Evanston Township High School Superintendent Allan Alson spoke about his proposal to change next year’s graduation requirements to about 30 people Wednesday night at Weissbourd-Holmes Family Focus Center, 2010 Dewey Ave.

With about a week left until he presents the proposal to the District 202 school board, Alson has held forums to give Evanston residents a chance to raise questions and concerns about the possible changes.

If the school board approves the proposal, ETHS students would be required to take three years of math to graduate instead of two. The new conditions would apply to next year’s freshmen, Alson said.

ETHS administrators wanted to close the gap in academic performance between white and minority students and align the core curriculum at ETHS with state standards to prepare students for college. Last year 98 percent of white students completed three years of math compared to 79 percent of black students.

“There’s no reason in the world why those numbers shouldn’t be equal,” Alson said. “And there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be 100 percent for both kids.”

Alson said he would also like to improve the reading levels of freshmen and sophomores by keeping them in reading classes longer. About 180 ETHS freshmen scored below the 50th percentile in state reading standards last year, he said.

“No matter what you do in life, you need to read and you need to read well,” Alson said. “I think there are two central things that are key to young people being successful post-secondary school and that’s literacy and numeracy.”

Alson has been working with administrators from District 65 to discuss ways to prepare middle school students for a high school curriculum. He said one problem is the lack of a single core curriculum among the middle schools to ensure all students are learning the same material.

Some parents said teachers had low expectations of minority students and would not encourage them to work harder. They also said students would lose confidence if they had to take extra math classes but were unable to succeed.

Alson said teachers would be screened to ensure their commitment to student achievement and that they could offer various learning techniques for students who learn in different ways. They would also have to “prove that they have mastery over their own subject matter,” he said.

Terri Shephard, whose three children graduated from ETHS, told The Daily she agreed with the proposal but said more changes are needed. She suggested having more black teachers in the math department to serve as role models for black students. She said administrators should also find better ways to enforce tutoring for the students who need it.

“I think (Alson’s) ideas are good, but I don’t see how he’s going to implement them,” Shephard said. “I think most students will do what you tell them. I think they’ll start to balk when they fail and it seems like nobody cares. They don’t think anyone cares (at ETHS).”