Laura Fuchs Testimony on OSSE's proposed Graduation Standards to the DC SBOE Given: 1/15/25

Laura Fuchs testifying in front of the DC State Board of Education on January 15, 2025 to discuss the proposed changes to the DC Graduation Requirements.

See full video of the entire DC State Board of Education Hearing hearing here

I am a Ward 5 resident, Secretary of the WTU Executive Board DC, Public School Social Studies Teacher of 18 years, an executive board member of Empower DC, an active member of the Senior High Alliance of Parents Principals and Educators (SHAPPE), and Chair of the DC Caucus of Rank and File Educators (DC-CORE).

I firmly oppose the idea that significantly changing our graduation requirements will solve systemic issues, and instead believe that if history is to be repeated, which I have no reason to believe it won’t, there are several likely proposals that we will see coming from OSSE that will significantly make matters worse for our students.

What I believe you will face is the decision on whether or not to make the credit hour more “flexible” beyond what has already been allowed through a waiver. This “innovative” idea – that we have seen repeatedly brought up by the DME, OSSE, DCPS and Charter LEAs for the past decade plus – will drastically allow schools to reduce the resources put into our schools and classrooms and will cause us to become even more of a pushout factory than the pressure already allows for. How do I know this? Credit Recovery programs.

Over the years DCPS has mismanaged credit recovery and allowed for greatly reduced workloads, education and standards so that students get pushed through despite having previously failed courses. This allows students to “earn” credits without actually mastering the material despite demonstrating “mastery” typically on computer based programs. The teachers in these programs are pressured to churn students through and increase our graduation rates with little to no auditing of what actually is happening and what students are learning. There are credit recovery teachers who go above and beyond, but that is often at personal risk of not being invited back to the program for ostensibly doing too much.  

What is even worse is the notion that students can “test out” or just do a few assignments and “master” material. This ultimately undermines everything that a student does in our classrooms. As someone who is extremely opposed to standardized testing, I do not believe that a test demonstrates what someone has learned. It is one method. And yes, mastery-based learning sounds lovely in theory, but this is DC. The land of zero oversight, hyper-capitalism/private contracting, and competition between LEAs to graduate the most students. We cannot allow for them to find new ways to allow students to do 2-3 projects and a test then say they clearly have “mastered” world history. Worse we cannot allow them to use a terribly written and racist computer-based system and then say the same after they’ve done a few hour’s worth of content.

The credit hour is the only reason that our high schools offer more programming and opportunities than our middle schools. If we lose the credit hour and allow DCPS and Charter LEAs to have flexibility we will see a race to the bottom for who can invest the least in our students and graduate them the fastest.