<p>Dear CC parents, I would like to know if WA has the craziest graduation requirements for HS students. I’m not talking about subjects and credits, what I really mean are the new standards brought upon the poor kids by NCLB. D’s class of 2008 is the first one who has to pass the infamous (very poorly designed) WASL test, and they have to do a thing called “Culminating Project”. At D’s school teachers are running mad with multiple forms kids have to fill out for this project. I almost exploded when I had to sign a “Document P” (or something like that). “You mean there are Documents A, B, C, … P?” “Yeah, and if they run out of English letters, they will use Kanji, I guess”</p>
<p>Would you mind explaining what the “Culminating Project” entails? </p>
<p>In Massachusetts there was a lot of uproar about new graduation requirements when new standardized tests came out years ago. Most of the chatter has died down now. I went to a private school, so we could skip the state standardized tests, though we had our own stringent graduation requirements, including a large project for graduating seniors that took about sixty hours to complete during the last month of school.</p>
<p>“Beginning with the class of 2008, all Washington graduates must complete a culminating project. This integrated learning project helps students to understand the connection between school and the real world by studying a topic they like and presenting their findings to teachers, community members and other students. The culminating project has four components: a proposal, academic and/or field research, a paper and a presentation.”</p>
<p>The complete description can be found here:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.k12.wa.us/graduationrequirements/CulminatingProjects/default.aspx[/url]”>http://www.k12.wa.us/graduationrequirements/CulminatingProjects/default.aspx</a></p>
<p>On paper, sound well-meaning. In reality, it is a bureaucratic nightmare for the teachers, kids and their parents. Kids are not allowed to touch anything remotely dangerous no matter how passionate they are about it. For example, if you love horseback riding, you are not allowed to do any actual work with horses. D said she knows some kids who are doing “anti-culminating project projects”. A local paper published a story about a boy who organized a demonstration against the new graduation requirements as his CP.</p>
<p>All of the public high schools in my area of PA have some sort of senior project required. Some of the class selections are noted to have work that can be used for the senior project. I’m not sure, however, how this requirement came about.</p>
<p>I think that the senior project is a state requirement. I know people that have or had kids in different areas of the state that all had to do a grad project. In our district it’s done in Junior year so that if you screw it up or move into the district late, you can still get it done by graduation. In our area it’s a huge research paper and power point presentation. Actually, sounds just like the one in Washington. In another county (in PA) I have a friend whose kids have to do so many hours of community service instead. </p>
<p>I think the key is not the project itself but getting administration and teachers on-board and trained with how it’s going to work before it’s implemented. It’s too bad that your daughter’s class will be the guinea pigs for this.</p>
<p>In California there is a standardized test that one needs to pass to graduate from a California high school. I believe it’s up to 8th grade math, and 10th grade English. They take if for the first time in 10th grade. Something like 75% pass both pieces the first time they take it. By Senior year, something like 97% pass. There are all sorts of legal action and newspaper stories about the remaining 3%. The state feels it is the schools responsibility to ensure every student meet these minimum requirements. And if the school fails, and there are students that don’t pass the test the schools must offer programs to students until they are able to pass the tests. There are many that feel that is unfair, and they should just give the students a diploma regardless of whether they passed the test or not. </p>
<p>My daughter’s public high school also requires a senior project. It is done through whatever English class they are taking senior year. Some senior projects were things like, sticking to a vegetarian lifestyle for three months, then a vegan lifestyle for three months, and writing a paper and giving a presentation on how hard or easy that was and aspects of nutrition and well being. My daughter was taking a film class as her senior English class, and teamed up with two other girls to make a documentary on the homeless. It was quite impressive.</p>
<p>Culminating Project is not THAT nightmarish( or new). It was a graduation requirement for S’s class of 2006 and for many years before that. The paperwork was not too bad at all actually. He had to write a proposal, a paper( loosely connected with the “practical” part) and keep track of hours spent working on the project and discussing it with his mentor. S had a wonderful time writing and recording an album of his songs, his friend researched and published a map of our local aquifers( it was put in the local library so everybody can consult it) , there were other great things. I don’t consider the CP a bad thing at all, it gave S a chance to think about something else besides college apps that year. :)</p>
<p>It is the guinea-pig aspect of this project that makes it so nightmarish for the kids who take things seriously. Last year seniors at D’s school did a CP, but it did not count as their graduation requirement, so apparently there were lots of silly ones (protests, how to become a princess, etc.). There were also multiple complaints about the timing of last year’s CP deadlines (right before AP/IB exams). This year the project deadlines got moved up, so everything “culminates” in the middle of January and coincides with college application deadlines.</p>
