Under current law, by the time students in this year’s sixth grade class reach 12th grade, there will be new, more rigorous requirements to graduate high school.
A new task force charged with studying the alignment of these new requirements to the Common Core State Standards met in Hartford last week. Charles Toulmin, policy director of the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, told the task force that according to the Foundation's data, only about 50 percent of kids in New England graduate from high school prepared for their next step.
"I underscore that number. Only 50 percent of kids across the region are achieving that level of readiness," Toulmin said.
Toulmin supports moving the public school system toward what he called “student-centered learning."
"Learning is personalized to the needs, interests of each individual student. Learning is competency based -- that kids do not move on until they’ve mastered the content," Toulmin said. "Learning is anytime, anywhere; [it] includes virtual, blending, and learning in the community for credit. And that learning is more student-owned."
The nine-member state task force must submit a report with recommendations to the Education Committee by the end of the year.
The Nellie Mae Education Foundation is an underwriter on WNPR.
