All of you here are playing a very important role in preparing our students for productive lives as adults. You are at the heart of what I think is the most important challenge facing us today in california education.
That is, the urgent need to improve achievement in our high schools. Far too many of our 1.7 million high school students are being prepared for neither careers nor college.
I am sponsoring legislation to improve high schools from the inside out. It would give high schools flexibility over their budgets, if they agree to focus on five goals: raising expectations; improving high school instructional materials; developing highly qualified teachers and administrators; smoothing transitions from middle school and to college; and creating a community of support for high achieving high schools.
This is a reasonable, do-able goal. By block-granting money in the state budget now earmarked for categorical programs, this initiative would free up $450 million to focus on initiatives that will make high schools more successful.
Friends, we can no longer afford to hold high expectations only for our college-bound students .
Today, all of our students need the skills and knowledge contained in the curriculum that was once reserved only for the college-bound.
And there is plenty of research and statistical evidence supporting the need to raise expectations in our high schools.
Students who take challenging, college preparatory courses do better in school, even if they started out with poor test scores and low expectations.
Students who take rigorous courses are also more likely to persist in school, and to do better in vocational and technical courses.
Today, more than 75 percent of occupations requiring certification by exam demand a knowledge of algebra and seven of the ten fastest growing jobs require at least an associate's degree.
Now let me make something crystal clear. By advocating for tougher curriculum in high schools, I am not in any way suggesting that career/technical education programs should be eliminated.
I think most of you know that for years I have been a strong supporter of career and technical education. I've also strongly backed the integration of academics and career preparation. In fact, in my state of education address I referred 11 times to: the need to focus on career education as well as college. I said we must raise expectations so that students are prepared for the workplace after high school, even if they do not attend college. I called for an expansion of career academies. And encouraged educators to work in partnership with business and labor in preparing high school students for careers.
Yet it was the proposal I mentioned once — that we should raise expectations by requiring all of our high school graduates to complete the so-called a-to-g requirements — that seems to have engendered the biggest response -- not all of it positive, you'll be surprised to hear!
Friends, lets take a breath and ask ourselves, seriously, what is it about the a-to-g requirements that we think our students should not learn?
Should our students not have a knowledge of geometry? Or the critical thinking skills developed in study of algebra -- if they are to become our mechanics or our contractors?
Should they not perhaps have a two-year grounding in Spanish or another language, and understand a little about another culture, if they are to be productive citizens in the most diverse state in the nation?
Or should they not be able to communicate effectively in English? To write a persuasive letter as a consumer, for example, or engage their representatives in government about an issue affecting their daily lives?
Should our students not even have to pass the high school exit exam — really, a test of the most fundamental of skills -- if they have decided at age 14 or 15 that college is not for them?
Are all of these skills unnecessary to our high school students if they are to be the builders and repairers, the technology workers, craftsmen and skilled tradesmen of the next generation? Or should we not prepare all of our students with these skills? The skills that today, more and more businesses, more and more trades, are crying out for in the people they hire?
I know that the programs most of you here represent already hold your students to higher expectations than exist in our high schools for those unfortunate students who are neither college bound nor on a pathway to a career.
It is those students — the thousands of students who are being prepared for neither higher education nor the workplace -- that should cause us all the most concern.
It is those students who need more challenging curriculum. And, I am convinced, it is those students who will benefit the most if we raise the bar for high school achievement — and provide the support they need to reach that bar.
Now, I am well aware that there are still too many of our students entering high school lacking the fundamental skills they should have learned in earlier grades. I do believe this is changing and will continue to improve as more of our elementary and middle school students benefit from our high standards reforms.
But we cannot wait another generation — we cannot write off the futures of students currently in high school because we failed to adequately support them in earlier grades. We must do everything in our power to help these students catch up and prepare for a demanding future.
Now I know your programs are already preparing students for postsecondary options as well as careers. In fact there are over 1,800 career technical courses that are "a-g" approved to meet college admission requirements .
And I am convinced that, in working with leaders from our four-year universities, we can quite reasonably expect many more of the courses you teach to qualify under the "a-g" requirements.
The University of California has already determined that meeting requirements for high school graduation, a career-technical education path of interest and UC/CSU eligibility are "fully consistent and achievable goals."
Friends, I ask you to work with me and with the universities, so that more of our career-technical education programs will meet this requirement.
I ask you to support me in the campaign to raise student achievement in our high schools.
Your work is a model for how this can be done, by teaching our challenging standards in ways that are relevant to students. By teaching practical applications of our standards that truly prepare students to succeed.
The legislation I am sponsoring to improve high school achievement would reward schools that collaborate with businesses or labor unions to expand such successful programs as career partnership academies, tech prep and school-to-career.
Friends, college prep and workforce prep are not mutually exclusive. No one has convinced me that a student must be involved in one at the expense of the other.
The job of K-12 education in California must be to ensure that all of our students graduate with the ability to fulfill their potential — whether that takes them to higher education or directly to their career.
I thank you for doing that job — for providing thousands of California students with a solid foundation that will help them succeed.
