Commissioner's Newsletter
March 14, 2006 Dear Colleague: Enclosed for your information and use is a copy of Improving Missouri High Schools: A Report of the Commissioner’s Study Group on High School Reform. A committee of respected Missouri educators spent much of the past year preparing this handbook. I hope that you and your colleagues will find it provocative and useful. The booklet is intended to help Missouri educators begin – and sustain – the self-assessment, goal-setting and hard work that are needed to achieve continuous improvement. I honestly believe that most high schools in Missouri today are doing a better job for more students than ever before. Even so, we must accept the fact that success for us is a moving target. Too many students are not well-prepared for higher learning and ultimately fail to complete a degree. Too many students require remedial courses in higher education. Too many students who do graduate are unmotivated and "disconnected." The dropout rate among minority and English-learning students is a serious challenge. Technology is reshaping the traditional methods and patterns of schooling and will certainly affect high schools in the future. For all of these reasons and more, we must be willing to think about and work for meaningful change in the structure of our high schools. The high school is steeped in tradition, and change is very hard, but we have to accept this challenge if we are going to truly prepare all students to succeed. Making such changes will require all of us – students, parents, educators, school board members and citizens – to entertain fresh ideas. I hope this guide can be a starting point, or a map, for your school’s journey into the future. Sincerely, D. Kent King |