New Hampshire has a long history of supporting local school board compliance with state-mandated requirements for high school graduation.
State regulations establish what students must accomplish to graduate, but local school boards decide how students meet those requirements. Unfortunately, the state Board of Education is considering a change to its regulations that will undermine local control. Even more troublesome is that the state board could accomplish its programmatic objectives without interfering with local control.
At issue is the implementation of the Department of Education’s new Learn Everywhere program. This is a good program that, generally, allows high school students to gain credits toward graduation when they participate in activities outside of their school. These activities involve entities that would be vetted by the Department of Education. Students complete assignments and are graded by their supervisors, who need not be certified educators.
Credits toward high school graduation are awarded by the organization for whom the students work and must be accepted by the local school district even though that school district had no control over the award of credits or the work chosen by the student.
If the department adopts this program, it should modify its regulations and delegate to local school boards the determination of what warrants a high school graduation credit and how efforts outside the traditional classroom setting qualify for high school graduation. Only in this way will local school districts be able to maintain the full value of a diploma from their high school.
EDWARD KAPLAN
Contoocook
(The writer is a former member and chairman of the Hopkinton School Board.)