<p>At D’s school, all of the CP work has to be done outside of class. The school does provide CP advisors, but they for most part are clueless, just like everybody else. There is still hope that with time things will run better.</p>
<p>The new WA graduation requirements used to call for “Internship and Service Learning” project (separate from CP), involving something like 40 hours of either community service or classes taken outside of HS credits. Additionally, these 40 hours had to be separate from NHS or IB CAS hours. After some debates this project is no longer included in the graduation requirements.</p>
<p>I think the graduation requirements in Wa are too low.</p>
<p>I am not for a test which was originally intended to evaluate curriculum being used to decide if students will graduate, but my daughter who is attending public school from 3rd through 12 grade & recieved 1’s in math for 4th/7th & 10th grade ( and testing in @ 2 years behind grade level, when she started high school in math), with hard work from her teachers and herself made 4 years of math progress in 2, and is currently taking pre-calc and passed the WASL when she retook it in 11th.</p>
<p>They’ve known that the WASL was going to be used for years- as pointed out above, when she was in 4th grade, they knew it was going to be used as graduation requirement. However, some school communities counted on it being pushed back & ignored it, or actively put their energy into discrediting the process rather than working to improve performance.</p>
<p>When D attended a K-12 school, senior project was pretty flexible, some students built speakers, and others did a dance performance.
At her current school,a term paper from 11th grade Language Arts is used.</p>
<p>I also think the number of credits is too low.
Portland for example requires 22 & next year will require 24 credits.
Seattle requires 19. ( Wa requires 18 and zero language- Portland- not sure about Oregon, is going to be implementing lang req)</p>
<p>If they don’t require more than 2 years of math and science, they don’t have to fund it- & really everyone- needs 4 years of math, science,english and history ( and arts), IMO, whether or not they are planning on college.
Go ahead and make those courses part of a vocationally based more practical curriculum, if that can still be used for university entrance if they change their minds in 5 years.</p>
<p>em, the cp isn’t about additional classes in math or anything that is helpful. It is a gimmicky for the “voters” pile on. I’d be all for additional math or sciences, but the cp is a “phoney thesis” foisted on those who don’t know better by consultants who are better sales people than school boards are wise consumers.</p>
<p>The cp takes away college application time, AP test time and EC time. It is a road block for most college bound kids. When kids should be filling out applications and test preping, they are wasting hours for a nonsensical concept designed to see how the non college bound are going to fare.</p>
<p>I’m just glad my kids are done with k-12 here. Many, many times I wish I was an educational consultant in Washington. PT barmum (I think) said “there is a sucker born every minute”. He should have added “and they are on your local school board and office of public instruction.” 
In Seattle, I bet you already knew that. </p>
<p>The CP is a waste of a good student’s time and just a hassle for one that isn’t. The CP is a waste of educational dollars.</p>
<p>As I mentioned the CP @ Garfield is a term paper from a junior level class.
It didn’t really turn out to be a big deal</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>OF course if student hasn’t developed the skills to write a research paper by junior year- that may be more problematic, but they have had this requirement for years, and if kids aren’t writing papers in school, what are they doing?</p>
<p>My oldest didn’t take AP classes or tests- didn’t affect her college acceptances.
D#2 is taking AP classes- but not all the tests.</p>
<p>I think we need to have the high school diploma mean something & keeping a research paper as a requirement works toward that
<a href=“http://www.achieve.org/node/332[/url]”>http://www.achieve.org/node/332</a></p>
<p>We needed NCLB, because while some states have stringent requirements without it, too many other states were rubber stamping diplomas- too many students couldn’t even * read* at graduation.</p>
<p>It certainly isn’t a panacea, but I think that without it, we would have kept on rubber stamping diplomas</p>
<p>( and actually I am pretty impressed with our new superintendent- even though I would not have predicted it by her past performance- district superintendent not the state)</p>
<p>S didn’t find his CP a road-block. He had time for full load of University classes, sports, college apps. The thing was, he made one of his big passions his project. And all of his friends who did the same enjoyed CP and learned a lot through it. :)</p>
<p>Our school system requires a senior project but other counties around us do not. The project involves the writing of a research paper on an approved topic and then a presentation of the paper and a “product” the student has to develop to support his research.</p>
<p>The presentation is done is business dress before a panel of teachers/community members. The research papers and the presentations are graded separately and averaged. The research papers are not graded by the student’s own Eng. teachers but rather have only ID numbers attached to them and distributed to a panel of teachers so it is all anonymous. My Sr. S has written his paper (which he didn’t think was so bad). Now the dreaded presentation lies on the horizon.</p>
<p>“Now the dreaded presentation lies on the horizon.”</p>
<p>In this neck of the woods, it seems to involve picking a career and job shadowing. If it was just a 5 page papers fine, over and done. However, for some reason they seem to want to know your career choice, expect you to find time to “experience” what your career choice might be and write the paper and do the presentation as well to a panel. </p>
<p>Here’s a bit of the problem I have with it.
