Some SREB states with accountability systems identify schools for intervention based on the number of students who score in the bottom 25 percent on a standardized test. Yet these same states accept the bottom 25 percent as 'good enough' for teachers. Sondra Cooney, director of SREB's middle grades initiative. Lower mandatory-attendance age. Better high school preparation.
Teachers fall short in the South.
Encouraging children to learn to read. A major consideration for the shift in policy is interest in reducing school discipline problems by offering older students educational options. Currently, students are required to stay in traditional school until their eighteenth birthday. Most states require teens to attend school until they are 16, notes the paper. The proposal from the Commission on Youth will be introduced in the General Assembly after the session begins on 13 January.