TX: High School Health, Speech, Tech Apps and more--dropped or not?

The answer to "are they dropped or not?" is yes and yes, meaning the real answer is too complicated for a one-word answer. I've heard so much misinformation about this topic, that I'm going to try to set the record straight. It's a complex and twisted tale of unintended consequences and having too many cooks (Legislature + State Board of Education + local districts and their boards) with fingers in the broth. So bear with me, because to understand this properly, you have to start with a seemingly unrelated topic: Texas' three-tier system of high school graduation requirements...

Once upon a time (2006-2007, as I recall), Texas created three different diploma plans for high school: "Distinguished (aka Advanced)," "Recommended," and "Minimum." These plans were to apply to students in the class of 2011 and all subsequent classes. There were many goals: to beef up graduation requirements for most kids ("Recommended" is the default track unless a parent specifically opts for something else), to recognize kids who are going above and beyond ("Distinguished"), and to still leave an escape hatch that is equivalent to the older graduation plan for those kids who may not be college-bound ("Minimum").

The "beefing up" in the "Recommended" track is mainly due to the (sorry about quote overload) "four-by-four" approach it included, that is, four years required in all core disciplines (language arts, math, science, and social studies). The difference between the "Distinguished" and the "Recommended" track was mainly about options--there were more courses in science and math that could count for the "Recommended" track than the "Distinguished" track.

Tough academic standards make good headlines, but they also have unintended consequences. With the majority of students suddenly on a "four-by-four" plan, folks around the state started noticing that there was only room for 4 electives in a student's entire high school career. Note that this doesn't include any local district-wide mandates. For example, Austin Independent School District requires most freshmen to take a yearlong course entitled "Teen Leadership." In the Austin example, a student who stays in marching band for all of their high school years would have only one credit left for electives. Those 4-year band students in special programs with additional requirements, such as those in magnet school programs or International Baccalaureate, are left either with zero, or the unbelievable problem of being unable to graduate in 4 years.
(For policy wonks: here's the way the math stood: 26 credits required to graduate; 16 taken up with "four-by-four" core subjects; 2 for Languages other than English (3 for Distinguished!); 1.5 for PE, one required fine arts credit; one tech applications credit; and a half each for speech and health. That totals to 22 credits for "Required," with room for 4 electives. In the example above, marching band can substitute for the fine arts credit and one of the PE credits, so that's why they still have room for 2 more.)

The next consequence was that students started taking courses like health, speech, and others in 8th grade or summer school to "make room" for their high school load. This got parents angry (summer school isn't free...), and others concerned that without electives, students aren't trying things out for potential careers or college majors. The Texas Legislature started to hear about it before they convened for their once-every-two-year legislat-a-thon in January of 2009. House Bill 3, by the Chair of the House Public Education Committee, Rob Eissler (R-The Woodlands) swept away all the state-wide requirements (except the "four-by-four" and Languages other than English requirements) in the "Recommended" plan, replacing them with a single fine arts credit and a single PE credit. That restored the number of electives to 6 for "Recommended."

But more important to note is what HB 3 didn't do. While the bill says that the number of electives should be 5 for "Distinguished" students, it does not sweep away the old requirements in the "Distinguished" plan. (There was much discussion at the State Board of Education meeting on the part of the members who had to amend rules to fit the new law about whether this was sloppiness on the part of the now-adjourned-until-2011 Legislature, or whether the ambiguity was there as a matter of some as-yet-unfathomed skullduggery...) So oddly enough, the actual result is to increase flexibility on the majority of students who were constrained, but to keep the most-constrained students as constrained as ever.

Another thing that HB 3 doesn't do is place any of these mandates on local districts. They can still have local graduation requirements that keep these courses. Given the confusion (and bizarre discrepancies between the graduation plans), that's exactly what most districts are opting to do, so it's as if nothing ever happened. Among many issues the local districts must contend with is the teachers who may be fearful for their jobs. When these requirements were first made, teachers specifically got themselves certified to teach these subjects. Now, some will need to be re-certified in other fields, or their positions may be eliminated altogether. (And where will the teachers for the elective courses--which will presumably be in higher demand--come from?) Another issue involves instructional materials--suddenly elective courses may need more to cope with the new demand--where will money for that come from, given today's budget constraints?

The Board of Education, for its part, sees this as yet another case of legislative interference in their domain, designed to relegate them to meaningless obscurity. (The board members are fond of reminding anyone who will listen that they are elected by districts larger than a state senator's or a congressman's, as if that made them instantly "more right.") They are casting about for ways to keep a health course as a requirement, perhaps by mandating it for middle school, or by changing/adjusting courses such as Debate so they cover the points made in the speech course "Communication Applications," which the Board had previously voted as the only one suitable for the requirement.

To add to the confusion, another bill passed at the same time requires mandatory alcohol- and paternity-awareness content to be placed in high school health courses (which, for those stalwarts who read this far realize, are no longer mandatory courses)

To sum up, it's true that technically, the STATE can no longer require a health or speech or tech apps course for most high-school students. But until the districts act, the status quo will remain unchanged for this year, and possibly quite longer.