Oklahoma's Four by Four Plan
This year's sophomore class in Oklahoma high schools is the first to be under the Four-by-Four plan in order to graduate. This plan requires that each student takes the four core classes, English, math, social studies, and science, for each of the four years of high school in order to graduate. When discussing his plan Keating commented: "Oklahoma's basic high school graduation standard will be among the 15 most rigorous in the country. We now have jumped into the top tier of states in what we teach our high school students" (Office 2001). This statement only really says that what will be taught is above average, not that students will benefit from it. Just because the standards are higher does not mean that students are going to be the ones that will do better. Teachers and school districts will also suffer because the core curriculum will be taken out of their hands and into the hands of state officials.The Four-by-Four high school requirement plan should no longer be implicated in Oklahoma schools because it takes away the student's ability to branch out and learn about subjects that interest them. The four-by-four plan will force students to use four of their periods for this plan. There are, however, only six periods in a s
These students would suffer in the long run by not being as widely intelligent as others who they would compete with for entry into college, for scholarships, and for careers. For example, one student has gone to a high school that requires the four by four plan, while another student has gone to a high school where this plan is not implemented. Both students have taken a foreign language and are involved in sports. The first student was unable to take any electives pertaining to the career in business he wanted to pursue because of his six classes, four were part of the four-by-four plan, one was sports, and the other was the foreign language. The second student was able to take and English class, a business class, a career education class, a business math class, as well as the foreign language and athletic team. If the two competed to get a business job straight out of high school, the second student would get the job. This would happen because he had the chance to take cl! chool day so this leaves only two periods for electives. If a student is involved in sports and a foreign language, they have no space in their schedule to take classes they are enthused about. The students are forced to take classes they have taken since elementary school instead of taking classes that could benefit their futures in college or in a career. Many people are opposed to the four-by-four plan because they feel it would increase dropouts, be too difficult for many students to master, override local control and diminish resources for elective classes (Office 2001). Parent and students think the new requirements will make students shy away from doing well in school because of the difficulty and possibly have a negative effect later in college. There are even school officials that object to the plan because they feel that it is an unfunded mandate (Office 2001). They think that the Governor just wants to increase core curriculum without giving the school districts any financial assistance. Oklahoma high schools already have a graduation requirement mandate and now they feel they are merely added o
Some common words found in the essay are:
Governor Keating, , Tulsa County, Governor Oklahoma, four-by-four plan, Keating Oklahoma, foreign language, core classes, elementary school, school districts, office 2001, oklahoma schools, social studies, classes elementary school, taking core classes, student gone school, sports foreign, benefit future, sports foreign language, social studies science,
Approximate Word count = 1416
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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