A+ CALLED ACADEMIC, NOT VAGUE

Calling the state's education standards "vague and general," the Cape Girardeau public schools A+ School coordinator said the local school's variation is traditional and academic.

Program coordinator Dr. Lanny Barnes said the program won't do away with paper and pencils but will allow more active learning.

A group of fewer than 50 people attended the A+ School Program evaluation meeting Thursday night.

The A+ School Program, part of the state's education reform, has three goals, Barnes said. First, to graduate all students; second, to have all students complete required studies; and third, to make sure all students go to college or into a vocation, trade or high-wage job.

Career pathways -- courses students take in specialized tracks leading to employment after high school -- will be established, Barnes said.

Cape Central Counselor Jerry Witvoet, chair of the career pathways committee, said the system doesn't tie a student to one choice.

"We realize students may change their minds," Witvoet said. "And that's great -- career pathways will provide a focus."

"There is a point about the junior year where the paths become very inflexible," Witvoet said. "You can't say in the middle of your junior year that you want to be a doctor. It's gaining a more realistic view of what real life is like."

Career pathways will eventually be worked into elementary school, Barnes said.

A part of the A+ School Program allows students to get full tuition and fees at a state college or technical school after graduation if they meet standards during high school -- a C+ average and 95 percent attendance.

Sheryl Dunavan, a Cape Central English teacher, said the program is aimed at "those students left to swim around in the middle, who aren't going to college."

Teaching methods are different also.

"Instead of evaluating with a paper and pencil test, they instead write a script to perform in front of class," Dunavan said. "Performance is a better indicator than paper and pencil. I want them to think knowledge, not just spit it back at me."

One critic at the meeting charged the draft standards as too "squishy."

"I thought at first this was some watered-down mamby-pamby" program, Dunavan said, "but it's not that at all."

Barnes said he agreed the standards, based on terms from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, are vague, but said that would allow local school districts to be autonomous in creating goals.

"I felt very strongly some of the state's standards are too vague and general," he said. "What we have developed is very academic with many higher-order thinking skills."

Barnes doesn't intend to do away with paper and pencil tests.

One part of the A+ School Program targets at-risk students with incentives to stay in school.

Bill Biggerstaff, chair of the at-risk committee, said the school has used options such as Saturday school and in-school suspension.

Biggerstaff said the committee is exploring creation of a school alternative, less structured with less distractions, for "students who just do not fit into the high school format."

The alternative is designed to meet the needs of students dropping out of school.

State Sen. Peter Kinder, R-Cape Girardeau, a vocal critic of the state's education policy, said he hoped the committee gets community support before implementing the program further.

"The idea that you are channeling students into picking career pathways at eighth and ninth grade is astounding," Kinder said. "Everything I hear has some type of active learning in it or is related to performance-based grading."

The 1996-97 school year will be the third year of the A+ School Program grant. The budget for the first year, 1994-95, is $218,000. A state grant of $145,000 is part of it, with local funds of $74,000.