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Subscribe to RSSPublic high school students in the nation’s capital may soon be able to graduate without taking a single U.S. government course.
The D.C. State Board of Education proposed changes to the graduation requirements in December that would require students to take more physical education, art and music courses instead.
The proposal, put forward to combat declining graduation rates in the District, where fewer than two-thirds of high school students earn a diploma, would also require students to write a thesis and raise the total number of required credits in D.C. public schools from 24 to 26 -- more than students need to earn diplomas in many other states, according to the National Center for Graduation Statistics.
Some of the new requirements -- specifically nixing the need for a government course -- have drawn the ire of advocates for civics education.
Patrick Mara, who represents Ward 1 on the school board, believes a majority of the nine-member board won't back the proposal.
"This is one of those things that looks great on paper, and it's very well-intentioned, but it goes without saying that U.S. government should be a requirement in the District of Columbia," Mara said.
Mara said he would "certainly vote against" the proposal if it came to a vote anytime soon.
Other key changes to students' current graduation requirements in the proposal include making students take an additional unit of physical education, which can include organized extracurricular sports. Students would also have to do an additional 67.5 hours of physical activity each semester for all four years of high school.
In a letter to the board, an eight-person group representing several public schools in D.C. said it objected to the proposal for several reasons, including the physical activity requirement, saying it would be susceptible to fraudulent submissions for credit.
"We agree that students should be engaged in physical activity at all points of education, but the benefits of making it a graduation requirement do not outweigh the costs," the letter said. "Administering a tracking program for that level of detail of activity, especially if independent of an organization like a sports team, would be extremely burdensome."
Board members have said these specific changes were suggested in an effort to address health problems among D.C. children, including high rates of obesity and diabetes.
"I think this is an opportunity for the State Board of Education to think through what it is we're doing with these graduation requirements," Mara said. "Some of these things, while they may seem sound, are at the end of the day impacting the lives of young adults, and we need to we've brought in enough stakeholders into this discussion to have a positive impact."
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They need to keep the kids dumb.. If they know how government was supposed to work, then people wouldn't like the way Obama trashes the Constitution.
Its not just obama and its been a long process. Big government doesnt happen overnight and it didnt happen without collusion between the Parties.
those who live in DC should already know how government works, unless they don't even watch news on TV, and why should they need to take government class? it's good to drop it, and add PE and other requirements for graduation.
How it works today and how it was designed to work are two different things. Kind of like you may know your car just is not running very well but that is useless knowledge unless you know it is suppose to run and that it should use use engine oil in the engine and tranny in the transmission, you can run it until it explodes or you can drain the incorrect fluid and possibly save the vehicle. So I disagree, any further plan to dumb down America any more than it is is just wrong.... may be "progressive" but wrong.
Celisis,There are high numbers of people on welfare in DC.so in essence they know enough about how the government runs so that they can get all of the freebies the working people pay for.
Do they go by the premise that ignorance is bliss? Ahhhhh. The dumbing down of America continues..
News at 11.
Continue all courses. Why drop one for the other? There must be a way to turn out well rounded students without shortchanging them of the basics of education, putting them at a disadvantage before they even get started.
All they need to know is that the government will take care of them.
We need to teach government and finance in elementary school. That way perhaps when they get to voting age they might actually have the brains enough to vote intelligently.
The libs don't want intelligent voters. My six year-old grandson told me if "the other guy, not the one who always lies" wins the election (meaning Romney), then his friend Jaime will have to move to Mexico. When I told my daughter that, she said she wouldn't have voted for Romney either, because he "wants to take away women's right". She never watches any news, always stupid "reality" shows. Just goes to show how pervasive the lies of King Hussein's election machine were. Yep, keep'em stupid, that's their motto. The only bad voter is a smart voter. Even a six year-old can see the King always lies - why can't the rest?
Anyone who understands elementary school level finance is too intelligent to be a Democrat
This is nothing more but an attempt to move us 500 years closer to idiocracy.
The only thing those students can pass on their own is gym anyway.
hell,, they're too fat now to pass that subject,,,
and what sucks most of all is,, your being forced to pay for this idiocy,,
therefore,, I'm actually paying our government through taxes to destroy this country,,,,
Makes sense to me. We all know the less a person knows about government and politics, the easier that person is to sway. This will provide a whole new crop of uninformed liberal voters. The Dems will be in charge forever. Gimme my obamaphone!!! Stoopid libtards. Not since FDR have the libs stooped to such unabashed lows to retain the power they don't deserve.
Personally I think this is exactly backwards but typical with the "progressive" social engineering in public schools. If not enough students can graduate would it not make more sense to improve the teaching rather than dumb down the standards? It was not that long ago a graduate would be able to speak Latin, now they are lucky to speak English. How many students get any exposure to "The Federalist Papers" by Hamilton, Madison and jay? That exposure should start by grade 5 at the latest and for every year after. Of course in the last 2 generations its been more important that a student "feel included" and "feel good about themselves" rather than to get knowledge. Well I suppose in a Nanny-State the last thing the ruling class is smart slaves to the state who try and think for themselves and break their chains of dependency and want to live as adults.
This is a good way to be able to jack up the test scores for students in DC.This way DC can be number one in the U.S. educating their students without teaching them anything of significance.
if a woman want to try and join the special forces, then go for it and good luck to her. however, i hope the very tough standards of the special forces are never relaxed for anyone including women, just because someone complains someday that "there arent enough women in the special forces".
Oh Please Fat Pat Mara doesn't know a thing! He's done not one thing since taking office. It's a lot of chest thumping and nothing more! What he should have been doing is getting on truancy, wrap around services etc! This man is the biggest puff of hot air since the Santa Ana winds!
First, why is it called the "D.C. State Board of Education"? D.C. is NOT a state. Since Andrew failed to pick up on this idiocy, perhaps he needs remedial education in government?
This is purely a calculated effort to render students who will eventually become voters ignrant of both their rights under American First Principles and the constitutional limitations on government power, to facilitate a devolution into a socialist nanny state populated by ignorant serfs.