{"id":17683,"date":"2013-03-27T14:17:35","date_gmt":"2013-03-27T18:17:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=17683"},"modified":"2013-03-27T14:24:46","modified_gmt":"2013-03-27T18:24:46","slug":"house-committee-approves-bill-creating-three-high-school-diploma-options","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2013\/03\/27\/house-committee-approves-bill-creating-three-high-school-diploma-options\/","title":{"rendered":"House Committee Approves Bill Creating Three High School Diploma Options"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_15098\"  class=\"wp-caption module image left\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2012\/11\/27\/florida-among-states-with-lowest-high-school-graduation-rates\/high-school-grads\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-15098\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-15098\" title=\"high school grads\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/files\/2012\/11\/high-school-grads.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"227\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Bradley Easom \/ Flickr<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A House committee has approved a bill creating three types of high school diplomas.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The House Education committee unanimously approved a bill creating three high school diploma options for Florida students.<\/p>\n<p>Students could choose from <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2013\/03\/15\/how-florida-lawmakers-would-change-high-school-graduation-requirements\/\">scholar, college and career and industry options<\/a>. The scholar option requires high-level courses &#8212; such as Physics and foreign language &#8212; while the industry option lets students opt for professional training classes and certification.<\/p>\n<p>The bill, H.B. 7091, initially raised concerns &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.orlandosentinel.com\/news_education_edblog\/2013\/03\/high-school-graduation-house-senate-panels-discuss-pathways-to-a-diploma-amid-some-worry-about-dumbing-down-standards.html\">most notably from Patricia Levesque, director of the Foundation For Florida&#8217;s Future<\/a> &#8212; that lawmakers were lowering the bar for some students. But school officials believe new graduation requirements, which included passing end-of-course exams, meant more students would struggle with mandatory courses.<\/p>\n<p>Those concerns had been smoothed over Wednesday afternoon. Levesque supported the bill. Education Commissioner Tony Bennett did as well. The committee&#8217;s Democrats and Republicans both voted in favor.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Rep. Mark Danish, a teacher and Democrat from Hillsborough County, said he has long supported alternative paths to earn a high school diploma.<\/p>\n<p>For more details on the <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2013\/03\/15\/how-florida-lawmakers-would-change-high-school-graduation-requirements\/\">three diploma options and the Senate&#8217;s plan to change graduation requirements, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The House Education committee unanimously approved a bill creating three high school diploma options for Florida students. Students could choose from scholar, college and career and industry options. The scholar option requires high-level courses &#8212; such as Physics and foreign language &#8212; while the industry option lets students opt for professional training classes and certification. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":15098,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[785,62,1062],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17683"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17683"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17685,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17683\/revisions\/17685"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}