Superintendents are calling on lawmakers to help the state avoid a possible high school graduation crisis -- again. They say, without state intervention, as many as a third of students will not meet the requirements to graduate.
Thousands of students in the class of 2018 might not have graduated under new testing-driven standards. So lawmakers delayed those standards and allowed seniors to pick from a menu of attendance rate, GPA, a final project, community service, work experience or a college credit plus course.
Now superintendents such as Craig Hockenberry of Three Rivers Local Schools in the Cincinnati area are again pushing for delay in the new standards and an extension of the alternatives.
“If you got kids running around on the streets with no diplomas and in and out of programs that aren’t fit for them, they’re gonna commit crimes, they’re gonna end up in prison,” Hockenberry says.
If lawmakers make no changes by the end of the year, they’ll have to start over again in January with a new General Assembly.
