athletes participating in varsity sports learn more about “maintaining a lifestyle that fosters physical fitness…and general concern for personal well-being” than those in a gym class. Between practices and games, varsity athletes spend just as much time on their health if not more than students in a gym class. If the DESE were to count varsity sports as a gym credit, students could open their schedules to a vast amount of other classes.
ZERO-HOUR RUMORS
Last year talk emerged of a Kirkwood “zero-hour” gym class. Students who took the class would meet two days a week for “early mornings” (like many AP science courses). Although a number of students expressed interest, the administration decided not to go through with it. The zero-hour would provide students like Moll an opportunity to fit in more classes that they can’t take during the day.
“ALTERNATIVE METHODS”
According to the DESE handbook published when the new credit requirements were first announced, if a student demonstrates that he or she understands the course material, the district may grant credit through “an alternative method.” In 2005, DESE said, “State education officials intend to continue exploring the feasibility of course-specific competency tests that could be used by high schools as a basis for awarding academic credit. Such exams could be developed by the state, by local school districts, or by a consortium of high schools.”
This idea sounds promising and could be the key to addressing the problem, but we haven’t heard anything about it since 2005. The Kirkwood School District could work with this concept to provide students like Moll with another opportunity to earn credit, particularly the health and personal finance credits. DESE deserves a hearty thanks for paying attention to busy students, but why has no one acted on this idea?
Maddie Moll is only one example of the multi-talented, super-involved KHS students. Students in today’s high school world are far too busy and involved for these inflexible credit requirements.
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