It's such a political football, with politicians pandering to parent-voters, that there's no way it's going to get better. Power to change means power to take responsibility. As soon as it's no longer local control this is inevitable.
TX is a case in point. Two years ago we went to a 4x4 system. Four years of science, 4 years of math, 4 years of social studies, 4 years of English. It took effect last year.
For science you had to have biology, chemistry, physics. If you had "integrated physics and chemistry" it didn't get you over the chem-phys "hump." Seniors who thought they knew what they were going to take suddenly had to take physics. IPC didn't cut it.
They also started a system of rigorous end-of-course exams (EOCs), slowly increasing what the passing score was as schools geared up for them. Biology has geared up and revamped for the EOCs. Chemistry's just hitting its stride. Physics has been revising how it does things to handle the influx of non-academically high-achieving students and struggling to figure out how to handle the EOC next year (or this year, for some students). And scraping together every dime to buy lab equipment for the vastly expanded physics program.
Now they're talking about undoing all of that. What happens to the kids who are on the EOC plan if they back off of them?
Worse, there are scads of juniors and not a few sophomores now who have had some physics. Some of them failed physics in the fall, and can't go back to take IPC. They'd need to finish physics to get their necessary credit--IPC or physics. They need to take chemistry, as well.
Lose-lose. The only thing that's a given is that the parents will be held unaccountable for their kids; and the politicians will find a way to blame not the voter-parents but the administrators, who'll blame it on the teachers.
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