Graduation plan subject of debate

By Sanjay Bhatt
Seattle Times staff reporter

Steve Wilson is the chief academic officer for Seattle schools.

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At a board meeting Wednesday night, Chief Academic Officer Steve Wilson bristled at the comments by Robin Pasquarella, Alliance for Education president, and called one of her group's suggestions "elitist."

It was the latest flashpoint in a long-simmering debate over Seattle's graduation standards. After several delays, the School Board plans to vote July 7 on changes that would apply to this fall's freshman class.

Starting in 2008, the proposed changes would:

• Eliminate the district's minimum 2.0 grade-point average to graduate.

• Require students to select and prove proficiency in a community-service project, rather than fulfill 60 hours of volunteer work.

• Match state requirements to pass the 10th-grade Washington Assessment of Student Learning, complete a senior project and create a plan for high school and the year after graduation.

The latter would revise Seattle's current rules that require completing a research paper, reporting on 20 books and showing proficiency in writing and math.

Wilson said 33 high school principals and counselors recently surveyed overwhelmingly said the district should not retain the 2.0 GPA rule, which may be encouraging students with low GPAs to drop out. The state has no minimum GPA for graduation.

More than a third of the district's high school students do not graduate. Half of the African-American and Latino students, who make up a disproportionate share of low-income students, do not complete high school.

Pasquarella complained that Seattle's latest graduation proposals are less rigorous than recommendations drafted over a period of two years by teachers, administrators and the community. They had wanted students to earn 24 credits instead of the current 20, and wanted graduates tested in communication, math and science, civics and diversity, life skills and the arts.
 
Requiring additional credits generally translates into students taking higher-level courses that better equip them for college, Pasquarella said.

And she suggested the latest proposal could undermine school-reform initiatives, which the alliance has funded since 2001 through a $26 million, five-year grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

"Why would we not want to ensure that all students have equal opportunity for pursuing education beyond high school and securing employment that can support their families?" she wrote in a letter to the board.

Wilson took exception to the comments.

"We're not watering down graduation requirements," he said in an interview. If the district were to make every student earn 24 credits for graduation, all high schools would have to offer six periods — the state only pays for five — and students could not fail a single class, he said.

Speaking to the board, Wilson said requiring 24 credits of every student "would be such an elitist situation." One district official pegged the extra cost at $3.2 million.

The alliance said the district would have that money if it cut bus transportation for high school students. That would save about $2.6 million.

"I get very, very upset when people talk about putting up barriers to student achievement," Wilson said. "Rigor has nothing to do with the number of credits a student takes. Rigor has to do with what's taught in the classroom."

The state isn't giving school districts the funding they need to offer a more rigorous curriculum, said John Dunn, outgoing president of the Seattle Education Association, the teachers union. Dunn supports requiring 24 credits for graduation, but said the district doesn't have the money to pay for it.

"I'm sorry the alliance isn't going to the source of the problem," Dunn said yesterday. "How many millions did Boeing get cut from their taxes so they don't have to pay for high school education?"

The alliance's chairman, Robert Watt, is a key Boeing lobbyist credited with gathering legislators' support for a $3.2 billion tax-incentive package signed into law this spring.

Sanjay Bhatt: 206-464-3103 or sbhatt@seattletimes.com