This week Kansas’s education commissioner lamented the state’s graduation rate. Commissioner Randy Watson said Kansas must work with students and families to improve high school graduation rates, reports The Topeka Capital-Journal.
Eighty-six percent of high-schoolers in Kansas graduate on time. That means, as Watson put it, “Fourteen (percent) will have a difficult time making it to the middle class.” And that’s not acceptable, he said. The Kansas education department has a goal of reaching 100 percent, though no state has achieved that.
But more important than graduation numbers, Watson wants teachers to focus on giving students the skills they need.
Watson also bemoaned high turnover among superintendents and principals. Kansas has lost 40 percent of its superintendents over the past two years.
