Curriculum Change To Put More San Jose Students On College Path
SAN JOSE (KCBS) - Directors of the East Side Union High School District voted 5-0 this week to adopt the UC and CSU systems' entrance requirements. The idea behind the change in curriculum was to put more students on track for higher education.
KCBS' Mike Colgan Reports:
"Right now the reality would be that if a high school student gets straight A's, but they haven't taken any of those courses, they still wouldn't qualify to go to a four-year institution," explained Muhammed Chaudhry, Silicon Valley Education Foundation CEO. "We'd like to make Silicon Valley the number one region in the state in terms of percentage of students who are ready for college and careers."
East Side was believed to be the biggest high school district in Northern California, with 25,000 registered students.
Chaudhry lamented the disparity among different groups of students in the district.
"There's an achievement gap where Hispanics are performing by about 20 points below their counterparts and we want to eliminate that achievement gap. And policies like these across the state will help do that. We want Silicon Valley to be a leader in promoting policies that will eliminate that gap."
The goal, Chaudhry declared, was to help more students reach their next level of education.
"We want to increase the percentage of students that are prepared. Right now, 1 in 5 Hispanic students even complete the course requirements to go to college. One in 5. We want to increase that number so that more students at least have the college option."
"The sad reality is that too many kids, because they don't know, they don't take those courses so they get good grades but they still don't have the option to go to college because they didn't take those courses."
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