Pickett Applauds Effort to Give Flexibility for High School Graduation Requirements
HARRISBURG – Rep. Tina Pickett (R-Bradford/Sullivan/Susquehanna) today applauded an effort to give greater flexibility to students in meeting high school graduation requirements.
Senate Bill 1095, which passed the House this week, seeks to ensure that students have more than one option to meet proficiency standards to earn their diploma.
“Every student is different, and our education system should be flexible enough to allow students to show their knowledge and skills in different ways,” said Pickett. “I was pleased to vote for legislation that outlines greater flexibility so that teachers can better plan their classroom time and students can prepare for and excel in whatever career path they choose.”
Under Senate Bill 1095, which heads back to the Senate for a concurrence vote, the heavy emphasis on standardized testing would be removed as a requirement to graduate. Instead, students would be allowed to pursue various options to show proficiency in pursuing their own career paths.
As part of the bill, students who do not score proficient on the Keystone Exams would be able to demonstrate their readiness to graduate through alternative routes. Those would include several commonsense options for assessing student performance while also giving teachers more flexibility with classroom instruction time.
“Throughout this session, we have looked at the connection between our secondary schools, career and technical training, and current needs of the workforce,” Pickett said. “Jobs throughout the state are going unfilled because of gaps in career and technical education and training. By giving our schools more flexibility in preparing students for these in-demand, higher salaries jobs, we not only are responding to the needs of our schools but also job creators. This is truly a win-win in terms of good public policy.”
Representative Tina Pickett
110th District
Pennsylvania House of Representatives
Media Contact: Jennifer Keaton
(717) 705-2094
jkeaton@pahousegop.com
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