[originaltext]W: Now we turn to one of the interviewees to give us more informa

W: Now we turn to one of the interviewees to give us more information on this issue. Now we have Steven Krauss with us. [6] Mr. Krauss is a former dropout who runs an education foundation in Saint Louis, which operates a charter high school for high-risk students. Thank you for joining us.
M: Thank you for inviting me, hostess.
W: Mr. Krauss, do you think we set too high a bar in America to graduate? Do schools make it too tough to get back on track?
M: I guess so.
W: And you have designed a program to reach kids like yourself.
M: Yes.
W: What do you have to keep in mind?
M: So, to the credit question, in the state of Missouri, one of the things that we’re really concerned about is something we call seat time.
W: What does seat time mean?
M: It means in order to get one unit of credit when 24 units are required to graduate, you have to get a passing grade and then be in class for 7,830 minutes.
W: What happened to you then?
M: [7] I left school and was what you would call chronically truant for a while. So I had a couple of jobs and I was goofing around with the wrong group of friends. I wasn’t acquiring credit. I wasn’t at school. And so my education was disrupted. When I was still high school-aged, if I had returned, I would have been too old with too few credits.
W: Sounds like something unpleasant.
M: True, but that is not the whole picture. This is what we’re seeing all over the city of Saint Louis, these young people who are 17 or 18 years old, and they need 24 units of credit. They only have 22 or sometimes they only have three or four. So the math doesn’t work out. [8-1] So, what we’re trying to do is come up with what we call a competency-based approach.
W: [8-2] That sounds quite innovative. Tell me some details of this approach.
M: Kids get credit when they show us that they know it, flexible paths for them to acquire credit, to show us proficiency. They know what they need to know in order to go on to college, so that they can succeed in work and life.
W: Mr. Krauss, we are right now in the midst of a standards revolution. Everybody wants to make sure high school graduates meet the highest standard. [9] And we’re in the middle of a numbers revolution, where we want to get those graduation rates higher and higher and higher. Are those two things warring against each other?
M: Both are critical. A part of those two things not warring is common vision and common ground around— what does it mean for our kids to reengage and what does it mean for them to be successful? What do we want for them out of being contributing citizens? Educators have always cared about educating kids to the standards of what it will take to be successful. [10] But marrying it with the graduation rates and lowering our dropout rates means understanding the implications for the job markets.
W: Thank you for sharing your view with us.
   6. What do we know about the interviewee?
   7. What does the interviewee say about bis past?
   8. What does the interviewer think of the competency-based approach of credit?
   9. According to the interviewer, what do we want in the numbers revolution?
   10. What plays a vital role in combining graduation rates with graduation standards?