Prep standard to rise by 2010

In five years, Indiana high school students applying to IU, as well as all other Indiana public universities, will be required to complete the state's recommended Core 40 curriculum, a state legislator said Wednesday. \nState Sen. Teresa Lubbers, R-Indianapolis, speaking Wednesday to IU students and faculty about the future of education in Indiana, said the recently approved Indiana Senate Bill 200 will make the Core 40 curriculum a requirement for high school students interested in pursuing a bachelor's degree in Indiana after the year 2010. \n"We have said if you don't complete Core 40, you should not be admitted into a four-year school in this state," Lubbers said.\nShe said 65 percent of all Indiana high school students are currently on the Core 40 curriculum, which requires four years of English classes, three to four years of math and three years for social studies and science. \nLubbers said she hopes increasing high school standards will lead to greater success in college.\nGraduate student Paula Lahann, a former high school teacher from Texas, said she, as someone new to Indiana, has mixed feelings about the Core 40 curriculum.\n"Teachers generally don't have the time to come hear about policy until it already affects them," she said. "(Core 40) is one of those issues, as a teacher, that I'm not comfortable with -- that all students have to fit in that mold."\nAlthough the new Core 40 legislation will raise IU's admissions standards in the future, Lubbers said any other efforts to raise academic standards at IU have not "been considered by the legislature."\nRecently, IU President Adam Herbert has spoke on the topic of raising IU's academic prestige by increasing admission standards, and Thomas Reilly, Jr., a new member to the IU board of trustees, authored a 2004 report suggesting IUB should become a more research-based institution and raise admission standards.\nLubbers said she hopes the new legislation will improve freshman retention rates in Indiana. \n"Our persistence rates for freshmen aren't what they should be," she said. "I would say many students aren't prepared for college when they leave high school."\nTerry Spradlin, associate director of the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy, said he thought Lubbers spoke of realistic changes in policy. \n"They're not just going to implement changes for the sake of change," he said. "These are things that can be done."\nLubbers also spoke of additional possible changes to Indiana's education policy, saying a certain amount of money will be allotted for each school corporation based on their numbers of students attending.\n"We tend to fund school corporations rather than students, and that has created some disparities," she said. "What we attempted to do this year was say each student deserved a certain amount of money."\nUnder the new system, \nhowever, schools will no longer have a guaranteed minimum amount of funding, although they will not lose more than 1 percent of current funding, Lubbers said. \nGraduate student Andrea McCloskey, however, said she did not find the term "revolution" fitting for today's educational environment. \n"I think that was a little overstated," she said. "Lubbers would probably say that's my youth talking, but I didn't agree with that. I do agree things are changing, though"