A Kansas Board of Regents task force recommends that the state’s six universities raise their entrance requirements to give young men and women a better chance at life.
Board chairman Gary Sherrer led the task force which recommends, he said, that high school students with college in mind take a pre-college curriculum, complete it with at least a C average and take four years of math.
Out of consideration for today’s high school students, the new standards wouldn’t go into effect for four years.
Mr. Sherrer’s recommendations fall short of the need.
Today’s entering college freshmen also should have at least two years of a foreign language; a thorough understanding of U.S. and world history; math skills sufficient to let them understand statistics, graphs, tables and rudimentary bookkeeping; and be able to read a book and then write a summary of the information presented in it.
Too much? Not enough, really. This is the information age. High school graduates in the nations with which American college graduates will compete enter their freshman years that well equipped.
U.S. students are behind, not because U.S. schools have lowered their standards but be-cause the rest of the wealthy world — and the nations determined to break into that category — are moving faster forward.
In addition to tougher academic requirements, most of the nations with which we compete have longer school days and longer school years. They accomplish more be-cause they spend more time at the books.
It is a crying shame that at the very time when Kansas and many other U.S. states are reducing the amount of money they will spend on their public schools and universities, other nations are putting education at the forefront of their prior-ity list.
We will get what we are willing to pay for.
— Emerson Lynn, jr.
