Secondary Accreditation To Target Academics

By Kathleen Kennedy Manzo

New England's public high schools will have to flex more academic muscle to maintain their accreditation under new evaluation standards that focus less on administrative minutiae and more on teaching and learning.

Beginning this spring, the Commission on Public Secondary Schools of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges will conduct more substantive reviews of the instructional programs of its 670 member schools, as many as 70 of them this calendar year.

Commission officials hope the change will help schools undergoing the once-a-decade review boost student achievement, and enhance the credibility of...