State Board of Education member Geraldine Miller of Dallas is quoted in a front page article in today’s Dallas Morning News saying she’s worried students may abuse the new system which gave students more electives. The state did not limit the number of electives students could dedicate to PE and PE substitutes, which include athletics, band, cheerleading, drill team, and country & western dance. She wants the board to step in and limit how many PE credits will count toward graduation.
She apparently forgets that excessive meddling by the state is why parents have been clamoring for more freedom to choose classes.
Miller claims “seven credits for PE courses is way too many and would lead to abuses in the system.” Let’s think this through. Students graduating in 2011 and beyond will have English, math, science, and social studies every year based on the new 4×4 requirements. They need 2-3 years of a foreign language and a year of fine arts. Miller frets that two hours of each student’s 7 hour day could go to PE-type classes. Happens all the time
More, after the jump:
Lots of Lake Highlands High School students are involved in sports and extracurriculars at the same time, and it’s something to be applauded, not discouraged. What’s wrong with a Wildcat Wrangler also wrestling, a band member playing soccer, and a cheerleader joining the volleyball team?
I appreciate Miller’s desire to provide every student with a useful education, but predicting that every student is trying to game the system is counterproductive. Students and parents in Lake Highlands are capable of crafting a schedule of courses without needless interference from the state, thank you. In fact, the problems that have arisen have largely involved students who said “there’s no room for classes I want like Anatomy and AP Music Theory and European History because my day is full of required courses like health and speech and desktop publishing. Can’t you let me choose for myself?”
If Miller gets her way, legislators will revisit restrictions in their next legislative session. Until then, get a whiff of freedom and do something really outlandish – sign up for a journalism course you don’t even need to graduate. Sign up for a sport you’ve never tried before. Register for a class just because it sounds like fun. It may be your last chance until the big, wide world opens up for you in college.
