Indiana, the poster child for state-level efforts to increase high school rigor and improve alignment between high school curricula and postsecondary/workforce expectations, has recently made some changes to high school graduation requirements to further enhance expectations and real-world applications.
Students starting high school this fall who opt out of the "Core 40" curriculum into the "minimum" curriculum will need during their junior or senior year to complete two semesters of either math or "qualitative reasoning" (defined in administrative code as "a high school course that advances a student's ability to apply mathematics in real-world situations and contexts") . Core 40 students, meanwhile, will need to complete 3 years of math after entering high school (credits earned before grade 9 may be applied toward diploma requirements but not toward this 3-credit requirement), and must be enrolled in a math or qualitative reasoning course each year of high school (previous rules called for students to complete either two semesters of math or of physics during the junior or senior year of high school).
Students selecting the Core 40 diploma with academic honors option likewise will be required to be enrolled in a math or qualitative reasoning course each year of high school, and will need to earn 3 of the 4 required math units after entering high school. Students in the Core 40 diploma with academic honors option must already select from one of a handful of additional measures of academic prowess--these additional measures are changing, too. For example, students previously could fulfill this section of the requirements by completing dual credit courses that resulted in 6 transferable college credits. Now students will need to select those dual credit courses from "the priority course list" of liberal arts or "career and technical education courses published by the Indiana commission for higher education"; those courses will need to result in "verifiable transcripted college credits." Students could alternatively previously meet the extra requirement by earning either a composite score of 26 on the ACT or 1200 on the SAT. That won't fly starting with next year's freshmen, either--students taking the ACT will need to earn at least a 26 and complete the written section; students opting for the SAT will now need to achieve a composite score of 1750 and a minimum of 530 on each section.
For the Core 40 diploma with technical honors, students will also need to be enrolled in a math or quantitative reasoning course each year of high school and complete 3 units of math after entering grade 9. Previously students could earn the extra CTE "points" toward the technical honors diploma by earning either a state-recognized certification or a certificate of technical achievement. Effective this coming school year (next year's grads), the certificate of technical achievement is no longer an option. And effective with students entering high school next fall, students will need to show the extra oomph by (1) earning a pathway designated industry-based certification or credential (or pathway designated dual high school and college credit courses from the lists of priority courses resulting in 6 verifiable transcripted college credits), plus (2) achieving specified minimum scores on either Accuplacer, WorkKeys or Compass, or completing one of the "oomph" requirements specified for the academic honors candidates.
I'm assuming that, given Indiana's reputation for high standards, "qualitative reasoning" is not the return of consumer math. And on that point--although states are (I think) trying to increase the real-world applications in rigorous high school math courses as the pool of students required to take these courses becomes broader, this is the first time I've seen "qualitative reasoning" specified as a math option to complete high school graduation requirements. It will also be interesting to see several years from now how the math requirements impact math remediation rates at postsecondary institutions in the state, and if/how the changes to the honors diploma requirements impact the number of students completing these options and their college-readiness. And here's hoping the state will survey employers hiring recent recipients of the new and improved Core 40 diploma with technical honors, to see if the increased expectations make a measurable difference when these diploma holders walk onto a job in their designated field.
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