How does any of that help towards college? (you are either helping my kid get into college or you’re in the way, move.)
Is this an enterance requirement at any college? </p>
<p>What happens if your career choice (say a career millitary officer, a porn star, a mechanic) isn’t palletable to your esteemed panel?
Should you have to justify your career choices to a group of strangers?</p>
<p>Is everyone cut out to make a sales presentation or public speaking?
(should we force them to be?) </p>
<p>I just have reached that point where financial support of the educational consultant industry has worn me thin. It’s a gimmick that somebody got paid for suggesting. It makes one have the “look” of caring about education. That’s what I’m kind of tired of. While mine wouldn’t have a problem with doing it, doesn’t make it OK or even give it educational value. I agree with em’s post that more math, more sciences, more english are better choices to improve the product (students) that comes out.</p>
<p>Opie, my (private) high school had high school students either do job internships or a senior project - we also interned on Capitol Hill as juniors and did social service volunteer work as sophomores. I learned something from every placement - even if it was only teaching is a lot harder than it looks, or I have no desire to be in politics, or working on a magazine is fun, but still probably not for me. </p>
<p>As for public speaking - I don’t enjoy it, but I’ve had to do it more often than I like. Two years as PTA president and numerous presentations in front of zoning boards. I think it’s an extremely useful skill.</p>
<p>I like the idea of the final project, but I can see that it could be difficult with all those senior year deadlines. Because NY schools get out so late by law there’s a full month between APs and the end of the school year. So some school systems do use it for final projects - it’s not a NYS requirement however - we just have the dreaded Regent’s exams - they cover three years of math, World History, US History, junior year level English, third year level foreign language, and two sciences minimum on top of however many credits it is - keeps changing it’s at least 22.</p>
<p>At S’s school CP doesn’t have to have anything to do with the future career. Granted, some students do things connected with the intended major( work in bio labs at the Uni, develop the portfolio of clothes design and so on) . Some just do what interests them( one girl climbed Mt Rainier) . S doesn’t plan a professional musician’s career at this moment but it doesn’t mean he is going to stop writing and recording. :)</p>
<p>"Opie, my (private) high school had high school students either do job internships or a senior project - we also interned on Capitol Hill as juniors and did social service volunteer work as sophomores. I learned something from every placement "</p>
<p>But you didn’t intern on the boeing assembly line or mac’s autoshop? That’s my point, what if your ambition is to have a nice life as a blue collar person? Should someone determine your graduation based on how they view your goals? </p>
<p>I don’t think you understand my point. I don’t think it is right to do this to kids as we are implying only certain careers are of value. If my kid wanted to grow corn in the country when he graduates from HS in the city, should anybody determine if that’s a good choice for him? </p>
<p>I just don’t feel this is a necessary component towards graduation as much as it is a way to apease voters.</p>
<p>For my Smaller Learning Community, we have to do the following:</p>
<p>Complete 220 credits (each semester course is worth 5) with a grade of C or better
Pass the CAHSEE (California High School Exit Exam)
Complete 115 hours of Community Service
Complete the required Academy Courses (10th grade International Negotiations, 12th grade Int. Neg. and Philosophy/Ethics)
Participate in the ELEVATE (Enriched Learning Experiences Via Applied Technology Education) project senior year</p>
<p>I think that’s it…it’s more difficult than it sounds, the Elevate/International Neogtiations things are both almost year-long projects.</p>
<p>Opie,</p>
<p>is it a requirement in your school district to have CP defined in such a narrow way? Our school district doesn’t place restrictions on students with the exception of life endangerment. The project should make sense and have a point, otherwise the sky is the limit.</p>