Complaints from rural school districts have prompted the state higher education commission to consider dropping a foreign-language requirement for entry into Colorado’s four- year colleges.
Beginning in 2008, high school graduates who want to attend one of Colorado’s four- year public colleges must have taken four years of English, three years of math, three years of science and three years of social science. Requirements get stricter for the 2010 graduating class – a fourth year of advanced math and two years of a foreign language.
It’s the 2010 requirements that concern many administrators in poorer, rural school districts, where it’s difficult to afford specialized teachers for the few college-bound students who want to take foreign language and high-level math and sciences.
Higher education Commissioner Rick O’Donnell said Monday that the commission will consider eliminating the foreign-language requirement or allowing waivers for students whose school districts don’t offer two years of foreign language.
The commission is gathering comments from college administrators and could make a decision in the spring. Any change would happen soon because 2010 graduates are eighth- graders who will start high school in the fall, O’Donnell said.
School district officials were pleased to hear the commission might bend the requirements.
“Finally, bureaucracies are talking to each other,” said Jane Urschel of the Colorado Association of School Boards. It was a surprise to schools when the commission approved the requirements in 2003, she said.
Urschel, a former Latin and French teacher, said that she wishes all students learned another language but that it’s difficult for small districts to attract qualified half-day teachers for a small group of students.
“It isn’t that rural school districts are moaning and groaning, ‘We don’t think we should do this,”‘ she said. “It’s, ‘How can we do this?”‘
College administrators are in favor of waiving the foreign- language requirement for some students but not eliminating it.
Students who major in education and philosophy need foreign language more than those in engineering and computer science, said Carol Smith, a dean at Fort Lewis College in Durango.
Smith wishes it was realistic to expect all students to study a foreign language in high school.
“From a global citizenship point of view, it seems essential,” she said. But the study of languages is giving way to technology skills, she said.
Dave Svaldi, interim president at Adams State College in Alamosa, suggested allowing students who can’t take a foreign language to take two elective courses from an approved list.
“You have to take into account the individual school districts and the challenges they face,” he said.
Graduation requirements vary widely across Colorado because there is no statewide requirement. The college-entry requirements are the closest thing.
“It’s been kind of an eye- opener to many high schools,” O’Donnell said.
The requirements are minimum standards for the state’s four-year schools. Some universities, including the University of Colorado at Boulder and the Colorado School of Mines, set higher standards. Students do not have to meet the requirements to attend two-year colleges.
Staff writer Jennifer Brown can be reached at 303-820-1593 or jenbrown@denverpost.com.
A tougher road toward college
The Colorado Commission on Higher Education’s entry requirements for public four-year colleges:
High school graduates in 2008-09:
Four years of English
Three years of math
Three years of science (must include two lab-based courses)
Three years of social science (including American or world history)
Additional requirements beginning in 2010:
A fourth year of math
Two years of a foreign language
