State schools chief appears ready to signal big retreat on academic requirements

Education leaders may have to wait until next Thursday to hear the details, but state Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn will likely call for a big retreat on long-planned science and math requirements for high school graduation.  Well-informed education reform sources told the PostGlobe that they expect Dorn to say he wants an indefinite postponement of the science requirement.

It also appears he could ask for more than a year's delay in the requirement that students pass a standardized math test to graduate high school.

The PostGlobe confirmed that a leader of the Office of the Superintendent Public Instruction's work on the science requirements will leave the department. Mary McClellan, the science director of teaching and learning, said she is resigning over "philosophical" differences. She didn't elaborate and an office spokesman said he could not comment on personnel matters.

Although many Democratic state legislators and the Washington Education Association would likely be pleased, Dorn's ideas could set off an angry reaction among many education supporters, including Gov. Chris Gregoire, business groups and many community leaders and parents interested in better schools.

A spokesman for Dorn, Chris Barron, declined to give any details on what the superintendent will propose. He said Dorn will discuss math and science in a speech to school board members from across the state next Thursday.

Asked to confirm the indefinite delay on science, Barron said Dorn "will definitely have some thoughts on math and science." While Dorn has said he supports graduation requirements and standardized testing, he already had said he would seek delays. In a June article carried by  the Seattle Times, Dorn said he would seek at least a one year delay in the planned 2013 implementation of requirements that students pass new math and science tests to graduate. At the time, Democratic committee chairs in the state House and Senate promised to give a delay serious consideration, although state Board of Education leader Mary Jean Ryan expressed frustration. Ryan said past delays had always brought slowdowns in work on higher academic standards.

Next week's speech will come at what could be a problematic time. Boeing has just announced it will take good science- and technology-related jobs in airliner assembly to South Carolina. Meanwhile, as an insightful Seattle Times story reported in detail Friday morning, the state is trying to show enough progress on academic achievement across an array of measures to win some of the huge dollars in the Obama administration's Race to the Top program for education.

Lisa Macfarlane of the state League of Education Voters, which has long fought for better funding and improved schools, said her group has been hearing the same accounts of what Dorn will say. She called any retreats "unconscionable. It is a step backward at a time when we trying to race to the top."

"This is not a move that is in the best interest of students," Macfarlane said, noting the lagging scores of U.S. students on internationally benchmarked math and science tests. She also said that one area in which the state might have the best hope for big federal dollars has been viewed as lying in competition for new science, technology, engineering and math funding. "It is kind of hard to see how you have credibility" for new help if the state is, at the same time, undoing its existing work on math and science, Macfarlane said.

Seattle Public Schools Board President Michael DeBell expressed concern about the possible retreat. "Seattle Public Schools wants to strengthen math and science requirements," DeBell said.

He noted that the board is set to take a final vote next Wednesday in favor of putting a request before voters for a package of building and technology projects that include about $2 million for additional science labs at high schools and work on converting Cleveland High School to a science, technology, engineering and math magnet school.